Modes of Thought in Western and Non-Western Societies

Modes of Thought in Western and Non-Western Societies
Author: Ruth Finnegan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2017-10-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1532617615

Is there a basic difference in thinking between Western and non-Western societies? This long-debated yet highly topical problem forms the central question to which distinguished contributors in the fields of psychology, linguistics, history, and sociology and, more particularly, of social anthropology and philosophy, address themselves in this interdisciplinary collec­tion. They are: Barry Barnes, Benjamin N. Colby and Michael Cole, Ruth Finnegan, Ernest Gellner, Robin Horton, J. M. Ita, Hilary Jenkins, Steven Lukes, Nobuhiro Nagashima, S. J. Tambiah, W. H. Whiteley, and Sybil Wolfram. The central ideas of this classic work are reformulated and refined in the various contributions with different possible dichotomies discussed such as: 'traditional/modern', 'industrial/non­ industrial', or 'scientific/non-scientific', and 'thinking,' analyzed in terms of its thought processes, content, logic or social background. The material in the book, which is dedicated to Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard, falls within the general area of the comparative sociology of knowledge, and will thus particularly interest philosophers, social anthropologists, and sociologists. The volume is however conceived in an interdisciplinary spirit and will be of interest to anyone seriously concerned to examine the nature of thinking in our own and other societies.

Modes of Thought

Modes of Thought
Author: Wolfgang Fikentscher
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2004
Genre: Cognition and culture
ISBN: 9783161479137

Enlightenment Political Thought and Non-Western Societies

Enlightenment Political Thought and Non-Western Societies
Author: Frederick G. Whelan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2009-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135838062

Frederick G. Whelan, a leading scholar of Enlightenment political thought, provides an illuminating and incisive interpretation of key eighteenth and nineteenth century European political thinkers' accounts and assessments of the societies and political institutes of the non-Western world. These writers opened up a major new comparative dimension for political theory and its project both to explain and evaluate different political regimes. While the intellectual confrontation of European thinkers with alien cultures tended on the whole to confirm Westerners' sense of the superiority of their own institutions, it was also characterized – during the Enlightenment more so than later – by convictions regarding a common humanity and a corresponding sympathetic curiosity about different ways of life, however primitive or exotic they might appear. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of both political philosophy and thought as well as historians of this important period of history.

Sciences and Cultures

Sciences and Cultures
Author: E. Mendelsohn
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9400984294

Anthropological approaches to the sciences have developed as part of a broader tradition concerned about the place of the sciences in today's world and in some basic sense concerned with questions about the legitimacy of the sciences. In the years since the second World War, we have seen the emergence of a number of different attempts both to analyze and to cope with the successes of the sciences, their broad penetration into social life, and the sense of problem and crisis that they have projected. Among the of movements concerned about the earlier responses were the development social responsibility of scientists and technological practitioners. There is little doubt that this was a direct outgrowth of the role of science in the war epitomized by the successful construction and catastrophic use of the atomic bomb. The recognition of the deep social utility of science, and especially its role as an instrument of war, fostered curiosity about the earlier develop ment of scientific disciplines and institutional forms. The history of science as an explicit diSCipline with full-time practitioners can be seen as an attempt to locate science in temporal space - first in its intellectual form and second ly in its institutional or social form. The sociology of science, while certainly having roots in the pre-war work of Robert K.

Who Needs the Past?

Who Needs the Past?
Author: R. Layton
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2012-11-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135090637

This book offers a critique of the all pervasive Western notion that other communities often live in a timeless present. Who Needs the Past? provides first-hand evidence of the interest non-Western, non-academic communities have in the past.

Encyclopedia of African Religion

Encyclopedia of African Religion
Author: Molefi Kete Asante
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 1582
Release: 2008-11-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506317863

"Numerous titles focusing on particular beliefs in Africa exist, including Marcel Griaule′s Conversations with Ogotemmeli, but this one presents an unparallelled exploration of a multitude of cultures and experiences. It is both a gateway to deeper exploration and a penetrating resource on its own. This is bound to become the definitive scholarly resource on African religions." — Library Journal, Starred Review "Overall, because of its singular focus, reliability, and scope, this encyclopedia will prove invaluable where there is considerable interest in Africa or in different religious traditions." –Library Journal As the first comprehensive work to assemble ideas, concepts, discourses, and extensive essays in this vital area, the Encyclopedia of African Religion explores such topics as deities and divinities, the nature of humanity, the end of life, the conquest of fear, and the quest for attainment of harmony with nature and other humans. Editors Molefi Kete Asante and Ama Mazama include nearly 500 entries that seek to rediscover the original beauty and majesty of African religion. Features · Offers the best representation to date of the African response to the sacred · Helps readers grasp the enormity of Africa′s contribution to religious ideas by presenting richly textured concepts of spirituality, ritual, and initiation while simultaneously advancing new theological categories, cosmological narratives, and ways to conceptualize ethical behavior · Provides readers with new metaphors, figures of speech, modes of reasoning, etymologies, analogies, and cosmogonies · Reveals the complexity, texture, and rhythms of the African religious tradition to provide scholars with a baseline for future works The Encyclopedia of African Religion is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in fields such as Religion, Africana Studies, Sociology, and Philosophy.

Modes of Thought

Modes of Thought
Author: David R. Olson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1996-09-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780521566445

Modes of Thought addresses a topic of broad interest to the cognitive sciences. Its central focus is on the apparent contrast between the widely assumed 'psychological unity of mankind' and the facts of cognitive pluralism, the diverse ways in which people think and the developmental, cultural, technological and institutional factors which contribute to that diversity. Whether described in terms of modes of thought, cognitive styles, or sensibilities, the diversity of patterns of rationality to be found between cultures, in different historical periods, between individuals at different stages of development remains a central problem for a cultural psychology. Modes of Thought brings together anthropologists, historians, psychologists and educational theorists who manage to recognise the universality in thinking and yet acknowledge the cultural, historical and developmental contexts in which differences arise.

Functions and Uses of Disciplinary Histories

Functions and Uses of Disciplinary Histories
Author: Loren Graham
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9400970358

Edward Gibbon's allegation at the beginning of his Essay on the Study of Literature (1764) that the history of empires is that of the miseries of humankind whereas the history of the sciences is that of their splendour and happiness has for a long time been accepted by professional scientists and by historians of science alike. For its practitioner, the history of a discipline displayed above all the always difficult but fmally rewarding approach to a truth which was incorporated in the discipline in its actual fonn. Looking back, it was only too easy to distinguish those who erred and heretics in the field from the few forerunners of true science. On the one hand, the traditional history of science was told as a story of hero and hero worship, on the other hand it was, paradoxically enough, the constant attempt to remind the scientist whom he should better forget. It is not surprising at all therefore that the traditional history of science was a field of only minor interest for the practitioner of a distinct scientific diSCipline or specialty and at the same time a hardly challenging task for the professional historian. Nietzsche had already described the historian of science as someone who arrives late after harvest-time: it is somebody who is only a tolerated guest at the thanksgiving dinner of the scientific community .

Ethnographies of Moral Reasoning

Ethnographies of Moral Reasoning
Author: K. Sykes
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2008-12-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230617956

Rather than measure the actions of their subjects by reference to either universal rationality or cultural relativism, contributors in this volume describe ordinary people as they value human relationships and reason through the commonplace contradictions of their local way of life in a global age.

Rethinking Comparison in Archaeology

Rethinking Comparison in Archaeology
Author: Joana Alves-Ferreira
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2017-06-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443878979

Although comparative exercises are used or applied both explicitly and implicitly in a large number of archaeological publications, they are often uncritically taken for granted. As such, the authors of this book reflect on comparison as a core theme in archaeology from different perspectives, and different theoretical and practical backgrounds. The contributors come from different universities and research contexts, and approach themes and objects from Prehistory to the Early Middle Ages, presenting case studies from Western Europe, the Near East and Latin America. The chapters here also relate archaeology with other disciplines, like art studies, photography, cinema, computer sciences and anthropology, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers, not only archaeologists and those interested in the area of social sciences, but for all those interested in how we construct the past today.