2026-01-29T03:44:39Z

Bataille write about tools in his Theory of Religion. For example,

As one can see, I have placed tool and the manufactured object on the same plane, the reason being that the tool is first of all a manufactured object and, conversely, a manufactured object is in a certain sense a tool. The only means of freeing the manufactured object from the servility of the tool is art, understood as a true end. But art itself does not as a rule prevent the object it embellishes from being used for this or that: a house, a table, or a garment are no less useful than a hammer. Few indeed are the objects that have the virtue of serving no function in the cycle of useful activity. (29-30)

Bataille suggests that a tool may be thought of as an object that exists primarily as a means rather than an end. If tools are defined by their subordination to future ends, is temporality (instead of utility) the essential feature of tool-iness?

2025-01-27T19:29:11Z

I did a search in Google Scholar and it looks like in contemporary anglophone philosophy there's no problem of human being (problem of man, das Problem des Menschen), no significant studies of philosophical anthropology. Is it there and I just missed them somehow? If I'm right, then why is the situation taking place now (and maybe all 20th century)? Do some specific areas of study replace philosophical anthropology, e.g. philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology and so on?

Google Scholar can contain "hundreds of hits" for search phrase "philosophical anthropology" but many of highly cited sources there are 1) merely translations from other languages, 2) not related to philosophy, 3) related to philosophy but from some other field, e.g. philosophy of religion.

Study of human nature is a part and important one of philosophical anthropology (PA). However, human nature is too narrow for PA, the latter also includes human existence, development, purpose and future. Not that these are not discussed in anglophone philosophy they are but this is a quite fragmentary enterprise. As for me, fragmentarity is the opposite of philosophy.

2025-04-10T15:21:40Z

In a post on whether or not Socrates actually said the things in the dialogues (post linked to here), one of the answers made the following statement:

This, however, should not surprise us because the idea of making dialogue in a written work a transcript is a modern concept. No one would have done so until well past 1500 CE.

Without intending to attack the commentor, my question is on the truth of this statement. From what I've seen and read (keeping in mind my relative inexperience), this appears to be true in the "western" works, where correspondence between people is highly polished and curated.

But does this hold worldwide? Did the idea of recording conversations with exactness not occur anytime earlier in any other cultures outside of the "west". From what I know, those spaces were still very philosophically active while Europe was intellectually languishing during their medieval period, and so it might be that this idea of recording an exact conversation could have appeared earlier somewhere outside of the "west".

(I do know that this might be less of a philosophy question and more of an anthropology question, but I do hope it's at least relevant to this SE).

2024-12-15T10:22:15Z

I'm reading Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) and in the first chapter the authors refer to mana.

Are there some references regarding the relations of H&A with ethnology: specifically with Durkheim and Mauss?

There is a reference to General theory of Magic in footnote 21.

2024-04-14T07:31:24Z

Mark Fisher in his book Capitalist Realism writes:

The current ruling ontology denies any possibility of a social causation of mental illness.

Fisher then goes on to say that the construct of “chemico-biological problems” benefits capitalism; that this requires sociological, political and philosophical analysis to be recognized; and that the task of re-politicizing mental illness is an urgent one.

But how does the current ruling ontology deny any possibility of social causation of mental illness? And, would it be logical to give a philosophical explanation for mental illnesses’ causation (not the philosophical explanation for what may cause the depression, for example, pervasive levels of societal dysfunction; but of the condition itself).

Mark Fisher writes:

depression is constituted by low serotonin levels; what still needs to be explained is why particular individuals have low levels of serotonin.

He means that there should be a philosophical and political explanation for mental illness. But how could that be done?

2024-02-05T07:25:17Z

From The Unabomber Manifesto by Ted Kaczynski:

The breakdown of traditional values to some extent implies the breakdown of the bonds that hold together traditional small-scale social groups. The disintegration of small-scale social groups is also promoted by the fact that modern conditions often require or tempt individuals to move to new locations, separating themselves from their communities. Beyond that, a technological society has to weaken family ties and local communities if it is to function efficiently. In modern society an individual's loyalty must be first to the system and only secondarily to a small-scale community, because if the internal loyalties of small-scale communities were stronger than loyalty to the system, such communities would pursue their own advantage at the expense of the system.

2023-10-26T17:46:10Z

What are society's assumptions about the essential goodness of people? Does society assume that people are essentially good, bad, or both?

2023-05-15T15:47:52Z

Basically, in case it comes up, I mean something more than Hegelian (?) “dialectic”, an idea of society or knowledge moving forward through refutation, synthesis, progress.

I am thinking about how dialectical culture is, especially when it comes to social movements, values shifting or changing, etc. I think this might be more related to people like Judith Butler, Hayden White, not sure though.

The idea is that (my own contention, anyway) a shocking amount of modern cultural dynamics have some sort of background, precedent factors that led to them, but arguably, this does not imply they are particularly rational, at all. I am much more interested in the concept of “invented history” I heard once (can’t remember the author), about just how much of a “culture” are a bunch of facts, assertions, attitudes, beliefs being circulated by and between people, but given how intrinsically non-rational a big portion of how we think can be, very little of this is some kind of absolute, proven condition on the world. A lot of it are beliefs expressed in a language that isn’t even very precise, information relayed from somewhere else, a source you find trustworthy, not something you witnessed or experienced yourself.

The interesting thing is that it seems very cyclical. A sense that your culture has some sort of irrationality or falsehood or inherent error in it, invites one to refute that false idea, with some contrary one.

But on a cultural level (as opposed to a more “scientific” one), it is hard to imagine that generally being tied with some sort of “progress”. Instead, it’s more like endless contrarianism and revision. I think one of the big reasons why this happens is reification, which I am still trying to find a simple definition of, but for now, my definition is, when people do not understand that rhetoric is just rhetoric; they do not fathom a difference between how language can embody a certain idea, but that that expression may not be that meaningful, since language is imperfect. It’s almost like the one thing most humans wouldn’t want to do is embrace the meaninglessness of language; it would be too counterintuitive to endlessly deconstruct and analyze the things people say, rather than just engaging with it in a primary way, a human modus operandi.

In other words. It seems so much to do with social values are defined in opposition to something, maybe that’s what gives them propulsion. First, we encounter a narrative about something bad, that needs to be corrected. Culture may slowly shift in that direction, as it realizes some previously unacknowledged moral failing inside itself, but the pace may be slow, at first. But the problem is how hard it is to establish some socio-cultural-moral theory without it being “politicized”, or partial - values and ethics are campaigns, they are promoted, they are movements, they are not impartial, they are advocating something.

It seems like all such movements are fueled by rhetoric. I wonder if it is almost intrinsically impossible to rally public sentiment while pushing oneself to the extreme degrees of mere objectivity: can there be any concept of morality, or prescription, at all, in a set of statements of “pure objectivity”?

But if you abandon that, you end up falling into the same cycle of irrationality, to a large extent - in order to promote something, to fuel emotional support or an attachment, you have to become partial, and I think this requires a descent from adherence to perfect accuracy. It will only naturally follow that some examples or anecdotes or narratives or observations become more salient in your mind than others. And now, whatever the last cultural movement was, is just effecting a next cultural countermovement, which is reacting against the movement it doesn’t like - without realizing that in doing so, it’s sealing its own fate to eventually become a social movement that’s too infested with its own selective values and narratives it chose for itself - it too, will get reified, will reach a point where it spreads more by its own circulation of new narratives and rhetoric, than as a reaction to its original impetus, which may have actually faded more than they realize, which is now kept alive more as the imagined opponent more than any real people, themselves.

So, what philosophies or theories or people have discussed or analyzed this?

2021-12-11T22:15:10Z

Can anyone EMLI5 (or an undergrad) the terms diversity partitioning and clustering analysis please? From Winther paper over my head "The genetic reification of race" re: Lewontin-Edwards debate Thanks

2021-11-22T16:08:12Z

"Thinking like a mountain : toward a council of all beings" book is an introduction to deep ecology by Joanna Macy, John Seed, Pat Flemming and Arne Naess. "Beyond anthropocentrism"'s chapter by John Seed describes a bio-centric alternative to human-centrism.

While i understand this part :

As your memory improves, as the implications of evolution and ecology are internalised and replace the outmoded anthropocentric structures in your mind, there is an identification with all life. Then follows the realisation that the distinction between "life" and "lifeless" is a human construct. Every atom in this body existed before organic life emerged 4000 million years ago... (4)

I dont understand the note :

(4) Prominent physicists such as David Bohm [...], and biologists and philosophers such as Charles Birch and John Cobb Jr. [...] would agree with Alfred North Whitehead that 'a thoroughgoing evolutionary philosophy is inconsistent with materialism. The aboriginal stuff, or material from which a materialistic philosophy starts is incapable of evolution." ("Science and the Modern World", Fontana,1975 (first published 1926) p133).

As i understand it, it implies that the seed of materialism was in aboriginal culture itself... but i'm reluctant to understand that it would not be capable of evolution. How should i understand this ?

The whole chapter can be found in several places on the web, here for example : https://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/Anthropo.htm

2020-02-22T14:27:36Z

If with every birth there is some chance c that I specifically will be born, then the number of total people born (N) does not effect the odds that I will be in the first 100 billion people. My odds of being in the first 100 billion people would be 100,000,000,000*c which is unaffected by N. In a 100 trillion person universe my odds of being in the first 100 billion would be lower than being somewhere closer to the middle, but in a 200 billion person universe my odds of being born at all are much lower. Is there a flaw somewhere in this reasoning? Does the doomsday argument assume that you will be born?

2019-06-04T01:12:16Z

In this paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0211048) by physicist Andrei Linde, the multiverse concept, the anthropic principle, quantum cosmology and inflationary cosmology are discussed.

In the paper, he analyzes a multiverse with a large landscape of universes (described by different spaces and dimensions, different lagrangians, different actions, different types of evolution…)

He mentions and analyzes various models of theoretical physics (like inflation cosmology, quantum cosmology, Wheeler-DeWitt equation…) but does not clarify whether any of these models could be applied to the vast multiverse he is describing. He neither does specify which of these models could produce such variety of hypothetical universes nor if any of them could produce it.

Also, John's Barrow book "The Constants of Nature" in chapter 13, he talks about a hypothetical multiverse composed of universes governed by other logics. Specifically, he talks about different approaches that physicists take when studying the multiverse, and he mentions a radical approach where even logic could change from one universe to another. But he does not specify any multiverse model...So what is he talking about? Is it there any multiverse model where even the fundamental logic of universes could change?

So my question is:

Is it there any theory/model/equation that could produce such a vast multiverse? Any model that Linde mentions? Could Wheeler-DeWitt equation be an option for that?

2019-06-18T14:07:40Z

Through the doomsday argument people try to calculate the number of humans that will ever live based only on the number of humans that have lived until now. To me this arguments seems very flawed, but I might be misunderstanding it.

Let's say there is a fixed number of all members of the human species in the past and future (H). We want to estimate this number. And let's say we have a simple counter that represents the number of humans born yet (n). The counter starts from 1 with the first human. Every time the counter increases to include a new human (n+1), there is a slight chance (c) that this one human being comes up with the doomsday argument. This one human being that just came up with the DA will look at the current value of the counter (a), which represents their number in the succession of all humans. Using this number a, the human will try to estimate H, while the counter keeps counting.

I don't see how the current value a in any way depends on H in this case. It only depends on the chance c (which depends on how easy it is to come up with the doomsday argument for a human). Am I missing something?

Edit: a depends on H in that a <= H

2019-02-01T05:31:47Z

My first thought is simply 'time frame', but then Anthropology isn't exactly bound to the past...

A second look makes me wonder if "experimental philosophy" is not simply some area of overlap between Psychology, Sociology and of course Anthropology. An aside question that came up in this regard is: Can the same research material, e.g. questionnaires, be used by different disciplines?

Now I don't want to come across as critical of the existence of "experimental philosophy", after all it may turn out future generations will much benefit from the Democratic Depository of Philosophical Intuitions.

But it seem there is a demarcation problem here I'm unable to find any sources to resolve?

2018-01-02T15:19:05Z

I find it perfectly logical, that the humans felt cold and began to wear clothes. However, In many tribes in Africa, South America and Asia, where the traditional clothing is a Loincloth only, which obviously does not keep warm. I never heard from a tribe that is completely naked.

The question I have is... why? It is obvious that the answer has to be sexuality since well, that's what the private parts are for. But why is the urge that not everybody can see ones private part so deeply anchored in human behavior?

Basically, there is no need to cover and it will take resources and workpower to create clothes. I find it odd that even non of the most separated tribes got rid of this social convention.

Thanks for answers

2017-08-17T23:03:41Z

How did Freud explain the phylogenesis of mankind? I am having a hard time understanding the perpetual cycle that he speaks of.

On my most likely faulty interpretation, the most dominant male becomes the father of the primal horde, monopolizing the right to women and pleasure. His sons, forced to obey him given that he is stronger than them, do labor. This labor, perpetuated through history led to progress. Sons idolize their father and seek to acquire pleasure themselves. Eventually, they succeed in killing the father and acquire the rights to women. Now, if this was all there was I'd understand how the perpetuation happens, since sons of sons would want the same things as they did and rebel against them, which would continue repeating. However, Freud introduces guilt of the sons, since they had idolized the father they feel regret for killing him and now he lives on stronger than he was when he was alive in the form of super-ego. Does this mean that they fully enjoy the pleasure principle or not?

2016-08-01T12:08:45Z

Taussig is a contemporary anthropologist, who has worked on 'shamanism'. Apparently.

He seeks to do away with the idea of the shaman as someone who has been individualised through unity of self and world; and their "song" (importantly linked with modern poetry) is not studied, as it traditionally was, as a work of insight that orders the shaman's internal chaos.

Instead, Taussig he claims the shaman has survived a physical or mental illness, and thereby is thought to heal other sufferers. That occurs via their song and its symbolic restructuring (new associations and disassociations) of the tribe's fear.

Taussig's work parallels that of Deleuze and Guattari, but the latter pair neglect the context of the above symbolic disordering.

From Late Modernist Poetics, Melors, p133-134.

Has anything more recent than the above sketch invalidated or added to our understanding of shamanism?

2016-10-27T01:34:02Z

It seems to me that religion and a belief in God is merely a cultural artefact inherited from those around us. If no one on Earth was religious, would our children seek out some sort of belief in a deity?

2015-11-22T12:52:38Z

I am not sure how familiar you are with the definition of social personality from Dennett. It consits of 6 steps, like you can read here.

(1) persons are rational. (2) they are the subjects of Intentional ascriptions. (3) a certain stance or attitude must be taken towards them, a point that introduces the idea that persons are, inter alia, moral objects. (4) they can reciprocate when such a stance is taken, which similarly introduces the idea that they are, inter alia, moral agents. (5) they are language users. Finally, (6) they have a special kind of consciousness, perhaps self-consiousness.

I've been to a seminar about digital Identity and philosophical personality. Now it's kind of an exercise to understand, why this Definition from Dennet doesn't work properly with digital Identities. (related to Social Networks etc.) It is the first time, that I am doing anything related to philosophy and I would love to get some hints or help on this.

Unfortunately my native language is german, so I hope I made my question clear.

2015-03-27T12:25:32Z

In Catholicism, as an outsider, as such one is immediately struck by the notion of the Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Mary the Mother of God and the immense overflowing panoply of saints.

Given that Catholicism is 'Roman' Catholicism, an anthropological question presents itself; and this in opposition to a certain perspective that presents Catholic Theology not only for itself, but also as a synthesis between Greek Philosophy and Christian Revelation; and this as a synthesis between the older order of the Polytheism of Rome/Athens:

For example, certain Greek/Roman Heroes were 'semi-divine' being the offspring between a God and a human-being.

And Zeus, being the Patriarch of the gods - did he have a mother?

2014-09-16T19:09:17Z

In the beginning of the SEP article on artifacts, the following is said straight away:

An artifact may be defined as an object that has been intentionally made or produced for a certain purpose.

Does this apply to humans? I'm not referring to any hypothetical intelligent designer. What I mean is that out of all animals, only humans (at least normal ones) seem to conceive children with an intention (e.g. with an intention of having another loved one, etc.) and not just because they desperately want to reproduce.