Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern SocietiesOUP Oxford, 12. jul. 2012 - 136 sider G. E. R. Lloyd explores the variety of ideas and assumptions that humans have entertained concerning three main topics: being, or what there is; humanity—what makes a human being a human; and understanding, both of the world and of one another. Amazingly diverse views have been held on these issues by different individuals and collectivities in both ancient and modern times. Lloyd juxtaposes the evidence available from ethnography and from the study of ancient societies, both to describe that diversity and to investigate the problems it poses. Many of the ideas in question are deeply puzzling, even paradoxical, to the point where they have often been described as irrational or frankly unintelligible. Many implicate fundamental moral issues and value judgements, where again we may seem to be faced with an impossible task in attempting to arrive at a fair-minded evaluation. How far does it seem that we are all the prisoners of the conceptual systems of the collectivities to which we happen to belong? To what extent and in what circumstances is it possible to challenge the basic concepts of such systems? Being, Humanity, and Understanding examines these questions cross-culturally and seeks to draw out the implications for the revisability of some of our habitual assumptions concerning such topics as ontology, morality, nature, relativism, incommensurability, the philosophy of language, and the pragmatics of communication. |
Indhold
Introduction | 1 |
Chapter 1 Humanity between gods and beasts? | 8 |
Chapter 2 Error | 31 |
Chapter 3 Ancient understandings reassessed and the consequences for ontologies | 46 |
Chapter 4 Language and audiences | 72 |
Chapter 5 Philosophical implications | 93 |
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Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies G. E. R. Lloyd Begrænset visning - 2012 |
Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies G. E. R. Lloyd Ingen forhåndsvisning - 2012 |
Being, Humanity, and Understanding: Studies in Ancient and Modern Societies G. E. R. Lloyd Ingen forhåndsvisning - 2014 |
Almindelige termer og sætninger
alternative analysis ancient Greeks animals antiquity argument Aristotle Aristotle’s assumptions bodies century BCE certainly challenge chapter China Chinese mathematics claim classical cognitive communication complex concept concerning contexts contrast cosmologies course culture debate Descola diagnosed discussion Empedocles emperor especially ethnographic evidence example fire gods Greece groups heavens Huainanzi Huang Di Hui Shi human ideas insist instance interpretation investigation issues jaguars judgement language literal literal/metaphorical dichotomy Liu Hui Lloyd mathematics matter mean metaphorical modern moral multidimensionality myth naıve nature notion objects ontologies Parmenides perception perspectivism phenomena philosophers physical Plato plurality position possible practices principle problem Qin Shi Huang question radically reason relations relativism revised secondly semantic stretch sense sense and reference shamans Sima Qian societies statements styles of inquiry suggest theories things thought Timaeus tions traditional understanding Viveiros de Castro Xunzi Zhuangzi