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Showing posts from 2005

Philosophical Attitude

What is the true philosophical attitude? Or more specifically, what is the true meaning of our process of articulation that can ultimately contribute to the progress of our insight to expand the worldview, which can eventually lead us to the stance to see everything and everyone as it is? This question sounds quite naïve; at the same time, looks an ambitious attitude since it is definitely unrealistic to consider ourselves as some of the great thinkers who have really contributed to the progress of human conscious evolution -- the contribution that can make us a bit or a quite wiser and smarter than we used to be. Although it is unrealistic, this does not necessarily mean that we can ignore the true meaning of such philosophical attitude. Of course, the philosophical attitude is not that we generate the totally novel theories and practices out of our conventional, ego-oriented, narrow-minded, and dualistic speculations. Rather, the philosophical attitude is to humbly and modestly try t...

Beyond Polarity

As well-known, the Yin-Yang relation is a symbol of polarity in the teaching of Taoism. This symbol, however, should not be confined to symbolizing a mere conventional mundane doctrine of Taoism, which is quite far from what Lao Tzu truly taught in his writing, Tao Te Ching . The so-called conventional Taoism practiced mainly in the level of the magic / mythic membership religiosity is the teaching upon the worldly benefits such as material prosperity (how to become rich) and physical health (long-lasting life), etc. Using the Spiral Dynamics terms, this is merely the Blue to Orange Meme value. Needless to say, we should not emphasize the Blue to Orange Meme value alone, even though we are in the practical business world; even though we have to address to the profitability of the business sectors; and even though we have to consider our own profitability in one way or another. But rather, what the Yin-Yang symbolism can imply, by intentionally objectifying such polarity per se, is the ...

Everything, Everyone As Is

Often we hear such spiritual advice that a key to our true maturity is how to see everything as it is; and understand everyone as he/she is. Of course when we look at a glass of water in front of us, it is easy to see it as it is. When you meet a friend of yours in a certain occasion, then it is also easy to understand this person as he/she is, otherwise; it may be difficult to recognize the person as your friend in the first place. Strictly speaking, however, in such a simple perceptual recognition we have had distorted such view that these items and/or persons are placed in front of us. But more often, the difficulty for us to see things and/or persons as they are, is to take place when we try to put "meanings" on these things and persons. Such "meanings" have been quite often consciously or unconsciously derived from our ego-oriented expectations and desires. Actually that is the cause of our arguments, or else the cause of sufferings. As the Buddha has pointed o...

Meaningful Social Actions

How do you understand meaningful social actions? Based on our discussions so far (from Social Reality to Institutional Knowledge to Reflexivity to Self is not Substantial ), it seems to me that there must be the more meaningful social actions than the so-called conventional social actions that can be seen everywhere in the world and mostly ideologically, ethno-religiously or materialistically involved. As we have seen, usually people tend to see the society as what is given and placed in front of them. Social actions always contain the certain intentions to change the society based on what the people believe to be better. Such intention is meaningful and must be one of the important steps to prepare the basis of civil society. In civil society everyone has a sort of public awareness that he or she has to be the member of the society; and that the conditions of the society are depending on the participation and the commitment of each member. But in this process what we have to notice...

Self is not Substantial

If the self does not have substance, is it possible to assert autonomy and responsibility, free will and intentionality? To discuss this question, just as Searle pointed out in his book, Mind, Language, and Society , we have to re-think of the so-called mind/body problem. The problem is the ever-discussed issues throughout the history of Western philosophy such as whether or not mind is substantial; whether or not mind can be reduced into the physiological substances, etc. and if these binary questions – which side we should rely on so as to understand the core of our existence and the world where we live. And in such dichotomy between mind and body, we have to face a kind of dilemma: If mind is the core of our existence and its reality is internally rested and cannot be tangible, then our true existence is a kind of spiritual or epiphenomenal and our bodily dimension is just what should be ignored. Or on the other side, if body is the basis of our core existence, then it is inevitable...

Reflexivity

Probably animals may also have their own internal domains to some extent. Animals can imagine what they see and perceive. Otherwise, we cannot say that they also communicate each other by using some kind of primitive sign language. Even bees can communicate one another. One bee that can find the location of the flowers can tell the other bees in their nest by using a certain communicative tool called "dancing." This dancing has been highly systematized, so that the other bees can locate the subtle difference on how the particular flowers can be approached. While it is quite systematized, however, this tool is too mechanical to use some other purpose such as, for example, expressing the feeling of bees, etc. Some particular behaviors in any insects and animals can be considered as the moves of their courtship. But, such moves are too mechanical to allow the variations of their own interpretations. These communicative tools can be used as signs, but never be used as symbols. Wh...

Institutional Knowledge

Are the concepts of agentive function, constitutive and regulative rules, and collective intentionality able to explain all institutional facts? To answer this question, it is necessary to clarify the definition of each term. In this case the term we have to focus on is "institutional facts." Just like "social reality," these facts cannot exist without any human interactions. As the term itself indicates, these are the facts that can be recognized in a particular institutional set up. This means that the facts that only the members of this particular institution or institutional community can understand and shared together within their community. These are the facts that are based on the "human agreement." And those "humans" are the members of the community. One of the typical examples is the fact showed as monetary reality. For, the function and the value of money heavily rely on the "institutional fact" supported mainly by the "c...

Social Reality

How are we able to constitute social reality? To answer this question, first we have to clarify the definition of social reality. What is "social reality"? While we can list up a number of explanations to define this term, starting from a general definition, the answer would be that "social reality" means that each member of the society share their experiences together. It is a kind of collective experiences among the members of the society. "Reality" is that which we experience and if such "reality" can be shared among each member of the society, this is called "social reality." To make it more precise, when we can say that "reality" is that which we experience, another question is inevitable, that is to say, what is "experience"? When I have my own experience and my experience can be also considered as "our experience," what is the factor that such single experience makes the collective experience? If we ...

Culture in Mind

In his book entitled Culture in Mind , Bradd Shore proposes how what he calls cultural model can be worked as a link between cultural anthropology and cognitive psychology. According to him, after the movement of cognitive revolution, the contribution of cultural anthropology to the field of cognitive psychology has been marginalized if not diminished. In considering so-called human mind, a certain gap has been taken place between these two disciplines. To understand this gap, we need to know the significance of this cognitive revolution. What is cognitive revolution? This is a kind of methodological shift in understanding the human mind and consciousness. Prior to this movement of cognitive revolution, psychologists used mainly to see the external factors to comprehend the human mind since we see this tendency typically in the field of behavioral psychology. For, they inclined more to the natural scientific, logical positivistic approaches. Due to the influence of such approaches, the...

Matter, Body, Mind, Soul and Spirit

If we try to simplify the developmental and evolutional perspective of ourselves and our society, it seems that we encounter the so-called three or four levels of categorization. I am not sure if such categorization is derived from the limitation of our perception or else might be related to some kind of archetypical commonalities. In my understanding so far, it may be more related to the biological limitation of our perception. One of the similar cases is that maximum sequence of number we can memorize at glance is at most 7 or 8 digits. As well-known, this is because of the biological capacity of short term memory of our brain. Although it may be possible to expand the number of digits by our intentional training, it seems that 7 or 8 digits are a default set up of our short term memory and its variance to be expanded can not be beyond additional 20% of such default setting. We can never memorize 20 digits of number unless we use a memory technique such as visual association or u...