The Human Condition.
TL;DR: In some religious traditions, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness.
Abstract: Human beings are described by many spiritual traditions as ‘blind’ or ‘asleep’ or ‘in a dream.’ These terms refers to the limited attenuated state of consciousness of most human beings caught up in patterns of conditioned thought, feeling and perception, which prevent the development of our latent, higher spiritual possibilities. In the words of Idries Shah: “Man, like a sleepwalker who suddenly ‘comes to’ on some lonely road has in general no correct idea as to his origins or his destiny.” In some religious traditions, such as Christianity and Islam, the myth of the ‘Fall from the Garden of Eden’ symbolizes the loss of the primordial state through the veiling of higher consciousness. Other traditions use similar metaphors to describe the spiritual condition of humanity:
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TL;DR: A politics that affirms natural limits, either ecological limits or limits posed by the human constitution, is subject to certain criticisms as mentioned in this paper, and one of these suggests that a focus on natural limits...
Abstract: A politics that affirms natural limits – either ecological limits or limits posed by the human constitution – is subject to certain criticisms. One of these suggests that a focus on natural limits ...
20 citations
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...Arendt (1958) distinguishes three fundamental types of human activity: labour, work, and action....
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...Such instrumentalization ‘degrade[s] nature and the world into mere means, robbing both of their independent dignity’; it entails a ‘limitless devaluation of everything given, [a] process of growing meaninglessness in which every end is transformed into a means’ (Arendt, 1958, pp. 156–157)....
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...‘The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’; earthly existence bestows the basic conditions of ‘birth and death, nasality and mortality’ (Arendt, 1958, pp. 2, p. 8)....
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TL;DR: Collective memories of totalitarianism and the industrialized slaughter of the Holocaust have exerted a profound influence on postwar European politics and philosophy as discussed by the authors, and two of the most prominent poli...
Abstract: Collective memories of totalitarianism and the industrialized slaughter of the Holocaust have exerted a profound influence on postwar European politics and philosophy. Two of the most prominent pol...
20 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: The WikiBIM project as discussed by the authors proposes an enhanced approach, which builds on a combination of rapid ethnographic appraisal methods and IT-supported techniques for data acquisition, processing, and management.
Abstract: This research is based on the ongoing debate on the strengths and challenges brought about by the so-called ‘digital revolution’ in the field of the conservation of Cultural Built Heritage. Within this framework, this study analyzes how the dynamic relationship between tangible and intangible heritage strongly affects the understanding of a site as cultural heritage. This relationship influences the conservation actions adopted by conservators and decision makers and shapes the values that drive, and impact on, conservation choices.
The complex relationships between tangible and intangible dimensions of cultural heritage have been, until recently, surprisingly underestimated in scientific research. A possible explanation lies in the limited amount of multidimensional and interdisciplinary approaches applied by scholars of different disciplines, often interested in a sectoral analysis of either the tangible or the intangible dimensions of cultural built heritage. The research moves in the direction of integrating such dimensions through a comprehensive approach. The project aims at demonstrating that an understanding of the role of intangible dimensions of built heritage can orient the conservation process, moving towards a more inclusive approach based on the respect for different context-based perspectives and interpretations of the cultural dimensions of heritage conservation, preservation, and restoration.
The research hypothesis is that digital documentation workflows have a strong potential for integrating different sources of information, based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, by processing and integrating knowledge about tangible and intangible dimensions of built heritage. The research proposes an enhanced approach, called WikiBIM, which builds on a combination of rapid ethnographic appraisal methods and IT-supported techniques for data acquisition, processing, and management.
The research approach is tested on the concrete case of the Loka-hteik-pan temple in Bagan, Myanmar. Conclusions about the effectiveness of the approach highlight the importance of integrating local knowledge, sometimes transmitted only through oral means, in mainstream digital design tools, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), in order to improve the social, cultural and environmental sustainability of built heritage conservation.
20 citations
Cites background from "The Human Condition."
...She distinguished three forms of activity that are fundamental to the human condition: Labor which corresponds to the biological life of a man as an animal COMMUNITY; Work which corresponds to the artificial world of objects that human beings build upon the earth COMMUNITY; Action which corresponds to our plurality as distinct individuals INDIVIDUAL (Arendt, 1958), p.ix. Richard Sennet, who stresses Hannah Arendt’s distinction between Animal laborans and Homo Faber, further comments on this distinction....
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...…world of objects that human beings build upon the earth COMMUNITY; Action which corresponds to our plurality as distinct individuals INDIVIDUAL (Arendt, 1958), p.ix. Richard Sennet, who stresses Hannah Arendt’s distinction between Animal laborans and Homo Faber, further comments on this…...
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Book Chapter•
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: Butler and Connolly as mentioned in this paper pointed out that the use of power as a point of departure for critical analysis is substantially different from an ethical framework, and pointed out the ambivalent way that the idea of corporeal vulnerability operates in her work.
Abstract: In an essay from 2000, Judith Butler confesses her worry that the ‘return to ethics has constituted an escape from politics’ (15). In a published conversation with the political theorist William Connolly from that same year, she makes a similar claim, commenting that ‘I tend to think that ethics displaces from politics.’ The nature of the problem as she sees it is that ‘the use of power as a point of departure for a critical analysis is substantially different from an ethical framework’ (Butler in Butler and Connolly 2000). How ironic, therefore, that several critics see Butler's own engagement with ethics in the same way: as a turn to ethics that heralds either a turn away from politics or its displacement. (See, for example, Dean 2008; Honig 2010, 2013; and Shulman 2011.) Using this debate as the backdrop for this chapter, I want to plot a different route through Butler's discussion of ethics and politics, by way of the vulnerable body. As I see it, it is not that her ethical considerations lead her to abandon politics; in fact, she is at pains throughout her work to emphasise how power operates to regulate and determine who counts as human, to shape and condition the scene of recognition, and to circumscribe the types of ethical encounter that might take place there. Butler is thus fully aware of the ‘ethical stakes’ in ‘political encounters’ and of the ‘political modalities’ shaping ‘ethical questions’ (in Butler and Athanasiou 2013: 74), of the ways that politics and ethics are inter-imbricated. The difficulty is rather that there is a tension in her work between ethical responsiveness as an abstract potentiality arising from ecstatic relationality and existential precariousness and the actualisation of ethics and politics in specific contexts of politically induced precarity. Central to my discussion will be a consideration of the ambivalent way that the idea of corporeal vulnerability operates in her work.
20 citations
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Book•
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27 Mar 2015
TL;DR: In this article, a series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human are presented, with a focus on the life of lines.
Abstract: To live, every being must put out a line, and in life these lines tangle with one another. This book is a study of the life of lines. Following on from Tim Ingold's groundbreaking work Lines: A Brief History, it offers a wholly original series of meditations on life, ground, weather, walking, imagination and what it means to be human.
In the first part, Ingold argues that a world of life is woven from knots, and not built from blocks as commonly thought. He shows how the principle of knotting underwrites both the way things join with one another, in walls, buildings and bodies, and the composition of the ground and the knowledge we find there.
In the second part, Ingold argues that to study living lines, we must also study the weather. To complement a linealogy that asks what is common to walking, weaving, observing, singing, storytelling and writing, he develops a meteorology that seeks the common denominator of breath, time, mood, sound, memory, colour and the sky. This denominator is the atmosphere.
In the third part, Ingold carries the line into the domain of human life. He shows that for life to continue, the things we do must be framed within the lives we undergo. In continually answering to one another, these lives enact a principle of correspondence that is fundamentally social.
This compelling volume brings our thinking about the material world refreshingly back to life. While anchored in anthropology, the book ranges widely over an interdisciplinary terrain that includes philosophy, geography, sociology, art and architecture.
410 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the fact that gender equality and women empowerment have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice.
Abstract: The language of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ was mobilised by feminists in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting women’s rights onto the international development agenda. Their efforts can be declared a resounding success. The international development industry has fully embraced these terms. From international NGOs to donor governments to multilateral agencies the language of gender equality and women’s empowerment is a pervasive presence and takes pride of place among their major development priorities. And yet, this article argues, the fact that these terms have been eviscerated of conceptual and political bite compromises their use as the primary frame through which to demand rights and justice. Critically examining the trajectories of these terms in development, the article suggests that if the promise of the post-2015 agenda is to deliver on gender justice, new frames are needed, which can connect with and contribute to a broader movement for global justice.
271 citations
TL;DR: A network simulation model used to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions.
Abstract: The viral spread of digital misinformation has become so severe that the World Economic Forum considers it among the main threats to human society This spread have been suggested to be related to the similarly problematized phenomenon of “echo chambers”, but the causal nature of this relationship has proven difficult to disentangle due to the connected nature of social media, whose causality is characterized by complexity, non-linearity and emergence This paper uses a network simulation model to study a possible relationship between echo chambers and the viral spread of misinformation It finds an “echo chamber effect”: the presence of an opinion and network polarized cluster of nodes in a network contributes to the diffusion of complex contagions, and there is a synergetic effect between opinion and network polarization on the virality of misinformation The echo chambers effect likely comes from that they form the initial bandwagon for diffusion These findings have implication for the study of the media logic of new social media
223 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a mediation model to explain the relationship between CEO humility and firm performance and found that when a more humble CEO leads a firm, its top management team is more likely to collaborate, share information, jointly make decisions, and possess a shared vision.
215 citations
TL;DR: The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies.
Abstract: Beginning in the 1940s, mass production of antibiotics involved the industrialscale growth of microorganisms to harvest their metabolic products. Unfortunately, the use of antibiotics selects for resistance at answering scale. The turn to the study of antibiotic resistance in microbiology and medicine is examined, focusing on the realization that individual therapies targeted at single pathogens in individual bodies are environmental events affecting bacterial evolution far beyond bodies. In turning to biological manifestations of antibiotic use, sciences fathom material outcomes of their own previous concepts. Archival work with stored soil and clinical samples produces a record described here as ‘the biology of history’: the physical registration of human history in bacterial life. This account thus foregrounds the importance of understanding both the materiality of history and the historicity of matter in theories and concepts of life today.
204 citations