Mark R. Leary
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195172423
- eISBN:
- 9780199786756
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172423.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Human beings are unique in their ability to think consciously about themselves. Because they have a capacity for self-awareness not shared by other animals, people can imagine themselves in the ...
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Human beings are unique in their ability to think consciously about themselves. Because they have a capacity for self-awareness not shared by other animals, people can imagine themselves in the future, anticipate consequences, plan ahead, improve themselves, and perform many other behaviors that are uniquely characteristic of human beings. Yet, despite the obvious advantages of self-reflection, the capacity for self-thought comes at a high price as people's lives are adversely affected and their inner chatter interferes with their success, pollutes their relationships, and undermines their happiness. Indeed, self-relevant thought is responsible for most of the personal and social difficulties that human beings face as individuals and as a species. Among other things, the capacity for self-reflection distorts people's perceptions, leading them to make bad decisions based on faulty information. The self conjures up a great deal of personal suffering in the form of depression, anxiety, anger, envy, and other negative emotions by allowing people to ruminate about the past or imagine the future. Egocentrism and egotism blind people to their own shortcomings, promote self-serving biases, and undermine their relationships with others. The ability to self-reflect also underlies social conflict by leading people to separate themselves into ingroups and outgroups. Ironically, many sources of personal unhappiness — such as addictions, overeating, unsafe sex, infidelity, and domestic violence — are due to people's inability to exert self-control. For those inclined toward religion and spirituality, visionaries throughout history have proclaimed that the egoic self stymies the quest for spiritual fulfillment and leads to immoral behavior.Less
Human beings are unique in their ability to think consciously about themselves. Because they have a capacity for self-awareness not shared by other animals, people can imagine themselves in the future, anticipate consequences, plan ahead, improve themselves, and perform many other behaviors that are uniquely characteristic of human beings. Yet, despite the obvious advantages of self-reflection, the capacity for self-thought comes at a high price as people's lives are adversely affected and their inner chatter interferes with their success, pollutes their relationships, and undermines their happiness. Indeed, self-relevant thought is responsible for most of the personal and social difficulties that human beings face as individuals and as a species. Among other things, the capacity for self-reflection distorts people's perceptions, leading them to make bad decisions based on faulty information. The self conjures up a great deal of personal suffering in the form of depression, anxiety, anger, envy, and other negative emotions by allowing people to ruminate about the past or imagine the future. Egocentrism and egotism blind people to their own shortcomings, promote self-serving biases, and undermine their relationships with others. The ability to self-reflect also underlies social conflict by leading people to separate themselves into ingroups and outgroups. Ironically, many sources of personal unhappiness — such as addictions, overeating, unsafe sex, infidelity, and domestic violence — are due to people's inability to exert self-control. For those inclined toward religion and spirituality, visionaries throughout history have proclaimed that the egoic self stymies the quest for spiritual fulfillment and leads to immoral behavior.
Istvan Kecskes
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199892655
- eISBN:
- 9780199345502
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892655.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
This is the first book about intercultural pragmatics that focuses on language use in intercultural interaction. Intercultural Pragmatics is concerned with the way the language system is put to use ...
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This is the first book about intercultural pragmatics that focuses on language use in intercultural interaction. Intercultural Pragmatics is concerned with the way the language system is put to use in social encounters between human beings who have different first languages, communicate in a common language, and, usually, represent different cultures. The communicative process in these encounters is synergistic in the sense that in them existing pragmatic norms and emerging, co-constructed features are present to a varying degree. The book defines intercultures as situationally emergent and co-constructed phenomena that rely both on relatively definable cultural norms and models as well as situationally evolving features. Intercultural pragmatics is rooted in the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that combines the intention-based, pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism to incorporate emerging features of communication. In this approach people cooperate by generating and formulating intention that is relevant to the given actual situational context. At the same time their egocentrism means that they activate the most salient information to their attention in the construction (speaker) and comprehension (hearer) of utterances. In this approach interlocutors are considered as social beings searching for meaning with individual minds embedded in a socio-cultural collectivity. Individual traits (prior experience-salience-egocentrism-attention) interact with societal traits (actual situational experience- relevance-cooperation-intention). Each trait is the consequence of the other. Prior experience results in salience which leads to egocentrism that drives attention. Intention is a cooperation-directed practice that is governed by relevance which (partly) depends on actual situational experience.Less
This is the first book about intercultural pragmatics that focuses on language use in intercultural interaction. Intercultural Pragmatics is concerned with the way the language system is put to use in social encounters between human beings who have different first languages, communicate in a common language, and, usually, represent different cultures. The communicative process in these encounters is synergistic in the sense that in them existing pragmatic norms and emerging, co-constructed features are present to a varying degree. The book defines intercultures as situationally emergent and co-constructed phenomena that rely both on relatively definable cultural norms and models as well as situationally evolving features. Intercultural pragmatics is rooted in the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that combines the intention-based, pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism to incorporate emerging features of communication. In this approach people cooperate by generating and formulating intention that is relevant to the given actual situational context. At the same time their egocentrism means that they activate the most salient information to their attention in the construction (speaker) and comprehension (hearer) of utterances. In this approach interlocutors are considered as social beings searching for meaning with individual minds embedded in a socio-cultural collectivity. Individual traits (prior experience-salience-egocentrism-attention) interact with societal traits (actual situational experience- relevance-cooperation-intention). Each trait is the consequence of the other. Prior experience results in salience which leads to egocentrism that drives attention. Intention is a cooperation-directed practice that is governed by relevance which (partly) depends on actual situational experience.
Faegheh Shirazi
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813033549
- eISBN:
- 9780813039589
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813033549.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Female sexuality is often seen through a narrow-minded perspective because of Islam's patriarchal structure. The notion that women would be engaged in securing relationships with other women has been ...
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Female sexuality is often seen through a narrow-minded perspective because of Islam's patriarchal structure. The notion that women would be engaged in securing relationships with other women has been rejected since the Qur'an does not state anything about such activities. Those who advocate patriarchy view this issue as something that is not worthy of serious consideration. This may, in no small part, be attributed to female physiology since there is no anatomical way that a woman may be able to penetrate another women. Muslim men have fostered a relatively limited conception of sexuality across history since this is conventionally perceived as an act of copulation regardless of “pleasure.” Although this male egocentrism is still prevalent, modern Islamic societies foster varied attitudes towards lesbian behavior.Less
Female sexuality is often seen through a narrow-minded perspective because of Islam's patriarchal structure. The notion that women would be engaged in securing relationships with other women has been rejected since the Qur'an does not state anything about such activities. Those who advocate patriarchy view this issue as something that is not worthy of serious consideration. This may, in no small part, be attributed to female physiology since there is no anatomical way that a woman may be able to penetrate another women. Muslim men have fostered a relatively limited conception of sexuality across history since this is conventionally perceived as an act of copulation regardless of “pleasure.” Although this male egocentrism is still prevalent, modern Islamic societies foster varied attitudes towards lesbian behavior.
RICHARD KEARNEY and KASCHA SEMONOVITCH
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823234615
- eISBN:
- 9780823240722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234615.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
To the canonical phenomenologies of the Stranger in Jacques Derrida and Bernhard Waldenfels, this chapter offers a third voice: that of the eighteenth-century religious thinker David Brainerd. Both ...
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To the canonical phenomenologies of the Stranger in Jacques Derrida and Bernhard Waldenfels, this chapter offers a third voice: that of the eighteenth-century religious thinker David Brainerd. Both Waldenfels and Derrida address the need to avoid both an egocentrism and a logocentrism that would reduce the other to the self or the alien to the familiar. True hospitality involves a creative response to the other, not an absorption of otherness. This chapter shows how these visions of hospitality are marked by a sort of “magnetism”: a mutual affection and repulsion. Brainerd's writing presents a scene in which the approach of the Stranger is fraught with an almost electric tension between invisible forces. Concentrating on the phenomenological disclosure of a difference between what is relative and conditional, on one hand, and what is absolute and unconditional on the other, serves to position us, theoretically and concretely, in a scene marked by the tension between magnetism and mourning.Less
To the canonical phenomenologies of the Stranger in Jacques Derrida and Bernhard Waldenfels, this chapter offers a third voice: that of the eighteenth-century religious thinker David Brainerd. Both Waldenfels and Derrida address the need to avoid both an egocentrism and a logocentrism that would reduce the other to the self or the alien to the familiar. True hospitality involves a creative response to the other, not an absorption of otherness. This chapter shows how these visions of hospitality are marked by a sort of “magnetism”: a mutual affection and repulsion. Brainerd's writing presents a scene in which the approach of the Stranger is fraught with an almost electric tension between invisible forces. Concentrating on the phenomenological disclosure of a difference between what is relative and conditional, on one hand, and what is absolute and unconditional on the other, serves to position us, theoretically and concretely, in a scene marked by the tension between magnetism and mourning.
Pauline Adema
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604731200
- eISBN:
- 9781604733334
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604731200.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter discusses place–food associations; the origins of people’s negative perceptions of garlic, which are rooted in culinary egocentrism from the colonial era and reinforced during the period ...
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This chapter discusses place–food associations; the origins of people’s negative perceptions of garlic, which are rooted in culinary egocentrism from the colonial era and reinforced during the period of massive southern European migration to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century; and garlic’s infiltration of mainstream American cookery.Less
This chapter discusses place–food associations; the origins of people’s negative perceptions of garlic, which are rooted in culinary egocentrism from the colonial era and reinforced during the period of massive southern European migration to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century; and garlic’s infiltration of mainstream American cookery.
W. Puck Brecher
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824836665
- eISBN:
- 9780824871116
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824836665.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine aesthetic eccentricity as an emergent feature of identity formation during this new age and traces its trajectory throughout the Edo ...
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This chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine aesthetic eccentricity as an emergent feature of identity formation during this new age and traces its trajectory throughout the Edo period (1600–1868). Aesthetic eccentricity refers not only to deviant cultural forms—mainly within the visual arts—but also to subjectivities that privilege individuality, emotion, and intuition over conventional behavior. It tends toward egocentrism and often conveys a subject's desire for detachment from occupational responsibilities, ideological constraints, or commercial pressures. The remainder of this chapter first situates the topic within existing English and Japanese scholarship by examining how others have approached eccentricity as a field of study. It then offers a genealogy of the terms commonly used to signify aesthetic eccentricity in the Edo period. Next, it introduces some of the historiographical issues that have guided inquiry into aesthetic eccentricity in early modern Japan, including the favored tendency to equate it with later avant-garde movements. The chapter concludes by advancing several counterintuitive arguments that collectively demonstrate how strangeness, particularly during the last century of the Edo period, permeated mainstream ethical values to assume an inviolable position within mainstream culture.Less
This chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine aesthetic eccentricity as an emergent feature of identity formation during this new age and traces its trajectory throughout the Edo period (1600–1868). Aesthetic eccentricity refers not only to deviant cultural forms—mainly within the visual arts—but also to subjectivities that privilege individuality, emotion, and intuition over conventional behavior. It tends toward egocentrism and often conveys a subject's desire for detachment from occupational responsibilities, ideological constraints, or commercial pressures. The remainder of this chapter first situates the topic within existing English and Japanese scholarship by examining how others have approached eccentricity as a field of study. It then offers a genealogy of the terms commonly used to signify aesthetic eccentricity in the Edo period. Next, it introduces some of the historiographical issues that have guided inquiry into aesthetic eccentricity in early modern Japan, including the favored tendency to equate it with later avant-garde movements. The chapter concludes by advancing several counterintuitive arguments that collectively demonstrate how strangeness, particularly during the last century of the Edo period, permeated mainstream ethical values to assume an inviolable position within mainstream culture.
Istvan Kecskes
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199892655
- eISBN:
- 9780199345502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892655.003.0003
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
This chapter summarizes the main tenets of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that is the theoretical framework for intercultural pragmatics. It explains how SCA relates to the positivist and ...
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This chapter summarizes the main tenets of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that is the theoretical framework for intercultural pragmatics. It explains how SCA relates to the positivist and constructivist views. Intercultural pragmatics is rooted in the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that combines the intention-based, pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism to incorporate emerging features of communication. The chapter explains the interplay of intention and attention and cooperation and egocentrism. It also describes the frame in which speaker's production and hearer's interpretation get equal attention, and underlines that speaker's utterance is a full proposition without any underdeterminacy of what is said from the speaker's perspective. The chapter also demonstrates how recipient design is affected by salience in speaker's productionLess
This chapter summarizes the main tenets of the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that is the theoretical framework for intercultural pragmatics. It explains how SCA relates to the positivist and constructivist views. Intercultural pragmatics is rooted in the socio-cognitive approach (SCA) that combines the intention-based, pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism to incorporate emerging features of communication. The chapter explains the interplay of intention and attention and cooperation and egocentrism. It also describes the frame in which speaker's production and hearer's interpretation get equal attention, and underlines that speaker's utterance is a full proposition without any underdeterminacy of what is said from the speaker's perspective. The chapter also demonstrates how recipient design is affected by salience in speaker's production
Marvin Marcus
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833060
- eISBN:
- 9780824871352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833060.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter shifts the focus of Sōseki's reminiscence to family and one's role as husband and father. Here, depictions in both the shōhin and the autobiographical fiction point to an uneasy modus ...
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This chapter shifts the focus of Sōseki's reminiscence to family and one's role as husband and father. Here, depictions in both the shōhin and the autobiographical fiction point to an uneasy modus vivendi with one's domestic circumstance and an ongoing tension between egocentrism and empathy. Notwithstanding the crafted persona of shosai ningen—the study-bound recluse—Natsume Sōseki lived under the same roof as his family, and it was a large and growing family at that. His desire for privacy is understandable, given that he worked out of his home office, but this desire did not go unchallenged. The household, in short, was contested space. The Natsume brood had competing claims, and an undercurrent of tension marks the domestic situation as depicted in his personal writing.Less
This chapter shifts the focus of Sōseki's reminiscence to family and one's role as husband and father. Here, depictions in both the shōhin and the autobiographical fiction point to an uneasy modus vivendi with one's domestic circumstance and an ongoing tension between egocentrism and empathy. Notwithstanding the crafted persona of shosai ningen—the study-bound recluse—Natsume Sōseki lived under the same roof as his family, and it was a large and growing family at that. His desire for privacy is understandable, given that he worked out of his home office, but this desire did not go unchallenged. The household, in short, was contested space. The Natsume brood had competing claims, and an undercurrent of tension marks the domestic situation as depicted in his personal writing.
Istvan Kecskes
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198714217
- eISBN:
- 9780191782626
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198714217.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter argues that a speaker’s utterance is not just recipient design. While fitting words into actual situational contexts, speakers are driven not only by the intent that the hearer recognize ...
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This chapter argues that a speaker’s utterance is not just recipient design. While fitting words into actual situational contexts, speakers are driven not only by the intent that the hearer recognize what is meant as intended by the speaker, but also by individual salience, which affects production subconsciously. The interplay of these social (recipient design) and individual factors (salience) shapes a speaker’s utterance. Recipient design is the result of being cooperative, which, according to Grice,is a part of human rationality. This chapter claims, however, that individual egocentrism that results in individual salience is part of human rationality just as much as cooperation is. It is claimed and demonstrated through examples that recipient design usually requires an inductive process that is carefully planned, while salience effect generally appears in the form of a deductive process that may contain repairs and adjustments.Less
This chapter argues that a speaker’s utterance is not just recipient design. While fitting words into actual situational contexts, speakers are driven not only by the intent that the hearer recognize what is meant as intended by the speaker, but also by individual salience, which affects production subconsciously. The interplay of these social (recipient design) and individual factors (salience) shapes a speaker’s utterance. Recipient design is the result of being cooperative, which, according to Grice,is a part of human rationality. This chapter claims, however, that individual egocentrism that results in individual salience is part of human rationality just as much as cooperation is. It is claimed and demonstrated through examples that recipient design usually requires an inductive process that is carefully planned, while salience effect generally appears in the form of a deductive process that may contain repairs and adjustments.
John C. Gibbs
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190878214
- eISBN:
- 9780190878245
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878214.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This chapter explicates cognitive developmental themes in moral development. The attention of young children is readily captured by or centered on that which is immediate and salient in their ...
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This chapter explicates cognitive developmental themes in moral development. The attention of young children is readily captured by or centered on that which is immediate and salient in their sociomoral and non-social worlds. Just as centrations and superficiality characterize early childhood moral judgment, “decentration” and depth can be said to characterize the moral competence constructed in the school years and beyond. We relate morality to logic (cf. Piaget); explain that the ideals of justice or moral reciprocity are constructed, not merely enculturated, socialized, or internalized; explicate the role of peer interaction and social perspective-taking opportunities in this moral constructive process across diverse cultures; argue that justice can be a moral motive in its own right; and ponder issues in the concept and assessment of “stages” in the development of moral judgment.Less
This chapter explicates cognitive developmental themes in moral development. The attention of young children is readily captured by or centered on that which is immediate and salient in their sociomoral and non-social worlds. Just as centrations and superficiality characterize early childhood moral judgment, “decentration” and depth can be said to characterize the moral competence constructed in the school years and beyond. We relate morality to logic (cf. Piaget); explain that the ideals of justice or moral reciprocity are constructed, not merely enculturated, socialized, or internalized; explicate the role of peer interaction and social perspective-taking opportunities in this moral constructive process across diverse cultures; argue that justice can be a moral motive in its own right; and ponder issues in the concept and assessment of “stages” in the development of moral judgment.
John C. Gibbs
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190878214
- eISBN:
- 9780190878245
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190878214.003.0007
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology
The referent for social behavior shifts in this chapter to antisocial behavior and how to account for it. Most offenders, from petty pranksters to ideological terrorists, fail (except for ...
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The referent for social behavior shifts in this chapter to antisocial behavior and how to account for it. Most offenders, from petty pranksters to ideological terrorists, fail (except for self-serving purposes) to take the perspectives of their victims. Social perspective-taking limitations pervade the “three Ds” of antisocial youth: moral developmental delay, self-serving cognitive distortions, and social skills deficiencies. The latter variables are needed to supplement Kohlberg’s and Hoffman’s emphasis on developmental delay if we are adequately to account for antisocial behavior. The chapter concludes with the powerful illustrative case of Timothy McVeigh. This case makes particularly clear how cognitive distortions can insulate a self-centered worldview (itself a primary distortion, linked to feeling superior or inadequately respected); that is, self-serving distortions can preempt or neutralize social perspective-taking, moral understanding, and veridical empathy.Less
The referent for social behavior shifts in this chapter to antisocial behavior and how to account for it. Most offenders, from petty pranksters to ideological terrorists, fail (except for self-serving purposes) to take the perspectives of their victims. Social perspective-taking limitations pervade the “three Ds” of antisocial youth: moral developmental delay, self-serving cognitive distortions, and social skills deficiencies. The latter variables are needed to supplement Kohlberg’s and Hoffman’s emphasis on developmental delay if we are adequately to account for antisocial behavior. The chapter concludes with the powerful illustrative case of Timothy McVeigh. This case makes particularly clear how cognitive distortions can insulate a self-centered worldview (itself a primary distortion, linked to feeling superior or inadequately respected); that is, self-serving distortions can preempt or neutralize social perspective-taking, moral understanding, and veridical empathy.
David O. Brink
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198817277
- eISBN:
- 9780191858796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198817277.003.0016
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This essay explores the adequacy of Sidgwick’s contrast between the egocentrism of ancient ethics and the impartiality of modern ethics by evaluating the resources of eudaimonists, especially ...
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This essay explores the adequacy of Sidgwick’s contrast between the egocentrism of ancient ethics and the impartiality of modern ethics by evaluating the resources of eudaimonists, especially Aristotle and the Stoics, to defend a cosmopolitan conception of the common good. Adapting ideas from Broad, we might contrast the scope and weight of ethical concern, distinguishing ethical conceptions that are parochial with respect to both scope and weight, conceptions that are cosmopolitan with respect to both scope and weight, and mixed conceptions that combine universal scope and variable weight. Aristotle’s conception of the common good appears doubly parochial. By contrast, the Stoic conception of the common good is purely cosmopolitan. But the Stoics have trouble providing a eudaimonist defense of their cosmopolitanism. However, Aristotelian eudaimonism has resources to justify a mixed conception. Mixed cosmopolitanism may be cosmopolitanism enough.Less
This essay explores the adequacy of Sidgwick’s contrast between the egocentrism of ancient ethics and the impartiality of modern ethics by evaluating the resources of eudaimonists, especially Aristotle and the Stoics, to defend a cosmopolitan conception of the common good. Adapting ideas from Broad, we might contrast the scope and weight of ethical concern, distinguishing ethical conceptions that are parochial with respect to both scope and weight, conceptions that are cosmopolitan with respect to both scope and weight, and mixed conceptions that combine universal scope and variable weight. Aristotle’s conception of the common good appears doubly parochial. By contrast, the Stoic conception of the common good is purely cosmopolitan. But the Stoics have trouble providing a eudaimonist defense of their cosmopolitanism. However, Aristotelian eudaimonism has resources to justify a mixed conception. Mixed cosmopolitanism may be cosmopolitanism enough.
