Search

Copyright of Journal of Human & Society / İnsannsan ve Toplum is the property of Scientific Studies Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

广义论证概念扩大了逻辑家族成员，使之包括现代文化之外其他文化的逻辑，对 阿赞得（Azande）人的田野考察报告，以及中国古代逻辑和佛学逻辑的研究成果，从 描述的角度为'逻辑相对于文化'这一命题提供事实根据；采用演绎论证作为元方法 说明现代文化中的逻辑和其他文化的逻辑在现代文化中的译本具有文化相对性；借助 民族志和历史学研究成果说明其他文化的逻辑本身也具有的文化相对性；通过语言博 弈和生活形式概念说明作为元方法的演绎论证同样具有文化相对性。关键词: 广义论证 非形式逻辑 逻辑学的合理性 文化相对性 The concept of general argumentation has expanded the family of logic so that it incorporates the logic of other cultures besides modern culture. Based on reports of fieldwork among the Azande and the fruits of research on ancient Chinese logic and the logic of Buddhism, this paper attempts to provide a factual foundation for the proposition 'the cultural relativity of logic' from a descriptive perspective. Adopting deductive argument as a meta-method, this paper argues for the existence of the cultural relativity of logic in modern culture and of the translated version of the logic of other cultures in modern culture. With the aid of ethnography and the historical research findings, we show that the logic of other cultures also has its own cultural relativity. We also seek to show through the concepts of language games and life forms that deductive argumentation as a meta-method likewise possesses cultural relativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a brief comment by Lu Xun regarding the thriving café culture in 1920s’ Shanghai as a point of departure, this paper investigates how the male intellectuals of the time constructed, affiliated with, and practiced the café culture in the 1920s and 1930s. The paper first provides a historical overview of Shanghai’s café scene, and it investigates the general relationship between coffee and colonialism. The main body of the paper explores how Shanghai’s café culture in the Republican period was constructed in connection with male subjectivity. The paper demonstrates that the café as a gathering site was attractive to the young and educated male urbanites because it provided them a strong sense of community, based on the mutually conditioning homosocial bonding and heterosexual impulses, where they could socialize among themselves and flirt with the waitresses. It was the maleness of the café that allowed the place to embrace the seemingly opposed discourses of consumerism and revolution – the two major components of China’s cultural modernity. The paper ends with Michel de Certeua’s analysis of the ‘habitable,’ and it demonstrates that the Shanghai café is habitable to male intellectuals because it both promises and rejects the consummation of the libido, in the same way as it promises and rejects modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses Chinese interrogation rules from historical and comparative perspectives by relating them to the very different development of interrogation procedure in Europe. A fuller understanding of the evolution of the rules in both contexts is relevant to the present day controversy concerning the universal versus relative nature of interrogation fairness. The comparative analysis reveals that, in fact, the influence of ancient Greek and Chinese civilizations resulted in a great difference between Europe and China regarding legal cultures and institutional arrangements for criminal interrogation procedure. Considering future legal reforms in China, and given the very different historical and institutional context, the likelihood seems low that an 'autonomous version' of the right to remain silent and the privilege against self-incrimination will develop on China's very different soil. However, traditional native resources are also available to legal reformers to ensure a cooperative interviewing style in criminal questioning, and eliminate police-coerced confessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of international and comparative education have long endorsed the importance of context in conducting research. In this paper, I expand upon the theme to argue that just as educational policies and practices may be compromised in the process of transfer, so too may the research methodology used to draw inferences fail to resonate from one culture to another. In particular, I discuss some of the practical methodological challenges that I encountered while dealing with informed consent while conducting a research project in Hong Kong. I found that informed consent with its emphasis on individual autonomy was at odds with the norms of the largely collectivist, hierarchical, Confucian heritage culture of Hong Kong. Viewed through Western frameworks of understanding, the negation of informed consent has detrimental connotations as it compromises the fundamental concept of an individual's right to choose. However, I found that when viewed through a Confucian lens this was not a deliberate or intentional infringing of rights but an acceptable manifestation of familial and paternalistic relationships that guide inter-personal interactions in such societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to determine a model of how a foreign businessman obtains and maintains cronyism from his Chinese counterpart that emphasizes on an insider perspective to convert him from a new friend to an old friend of his Chinese counterpart through a guanxi adaptation mechanism. Design/methodology/approach - A vigorous analysis of extant literature and an investigation of insider dynamics within a new friend/old friend perspective. Findings - Gift-giving is strategic and a foreign businessman must manage its monetary value very cautiously in order to alleviate the `face" and provide renqing so as to generate ganging and to obtain cronyism from his Chinese counterpart. In saying that, relativism prevails. A foreign company must establish a zone of ethical tolerance so that its executive knows the limits when practicing gift-giving. In China, an old friend is a supporter and therefore a foreign business should not openly criticize his Chinese counterpart. Frequent visits to China must be maintained. Practical implications - A foreign businessman needs to understand the guanxi dynamics of renqing and ganging and their sequential arrangement in the adaptation mechanism. He should use gift-giving to offer renqing so as to establish ganging with his Chinese counterparts. Originality/value - Provides a depth analysis of two emotional aspects in the guanxi adaptation mechanism, i.e. renqing and ganging which is a definitive device to convert a foreign businessman from a new friend to an old friend of his counterpart in the Chinese market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study had two purposes: (1) to develop university classes in which students can participate in intercultural dialogue by exchanging letters focusing on a topic about everyday norms implicit in each culture, and (2) to examine how students develop their intercultural understanding through participating in these classes. Twenty-two Japanese and six Chinese university students (each group in their own country) participated in three class sessions. At the beginning of the first class, students were given a dialogue theme that focused on cultural differences. The selected theme was mobile phone use while riding on public transportation, as this practice is prohibited in Tokyo but not in Beijing. Students discussed their opinions in small groups, wrote questions to their counterparts in the other country, and then reflected on and discussed the answers received. Analysis of the Japanese students' written reflections showed that their understanding of different cultural values and beliefs changed from one based only on a Japanese cultural perspective to one that respected the relativity of cultural norms. The results suggested that the arousal of negative emotions when students are exposed to the perspectives of other cultures is closely related to their understanding of cultural relativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vera Schwarcz offers a penetrating examination of the concept and meaning of 'truth' in China (antiquity to contemporary) and elsewhere (primarily in the Jewish tradition, from the Hebrew Bible to contemporary thinkers). Highly critical of the sharp turn toward cultural relativism which abandons the search for truth in the name of everyone having his or her own situated truths, she examines in particular how scholars, philosophers, and writers living in dark times have sought to cut through the enforced amnesia of oppressive regimes, especially that of post-1949 China. This broad-ranging search brings numerous great minds into a kind of transtemporal, transcultural conversation, voices rarely, if ever, discussed between the covers of the same book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents comments on three papers presented during the Inaugural Asia Pacific Rim International Counselling Conference held Hongkong. It points out the concept of the three articles such as the outline of the development of guidance and counselling from remedies to student in Hongkong, chronological description of initial and later development of counselling in Malaysia, and how psychological help promote counselling services in China. It also remarks the study such as the need of counsellors awareness on the influence of local and dominant culture to the practice of guidance and counselling, and consideration of cultural context of clients, counsellors in assisting models of helping, and strategies to improve treatment attitudes.

The aim of this article is to explore how business schools in China have acted upon calls for greater adaptation of the US MBA model. Scandinavian institutionalism’s concept of translation as a process was employed to make sense of how such normative demands for translation have been accommodated across five case studies. Our findings demonstrate that the normative pressures for adaptation of the MBA on the basis of cultural relativism are not sufficient for significant adaptation. In contrast to other studies of the circulation of ideas and models we found that packaging changed slightly, but form and practice remained largely unchanged. Our conclusion is that the influence of market logic has eclipsed the normative calls for adaptation, resulting in the copying and adoption of the US MBA model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural interpretation using emerging technology and transmedia narratives is transforming field-based education and ethnographic/folkloristic fieldwork. Public Culture and Heritage: A Beijing Based Field School (PCH) was conceived and implemented as a way to involve students and scholars in the transformative and participatory process described above, within an art education context. PCH occurred in Summer 2011 and consisted of a two-week online orientation to fieldwork and transmedia cultural interpretation followed by a two-week residency in two Beijing districts, Jianguo and Song Zhuang. The field school concluded with a two-week online transmedia production experience. Student productions were posted to Vine Online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the distinction of styles regarding the gardens belonging to Wang Shizhen and Wang Xijue in Taicang and how these reflects the visual aesthetic qualities of a garden could reflect the owner's cultural and aesthetic preferences. It argues that some of its distinct characteristics reflects a radical change in garden design which took place in the early seventeenth century under the influence of the views on landscape painting presented by the great art critic Dong Qichang. It aims to analyze how garden culture could be used to understand about the ideology and cultural practices of the Song dynasty as well as the late Ming dynasty.

Expatriate social networks constitute an under-emphasized area in expatriate literature. The current study contributes to the expatriate adjustment literature by empirically testing the relationship between expatriate personal networks and psychological well-being. The current study also investigates the hypothesis that expatriates from different cultural backgrounds will establish different social networks and adjust differently in China. A survey of 166 expatriates in China from North America, Europe and other countries in Asia showed significant support for the hypothesis that expatriate network characteristics have a direct and significant influence on expatriate psychological well-being. In addition, as predicted, expatriates in China from different cultural backgrounds (Overseas Chinese, other Asian, North American and European) established personal networks with different characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the research and clinical communities in China senile dementia is recognized as either a progressive neurological disease that is associated with aging but is not an inevitable part of it or as a concomitant of vascular disease. These understandings are only partially shared by ordinary Chinese many of whom, on the contrary, view dementia as a natural aspect of aging. Nevertheless the elderly seem less fearful and family members less appalled by the prospect of dealing with dementia than is the case in countries like the United States. While high rates of intergenerational co-residence and other situational factors moderate the impact of dementia and facilitate the delivery of care to the demented, these facts alone are insufficient to account for these different responses. Rather four cultural concepts: (1) the heart/mind, (2) the nature of morality, (3) the nature of the self, and (4) filial piety taken together construct a distinctive experience of dementia in China that preserves the self far longer and rewards the care-giver more profoundly than is the case in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the question of translation and assertions of linguistic and conceptual incommensurability along with related claims of cultural relativism in China. Discussion of the study of the Jesuits in China during the seventeenth century; Philosophy, language and translation of existence; Details of historical studies framed within the linguistic turn.