This study focusses on how people in Sweden commemorate their dogs and handle their demise. By examining memorial texts for dogs that are presented by their owners on internet forums, memorial texts that are used on gravestones on an animal cemetery as well as an interview with an animal nurse, the study examines how dogs are humanized and treated in human-like ways. With theories about new animism, social acceptance (nomos) and ontology as the theoretical framework, the study provides an analysis of strategies by which people tend to humanize dogs in ways that are often similar to the handling and mourning of human deceased.                                                The empirical data illustrate how dog owners in Swedish society who have lost their beloved pet express themselves in terms of religious terminology. According to memorial texts, the dogs go to heaven, where they may be reunited with their owners, become free from their diseases, and in some cases they are buried in separate graves in animal cemeteries. The study also illustrates how dogs in Sweden today have almost equal opportunities and access to medical care as human beings. The results show that many religious beliefs that may exist around a human person´s death are very similar to the practices and attitudes that surround the death of dogs. From a theoretical view point this can be interpreted both as a strategy and the result of a humanization of the dog as a pet with close relations to humans. It suggests that a type of new animism is active and present in the Swedish society.

No description available.

Thesis (MA (Philosophy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / The Philosophy of Poverty and the Ethics of Ubuntu The question posed in this article is if and how the ethics of ubuntu could play a role in poverty eradication in a capitalist economic system. I address this question by investigating a specific poverty eradication project proposal called Pela Nambu, aimed at utilising the principle of participation that exists in the “second economy”, combined with the instruments of wealth creation of the “first economy”. After describing and expanding the Pela Nambu approach, I interrogate some of its main assumptions, and find that the ethics of ubuntu does not really have a chance to be mainstreamed as the philosophy of poverty has to reckon with the fact that the multinational corporation is the dominant institution of our time. For Pela Nambu to succeed, “first economy” participation will need to be in the form of partnerships and not charity. The present Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility performance of companies is not encouraging. Yet, the new Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment codes and the increased marketability of differentiated products does offer an opportunity that initiatives like Pela Nambu could fruitfully explore. From hauntology to a new animism? Nature and culture in Heinz Kimmerle’s intercultural philosophy Derrida has proposed a new spectrology in an attempt to deal with the ghost of Marx. Kimmerle shows that Marx has forgotten nature, and enquires about Derrida’s forgetting Marx’s forgetting. With specific reference to African culture he asks whether a new animism should not be explored within the framework of a new spectrology. Derrida uses the concept animism, but not in terms of the being of things in and of themselves, which could positively be thought as animated. Kimmerle proposes a way in which Western philosophy could be opened to African philosophy in order to understand the problem of animated nature more adequately. African philosophy has a concept of the universe of spiritual forces, in which nature and its powers are completely integrated. This paper explores these issues in dialogue with a number of African philosophers, while linking them to certain contestations within environmental philosophy and ethics, especially Murray Bookchin’s critique of spirit-talk in Deep Ecology. Kimmerle’s work on the relationship between Africa and Hegel sets the scene for an elaboration of his re-evaluation of animism which is compared to the ground-breaking hypothesis of Bird-David. A relational epistemology is understood in ethical terms, and it is implied that such an epistemology would be more adequate for a new humanism that would be new in going beyond the western tradition, and in the process gain a more inclusive concept of ‘person’ and ‘community’. The community and the individual in Western and African thought: Implications for knowledge production The tension between the group and the individual is a pervasive condition of humanity that is resolved differently in Western and African knowledge systems. The polarity of “I think therefore I am” versus “I am because we are” does not do justice to the role of the individual in African knowledge systems, and recent attempts in Western philosophy to ormulate a “philosophy of we”. A contextual philosophy of knowledge production is concerned about the we as the carrier of traditions. It is a philosophy of the in-between cultures and knowledge systems that is engaged in dialogues aimed at the formulation of universals. Intercultural (or contextual) philosophy becomes the ‘contemporary idiom’ within which to express ‘the cluster of humanist principles which underlie the traditional African society’ (Nkrumah).

<p>The dissertation The Life of the World: The Vitality and Personhood of Non-Animal Nature in the Hebrew Bible addresses personalistic portrayals of non-animal nature (rocks, plants, soil, etc.) in the Hebrew Bible. Examples of personalistic nature texts include the obligation of the land to rest in Leviticus 25 and 26, the ground swallowing Korah in Numbers 16, the mourning of the land in the Prophets, and creation’s speech in Psalm 19. The primary theoretical framework is anthropological research on animist traditions, which is used to interrogate Western categories of personhood, relationality, and nature. Of particular importance is the work of Graham Harvey, Philippe Descola, Eduardo Viviero de Castro, Nurit Bird-David, and Timonthy Ingold. Based on parallels between biblical texts and animist traditions, it is argued that biblical writers perceived non-animal nature as alive; these texts do more than simply anthropomorphize nature. The dissertation traces the activity of non-animal nature through the three parts of the Jewish canon – Torah, Prophets, and Writings – and supports the argument by means of close reading. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, interactions between humans and non-animal nature are social and require respect and attention. The Israelite writers inhabit a world full of persons, only some of whom are human, and these other-than-human persons must be taken into account in agriculture, warfare, worship, and ethics.</p> / Dissertation

O propósito deste estudo foi investigar o uso de termos personificadores por professores de química do ensino médio, dando ênfase ao tipo de uso - consciente ou inconsciente, à ocorrência de cada tipo - animismo e antropomorfismo (literal, metafórico e teleológico), aos motivos e contextos que acarretariam no seu uso e às concepções dos professores em relação à sua influência no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. O trabalho está estruturado em duas partes: na primeira, foram analisadas quinze encomendas de simulações computacionais elaboradas por um total de trinta e seis professores participantes do projeto LabVirt da Escola do Futuro da USP. Na segunda parte do trabalho, os termos personificadores detectados nas encomendas dessas simulações serviram de subsídio para a elaboração de um conjunto de tarefas e entrevistas (estruturada e semi-estruturada) que foram utilizadas para a análise de outro grupo de seis professores. A partir dos dados desta pesquisa, pode-se dizer que o uso de termos personificadores é uma prática comum dos professores investigados, embora isso ocorra de forma inconsciente. Esse uso aparece indistintamente entre professores com diferentes perfis acadêmicos e experiência docente. A recorrência ao uso desses termos está relacionada à abstração do conceito químico trabalhado em sala por estes professores. Eles consideram, ainda, que o uso desses termos auxilia no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de seus alunos. O antropomorfismo metafórico é o tipo mais freqüentemente utilizado. Além disso, os termos personificadores mostraram-se eficientes instrumentos de análise para inferir sobre os possíveis modelos mentais dos professores em relação a alguns conceitos químicos. Tais modelos foram revelados por meio do uso desses termos pelos professores, utilizados em seus respectivos modelos expressos. Tais resultados revelam que o uso inconsciente desses termos impossibilita uma autonomia do professor no que se refere ao controle da influência da linguagem sobre o processo de ensino-aprendizagem. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of personifying terms by high school chemistry teachers, giving emphasis to the type of use - conscious or unconscious, to the occurrence of each type - animism and anthropomorphism (literal, metaphoric and teleological), to the reasons and contexts which entail their use and to teachers\' conceptions related to their influence on teaching and learning. The project is structured in two parts: in the first, fifteen scripts for learning objects elaborated by a group of teachers (a total of thirty six teachers) who participated in the LabVirt project from \"Escola do Futuro - USP\" were analyzed. In the second part, the personifying terms detected on these scripts were used to elaborate a set of tasks and interviews (structured and semi-structured) which were used to analyze another group of six teachers. From these results, was possible to admit that the use of personifying terms is a common practice among these investigated teachers, although it happens unconsciously. This practice appears indistinctively between teachers with different academic profiles and experience. The recurrence of these terms is related to the abstraction of the concept studied. Behind, these teachers consider that the use of these terms helps in the teaching learning process. The metaphoric anthropomorphism is the most frequent term used. Besides that, the personifying terms were efficient analysis instruments to infer about the possible mental models of the teachers. These models were revealed by the use of the personifying terms in their respective expressed models. These results point to the fact that the unconscious use of the personifying terms impedes the autonomy of the teacher in terms of the influence of language about the teaching learning process.

Este trabalho se propõe como um breve tratado sobre as relações entre os discursos vigentes da arte contemporânea e o pensamento mágico ocidental. No cruzamento entre o ensaio poético, a antropologia da arte, a estética e a bruxaria, desenha-se um círculo no qual se desenvolve a pesquisa sob o signo da \"besta\" acadêmica: a interdisciplinaridade. A partir disso, estudam-se uma série de projetos curatoriais recentes que lidam com magia, ocultismo, xamanismo ou animismo, prestando atenção aos preconceitos que se manifestam em alguns desses discursos curatoriais. Entretece-se esta reflexão com referências históricas que servem de marco explicativo para a queda em desgraça do pensamento mágico ocidental e, junto com ele, do status da imaginação e da imagem como formas de conhecimento. Uma vez definida a situação em que ficou esta tradição depois de sucessivas campanhas de desprestígio, introduzem- -se uma série de figuras que serviram depois à construção de uma nova (mas talvez sobretudo velha) teoria mágico-estética. Seguindo a esteira de pensadores contemporâneos ligados ao realismo especulativo e à ontologia objetual, o trabalho se reconecta com uma esquecida tradição mágico-estética (ocidental) não isenta de uma dimensão mítica e animista (ou vitalista, se se prefere). Faz-se questão de colocar a \"palavra do artista\" no mesmo nível que a \"palavra do filósofo\", mas evitando converter os artistas citados em objeto de pesquisa. O trabalho defende que existam - apesar dos séculos em que a elite intelectual ocidental vem predicando contra a possibilidade de uma ontologia mágico-estética - indíviduos e coletivos que desenvolvem sua atividade à margem dos preconceitos dicotômicos que hoje alguns pensadores acadêmicos de vanguarda se empenham, não sem dificuldades, em transcender. Nesse sentido, o trabalho argumenta que muitos artistas eram já materialistas vibrantes e realistas especulativos antes da valorização, em voga hoje, dessas correntes filosóficas. / This work intends to be a brief treatise on the relations between contemporary art and western magical thinking. At the crossroads between poetic essay, anthropology of art, aesthetics and witchcraft, a circle is drawn under the sign of the academic \"beast\": interdisciplinarity. From this point of departure, we study a series of recent curatorial projects that deal with magic, occultism, shamanism or animism, paying close attention to the prejudices that surface in some of these curatorial discourses. This reflection is intertwined with historical references that serve as an explanatory framework for the fall of western magical thinking and, along with it, the loss of status of both imagination and image as respected sources of knowledge. After having defined the state of neglect this (magical) tradition was left in after successive smear campaigns, we introduce a series of figures that will serve to construct a new (but perhaps rather ancient) magical-aesthetic theory. Following the trail of contemporary thinkers linked to speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, the work reconnects with a forgotten magical-aesthetic (western) tradition with a mythical and animistic (or vitalist, if you prefer) dimension. We also emphasize the importance of put-ting the \"artist\'s word\" on the same level as the \"philosopher\'s word\", whilst at the same time carefully avoiding to turn the cited artists into an object of study. We claim that - in spite of the centuries in which the Western intellectual elite has been preaching against the possibility of a magical-aesthetic ontology - there are individuals and groups that are active in the margins of the dichotomous prejudices that today some avant-garde academic thinkers are trying to transcend with much difficulty. In this sense, the work argues that many artists were already vibrant materialists and speculative realists much before the new on-to-materialistic philosophical currents which are very much in vogue nowadays.

O propósito deste estudo foi investigar o uso de termos personificadores por professores de química do ensino médio, dando ênfase ao tipo de uso - consciente ou inconsciente, à ocorrência de cada tipo - animismo e antropomorfismo (literal, metafórico e teleológico), aos motivos e contextos que acarretariam no seu uso e às concepções dos professores em relação à sua influência no processo de ensino-aprendizagem. O trabalho está estruturado em duas partes: na primeira, foram analisadas quinze encomendas de simulações computacionais elaboradas por um total de trinta e seis professores participantes do projeto LabVirt da Escola do Futuro da USP. Na segunda parte do trabalho, os termos personificadores detectados nas encomendas dessas simulações serviram de subsídio para a elaboração de um conjunto de tarefas e entrevistas (estruturada e semi-estruturada) que foram utilizadas para a análise de outro grupo de seis professores. A partir dos dados desta pesquisa, pode-se dizer que o uso de termos personificadores é uma prática comum dos professores investigados, embora isso ocorra de forma inconsciente. Esse uso aparece indistintamente entre professores com diferentes perfis acadêmicos e experiência docente. A recorrência ao uso desses termos está relacionada à abstração do conceito químico trabalhado em sala por estes professores. Eles consideram, ainda, que o uso desses termos auxilia no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de seus alunos. O antropomorfismo metafórico é o tipo mais freqüentemente utilizado. Além disso, os termos personificadores mostraram-se eficientes instrumentos de análise para inferir sobre os possíveis modelos mentais dos professores em relação a alguns conceitos químicos. Tais modelos foram revelados por meio do uso desses termos pelos professores, utilizados em seus respectivos modelos expressos. Tais resultados revelam que o uso inconsciente desses termos impossibilita uma autonomia do professor no que se refere ao controle da influência da linguagem sobre o processo de ensino-aprendizagem. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of personifying terms by high school chemistry teachers, giving emphasis to the type of use - conscious or unconscious, to the occurrence of each type - animism and anthropomorphism (literal, metaphoric and teleological), to the reasons and contexts which entail their use and to teachers\' conceptions related to their influence on teaching and learning. The project is structured in two parts: in the first, fifteen scripts for learning objects elaborated by a group of teachers (a total of thirty six teachers) who participated in the LabVirt project from \"Escola do Futuro - USP\" were analyzed. In the second part, the personifying terms detected on these scripts were used to elaborate a set of tasks and interviews (structured and semi-structured) which were used to analyze another group of six teachers. From these results, was possible to admit that the use of personifying terms is a common practice among these investigated teachers, although it happens unconsciously. This practice appears indistinctively between teachers with different academic profiles and experience. The recurrence of these terms is related to the abstraction of the concept studied. Behind, these teachers consider that the use of these terms helps in the teaching learning process. The metaphoric anthropomorphism is the most frequent term used. Besides that, the personifying terms were efficient analysis instruments to infer about the possible mental models of the teachers. These models were revealed by the use of the personifying terms in their respective expressed models. These results point to the fact that the unconscious use of the personifying terms impedes the autonomy of the teacher in terms of the influence of language about the teaching learning process.

Este trabalho se propõe como um breve tratado sobre as relações entre os discursos vigentes da arte contemporânea e o pensamento mágico ocidental. No cruzamento entre o ensaio poético, a antropologia da arte, a estética e a bruxaria, desenha-se um círculo no qual se desenvolve a pesquisa sob o signo da \"besta\" acadêmica: a interdisciplinaridade. A partir disso, estudam-se uma série de projetos curatoriais recentes que lidam com magia, ocultismo, xamanismo ou animismo, prestando atenção aos preconceitos que se manifestam em alguns desses discursos curatoriais. Entretece-se esta reflexão com referências históricas que servem de marco explicativo para a queda em desgraça do pensamento mágico ocidental e, junto com ele, do status da imaginação e da imagem como formas de conhecimento. Uma vez definida a situação em que ficou esta tradição depois de sucessivas campanhas de desprestígio, introduzem- -se uma série de figuras que serviram depois à construção de uma nova (mas talvez sobretudo velha) teoria mágico-estética. Seguindo a esteira de pensadores contemporâneos ligados ao realismo especulativo e à ontologia objetual, o trabalho se reconecta com uma esquecida tradição mágico-estética (ocidental) não isenta de uma dimensão mítica e animista (ou vitalista, se se prefere). Faz-se questão de colocar a \"palavra do artista\" no mesmo nível que a \"palavra do filósofo\", mas evitando converter os artistas citados em objeto de pesquisa. O trabalho defende que existam - apesar dos séculos em que a elite intelectual ocidental vem predicando contra a possibilidade de uma ontologia mágico-estética - indíviduos e coletivos que desenvolvem sua atividade à margem dos preconceitos dicotômicos que hoje alguns pensadores acadêmicos de vanguarda se empenham, não sem dificuldades, em transcender. Nesse sentido, o trabalho argumenta que muitos artistas eram já materialistas vibrantes e realistas especulativos antes da valorização, em voga hoje, dessas correntes filosóficas. / This work intends to be a brief treatise on the relations between contemporary art and western magical thinking. At the crossroads between poetic essay, anthropology of art, aesthetics and witchcraft, a circle is drawn under the sign of the academic \"beast\": interdisciplinarity. From this point of departure, we study a series of recent curatorial projects that deal with magic, occultism, shamanism or animism, paying close attention to the prejudices that surface in some of these curatorial discourses. This reflection is intertwined with historical references that serve as an explanatory framework for the fall of western magical thinking and, along with it, the loss of status of both imagination and image as respected sources of knowledge. After having defined the state of neglect this (magical) tradition was left in after successive smear campaigns, we introduce a series of figures that will serve to construct a new (but perhaps rather ancient) magical-aesthetic theory. Following the trail of contemporary thinkers linked to speculative realism and object-oriented ontology, the work reconnects with a forgotten magical-aesthetic (western) tradition with a mythical and animistic (or vitalist, if you prefer) dimension. We also emphasize the importance of put-ting the \"artist\'s word\" on the same level as the \"philosopher\'s word\", whilst at the same time carefully avoiding to turn the cited artists into an object of study. We claim that - in spite of the centuries in which the Western intellectual elite has been preaching against the possibility of a magical-aesthetic ontology - there are individuals and groups that are active in the margins of the dichotomous prejudices that today some avant-garde academic thinkers are trying to transcend with much difficulty. In this sense, the work argues that many artists were already vibrant materialists and speculative realists much before the new on-to-materialistic philosophical currents which are very much in vogue nowadays.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity International University, 2000. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 358-360).

Thesis (D. Miss.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1990. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 383-403).