The current study investigates the infiltration of code-switches into Jordanian social settings. It is also to examine Jordanians' attitudes toward the spread of code-switches in different social settings, the rationale behind the spread of code-switches, the role of media, types of code-switches and linguistic dominance. To illustrate the existence of this phenomenon, a corpus consisting of more than two hundred code-switches has been built up. Most importantly, to measure Jordanians' attitudes toward the phenomenon, more than three hundred questionnaires have been delivered in Amman city.

The paper adopts philosophical research methodologies of conceptual clarification, critical analysis, and extensive argumentation. It attempts to jointly employ African metaphysical and epistemological grounds to address the problem of finding appropriate justification for reparations for Africa on the issue of past slavery and slave trade. The paper states that the crux of the problem is how to formulate a coherent theoretical framework, which provides a strong connection between the direct victims of slavery and slave trade and their descendants in Africa, on the basis of which the latter could justifiably claim for restitutive justice against the wrong done to the former. Western traditional accounts usually define reparations such that the concept only intelligibly applies to moral relations among contemporaries, not between the departed and the living. This reasoning, therefore, forecloses any moral relations between the departed and the living, making it morally unjustifiable for the latter to claim for restitutive justice on behalf of the former. However, this study re-thinks the concept of reparations, using two core areas of African philosophy. African metaphysics recognizes that an experiential being is ontologically connected to the other, that is, any other experiential being and spirits, inclusive of ancestors. This relationship also invariably closes the epistemological gap between the experiential and non-experiential worlds, making them a unity within African cosmology. Situated within the present study, the foregoing shows that the living could justifiably claim for restitutive justice on behalf of the departed, the direct victims of slavery and slave trade.

According to the French philosopher Alain, art must regain its existence as a real and solid object to counteract deceitful imagination. In line with this view is Yves Michaud’s description of the “gaseous” state of contemporary art. Paradoxically, the wide circulation of many ‘artistic’ products, destined to be consumed and invoke emotions, does not indicate that we are in presence of an important affirmation of ethical and aesthetical values. As it were, the proliferation of aesthetic objects has destroyed the symbolic value of art. The Italian philosopher Gianni Carchia has underlined how the disappearance of the axiological dimension has led art towards imposture and under the yoke of imagination, which both assist the strategies of the demonic. At this point a question arises: is it possible to eradicate the power of the demonic and evil from our existential condition? According to Jung it’s impossible. In Castelli’s view, the union between art, evil and the demonic has characterized the artistic panorama of the sixteenth century. In the twentieth-century, we owe to Hermann Broch – who brought the raising power of kitsch under philosophical scrutiny − the idea of a complicity between degraded art and evil. Not all scholars agreed that Kitsch represented evil. Many philosophers argued that the growing popularity of Kitsch among the masses posed a problem concerning the demand for art. For this reason, philosophical speculation had better not take a Manichean attitude and reject Kitsch outright, on the contrary, Kitsch should be studied with the aim of transforming the “hunger for art”, of which it is a manifestation, into a desire for ethical and artistic values.

Ecological crisis is one of the major worries at 21st century. The ecological damages already caused are severe, and many species including human beings are facing serious challenge to survive. The cross-cultural worldviews could be a promising approach to solve this global problem. Every culture reflects some core values but we need to recognize and consider them. A comparison between cultures shed more lights since in this way we can learn and rectify our own values. The relation between self and nature is pre-historical, exists before the civilization begins. However, new knowledge and technology interrupted this relation throughout the history and as a result catastrophic events increased. This paper analyzes self-nature relation in the Western and Eastern cultural traditions. It argues that the common cultural value ‘identification’ can be demonstrated to build up a harmonious co-existence with nature.

The main idea of this paper is that memories are the key elements of our identity and in order to access these elements it is sometimes necessary to use different techniques. Music is one of them and the education of the mind represents a safe direction to define and our cultural identity regardless the various social pressures.

The article provides a summary of the analysis of the associations between Schwartz’s basic human values and religiosity in Romania, using the data of thefourth wave of the European Social Survey (ESS). Previous cross-cultural research has suggested that religiosity is positively and significantly associated withconservativeness and self-transcendence. On the other hand, negative associations were reported between religiosity and openness to change, while the association between religiosity and self-enhancement was less consistent. Our results succeeded in only marginally confirming these results in the case of Romania. Based on our data, religiosity is positively and significantly, but not extremely strongly, associated with conservativeness and self-transcendence; while the correlations between religiosity and openness to change, as well as between religiosity and self-enhancement values, although negative, are not statistically significant. These results suggest that, contrary to the findings of the mainstream literature, religious Romanians, while more conservative than their less religious counterparts, are not less concerned with values of self-gratification than the less religious respondents. These findings can be explained, probably, through the transition process, during which there occurs not only a macro-social departure from traditionalism to modernism, but also a transition in the individuals’ value priorities, which produces a nearly hazardous association between religiosity and values of self-gratification. Other possible reasons might be due to religious hypocrisy or to methodological bias associated with self-reported data.

Regarded from a different perspective, the same values appear somewhat reversed. This phenomenon was explained by the authors who, following OswaldSpengler, associated culture with space more strongly by resorting to the terminology of optics and, also, by analogies with certain optical phenomena. This essay goes on the same path. The reversed image of the values regarded through a certain “Lebensgefühl” represents an iconostrophia of the spirit.

This article discusses attempts of Russian philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g. Vladimir Solovyev, Vladimir Ern, Nikolay Berdyaev) to suggest thegenre of “philosophical biography” as a special kind of philosophical work. So, philosophical biography is treated as an understanding of life. The most important features of philosophical biography in Russian thinkers’ interpretation are as follows: the focus on comprehension of life-drama, in which thoughts and senses act as personal events; the demand of spiritual affinity as a condition for understanding; and the creation of spiritual image as the main task of biography.

My aim in this paper is to discuss the topicality of Merton’s thesis with a twofold meaning: as an idea which has its own place in the sociology of science and as an idea which is currently in its area of research. Merton asserts that the development of science in 17th century England was aided by the Puritan ethic. This does not means that science was caused by Puritanism, but only that Puritanism provided major support for the scientific activity. Because secularization and integration were two complementary processes, the relationship between science and religion was not simple. I connect Merton’s thesis with Weber’s thesisabout Protestantism and capitalism and try to see it in the light of the cultural climate of its time. Finally, I argue that Merton offers a unified analysis of scienceas a social institution.

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding principle of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value.

The paper is challenged with the seeming contradiction resulting from the prevalent conception of the group mind and common good in African and Westerncultures or societies. Many African scholars have theorized about the communalistic nature of African communities which leads to the flourishing of group consciousness as opposed to individualistic attitudes. This is often discussed against the background of the liberalism of Western societies which tend to elevate individual consciousness and self-realization over that of the group. With this picture in mind, one would expect the common good to flourish in the former more than the latter. Present African socio-political conditions examined against similar scenarios in the West makes it glaringly obvious that the exact opposite is the case. Being that the group mind principle needed for the attainment of the common good seems absent in contemporary African states, the paper therefore recommends that a critical self-examination is needed by the African states in order to develop a genuinely African group consciousness for the attainment of the common good.

Part of the “Islamic literature” furore in Indonesia is the discourse of “Prophetic Literature,” founded by Abdul Hadi W.M. The background of “PropheticLiterature” is Sufism. Other ingredients that formulated “Prophetic Literature” are mysticism, “Javanese Sufism” and perennial philosophies concerned withspiritual experience and human effort to gain the love of God. The ambitious objective of “Prophetic Literature” is to form a healthy environment in society throughthe purification of the souls of the readers. It also aims to energize the spirit of the colonized people in the East through promoting good deeds and kindness whilst preventing corruption and wickedness. “Prophetic Literature” prioritized the human and re-positioned man as the Caliph of Allah. The fundamental and dominant theme of “Prophetic Literature” is monotheism. “Prophetic Literature” is not interested in any particular form, but it emphasizes traditional elements, such as the return to the “roots of local culture,” including “Javanese Sufism,” as it core sources. Similar to “Sufi literature,” the appearance of “Prophetic Literature” is shown through the use of symbols. Authors are measured by their ability to compose symbols, and to send hidden meanings in their works.

Many scholars in recent years have focused their efforts on revealing the connection of philosophy and authority. Basically, from Nietzsche onwards, philosophyhas witnessed ongoing efforts for “will to power” by some philosophers and of course this motivated many philosophers to take part in politics. Nonetheless, thismoot point engendered a serious risk and not only contrasted with the Socratic contributions, but also paved the way for the advent of a new way of making politics where philosophy and scientific prestige are being manipulated following certain interests. By comparing the US and Argentinian climates, this paper explores to what extent philosophy can and must remain independent of politics. Even though one might think of Heidegger as a clear example of this relationship, there are many other philosophers who were interested in politics and committed to political parties. One of the aspects that characterizes this new way of politics is the theatrification of reality, and philosophers are part of this process. To some extent, the prestige given to scholars for their contribution to society is being conferred to some privileged groups to gain more legitimacy, precisely in a world where the classical institutions are gradually declining.

Cross-cultural communication is about generating dialogical positions across cultural barriers. Communication is achieved when participants are able to construct meaning across varied sign systems. Oral communication makes use of a wide range of signs that contribute to make meaning, from eye contact to gestures and speech. In written/printed communication, together with the reproduction of visual images through painting, photography, etc., the most important resource is the textual format. Texts are grounded on a cognitive deictic basis and work alongside the cause-effect relationship that links events in human working memory. This relationship frequently posits a hierarchical dependency between the understanding of visual images, textuality and narrativity. Although texts are vehicles of contextualized information and cultural positions are often presented in a historiographical way, culture is not just about textuality; it is also about multimodality, that is, the use of symbolic forms that employ simultaneously several material-semiotic resources to create a kind of common framework of socially acceptable behaviours and customs which arise both from individual personal experiences and from shared cultural and ethical values. Signs areused to represent these values and, in turn, these representations affect their further emotional interiorization. This creates particular strong moments of remembrance and recollection in human memory. In addition, the production, distribution and reception of culture has always been dependent on changing material formats and technologies, from manuscripts to printed books, from mural painting to photography, and from architecture to virtual recreations on a computer screen. In recent years, the interest in intertextual and intermedial configurations is mostly due to the growth of hypermedia paradigms, and is reflected in the increasing number of disciplinary publications and conferences devoted to the topic. This paper shall explore the reasons behind a renewed interest in intertextual and intermedial manifestations in cross-cultural communication.

The aim of this article is the analysis of a new model of intercultural ethics. In this way I propose a “creative” and dynamic version of universalism, which canbe used as a model for the construction of a pluralistic and intercultural philosophical perspective.

This article questions the predominance of pragmatism and fixed points of reference in academic paradigms regarding culture and proposes a theory of autopoietic culture based on a theory of living forms developed by the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The central part of the theory of autopoietic culture is that culture, something originating with humanity and reflected upon by the same, is an autonomous and autonomic unity that is a network of processes and production of components that are continuously generated and “recursively participate through their interactions in the generation and realization of the network of process of production of components which produced them” (Maturana, 1999: 149, 153). This article briefly refers to the theories of Thomas Sebeok, Juri Lotman, Niklas Luhmann and Pierre Bourdieu, which have similar components to the theory of autopoietic culture. The article concludes that within autopoietic culture whatever we would consider describing as a cultural element is not as significant as the processes within which it is part in the construction of its own boundary of discernment; our description of the process is always conducted with other observers in a linguistic domain; our existence carries its own ontogeny and creates perturbations in the structure (elements) which we distinguish; and there are an unknown number of elements and processes continuing in time within the unity that define the unity and are beyond our ability to distinguish.

Ethno-pragmatics as device to understand the culturally Other is essential when we believe that there is a nexus of intimate relationships between languageand culture. The whole idea of ethno-pragmatics is to understand local life-worlds in the wake of celebrating particularism in inter-cultural communication. Ethnopragmatics basically appreciates language practices in terms that make sense to the people concerned, whether in terms of indigenous values, beliefs, attitudes, social categories or emotions, and so on. Understanding cultural keywords is pertinent in ethno-pragmatics. These living words provide the best key to a culture’s values and assumptions, and they are embedded in the cultural scripts of the society/community. With the above positioning, we suggested that ethno-pragmatics be the device for intercultural communication intelligence (ICQ). In this work we employed a cultural script quest in order to capture/understand the tapestry of Malay culture. Bahasa (“language”) is one of the main Malay cultural keywords. The Malays relate bahasa to various norms and beliefs that encompass their life-world. Bahasa is molecularly related to their emotions, sense-making and aesthetics. As an illustration, we provide ICQ-at-work with halus as a technique of utilizing bahasa for successful speech-acts. Specifically, we narrate on Malay “indirectness” as a way of having conversation with the culturally Other.

Based on the views of Hindus in Bali, the application of ornaments in the form of Balinese traditional symbols should follow the rules of the prevailing tradition.The symbols are created to show the cosmology and philosophy based on the teachings of Hinduism as indigenous in Bali and function as a means of a sacred ritual. But in reality the designers in Bali often exploit the symbols by “mutilating” and applying them to undue places, motivated by a desire to create a product or environment characterized by Balinese ethnicity. For example, Acintya relief, Karang Bhoma, Garuda Wisnu and others are applied as façade decorations for shops and banks, or they are created in the form of a statue to decorate crossroads, or used for decoration of the human body in the form of a tattoo and so forth. Seen from a semiotic approach, these actions can damage the structure of the meaning of symbols, because they bring about the interruption of the established relations of the signifier and signified and they form symbol fragments with unclear relations to meaning. Similarly, in today’s designs stamped with such decoration, they appear awkward and meaningless. From such behaviour, that practice creates styles such as pastiche, parody, kitsch, camp and so forth.

Connections of beauty to science, whereby scientific truth informs truth about art, is denied by a Humean-Kantian-positivist tradition. Its denial of even scientifictheories being known to be true proceeds pari passu with denying any known truth in the less rigorous sciences such as aesthetics that, for Aristotle, studiesbeauty’s cause. Related to causation is a modern problem of “knowing we know”: knowledge in science presupposes a causal principle whose truth is not known when expressed as a truth-functional conditional. But by conditionals that are modal, among other things, this and other knotty epistemological problems may be resolved – resulting axiologically in claims about art that may be as certifiably true as the truths in biology, psychology and medicine that inform those claims.

This article questions the universal value attributed to the idea of democracy within a global intercultural context. The point is: do “mature” Western democracies,with their history, their nature and their limits, meet the needs of intercultural ethics? A first factual finding shows that outside, at the frontiers of “mature” democracies, all possible openings to the exercise of democratic freedoms, to the protection of human rights, and to any hybrid form of relationship and dialogue are near to nothing. Not even within Western liberal democracies do egalitarian guarantees, which in any case are the heart and soul of the culture of democratic societies, manage to make room for the recognition of differences in equality and for truly dialogic practices. When they face up to the needs of a possible ethical culture, the principles that underpin contemporary democracies (one of them being universal equality) show an unpliability and an ambivalence often concealed up to now. Conversely, an a posteriori and artificially progressive pattern of the historical course of democracies has been constructed that has ended up “triumphing” and attaining the global, universal “success” of our days.