Social Contextualism Research Articles

Gramsci’s “Modern Prince” and the Contingencies of Political Struggle

Abstract The Gramscian proposition of the “modern Prince”, like most of the concepts elaborated by Gramsci in the Prison Notebooks, has always been open to interpretative controversy. These exegetical controversies stem from two main factors: the fragmentary nature of the prison writings and the method of work employed by Gramsci. The aim of this article is to apply the methodological perspective of “social contextualism” to the understanding of the Gramscian concept of the modern Prince. There is a threefold advantage in applying this methodology to the reading of Gramsci’s political theory: 1) it allows one to grasp the unitarity between theory and practice in Gramscian political elaboration, linking the militant Gramsci with the theoretical Gramsci (the pre-prison and prison writings); 2) it allows one to identify how the theory of the party present in the “Lyon Theses” was maintained and further developed in the Prison Notebooks; and, consequently, iii) it further allows one to identify the proposition of the modern Prince as the most advanced development of a theory of the party that had already been conceived by Gramsci in the period before his imprisonment.

Avner Baz's Ordinary Language Challenge to the Philosophical Method of Cases

Avner Baz argues that the philosophical method of cases presupposes a problematic view of language and linguistic competence, namely what he calls "the atomistic-compositional view". Combining key elements of social pragmatism and contextualism, Baz presents a view of language and linguistic competence, which he takes to be more sensitive to the open-endedness of human language. On this view, there are conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous" use of human words, conditions that Baz thinks are lacking in the context of the philosophical method of cases, and which make the question that philosophers are prone to ask in that context and the answers they give to that question to be pointless. However, in this paper, I argue as follows. First, Baz's conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous" use of human words are in tension with the open-endedness of human language and the use of human words. Second, it is not even clear that those conditions are really missing in the context of the philosophical method of cases. And third, even if we grant that those conditions are missing in that context, this does not licence his damning conclusion on the philosophical method of cases since we are not forced to embrace the view of language and linguistic competence on which that damning conclusion is plausible. This last move is secured by advancing and defending a skill or virtue-based view of language and linguistic competence inspired by the later work of Donald Davidson.

Pemikiran Gus Dur Tentang Pendidikan Islam Multikultural

This study aims to explore Gus Dur's views on multiculturalism and the concept of multicultural Islamic education. This research belongs to the category of library research, because the main data source comes from literature review. The collected data is then analyzed using content analysis techniques with a descriptive approach. Indonesia is a country that consists of various ethnic groups, races, ethnicities, religions, languages. This diversity is a uniqueness that characterizes the Indonesian nation, diversity is sunnatullah, but on one side of the diversity often lead to conflicts between groups that have differences from one another. Multiculturalism is an understanding that upholds the values ​​of tolerance between groups with differing views on ethnicity, religion, culture, race, ethnicity and gender, this understanding offers equality between groups, and further promotes human values, namely equal rights to life. One of the ways to provide multicultural understanding is through education. The results showed that Gus Dur's multiculturalism thinking included several aspects, namely, the indigenization of Islam who wanted to integrate Islam with local culture. Democracy and the enforcement of human rights is a logical consequence that is considered as one of the dimensions and an inseparable part of Islamic teachings, so that the commitment to uphold humanitarian values ​​is obligatory. Humanism and plurality are entirely based on a deep understanding of the teachings of Islam and NU's own scientific traditions. The characteristics of Gus Dur's multiculturalism thinking are highly anthropological theological that emphasizes social contextualism. And the results of Gus Dur's thoughts on the concept of Multicultural Islamic education include the idea of ​​Gus Dur in an effort to display the image of Islamic education into social life is a multicultural-based Islamic education. Gus Dur believes that multicultural Islamic education can be done with various approaches and strategies. The curriculum that must be achieved in multicultural-based Islamic education must contain the universalism of Islamic teachings, humanitarian principles, the purpose of education must be emphasized more on the affective and psychomotor aspects coupled with spiritual and humanism aspects. Application of multicultural Islamic education, so that students who study are students who have religious knowledge and have a strong general knowledge in a balanced way.

Building an integrative science for psychotherapy for the 21st century: Preface and introduction.

Psychotherapy is plagued with fragmentation of models, theories, and interventions. The future of psychotherapy requires an integrative framework rooted in the expanding science of psychology, neuroscience, and social contextualism. The papers in this special issue address these challenges for psychotherapy, ranging from explorations of the implications of epigenetics, evolutionary functional analysis, interpersonal neurobiology, the importance of social relationships as physiological regulators, through to the challenges of ethnic diversities and the growing digital technologies. PRACTITIONER POINTS: As therapists, we should be aware of the challenges posed by the proliferating 'schools of therapy' and consider commonalities rooted in a scientific understanding of the mind. The science of understanding the causes, alleviation, and prevention of mental health problems is increasingly multidimensional taking into consideration the interactions between biological, psychological and social processes and in the process dissolving the boundaries between different schools of psychotherapy.

Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from the poor.

Social class is shaped by an individual's material resources as well as perceptions of rank vis-à-vis others in society, and in this article, we examine how class influences behavior. Diminished resources and lower rank create contexts that constrain social outcomes for lower-class individuals and enhance contextualist tendencies--that is, a focus on external, uncontrollable social forces and other individuals who influence one's life outcomes. In contrast, abundant resources and elevated rank create contexts that enhance the personal freedoms of upper-class individuals and give rise to solipsistic social cognitive tendencies--that is, an individualistic focus on one's own internal states, goals, motivations, and emotions. Guided by this framework, we detail 9 hypotheses and relevant empirical evidence concerning how class-based contextualist and solipsistic tendencies shape the self, perceptions of the social environment, and relationships to other individuals. Novel predictions and implications for research in other socio-political contexts are considered.

A reply to Cling’s “The epistemic regress problem”

Andrew Cling presents a new version of the epistemic regress problem, and argues that intuitionist foundationalism, social contextualism, holistic coherentism, and infinitism fail to solve it. Cling’s discussion is quite instructive, and deserving of careful consideration. But, I argue, Cling’s discussion is not in all respects decisive. I argue that Cling’s dilemma argument against holistic coherentism fails.

Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy

Recent research suggests that lower-class individuals favor explanations of personal and political outcomes that are oriented to features of the external environment. We extended this work by testing the hypothesis that, as a result, individuals of a lower social class are more empathically accurate in judging the emotions of other people. In three studies, lower-class individuals (compared with upper-class individuals) received higher scores on a test of empathic accuracy (Study 1), judged the emotions of an interaction partner more accurately (Study 2), and made more accurate inferences about emotion from static images of muscle movements in the eyes (Study 3). Moreover, the association between social class and empathic accuracy was explained by the tendency for lower-class individuals to explain social events in terms of features of the external environment. The implications of class-based patterns in empathic accuracy for well-being and relationship outcomes are discussed.

Wittgenstein and Nonsense: Psychologism, Kantianism, and the Habitus

This paper is a critical examination of Wittgenstein's view of the limits of intelligibility. In it I criticize standard analytic readings of Wittgenstein as an advocate of transcendental or behaviourist theses in epistemology; and I propose an alternative interpretation of Wittgenstein's view as a social contextualism that transcends the false dichotomy between Kantianism and psychologism. I argue that this social contextualism is strikingly similar to the social account of epistemic practices developed by Pierre Bourdieu. Through a comparison between Wittgenstein's and Bourdieu's view and an analysis of the notion of habitus , I try to show how social contextualism can account for the distinction between sense and nonsense without falling into transcendental constructivism or social behaviourism.