In the Olympic Art Competitions (1912–1948) Pierre de Coubertin expresses his conception of both sport and art as instruments of moral renewal. In this paper, this conception is criticised for failing to appreciate art and sport as necessary manifestations of modernism. The Art Competitions were informed by a traditionalist aesthetic, and thus played a highly conservative role within Olympism. A modernist art about sport, in contrast, would have been a source of critical reflection, potentially protecting the Olympic movement from corrupting (...) exploitation by commercial and nationalistic interests. The conclusion defends the need for Cultural Olympiads, as a source of such critical reflection, that are at once modernist in conception and yet, unlike their current expression, are centrally about sport. (shrink)

La Ruta de la Amistad surgió con motivo de la XIX Olimpiada en México. Siendo el corredor escultórico más largo del mundo, donde a lo largo de diescisiete kilómetros se ubicaron 19 esculturas monumentales de arte abstracto, marcó el punto de partida de un nuevo arte público, alejado de nacionalismos. Para que esta ruta se hiciera realidad implicó un arduo trabajo, desde su gestión hasta su construcción, que generalmente no es mencionado cuando se habla de ella. A más de cincuenta (...) años de su creación, sigue siendo muestra de lo mejor del arte mundial de la década de los sesenta. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Greek Athletics and the Olympics by Alan Beale, and: Thinking the Olympics: The Classical Tradition and the Modern Games ed. by Barbara Goff, Michael SimpsonJacques A. BrombergAlan Beale. Greek Athletics and the Olympics. Greece & Rome: Texts and Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. iv + 196 pp. Numerous color figs. Paper, $26.Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson, eds. Thinking the Olympics: The Classical Tradition and the Modern Games. (...) London: Bristol Classical Press, 2011. xi + 227 pp. 23 black-and-white figs. Paper, $40.The quadrennial cycle of modern Olympiads has always assured a steady interest in the history of ancient athletics, as participants of all kinds (athletes, officials, and spectators alike) are reminded of the Games’ debts to the ancient Greeks. With the proliferation of undergraduate courses in Classical athletics, sports, and festivals in recent years, however, a growing number of undergraduates are also getting their first glimpses of Greco-Roman antiquity through the stadium door and quickly discovering how different the modern Olympics are from the ancient. The persistent conservatism of the modern Olympics thus presents instructors of undergraduate surveys with the challenge of introducing the festival to an audience that has come to accept the modern as a continuation of the ancient. In two popular histories of the Olympics, for instance, both published in 2004, one may contrast Nigel Spivey’s (The Ancient Olympics [Oxford 2004]: xix) proposed “journey to the strangeness” of Olympia with David Young’s claim (A Brief History of the Olympic Games [Malden, Mass. 2004]: 140) that “our Olympic Games are not so much a revival of the ancient Greek games as a genuine continuation of them.” Although intended for different audiences, the titles under review share the goal of de-familiarizing the Olympics both by emphasizing differences between ancient and modern athletics and by illuminating how an idealized, ancient Greek model has been used to establish and perpetuate the modern Games.There is no shortage of sourcebooks and histories of ancient athletics: Steven G. Miller, Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources (Berkeley, Calif. 2004); Rachel Sargent Robinson, Sources for the History of Greek Athletics (Chicago, Ill. 1955); Waldo E. Sweet, Sport and Recreation in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook with Translations (Oxford 1987); and William Blake Tyrell, The Smell of Sweat: Greek Athletics, Olympics, and Culture (Wauconda, Ill. 2004), who includes on a companion CD a wider assortment of sources than any printed edition. In keeping with the goals of Cambridge’s Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts series, Alan Beale’s Greek Athletics and the Olympics offers a combination of texts and illustrations. One need only consider the nature of the evidence to understand [End Page 703] why this approach is not simply valuable, but obligatory: the literary sources are often fragmentary, belated, or anecdotal (or all three), and the material evidence requires detailed and careful exegesis. The challenge of the evidence is compounded by the instinct to read into the modern Olympics continuity rather than innovation. Beale sets out to overcome the “superficial similarities” and re-mystify ancient athletics as something “substantially different from anything in the modern world” (1). In his brief introductions to each source or object, Beale provides the cultural framework into which students may situate texts and images, and he offers questions (many contrasting ancient with modern) aimed at stirring curiosity and facilitating discussion.The opening chapters treat athletics in the Bronze Age and the Homeric epics (chap. 1), outline the ritual origins and growth of competitive athletics at Olympia (chap. 2), and trace the development of the sanctuary and the festival site (chap. 3). Beale is cautious with the examples of Minoan and Mycenaean art (9–12) and quotes generously from both the Iliad (13–19) and Odyssey (19–22), allowing room to observe discrepancies with later athletic practice. Like Robinson (34–35), he supplements Pausanias and Strabo on the first competitions at Olympia with a sample from Pindar, Olympian 10.24–77 (25–26), and instructors who wish to discuss this early history will not find better treatments of these passages elsewhere. Chapter 3 presents the site at Olympia and the administration of the festival, and Beale is to be commended for his... (shrink)

Prva Međunarodna filozofska olimpijada održana je 1993. godine u Bugarskoj na inicijativu Odjela za filozofiju Sveučilišta u Sofiji. Otad se neprekidno održava svake godine u mjesecu svibnju u jednoj od država sudionica. Olimpijada se održava pod patronatom najveće međunarodne asocijacije filozofskih društava FISP, uz suradnju s UNESCO-ovim Odjelom za humanističke znanosti, filozofiju i etiku znanosti i tehnologije. Osim same popularizacije filozofije, ciljevi IPO-a su poticanje na kritičko, radoznalo i kreativno mišljenje, promicanje filozofskog mišljenja u znanosti, umjetnosti i društvenom životu, promišljanje (...) o etičkim problemima u modernom svijetu te poticanje intelektualne razmjene među mladim ljudima iz različitih zemalja u svrhu promoviranja kulture mira. Odlukom Upravnog odbora Hrvatskoga filozofskog društva i u suradnji s Agencijom za školstvo, Republika Hrvatska na filozofskoj olimpijadi sudjeluje od 2007. godine. Olimpijada je potaknula niz nacionalnih natjecanja iz filozofije diljem svijeta. Ovo međunarodno natjecanje dobar je način za popularizaciju filozofije među srednjoškolskom populacijom.The first International Philosophy Olympiad was held in 1993 in Bulgaria. It was initiated by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. It is held annually in the month of May in one of the participating countries. The Olympiad is endorsed by the International Federation of Philosophical Societies , the largest international association of its kind, in collaboration with UNESCO. In addition to popularising philosophy, the aims of IPO are encouraging critical, inquisitive and creative thinking, promoting philosophical thinking in science, art and social life, reflecting on the ethical problems of today’s world, and encouraging intellectual exchanges amongst the young people of different countries with the purpose of promoting the culture of peace. The Republic of Croatia has been participating in IPO since 2007 . The Olympiad has inspired a whole series of national competitions in philosophy around the world. This international competition is an excellent way to popularise philosophy amongst high school students. (shrink)

Through the lens of the informational entropy-based notion of value, I attempt to provide explanations for the aspects of cultural additivity that I could not explain previously: the additivity limit and the drawbacks of cultural additivity.

Qu’est-ce donc que la musique des aliens ou pour les aliens? Des cinq notes de la mélodie de Rencontres du troisième type aux explorations sonores de Sun Ra ou des intelligents dansants de l’électro, elle n’est peut-être que l’expression la plus accomplie d’une tendance très humaine à projeter sur l’extraterrestre certains reflets plus ou moins déformés de soi, surjouant quelque insaisissable mystère, révélation ou écart incompressible venu de l’ailleurs pour retrouver finalement, tout là-bas, une bribe d’ici.

In this paper, I present an outline of the oppression account of cultural appropriation and argue that it offers the best explanation for the wrongfulness of the varied and complex cases of appropriation to which people often object. I then compare the oppression account with the intimacy account defended by C. Thi Nguyen and Matt Strohl. Though I believe that Nguyen and Strohl’s account offers important insight into an essential dimension of the cultural appropriation debate, I argue that (...) justified objections to cultural appropriation must ultimately be grounded in considerations of oppression as opposed to group intimacy. I present three primary objections to the intimacy account. First, I suggest that in its effort to explain expressive appropriation claims (those that purportedly lack an independent ground), the intimacy account doubles down on the boundary problem. Second, I question whether group intimacy possess the kind of bare normativity that Nguyen and Strohl claim for it. Finally, I argue that these objections give us reason to accept the importance of group intimacy to the cultural appropriation debate, but question the source of its significance as identified by Nguyen and Strohl. (shrink)

Is there something morally wrong with cultural appropriation in the arts? I argue that the little philosophical work on this topic has been overly dismissive of moral objections to cultural appropriation. Nevertheless, I argue that philosophers working on epistemic injustice have developed powerful conceptual tools that can aid in our understanding of objections that have been levied by other scholars and artists. I then consider the relationship between these objections and the harms of cultural essentialism. I argue (...) that focusing on the systematic nature of appropriative harms may allow us to sidestep the problem of essentialism, but not without cost. (shrink)

This article critically examines common criticisms of Saudi Arabia’s sports strategy, particularly its impact on professional football. Central to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is a significant investment in sports, demonstrated by hosting major international events and acquiring both domestic and foreign sports teams. Critics argue that this approach risks undermining football as a sport, and some claim that foreign players who join Saudi clubs engage in morally questionable behavior. This article challenges these critiques. While acknowledging the moral shortcomings of Saudi (...) Arabia’s political system, it contends that the prevailing criticisms about state-owned clubs ‘ruining’ football and the moral culpability of foreign players are flawed. A key conclusion is that the commercial interactions of foreign football players (e.g. Ronaldo) and multinational corporations (e.g. IKEA) with the Saudi regime must be assessed consistently. These interactions are either all morally permissible or all morally impermissible; there is no defensible middle ground for differing moral evaluations. (shrink)

Cultural evolution studies are characterized by the notion that culture evolves accordingly to broadly Darwinian principles. Yet how far the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution should be pushed is open to debate. Here, we examine a recent disagreement that concerns the extent to which cultural transmission should be considered a preservative mechanism allowing selection among different variants, or a transformative process in which individuals recreate variants each time they are transmitted. The latter is associated with the (...) notion of “cultural attraction”. This issue has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. We first clarify the respective positions, noting that there is in fact no substantive incompatibility between cultural attraction and standard cultural evolution approaches, beyond a difference in focus. Whether cultural transmission should be considered a preservative or reconstructive process is ultimately an empirical question, and we examine how both preservative and reconstructive cultural transmission has been studied in recent experimental research in cultural evolution. Finally, we discuss how the relative importance of preservative and reconstructive processes may depend on the granularity of analysis and the domain being studied. (shrink)

Carey's book on conceptual change and the accompanying argument that children's biology initially is organized in terms of naïve psychology has sparked a great detail of research and debate. This body of research on children's biology has, however, been almost exclusively been based on urban, majority culture children in the US or in other industrialized nations. The development of folkbiological knowledge may depend on cultural and experiential background. If this is the case, then urban majority culture children may prove (...) to be the exception rather than the rule, because plants and animals do not play a significant role in their everyday life. Urban majority culture children, rural majority culture children, and rural Native American children were given a property projection task based on Carey's original paradigm. Each group produced a unique profile of development. Only urban children showed evidence for early anthropocentrism, suggesting that the co-mingling of psychology and biology may be a product of an impoverished experience with nature. In comparison to urban majority culture children even the youngest rural children generalized in terms of biological affinity. In addition, all ages of Native American children and the older rural majority culture children gave clear evidence of ecological reasoning. These results show that both culture and expertise play a role in the development of folkbiological thought. (shrink)

"El libro tiene dos grandes temas: la identidad cultural, sobre la que se expresan opiniones balanceadas entre los extremos posibles, y la 'liberacion social', entendida en general como liberacion con respecto a estructuras opresivas. El itinerario de e.

한국사회는 다문화사회(Multi-cultural Society)가 형성되면서 새로운 사회적 갈등이 생겨났으며, 이러한 문제를 해결하기 위한 다양한 다문화 정책 등이 필요하다. 따라서 본 논문은 다문화사회에 진입한 한국사회의 다문화갈등을 해결하려는 중요한 방법의 하나가 다문화교육이라고 보고, 다문화교육의 여러 범위 가운데 하나의 문화적 소 통방법과 원리를 모색해 보고 그 의미를 찾아보는 데 그 목적이 있다. 미래의 다문화사회는 여러 가지 국제적 환경에 따라 더 복잡해지는데 이러한 상황에 대 비하는 새로운 다문화주의를 모색해야 하기 때문이다. 이 연구에서는 다문화를 이해하는 언어적 문화적 소통을 위한 새로운 방법을 위해 다음과 같이 구체적으로 (...) 살펴보았다. 먼저 제1장에서는 우리나라의 다문화의 양태와 추이를 분석하였다. 제2장에서는 우리나라 다문 화사회를 구성하고 있는 문제의 특성을 살펴보았다. 제3장에서는 간문화주의(inter-culturalism) 의 개요를 살펴보고, 이 간문화주의를 바탕으로 할 수 있는 문화소통의 방법을 다루었다. 이상의 연구를 통하여 미래 다문화 교육의 한 부분인 문화적 소통을 살펴본 내용은 한 국의 다문화주의의 발전과 연구에 다음 몇 가지 면에서 그 효용성을 찾을 수 있을 것이다. 먼저, 다문화주의의 새로운 이론 정립과 구체적 실천성을 높일 것이다. 다음으로 정부와 지방자치단체의 종합적이고 실질적인 실행 시스템의 확립에 도움을 줄 수 있을 것이다. 마 지막으로 문화적 소통을 위한 통합적 목표의 정립과 건강한 집단지성을 형성하는데 필요 한 가치로서 상생(相生)과 중용(中庸)의 의미를 되살려 볼 수 있을 것이다. 본 논문에서 언급한 문화적 소통의 방법은 우리의 전통적 가치와 문화를 창조적으로 더 발전시키는 하 나의 전환점이 될 수 있을 것이다. (shrink)

This research has purpose to take local woven or “Pahkahmah” which is a cultural product of the local woven of Nong Kao district in Kanchanaburi province of Thailand to develop for and applying with contemporary fashion design in order to increase its value. The process of creation in this research has 5 steps as 1. Create concept and inspiration 2. Design collections for the improved textiles 3. Create decoration technique for the improved textile and collections 4. Create the prototype (...) collections and products 5. Evaluate satisfactory for the prototype collection and products. The improved textiles were used in making 3 collections of fashion apparels and costume accessories in street fashion for present lifestyle. Knowledge to improved and develop local Pahkahmah woven textile and the idea from prototype collections and products from this research was relayed to makers of Pahkahmah woven textile in Nong Kao district, Kanchanaburi province. Evaluation for satisfactory to the creative idea and developed textile products by representatives of Pahkahmah woven textile maker community and consumers revealed average score 4.45 with standard deviation 0.27. Knowledge from this research become a guideline for sustainable development and innovative idea for increasing commercial value to the local Pahkahma woven products of Nong Kao district community. (shrink)

The traditional cultural and religious practices of the Yoruba people of Nigeria are closely intertwined. Together they are influencing the way Yoruba people practice their Christianity. In traditional Yoruba religion, women are its majority membership and sustaining force. Consequently, women play leadership roles in Yoruba religion, especially as concerns ritual. These positive roles for women have also been incorporated into Yoruba Christianity. Women are therefore involved in the re-imagining of Christianity and in transforming its patriarchal practices to make them (...) more female-friendly and inclusive. (shrink)

Cultural diversity is an inescapable reality and a concern in many businesses where it can often raise ethical questions and dilemmas. This paper aims to offer suggestions to certain problems facing managers in dealing with cultural diversity through the inspiration of Thomas Aquinas. Although he may be perceived as a voice from the distant past, we can still find in his writings helpful and original ideas and criteria. He welcomes cultural differences as a part of the perfection (...) of the universe. His systemic approach leads one to place the problem in its proper context, and to reflect on it from the perspective of virtue ethics, with a central role for practical wisdom and giving primacy to neighborly love and natural moral law. Rather than a set of rigid standards with no consideration of diversity Aquinas focuses on the common human ground, which allows for the indispensable dialogue between different positions. When dealing with practical questions, the problem is one of finding the right balance between general principle and cultural specifics, tolerance, and dialogue, always guided by practical wisdom. In this way, Aquinas’ approach is neither rigid ethical universalism with no consideration for diversity nor moral relativism with no place for any transcultural and absolute morals. (shrink)

This article explores a minor work by Adrian Rifkin, a work which focuses primarily on his research method of parataxis, but which this article reads for what it offers to a reconsideration of pedagogy, or ‘teaching and learning’. The article argues that Adrian Rifkin has long been a ‘Rancièrean’ within UK cultural studies, and that this history has yet to be fully assessed. The importance of Rifkin’s Rancièrean pedagogical and research methods is laid out by discussing his interventions in (...) the context of the growing (strangle)hold of prescriptive and reductive quasi-managerialist ‘teaching and learning’ protocols within academia. The article aspires to draw attention to this significant but under-acknowledged Rancièrean force within British cultural studies (avant la lettre), but not just for the sake of it: it does so in order to offer counter-arguments and counter-positions for anyone seeking to contest or resist the stultifying tendencies within educational practices. (shrink)

Critics of Darwinian cultural evolution frequently assert that whereas biological evolution is blind and undirected, cultural change is directed or guided by people who possess foresight, thereby invalidating any Darwinian analysis of culture. Here I show this argument to be erroneous and unsupported in several respects. First, critics commonly conflate human foresight with supernatural clairvoyance, resulting in the premature rejection of Darwinian cultural evolution on false logical grounds. Second, the presence of foresight is perfectly consistent with Darwinian (...) evolution, and is found in biology, in the form of open, teleonomic processes such as genetically-biased behavioural learning. Finally, empirical evidence from the social sciences suggests that cultural change appears far less guided and directed, and human foresight far less accurate, than is commonly assumed. (shrink)

Liberal political philosophy emphasizes the benefits of membership in a cultural group and, in the opinion of this challenging book, neglects its harmful, oppressive aspects. Andrew Kernohan argues that an oppressive culture perpetuates inegalitarian social meanings and false assumptions about who is entitled to what. Cultural pollution harms fundamental interests in self-respect and knowledge of the good and is diffuse, insidious, and unnoticed. This cultural pollution is analogous to environmental pollution, and though difficult to detect, is nonetheless (...) just as real. The book's conclusion is that a liberal state committed to the moral equality of persons must accept a strong role in reforming our cultural environment. (shrink)

In cross-cultural studies of well-being psychologists have shown ways in which well-being or its constituents are tailored by culture (Arrindell et. al. 1997, Diener and Diener 1995, Kitayama et. al. 2000, Oishi & Diener 2001, Oishi et. al. 1999). Some psychologists have taken the fact of cultural variance to imply that there is no universal notion of well-being (Ryan and Deci, 2001, Christopher 1999). Most philosophers, on the other hand, have assumed that there is a notion of well-being (...) that has universal application. Given the facts about cultural variance, is this a mistake? What are the implications for philosophers of the existence of cultural differences in well-being? In answer to these questions I distinguish two different philosophical projects in the area of well-being. One of these projects seeks to provide a formal analysis of well-being. I argue that this project is not undermined by the kinds of cultural differences that have been discovered and that, therefore, there might be a universal notion of well-being. The other project seeks to provide a substantive account of well-being. Cultural differences are relevant here, but not always as directly relevant as one might have assumed. The main goal of this paper, then, is to argue that the implications of cultural differences for the philosophical project are limited and to clear the ground for a universal notion of well-being. In service of this main goal, the paper takes on three subsidiary tasks. First, I clarify the basic question or questions that philosophers are trying to answer when they talk about well-being. Second, I provide a.. (shrink)