Philosophical and Sociological Foundations of Human Nature
Cultural Diversity and Tolerance
Cultural diversity encompasses many different cultures, each with its own languages, customs, and myths. When studying different cultures, two extreme views must be avoided: ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
Ethnocentrism vs. Cultural Relativism
- Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures using one’s own cultural criteria. Ethnocentrism can hide racist attitudes, which occurs when cultural differences are equated with biological differences.
- Cultural Relativism: The view
Paradigmatic Foundations of Social Work Intervention
Paradigm in Everyday Use: Constructing and Interpreting Reality
A paradigm defines how knowledge constructs and interprets the world, influencing the mental map that builds and modifies the course of life. This map is primarily influenced by experience, education, and information that shape our understanding of reality.
The Scientific Paradigm (Kuhn’s Approach)
A paradigm is defined as a set of rules that permit operating with knowledge, allowing us to explain what is real. These rules determine how
Read MoreCritical Thinking: Media, Philosophy, and Logical Fallacies
Media, Philosophy, and Logical Fallacies
Media Influence and Truth
- Media Selection and Priority
- The media selects what they report, imposing a priority based on spectacularism, the impact of information, images, and emotive, economic, and ideological interests.
- Decontextualization
- Decontextualized and rapidly presented news can cause the viewer to not understand what they see.
- Informational Silence
- Many events that do not meet the criteria for informational interest are not considered news. This is informational
Nietzsche’s Philosophical Critiques: Reason, Morality, and the Two Worlds
Friedrich Nietzsche: Key Philosophical Critiques
The Critique of Platonism: The True and Apparent Worlds
Nietzsche critiques the philosophy of Platonism. This theory states that reality is divided into two worlds: one “true” and one “apparent” (appearances). This Western philosophy maintains a metaphysical optimism toward existence, denying its tragic aspects and taking refuge in an illusory world, namely, the world of ideas. According to Nietzsche, this is a major error, as it values the “true”
Read MoreKarl Marx’s Historical Materialism: Dialectics and Social Change
Historical Materialism: Key Concepts
Marxist philosophy is Dialectical Materialism. It is materialism because it posits that the only existing reality is matter. It is dialectical because matter is not static but is always changing, governed by universal laws that apply to nature, society, and thought.
The Universal Laws of Dialectics
According to Marx, there are three universal laws:
- Law of the unity and struggle of opposites
- Law of the transformation of quantity into quality
- Law of the negation of negation
Historical
Read MoreThe Physics of Focus: Attention, Entropy, and Consciousness
The Physics of Attention
Attention is the most valuable resource we have, though it is weightless, invisible, and unmeasurable by any instrument. Like energy, it cannot be created from nothing; it must be drawn from somewhere. Every choice to focus on one thing is a quiet act of neglect toward everything else.
Modern life has made this trade-off more violent than ever. We live inside an ecosystem designed to fracture concentration into packets of dopamine. Notifications, feeds, and algorithms are
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