CONTENTS - VOL. 18, NUMBER 2, December 2008
IDEALS OF A GOOD LIFE
EMIL VIŠŇOVSKÝ: Introductory:
Reflecting on a Good Life
RICHARD SHUSTERMAN: The Good Life, the
Examined Life, and the Embodied Life
ERICH MISTRÍK: Pseudo-concrete Ideals of a
Good Life
BLANKA ŠULAVÍKOVÁ: The Good Life and the
Ideal of Flexibility
ĽUBOSLAVA SEJČOVÁ: Body
Dissatisfaction
PETER TAVEL: Successful Ageing: A Survey of the Most Important Theories
CHUKWUGOZIE MADUKA: Funeral Orations as Indicators of What a Good Life Ought to
Be
ARTICLES
DAVID OHREEN: A Socio-Linguistic Approach to the
Development of Folk Psychology
JEFFREY SIMS: Seeking a Mnemonic Turn: Interior Reflections in Gadamer's
Post-Platonic Thought
ABSTRACTS
INTRODUCTORY: REFLECTING ON A GOOD LIFE
EMIL VIŠŇOVSKÝ
E-mail: E-mail: ksbkemvi@savba.sk
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0013-5
Pp. 133-138
THE GOOD LIFE, THE EXAMINED LIFE, AND THE
EMBODIED LIFE
RICHARD SHUSTERMAN
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0014-4
E-mail: shuster1@fau.edu
Abstract: The good life and the examined life
have long been advocated as key philosophical goals, and they have often been
closely linked together. My paper critically examines this linkage by
considering arguments both for and against the value of self-examination for
achieving the good life. Because somatic self-examination has been viewed as
especially problematic for the philosophical project of achieving the good life,
this form of self-examination will be given special attention in the paper, and
its discussion will be situated within the larger issue of the extent to which
the embodied life is central to the good life.
Key words: somatic self-examination; somatic
self-cultivation; embodied life; good life.
Pp. 139-150
PSEUDO-CONCRETE IDEALS OF A GOOD LIFE
ERICH MISTRÍK
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0015-3
E-mail: erich@erichmistrik.sk
Abstract: What has happened in the late and
concluding stages of postmodern culture is that concrete ideas of a good life
have been reduced to pseudo-concrete ideals. With the aid of simulacra, the
experience of everyday life is turning into a show, into narcissistic emptiness
and single bodily pleasures.
Keywords: postmodern culture; body; pleasure;
beauty.
Pp. 151-160
THE GOOD LIFE AND THE IDEAL OF FLEXIBILITY
BLANKA ŠULAVÍKOVÁ
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0016-2
E-mail: ksbkblan@savba.sk
Abstract: The author focuses on the issue of the
"good life" in relation to a strong ideal of flexibility that operates
in contemporary western culture. The era we live in may be called a "continuous
stream of innovations" and can be characterized by a fundamental
requirement "to adapt flexibly and cope with the new". The need for
such flexibility is mentally and physically demanding; the demands also mark the
approach to values, the ideas of the good life and the project of the paths in
life. Contemporary people in western civilization are exposed to the pressure of
modern culture that has caused problems in the past decades as a result of the
incompatibility of its fragmentary value systems. People today apply their
abilities in a never-ending whirl of activities and effort where there is no
more space available for becoming aware of and for perceiving the deeper meaning
of and formulating their specific ideal of the good life.
Keywords: good life; humanistic psychology;
authenticity; flexibility; integrity.
Pp. 161-170
BODY DISSATISFACTION
ĽUBOSLAVA SEJČOVÁ
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0017-1
E-mail: sejcova@fphil.uniba
Abstract. The author concentrates on the
preference of the values of "the cult of the body" increasingly
affecting the behaviour of young people and their position in the value system
relating to generally recognized values. Too much emphasis on physical beauty
and outward appearance significantly determines behaviour and can lead to a
reduction in values relating to the body and body shape but also to unhealthy
eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia nervosa. The focus is on the
pathological perception of the body, on how culture and cultural norms affect
body dissatisfaction. A research questionnaire on universal values and the cult
of the body (2006) was used. The research sample consisted of 508 respondents
aged between 18 and 26 (292 women and 216 men).
Keywords: cult of the body; body image; ideal of
slimness; anorexia; bulimia.
Pp. 171-182
SUCCESSFUL AGEING: A SURVEY OF THE MOST
IMPORTANT THEORIES
PETER TAVEL
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0018-0
E-mail: petertavel@seznam.cz
Abstract: The issues of good and successful
ageing are the subject of scientific research. Successful ageing is the attempt
to achieve a state of inner satisfaction and happiness in spite of the negative
effects associated with old age: loss, external and internal destabilization,
etc. Successful development in old age has many forms. It can generally be
defined as an attempt to achieve the greatest profit with the smallest loss. The
problem is establishing the universal criteria of successful ageing. It is
possible to restrict the study to the observation of individual factors which
are either objective or subjective, long-term or short-term, specific or
universal or static versus dynamic. The problem is creating a theory that will
explain all the processes and consequences of old age-none of the theories has
so far succeeded in doing this. Life satisfaction as a subjective criterion of
successful ageing has been most emphasized in two contradictory theories:
activity theory and disengagement theory. Other theories are: growth theories,
cognitive theories, dynamic theories, SOC model, cultural anthropological
theories, the interaction model of longevity, etc.
Keywords: old age; ageing; successful ageing;
theories of ageing; life satisfaction.
Pp. 183-196
FUNERAL ORATIONS AS INDICATORS OF WHAT A GOOD
LIFE OUGHT TO BE
CHUKWUGOZIE MADUKA
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0019-z
E-mail: chukwugoziemaduka@yahoo.ca
Abstract: The central aim of this study was to
uncover, based on funeral orations, what the Igbo of South-East Nigeria regard
as the good life. Over two hundred and fifty funeral orations/tributes were
investigated. These were classified into: tributes by spouses; by offspring; by
close family members; by friends, associates and organizations. The study
revealed that the notion of the good life among the Igbo was based on primary
duties and obligations at each of the four levels identified above and on
related secondary duties and obligations. The good life was measured by the
extent to which these duties and obligations were discharged and in the way
their performance manifested in the provision of social amenities, help to
educate members of the community and so on. What would ordinarily be regarded as
virtues were considered desirable only in so far as they helped people fulfill
their primary and secondary obligations, otherwise they were regarded as sterile
or "bottled" virtues.
Key words: funeral orations; tributes; close
family members; duties and obligations; libation.
Pp. 197-213
A SOCIO-LINGUISTIC APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT
OF FOLK PSYCHOLOGY
DAVID OHREEN
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0020-6
E-mail: david.ohreen@uleth.ca
Abstract: One of the most interesting issues
central to folk psychology is how it develops in humans. Over the past few
decades, two distinct theories have emerged known as the Theory-Theory and
Simulation Theory. Theory-theory supporters argue that children construct
theories to explain behavior, while simulation theorists extol the virtues of
empathy-putting yourself in another person's shoes. I argue that each position
falls short of an adequate account of how folk psychology develops. Instead,
explaining behavior is a matter of acquiring folk psychological concepts within
a culture and then learning how to deploy such terms with competence.
Keywords: folk psychology; language; child
development; simulation; theory-theory.
Pp. 214-224
SEEKING A MNEMONIC TURN: INTERIOR REFLECTIONS
IN GADAMER'S POST-PLATONIC THOUGHT
JEFFREY SIMS
DOI: 10.2478/v10023-008-0021-5
E-mail: j.sims@utoronto.ca
Abstract: This paper reflects on trajectories and
pathways for philosophical hermeneutics, now, after the death of its founder,
Hans-Georg Gadamer in 2002. More specifically, it challenges the notion that
Gadamer's thought is simply tied to the linguistic turn of the 20th century.
Instead, it considers the possibility that Gadamer's thinking makes for an
implicit declaration of its own kind, calling for a mnemonic turn in modern
philosophy and present day hermeneutics. Some reference will be made to both
rationalist and empiricist models of inquiry insofar as Gadamer attempts to take
philosophy beyond, for example, the Ur-grammar of Chomsky's linguistic theories,
and into a world of post-Platonic memory.
Keywords: memory; hermeneutics; science;
anamnesis; language.
Pp. 225-242
