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2014 | 1 | 64-79

Article title

Prejudices: An Investigation Into Barriers of Humanity

Content

Title variants

Languages of publication

EN

Abstracts

EN
By bringing people closer together, the phenomenon of globalisation not only accentuates differences but also it reinforces the sense of identity and belonging. This paradoxical and dynamic picture puts us straight before the challenge as to how to accommodate differences in order to live peacefully together. The gulf between “us” and “them” become more and more visible. The perception we can have of “others” remains deeply shaped by the values and precepts we learn in our respective cultural and educational circles. Yet, because men are not mere cultural products, individual responsibility and rational deliberation play an important role in the ways we approach “others.” In this article, we investigate prejudices as a phenomenon that is in the heart of above-mentioned issues. After a brief investigation into the nature of a prejudice, the paper outlines two main philosophical positions that either rehabilitate prejudices (Hans-Georg Gadamer) or calls for their abandonment (Descartes). The author argues that, despite the good arguments to be found in both positions, the nature of prejudices—as “something not yet knowledge”—puts upon us a kind of “moral and epistemological obligation” to overcome them, in order to do justice to ourselves and to our fellowmen, and construct sustainable and peaceful societies.

Year

Issue

1

Pages

64-79

Physical description

Dates

published
2014-06-30

Contributors

  • International Academy of Philosophy, Im Schwibboga 7, FL-9487 Bendern, The Principality of Liechtenstein

References

  • Allport, Gordon W., The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1954.)
  • Bachelard, Gaston, La Formation de l’esprit scientifique (Paris: Librairie Vrin, 1999, first edition 1938).
  • Bilen, Osman, The Historicity of Understanding and the Problem of Relativism in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics (Washington D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2000).
  • Buttiglione, Rocco, Augusto del Noce. Biografia di un pensiero (Casale Monserrato: Piemme, 1991).
  • Dalai Lama, Botschaft des Friedens, put together by Maruschi Magyarosy (München: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1998).
  • Descartes, René, Discourse of The Method, ed. and trans. Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Thomas Geach (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1971).
  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975).
  • Gadamer, Hans-Georg, “The Universality of the Hermeneutic Problem,” in: Philosophical Hermeneutics, trans. and ed. David E. Linge (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 3-17.
  • Grondin, Jean, “Gadamer’s basic understanding of understanding,” in: Robert J. Dostal (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 37-51.
  • Gueye, Cheikh Mbacké, “Overcoming Prejudices as a Condition for Peace,” in: Cheikh Mbacke Gueye and Prince Nikolaus von und zu Liechtenstein (eds.), Peace and Intercultural Dialogue (Heidelberg: Winter Verlag, 2005), pp. 83-103.
  • Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).
  • Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (London: Hafner Publishing Co., 1968).
  • Moran, Dermot, Introduction to Phenomenology (London & New York: Routledge, 2000).
  • Nussbaum, Martha, Cohen Joshua (ed.) For Love of Country?, ed. Joshua Cohen (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2002).
  • Pfänder, Alexander, Crespo, Mariano (ed.), Logik, 4° edition, Vol. 10 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Carl Winter, 2000).
  • Plato, Meno, trans. W.R.M. Lamb (MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).
  • Polanowski, Janusz, A. and Mills, John, Ontology of a Prejudice (Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997).
  • Russell, Bertrand, The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, eds., Robert E. Egner, and Lester E. Denonn (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961).
  • Salomon, Robert, From Rationalism to Existentialism. The Existentialists and their Nineteenth-Century Backgrounds (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001).
  • Scarry, Elaine, “The Difficulty of Imagining Other Persons,” in: Eugene Weiner (ed.), The Handbook of Interethnic Coexistence (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1998), pp. 40-62.
  • von Hildebrand, Dietrich, What is Philosophy? (London: Routledge, 1991).
  • von Hildebrand, Dietrich, Memoiren und Aufsätze gegen den Nationalsozialismus 1933-1938. Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History, with Alice von Hildebrand and Rudolf Ebneth ed., Ernst Wenisch (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald Verlag, 1994).

Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.desklight-2bade50a-e384-42d3-97d6-143043c5c968
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