Роджер Смит | статьи

НАУКА | 17 января 2009 | Роджер Смит |

Исследования

Being human

What, however, makes a person a person and not some other thing, like a planet, an animal, a computer or an angel? In order to ask such questions, we need a general heading, general terms, and this is where the words ‘being human’ become useful. To think about the topic ‘being human’ puts, from the beginning, a question mark against any claim that people are, really , this or that. It leaves open for study what humans from different populations or sexes share and in what ways they differ. It encourages us to think that a central aspect of being human is to ask what being human means – to reflect on our own nature. (A number of people have thought that it is this capacity for reflection, mediated by symbol systems and making it possible to change, which makes us different from other things in the material world.) By contrast, if we said that our topic is ‘human nature’, this would presuppose, insofar as we live in a secular scientific age, that the ‘real’ basis of being human is biological. A project on ‘being human’, as opposed to a project on ‘human nature’, allows us to examine the relation between biological forms of knowledge and other forms of knowledge about people. Дарем,  being human,  Enlightenment,  post-colonial studies,  stupidity,  designer drugs

НАУКА | 1 июля 2009 | Роджер Смит |

Исследования

Human nature and reflexivity

When Darwin argued for human evolution in his book The Descent of Man (1871), he prsented a list of things other writers had claimed divide human beings from animals. This list included reason, a moral sense or conscience, language, the use of tools and fire, the possession of property, religious feelings and feelings for wonder and beauty. Darwin, of course, agreed that human beings are not completely like other animals – after all, we know a person when we see one! But his argument was that we are not completely different either: we are different in degree but not in kind. He therefore provided examples of the way animals and birds show reason, live in social groups and therefore exhibit morality, communicate with signs, show curiosity and so on. Whatever humans do, he wrote, animals also do, if in very much more elementary ways. He described, for example, the Australian bower-bird, which get its name from the fact that it decorates its nest, to show that birds perceive beauty. Darwin,  evolution,  reflexivity,  R.G.Collingwood,  Михаил Эпштейн

ИСКУССТВО | 10 ноября 2010 | Роджер Смит |

Театр и танец

Камни, небо, пляска

 Восстановленный греческий амфитеатр, чей полукруг разорван руинами стен раннехристианской часовни. Каменистый пол подметен и покрыт серым ковром, слишком жестким для нежных ступней. Синее небо, чуть тронутое высокими облаками, темнеет, и к вечеру на нем проступают звезды. Силуэты кипарисов в теплом воздухе. Пестрая толпа зрителей, местных и приехавших сюда на отдых, усаживается на каменные ступени амфитеатра. На проскении появляются молодые женщины – босоногие и легконогие, нежные и сильные... Гептахор,  "Терпсихора в Тавриде",  Херсонес,  Аида Айламазьян,  Мария Ганешина