Full Description
Individuals often view "culture" as activities beyond their interests, associating the concept with exclusivity or high art. To be cultured is often synonymous with engaging in physical expressions of art, like opera, a classical music concert, a museum exhibit or a theater performance. While culture does indeed extend to all these things, it is the internal processes of memory, language, imagination and thought that frequently have more significance than any real-world activity. Culture is day-to-day life, ideas, identity and perception.
This book investigates the ways in which thought and belief have inspired collective human endeavors and traditions. It brings the act of thinking into focus, outlining its effect on civic development while exploring the history of cultural epistemology. Spanning time periods and geographic regions, chapters derive new meaning from the connections between thought, belief, tradition and the cultures they create. They explore how active thinking leads to group identity and document the multigenerational ideas and attitudes that have strengthened cultural memory.
Contents
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction to Thinking and Culture
One. Thinking About Culture
Ways of Thinking, Feeling and Acting
Inescapable Community Stories
Two. Creativity as Cultural Expression
Symbols Disclose a Characteristic of Truth
Three. Culture as the Spirit of Humanity
Ideologies of Particular Importance
Four. In Search of Cultural Reality
A Timely Existence
Five. Truth Is More Than a Way of Thinking
Expressions as Truth and Untruth
Six. Ways of Cultural Recollection
Recollection as Social Orientation
Seven. The Critical Nature of Culture
The Universality of Ethics Thinking
Eight. Knowledge and Cultural Thinking
Understanding, Logic and Expression
Nine. Cultural Spaces and Social Inclusion
Sustaining Cultural Ways
Ten. The Idea of Cultural Identity
The Perceived Transformation
Lost Identity
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
