Human Universals

The Foundation of Global Solidarity

by W Julian Korab-Karpowicz

A Discussion on the Universality of Assimilation and Accommodation

by Amanda Studebaker

Croft,W., Bhattacharya, T., Kleinschmidt, D., Smith, D. E., and Jaeger, T. F. 2011. Greenbergian universals, diachrony and statistical analyses. Linguistic Typology 15(2), 433-453.

by T. Florian Jaeger

Submitted for proofs. Feel free to cite, but pls quote only from final copy.

Dunn et al. (2011) use a dynamic model of word order correlations in four phylogenies (language families) to argue... more Dunn et al. (2011) use a dynamic model of word order correlations in four phylogenies (language families) to argue that Greenbergian word order correlations are lineage-specific rather than universal. Dunn et al.’s model represents an important advance for diachronic typology (specifically, the dynamicization of a synchronic typology). However, certain assumptions made by Dunn and colleagues in the application of the model pose serious issues in accepting the conclusions, notably the absence of any Type II error analysis to assess the rate of false negatives, the absence of contact effects and the nature of the phylogenies used. Nevertheless, typologists should welcome the model and encourage the development of a revised model with more linguistically plausible assumptions.

Tily, H. and Jaeger, T.F. 2011. Complementing quantitative typology with behavioral approaches: Evidence for typological universals. Linguistic Typology 15(2), 497-508.

by T. Florian Jaeger

Submitted for proofs. Feel free to cite, but pls quote only from final copy.

Dunn et al. (2011) employ computational phylogenetic methods to test whether certain pairs of languages features are... more Dunn et al. (2011) employ computational phylogenetic methods to test whether certain pairs of languages features are universally related in that they co-develop over time (Greenbergian implicational universals). They nd little evidence for universal word-order correlations, contrary to both generative and functional accounts of language. Other commentaries in this issue point to potential problems with the approach employed by Dunn and colleagues (e.g. Croft et al, this issue). Some of these are inherent to quantitative typology: in particular, sparsity of available data and uncertainty about language history. There are, however alternative methods for creating new data to test universal biases for certain word orders. Here we discuss two methods that we take to be of particular promise: Articial Language Learning, which has been used to study language acquisition, and Iterative Articial Language Learning, which extends the former method to the study of language change over generations. We discuss recent work within these two paradigms that suggests language learners exhibit universal biases that might cause universals like those discussed by Dunn et al. to emerge over time.

"Goethe's Analysis of Exodus 34 and Its Influence on Julius Wellhausen: The Pfropfung of the Documentary Hypothesis."

by Bernard M. Levinson

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 114 (2002) 212-223.

This article investigates the intellectual history of the argument for the antiquity of Ex 34,11–26. In the... more This article investigates the intellectual history of the argument for the antiquity of Ex 34,11–26. In the contemporary debate about pentateuchal theory, a question that remains insufficiently addressed is how and why the idea originally developed that the unit represents an ancient, independent, pre-Deuteronomic legal source. Wellhausen credited the idea to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s »Zwo bisher unerörterte biblische Fragen …« (1773). Like Goethe, Wellhausen regarded the unit as a »ritual Decalogue,« in contrast to the »ethical Decalogue« of Exodus 20. The distinction helped Wellhausen consolidate the classical model of the documentary hypothesis: he attributed the cultic Decalogue to the Yahwist and the ethical one to the Elohist. Despite the importance of Goethe’s essay to the history of pentateuchal criticism, it is not clear that its arguments have previously been investigated. The article addresses equally Goethe's construction of the Jew as "other" and as particularistic, in contrast to the German Protestant as "self" and universal. The article demonstrates that Goethe could not have read read Spinoza's Tractatus, despite the common belief otherwise.

Keywords:
Julius Wellhausen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Baruch Spinoza, Zwo bisher unerörterte biblische Fragen, Dekalog, Decalolgue, cultic Decalog, ethical Decalog, German Jewish history, Christian Jewish relations, Ten Commandments, history of biblical scholarship, Exod 34:11-26; German Romanticism

Pour une philosophie du droit universel

by Lorenzo Peña

Paper delivered to the
II symposium "Legal Reason": Legal globalization and cultural paradigms
CSIC, Madrid.
20 Abril 2007
This paper has been reshaped into a chapter of the book:
ESTUDIOS REPUBLICANOS: Contribución a la filosofía política y jurídica.
Madrid: Plaza y Valdés, 2009
ISBN 978-84-96780-53-8

There are two kinds od approaches to the philosophy of law: the a priori and the a posteriori views. A mixed approach... more There are two kinds od approaches to the philosophy of law: the a priori and the a posteriori views. A mixed approach allows us to propose a universalist view, which recognizes both an upward universality of a source system of law (ius gentium) and a downward one as a converging target for all human legal schemes, a legal globalization, which means the necessary setting-up of a universal law of Mankind.
KEYWORDS:
philosophy of law, a priori, a posteriori, legal universalism, ius gentium, universal law of Mankind, globalization.

"Mortal Knowledge, the Originary Moment, and the Emergence of the Sacred"

by Gregory Nixon

@ *Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology* XII (1), Summer 2006.

The question of origins continues to captivate human thought and sentiment, despite the postmodern insistence that... more The question of origins continues to captivate human thought and sentiment, despite the postmodern insistence that knowledge of origins is impossible since it must lie beyond the boundaries of the origin of knowledge. Knowledge cannot seek causes that precede its own existence, it is said. Still, theoretical narratives continue to arise accounting for such things as the origin of the universe, of our star and solar system, of Earth, of life on the planet, of the human species, of self-aware human cultures, and so on down into the origins of the local and particular. This should not be surprising; we sense that knowing our origins will tell us who we are.

Postmodern prohibitions certainly have had no effect on the empirical findings in such objective fields as paleoanthropology or paleoarcheology. The trouble here is that, though such objective fieldwork provides significant data, it is only in the interpretation of such data that an idea of early human experience can emerge. Interpretation inevitably brings in subjective factors and we necessarily find ourselves creating scenarios and looking inward into the contexts of the human heart to speculate on the prehistoric moment when imagination, conceptual thought, and abstract knowledge became possible. In other words, using the tools of our objective sciences, we createnarratives of origin that attempt to exceed their own limitations by blending the objective with the subjective. Generative anthropology embraces such subjectivity and tends not to avail itself of such empirical data. It is instead an outstanding example of what might be seen as a more literary or even intuitional approach.

The originary thinking demanded by generative anthropology is to some degree anathema to the harder sciences that ignore the human experience to seek progress in verifiable knowledge, centrifugally flying from origins even while explaining them away. The point of origin, however, remains the centripetal center of the present for the mythic mind, akin to the inspirations of poetry and the arts for us. However, when the mythic mind becomes the theoretic mind, according to the stages explained by Donald (1991), sacred awareness becomes self-isolated objectivity, much more efficient but entirely without a sense of revelation.