Commentary on: “Agency, time, and causality”

Frontiers in Psychology

Guido Peeters¹ 

关键词: agency;    causality;    culture;    cognition;    language;    personhood;    cross-cultural comparison;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00329

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Cross-cultural comparison of subjective concepts requires a common denominator serving as a basis of comparison. For instance color concepts have been compared across cultures by asking informants to divide the optical spectrum into named colors. Unfortunately similar elegant physical parameters are not always available. A case in point may be the cross-cultural comparison of conceptions of causality discussed recently in Frontiers by Widlok (2014). A current approach has contrasted “Western” concepts with non-Western “religious” and “magical” concepts. Widlok has questioned this approach and, relying on an exploration of relevant ethnographic observations, he has proposed an alternative approach of causal cognition involving two parameters: (a) the temporal dimension of sequence, and (b) the concept of agency.

【 授权许可】

CC BY