A FORMAL CONCEPT OF CULTURE IN THE CLASSIFICATION OF ALFRED L. KROEBER AND CLYDE KLUCKHOHN

The objective of this article is to analyse definitions of culture gathered by Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn and published in Culture. A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions in 1952. This article emphasizes a possibility of re-analysing the material collected by these researchers (Kroeber–Kluckhohn Culture Classification, hereinafter referred to as KKCC). The article shows that the KKCC material constitutes a coherent conceptual and theoretical paradigm. This paradigm was subject to contextual, frequential and conceptual (Formal Conceptual Analysis, hereinafter referred to as FCA) analyses. The obtained research results enabled the author to develop a formal concept of culture of KKCC, which could be used as a model for further analysis. The final conclusions are as follows: (1) the notion of "culture" is definable only within the frameworks of a conceptually coherent paradigm; (2) determination of a paradigm requires material repository (resp. text corpus); (3) contextual and frequential analyses enable one to index that kind of repository in order to determine general categories which will be used to develop a formal concept; (4) the formal concept of culture of KKCC constitutes the framework of all possible theoretical analyses concerning the meaning of the notion of "culture" in anthropology; (5) KKCC constitutes a representation of one theory of culture

Mechanical Properties and Fatigue of Polycrystalline Silicon under Static and High Frequency Cyclic Loading

10 and 20µm thick n-doped, epitaxially deposited, Bosch polysilicon layers of columnar structure were investigated. In order to characterize the fracture strength and fatigue,specimens with different sizes and geometries were designed and tested under static and high frequency cycling loading. Fractographic analysis has given an insight into fracture mechanism and helped to identify typical fracture modes and defects types

Against Memetics

Article is a critical analysis of theoretical foundations of memetics from the perspective of 2010. In my study, I mainly discuss assumptions adopted by Polish memeticians (papers published mostly in the magazine „Teksty z Ulicy. Zeszyty memetyczne”). The article concerns “biological foundations” of memetics adopted by the researchers, which causes a transfer of the biology’s conceptual paradigm exactly to the field of memetics, since a) the research methodology of memetics has been based on achievements of virology (sic!); whereas, b) memetics itself has been called a scientific theory and; therefore, c) the subject of memetics has been determined and that is the evolution of culture. What is more, the article discusses the issue of so-called qualia. Joining the theory of memesreplicators with qualia is risky; nevertheless, it is not completely unjustified; especially, as memeticians attribute features of qualia to memes. Finally, the deliberations on memes and memetics are directed towards semiotics assuming the understanding of a group of memes as a code of a specific semantic deposit SD, which forms ℝ relation in a specific knowledge representation RW

Military Anthropology - Specialisation Frame

This article presents the research problems addressed in military anthropology. The central research hypothesis is a theoretical-cognitive problem concerning the object of cognition of military anthropology. In this sense, the two main understandings of military anthropology, American and Russian, are shown. Military anthropology develops an interest in culture as an area of struggle, competition, and combat. The article consists of three parts. The first part explains the theoretical issues and the historical development of military anthropology. The second part presents the Russian tradition in the development of that discipline. The third part presents the Polish tradition in which military anthropology is an auxiliary science of security sciences