1. Anthropology “Race & Ethnicity”
Post: Race and ethnicity are both social constructs. They are alike in that the concepts influence how the world sees and judges us and how we see ourselves. Race and ethnicity are similar in that both concepts have been and are used wrongly, sometimes lethally and always unjustifiably against people. In Firmins own words, inequality of the races rests on nothing more than the notion of mans exploitation by man. (Fluehr-Lobban, 13). The concept of race brought about and perpetuated the evils of slavery, that reverberate through the present, just as the concept of ethnicity brought about and perpetuated the atrocities of the Bosnian War and the Seige of Sarajevo. The social constructs of race and ethnicity are then alike in that they both can be weaponized to turn people against one another and to build immoral ideologies. Some people may find community or belonging through their racial or ethnic label(s) but to expect that people do, will and want to is an incorrect assumption.
One difference is that race is a label society gives us. We can choose whether or not we identify with the race label(s) we are assigned but it does not change the way the world sees us before they know us as individuals. Ethnicity is something we inherit, usually at first from our families or caregivers, but something that we can choose to keep or reject over the course of our lives. As written in the Perspectives chapter, ethnicity is a fluid, complex phenomenon that is highly variable. […] Ones sense of ethnicity can also fluctuate across time. (Brown et al., 220). Race and ethnicity are also different in that there is no biological basis for race, while ethnicity may encompass a biological component.
Resources
Brown, Nina, et al. Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition. American Anthropological Association, 2020, https://perspectives.pressbooks.com/. Accessed Feb. 16, 2022.
Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn. Antnor Firmin and Haitis contribution to anthropology. Gradhiva Revue d’anthropologie et dhistoire des arts, vol. 1, 2005. Muse du quai Branly Jacque Chirac. 1 May 2005.
2. Philosphy
Prompt: What does the nonbranching proposal say about split-brain patients? Are there two people present in the body? If so, is either identical with the person who occupied the body before the operation?
Post: Hello Everyone,
I hope everyone is doing well.
Moving to the discussion question -> Split brain experiment is a hypothetical situation of the brain transplant. It is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of, or interference with, the connection between the hemispheres of the brain.
The Nonbranching proposal says that two persons are identical only when the psychology is in the continuation and not branched off at the causal level. There will be only one person in the body because of the non-continuity of the causal psyche. It means that the brain acts like two counterparts in which both the hemisphere of the brain have different views or the response. On page 294 of chapter four, it states, “identical persons are those who are psychologically continuous with one another and whose casual chain has not branched.” According to the Nonbranching proposal, the survivor would be a third person, neither brain donor nor brain recipient.
Two people do not exist in the same body but the dual nature of the brain causes an impression as if two persons are existing at the same time in the same body form. This happens because of the overlapping of functioning and perceptions of two hemispheres of the brain.
One-half of the cerebrum, the part of the brain that controls muscle functions and also controls speech, thought, emotions, reading, writing, and learning. The right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body.
REFERENCES
Schick, Theodore, and Lewis Vaughn. 2010. Doing philosophy: an introduction through thought experiments. New York: McGraw-Hill.
NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms. National Cancer Institute, www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/cerebral-hemisphere.