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U ovom radu bavim se konceptualnim odnosom prirode i kulture u lamarkizmu, darvinizmu, sociobiologiji, neodarvinizmu i teoriji razvojnih sistema. Cilj rada je da ukažem na koji način sociobiologija odstupa od onoga što je o ovom odnosu postulirano u neodarvinizmu. Naime, zahvaljujući Avgustu Vajzmanu i njegovoj teoriji jakog nasleđivanja i Alfredu Kreberu i njegovoj tezi o kulturnom determinizmu, neodarvinizam, za razliku od redukcionizma socibiologije, polazi od jake konceptualne separacije prirode i kulture u kojoj su priroda i kultura dva odvojena uzročna faktora jednako važna za objašnjenje ljudskog ponašanja i ljudske društvenosti. Na kraju, bavim se kritikom Tima Ingolda koja je usmerena prema ovoj oštroj konceptualnoj separaciji i koja dolazi iz pozicije onih koji u evolucionoj biologiji zastupaju teoriju razvojnih sistema., In this paper, I deal with the conceptual relationship between nature and culture in Lamarckism, Darwinism, sociobiology, neo-Darwinism, and developmental systems theory. The aim of the paper is to show how sociobiology deviates from what is postulated about this relationship in neo-Darwinism. Namely, thanks to August Weismann’s theory of hard inheritance and Alfred Kroeber’s cultural determinism, neo-Darwinism, unlike the reductionism of sociobiology, starts from a strong conceptual separation of nature and culture in which nature and culture are two separate causal factors equally important for explaining human behavior and human sociability. Finally, I deal with Tim Ingold’s critique of this sharp conceptual separation, which comes from the position of developmental systems theorists in evolutionary biology.

van der Vossen argues that political activism (i.e., “being a member of a political party, campaigning during elections” etc.) biases philosophers’ thinking, making them worse at seeking the truth. Consequently, he states that the ideal of a socially engaged philosopher introduced by Plato and Marx should be replaced by an ideal of a philosopher as a disinterested seeker of the truth. For this reason, he holds that universities should resemble ivory towers more than they do now. I understand van der Vossen’s argument as follows: if philosophy aims to produce knowledge that benefits society (as the proponents of the ideal of a socially engaged philosopher assume, and it is warranted to suppose that van der Vossen grants this assumption), philosophy should produce unbiased knowledge. Further, if philosophy aims to produce unbiased knowledge, philosophers should be disinterested in their exploration of the truth, and not politically active (for the reason mentioned); thus, hidden in their ivory towers. Against van der Vossen, I first argue that socially beneficial knowledge does not require disinterestedness and unbiasedness (these are, after all, not human traits) but the ability to distance oneself from one’s biases so one can revise them in face of criticism. Consequently, although I admit that political activism can strengthen one’s biases, I argue that it does not follow that politically active philosophers are more likely to produce biased philosophy than those who are not interested in politics. Finally, I claim that a socially engaged philosopher does not need to be a political activist at all. A socially engaged philosopher is one who produces answers to questions that matter to society. However, to get to know what these questions are, a socially engaged philosopher must climb down the ivory tower and engage with the social context of her research but without the need to engage in political activism.

Although participant observation is considered to be the hallmark of cultural anthropology, the epistemic value of this method has not been sufficiently spelled out. One of the most important and influential descriptions of participant observation is given by Clifford Geertz who argues that the epistemic value of participant observation is in interpreting human actions and recovering their meaning, and thus, enabling “thick descriptions”. How does participation contribute to the production of valid interpretation? I argue that doing participant observation involves taking a position from which one can observe the “micro-context” of action. This type of observation and the consequent knowledge acquired enables producing reliable interpretations. However, this production also relies on mind-reading, that is, the psychological capacity to ascribe mental states to others. I argue that first participant observation enables to better “mind-read” the members of the community studied, and second, recruiting mind-reading in participant observation enables the ethnographer to recover the meaning of human actions in terms of their mental causes. Subsequently, I argue that the epistemic value of participant observation is in producing interpretations of human actions that can be integrated into causal explanations of cultural phenomena. I conclude that participant observation is compatible with naturalism in the social sciences.

Mentalna oboljenja predstavljaju problematiku savremenog društva u porastu. Shizofrenija i depresija kao jedni od predstavnika mnogobrojnih mentalnih poremećaja mogu izazvati indirektno dodatna oralna oboljenja. Na zdravlje usta i zuba mentalni poremećaji utiču dvojako. Usled osnovne bolesti dolazi do izmena ponašanja. Smanjenjem volje i brige za opšte oralno zdravlje dovodi do loših zdravstvenih navika pacijenata, a posebno izraženo kod hospitalizovanih bolesnika. Osebe sa mentalnim poremećajima jesu grupa pacijenata rizika za oboljenja usta i zuba, nastalih kao posledica osnovne bolesti ili uticaja lekova koji se primenjuju u terapiji. Oralno zdravlje je rezultat opšte zdravstvenog stanja, štetnih navika i načina u ishrani. Istraživanja su pokazala da ova populacija, u odnosu na opštu, ima više izvađenih, karijesom zahvaćenih i manje plombiranih zuba. Kod ovih bolesnika utvrđene su česta pojava suvoće u ustima, naslage na jeziku, žarenje i peckanje, poremećaj čula ukusa. Antipsihotična terapija koja se primenjuje u lečenju takođe nepovoljno utiče na oralno zdravlje. Ovi pacijenti su uglavnom na dugotrajnoj terapiji a samim tim se povećava stepen oštećenja oralnog zdravlja. Akcenat u lečenju oralnih oboljenja odnosi se na profilaksu kao meru kojom se utiče na pobuđivanje svesti i preuzimanje odgovornosti pojedinca za sopstveno zdravlje. Osobe sa mentalnim poremećajima nemaju zadovoljavajući odnos u odnosu na oralno zdravlje. Razlog tome leži u strahu od intervencije, nedovoljnim materijalnim sredstvima, nepostojanju osiguranja za stomatološke usluge, ali i nedovoljnom broju stomatologa i lekara opšte prakse koji treba da pruže znanje i veštine pacijentima.