The Background of Social Reality pp 1-9 | Cite as
The Cultural Background of Acting Together
Abstract
When a baby is born today in San Francisco, the American nurses might advise the parents: “Always put a hat on your baby’s head. Babies give off heat through their head, so you must keep it from getting too cold.” Would this baby be born today in Switzerland, the Swiss nurses might offer the following advice to the parents: “Never put a hat on your baby’s head. Babies give off heat through their head and it is important that they don’t overheat.”
Keywords
Cultural Background Social Reality Joint Attention Constitutive Rule Social PhilosophyNotes
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Raimo Tuomela, senior editor, and, Ingrid van Laarhoven, editor in charge of the series at Springer, for encouraging our idea for this volume.
Most of the papers integrated in this volume were presented in some form or other at the inaugural conference of the European Network on Social Ontology (ENSO). This conference was conceived and organized by the editors and Trevor Wedman, University of Innsbruck, and held at the University of Konstanz in the fall of 2009. The conference was sponsored by the excellence cluster “Cultural Foundations of Integration” at the University of Konstanz. It was held in collaboration with Marcel Weber, Department of Philosophy, and with the participation of Bernhard Giesen, Department of Sociology. We thank Peter Ulber and Ursula Kobow for their help. We are very grateful for the work of Martin Zimmermann in preparation of the manuscript.