I argue that an evolutionary adaptation for bodily mimesis, the volitional use of the body as a representational devise, is the “small difference” that gave rise to unique and yet pre-linguistic features of humanity such as imitation, pedagogy, intentional communication and the possibility of a cumulative, representational culture. Furthermore, it is this that made the evolution of language possible. In support for the thesis that speech evolved atop bodily mimesis and a transitional multimodal protolanguage, I review evidence for the extensive (...) presence of sound-symbolism in modern languages, for its psychological reality in adults, and for its contribution to language acquisition in children. On a meta-level, the argument is that dividing human cognitive-semiotic evolution into a sequence of stages is crucial for resolving classical dichotomies concerning human nature and language, which are both natural and cultural, both continuous with and discontinuous from those of animals. (shrink)

Roman Ingarden was a prominent Polish philosopher, phenomenologist, and student of Edmund Husserl. A characteristic feature of his works was the almost complete absence of analyzes from the history of philosophy. That is why it is so surprising that right after the end of World War II, the first text analyzed when Ingarden started working at the Jagiellonian University was Aristotle’s “Poetics.” Ingarden published the results of his research in Polish in 1948 in “Kwartalnik Filozoficzny” and in the early 1960s (...) his essay was translated and published in the renowned American magazine “The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism” as “A Marginal Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics.” As far as I know today, this text does not arouse much interest among the many commentators and followers of Ingarden’s philosophy. Perhaps this state of affairs is justified: Ingarden’s own ideas are only repeated here, and their usefulness in the meaning of “Poetics” remains far from obvious. However, I think that this relative obscurity is worth considering now, because it shows how modern reason tries to control ancient concepts. The main purpose of this article is therefore to recon- struct the strategy by which philosophy tames the text of “Poetics,” especially its concepts such as catharsis and mimesis. The discovery and presentation of these treatments would not have been possible were it not for the mimetic theory of René Girad, which provides anthropological foundations for a critique of philosophical discourse. (shrink)

This article explores three aspects of interpretation—musical interpretation of notated Western art music, hermeneutics, and poetry —based on ongoing music education research focusing on the learning of musical interpretation within the one-to-one context of higher music education. The broad philosophic poetic inquiry of interpretation has the form of an autoethnodrama containing both haiku and found poetry. Poetry is both used as a process of inquiry and as a means of representation. The autoethnodrama explores the author’s struggle with finding his cogito (...) for conducting arts-based research and touches upon his personal history. Through the combination of autoethnodrama and a philosophic poetic inquiry, he finds a deeper understanding of musical interpretation, usage of poetry and autoethnodrama in research, as well as of his personhood. Concluding reflections on one possible way of interpreting the autoethnodrama in relation to teaching and learning of musical interpretation within higher music education are also presented. (shrink)

Pastaraisiais metais vis daugiau metaforos tyrimų tampa taikomaisiais, t.y. susiję su realaus gyvenimo sritimis. Politinio, ekonominio, sveikatos, švietimo, meno diskursų metaforos yra plačiai analizuojamos kognityvistų. Šis tyrimas tęsia metaforos studijas realiame diskurse ir analizuoja metaforą sporto diskurse, tiksliau tariant, Europos krepšinio čempionato tiesioginių transliacijų komentaruose. Buvo sudarytas 46 559 žodžių tekstynas ir metaforiniai pasakymai buvo analizuojami pasitelkus programinę AntConc įrangą. Tyrimas rodo, kad krepšinio diskurse vyrauja konceptualioji konflikto metafora. Pastebėta, kad nustatyti metaforiniai pasakymai paklūsta tam tikram scenarijui: kova, puolimas, gynyba, (...) pergalė/pralaimėjimas, kariaujantys žmonės, ginklai, jėgos panaudojimas, agresija, grėsmė. Nors dauguma metaforinių pasakymų yra konvencionalūs ir suprantami kaip krepšinio terminai, matoma aiški krepšinio ir karo terminų koreliacija, kuri veikia žiūrovų pasąmonę. Itin dažnas konflikto metaforos vartojimas yra susijęs su bandymu paveikti žiūrovų emocijas, arba pagal Aristotelį pathos. Vartodamas šią metaforą, komentatorius siekia sudominti žiūrovus ir įtraukti juos į žaidimą. (shrink)