In recent years, the advancements made in the field of neuroscience have been echoed in criminal law, reigniting the discussion on culpability from the viewpoint of if it actually exists, considering the echoes of determinism on the re-found non-existence of free will. This discussion has triggered, once again, the issue of the boundaries and inter-relations between law and science, namely on whether normative or legal concepts and categories should acknowledge scientific breakthroughs. Bringing forth the theme of the limits of the (...) law, this discussion is able to provide insight, with reference to a specific problem, as to whether there are plausible legal answers in the context of the ascription of liability if the subject of law ceases to be a responsible—and thus free—person. Taking into consideration evolution both of science and criminal law dogmatic, we aim to argue that in the particular case of culpability, the desired autonomy of law has its limitations, and that without such limitations the ascription of liability would not have a correct answer. For this argument we will firstly approach the meaning of culpability as a milestone of subjective responsibility in criminal law, so that we can then analyse some arguments made regarding the impact of neuroscience on the maintenance of a concept of culpability with the meaning given above, so that lastly we can proceed to the rebuttal of the overarching impact of science on the law and advocate the autonomy of culpability within the necessary limits imposed by the needs of a plausible legal answer. (shrink)

Advances in the neurosciences have many implications for a collective understanding of what it means to be human, in particular, notions of the self, the concept of volition or agency, questions of individual responsibility, and the phenomenology of consciousness. As the ability to peer directly into the brain is scientifically honed, and conscious states can be correlated with patterns of neural processing, an easy—but premature—leap is to postulate a one-way, brain-based determinism. That leap is problematic, however, and emerging findings in (...) neuroscience can even be seen as compatible with some of the basic tenets of existentialism. Given the compelling authority of modern “science,” it is especially important to question how the findings of neuroscience are framed, and how the articulation of research results challenge or change individuals’ perceptions of themselves. Context plays an essential role in the emergence of human identity and in the sculpting of the human brain; for example, even a lack of stimuli (“nothing”) can lead to substantial consequences for brain, behavior, and experience. Conversely, advances in understanding the brain might contribute to more precise definitions of what it means to be human, including definitions of appropriate social and moral behavior. Put another way, the issue is not simply the ethics involved in framing neurotechnology, but also the incorporation of neuroscientific findings into a richer understanding of human ethical (and existential) functioning. (shrink)

Charles Peirce provided a few, but interesting we believe, remarks about metaphor. Aristotle on the other hand developed a theory of metaphor that, to this day has been, and still is, influential (even though his theory, especially within recent years, also has been heavily criticized, e.g., by Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press). Factor, Lance R. 1996. Peirce’s definition of metaphor and its consequences. In Vincent Colapietro & Thomas Olshewsky (eds.), Peirce’s doctrine (...) of signs: Theory, applications, and connections, 229–235. Berlin/new York: Mouton De Gruyter, as one of very few scholars, makes a comparison between Peirce and Aristotle. Factor claims that Peirce’s definition of metaphor and its consequences undermine and overturn Aristotle’s theory. We do not believe that Factor is right; and this is due to Factor’s misinterpretation of key elements within Aristotle’s theory. We rather believe that Peirce and Aristotle, in fact, have central ideas in common concerning metaphor; perhaps, in particular, when it comes to the function of metaphor. Hence, both see, for example, metaphor as a cognitive mechanism. The article tries to develop this argument. (shrink)

The Mahāyāna Buddhist term dhāraṇī has been understood to be problematic since the mid-nineteenth century, when it was often translated as “magical phrase” or “magical formula” and was considered to be emblematic of tantric Buddhism. The situation improved in contributions by Bernhard, Lamotte and Braarvig, and the latter two suggested the translation be “memory,” but this remained difficult in many environments. This paper argues that dhāraṇī is a function term denoting “codes/coding,” so that the category dhāraṇī is polysemic and context-sensitive. (...) After reviewing Western scholarship, the article discusses dhāraṇī semantic values and issues of synonymy, the early applications of mantras, the sonic/graphic background of coding in India extended into Buddhist applications, and the soteriological ideology of dhāraṇīs along with some of its many varieties. (shrink)

Signs in the early stages of research (e.g. pathways, thoughts/ideas, and structured feedback) form a web that we call the semiotic web of the research proposal. This web is based on the unlimited semiosis of signs, the semiotic square of education, and the semiotic web of law. We start weaving this web by formulating a raw thought and a number of research ideas. Βy travelling various pathways, we develop patterns of thinking which in turn lead to several potential research proposals, (...) one of which will become the chosen research proposal. We use the concept “semiotics of education” as our theoretical base for a heuristic tool, the semiotic web of the research proposal, to explore an aspect of educational research methodologies. Recognizing that overcoming habitual dualisms is a distinguishing feature of the semiotics of education, we open up the discussion about the extent to which the research proposal should be an integral part of the main supervision process and explore some of the possibilities surrounding this goal. The study highlights the evidence arising from a lifelong distance-learning programme in research proposal development and provides illustrative examples of the way in which educational principles have been translated into practice in a Greek university. This article is based on our presentation “The semiotic web of the research proposal” delivered at the conference Semiosis in Communication – Knowing and Learning, Bucharest, June 16–18, 2016. (shrink)

The article reviews Italian semiotician and philosopher Umberto Eco’s vision of semiotics as a discipline, the aim of which is to study the ‘whole of culture’. It focuses especially on Eco’s trajectory out of structuralism and on the development of a cognitive semantics based on strong pragmatist principles, that inform his notion of interpretability as the key process of semiosis and on the encyclopedia as the format more apt to describe the cultural space. After a consideration of the interface between (...) the cognitive, the pragmatic and the cultural dimensions of semiosis, the article highlights a few open problems in contemporary, culturally-oriented sociological theory that could benefit from a deeper engagement with these concepts. (shrink)

This paper suggests that it is largely a want of notional distinctions which fosters the “explanatory gap” that has beset the study of consciousness since T. Nagel’s revival of the topic. Modifying Ned Block’s controversial claim that we should countenance a “phenomenal-consciousness” which exists in its own right, we argue that there is a way to recuperate the intuitions he appeals to without engaging in an onerous reification of the facet in question. By renewing with the full type/token/tone trichotomy developed (...) by C. S. Peirce, we think the distinctness Block calls attention to can be seen as stemming not from any separate module lurking within the mind, but rather from our ability to prescind qualities from occurrences. (shrink)

It is often thought that consciousness has a qualitative dimension that cannot be tracked by science. Recently, however, some philosophers have argued that this worry stems not from an elusive feature of the mind, but from the special nature of the concepts used to describe conscious states. Marc Champagne draws on the neglected branch of philosophy of signs or semiotics to develop a new take on this strategy. The term “semiotics” was introduced by John Locke in the modern period – (...) its etymology is ancient Greek, and its theoretical underpinnings are medieval. Charles Sanders Peirce made major advances in semiotics, so he can act as a pipeline for these forgotten ideas. Most philosophers know Peirce as the founder of American pragmatism, but few know that he also coined the term “qualia,” which is meant to capture the intrinsic feel of an experience. Since pragmatic verification and qualia are now seen as conflicting commitments, Champagne endeavors to understand how Peirce could (or thought he could) have it both ways. The key, he suggests, is to understand how humans can insert distinctions between features that are always bound. Recent attempts to take qualities seriously have resulted in versions of panpsychism, but Champagne outlines a more plausible way to achieve this. So, while semiotics has until now been the least known branch of philosophy ending in –ics, his book shows how a better understanding of that branch can move one of the liveliest debates in philosophy forward. (shrink)

This article builds on C. S. Peirce’s suggestive blueprint for an inclusive outlook that grants reality to his three categories. Moving away from the usual focus on (contentious) cosmological forces, I use a modal principle to partition various ontological layers: regular sign-action (like coded language) subsumes actual sign-action (like here-and-now events) which in turn subsumes possible sign-action (like qualities related to whatever would be similar to them). Once we realize that the triadic sign’s components are each answerable to this asymmetric (...) subsumption, we obtain the means to track at which level of complexity semiosis finds itself, in a given case. Since the bulk of such a “trinitarian” metaphysics would be devoted to countenancing uninterpreted phenomena, I argue that current misgivings about sign-based ontologies are largely misplaced. (shrink)

Many edusemiotic writers have begun to closely align edusemitoics to biosemiotics; the basic logic being that, if the life process can be defined through the criterion of semiotic engagement, so can the learning process :373–387, 2006). Thus, the ecological concept of umwelt has come to be a central area of investigation for edusemiotics; allowing theorists to address learning and living concurrently, from the perspective of meaning and significance. To address the conceptual and experiential foundations of the edusemiotic perspective, this paper (...) will focus its attention on the basic semiosic processes that sustain the learner’s primary modelling system or umwelt—the world of meaning and sensory engagement that the organism is immersed in. This focus enables us to identify and explore four basic principles that an ecologically concerned edusemiotic perspective can be said to rest upon; the Iconicity Hypothesis, the Principle of Suprasubjective Relation, the Natural Learning Flow Principle, and the Continuity Principle. The identification and elaboration of these basic philosophical orientations will help establish the importance and relevance of the edusemiotic perspective for educational philosophy and theory in general. This task requires the methodological framework of Sebeok and Danesi’s Modelling Systems Theory, which; provides a biosemiotically grounded approach to understanding the diversity of modelling phenomena across all species, and; contextualizes the specific focus of this study within the broader forms of learning and knowing encompassed by a semiotic theory of learning. Hopefully such attention to the foundational doctrina of this new perspective will encourage more educational research to take what Semetsky has called the edusemiotic turn. (shrink)

This paper revolves around the question of how we can phenomenologically interpret the application of the mirror metaphor to intersubjectivity. To answer this question, we must first clarify the phenomenon of the mirror itself, and specifically its function and how the objects it reflects appear, as well as the modes of self- and other-relations that it makes possible. We can compare these properties with the characteristics of intersubjectivity in order to find out how sound or significant the mirror metaphor is (...) here. Our goal then is not to show whether the mirror metaphor is a ‘correct’ or ‘false’ descriptive determination of intersubjectivity. Redeeming the metaphor in the phenomenological sense would require that we elucidate which aspects of the mirror phenomenon permit an analogy with the Other and which do not. If the metaphor were to conform perfectly with the analogy, and if one could transform it into a verifiable and complete description, it would no longer be a metaphor. In other words, metaphors live by the dialectic of their resolvable and irresolvable descriptive elements. We must preserve this tension in our phenomenological analysis while bracketing any overarching assessments of the metaphor. Only when we have worked out the individual aspects of the core of the matter, can we examine the adequacy of its application to the sphere of intersubjectivity. In the following, then, our task is a critique of the metaphor, in the sense of unpacking its specific phenomenal features, on the basis of which we may then discuss whether or not we can carry out a metaphorical translation of those features. Indeed, even though the metaphor is such a prominent one, the paper demonstrates its limitations when it comes to determining social relations. (shrink)

To date, little is known about when and to what degree science students begin to participate in authentic scientific graphing practices. This article presents the results of a series of studies on the production, transformation, and interpretation of graphical representation from Grade 8 to professional scientific practice both in formal testing situations and in the course of field/laboratory work. The results of these studies can be grouped into two major areas. First, there is a discontinuity in the graph-related practices that (...) marks a boundary between people who engage in work that requires them to transform data into graphical representations and people who do not have such experiences. Second, the didactic practices of high school textbooks and university lectures exhibit a marked discontinuity relative to graphing practices in scientific journals. Graphs used in didactic circumstances may be associated with students’ difficulties in interpreting “real data.” It appears that school teachers and university professors do little to put their students on trajectories of increasing participation in authentic scientific graphing practices. (shrink)

In this paper I am advocating a structuralist theory of mental representation. For a structuralist theory of mental representation to be defended satisfactorily, the naturalistic and causal constraints have to be satisfied first. The more intractable of the two, i.e., the naturalistic constraint, indicates that to account for the mental representation, we should not invoke “a full-blown interpreting mind”. So, the aim of the paper is to show how the naturalistic and causal constraints could be satisfied. It aims to offer (...) a strategy for grounding the structure of the mental representations in nature. The strategy that I offer is inspired by Marcello Barbieri’s code model of biosemiotics. (shrink)

The paper presents a biosemiotic approach to the study of the built environment, its representations and practices in social media. First, it outlines the main developments that make semiotics hold a significant position in the study of urban space and the built environment. It then goes on to overcome the limitations of the binary opposition paradigm: in particular, nature/culture is reconsidered as a category in which the two terms are in a relation of mutual participation rather than being exclusive to (...) each other. Following this, the paper explores three participatory categories that can be useful for the study of the built environment and its social media representations and practices: life/semiosis, natural environment/built environment, text/practice. Finally, it identifies five main topics representing the interplay between the natural and built environment: the interaction of nature and architecture, urban parks, urban agriculture, digital environmentalism and ecotourism. (shrink)

In the earliest phase of his logical investigations, Peirce adopts Mill's doctrine of real Kinds as discussed in the System of Logic and adapts it to the logical conceptions he was then developing. In Peirce's definition of natural class, a crucial role is played by the notion of information: a natural class is a class of which some non-analytical proposition is true. In Peirce's hands, Mill's distinction between connotative and non-connotative terms becomes a distinction between symbolic and informative and pseudo-symbolic (...) and non-informative forms of representation. A symbol is for Peirce a representation which has information. Just as for Mill all names of Kind connote their being such, so for Peirce all symbols profess to correspond to a natural class. (shrink)

A corpus made by online Canadian newspaper articles, coming from the archives of CBC News, Vice Canada and Huffington Post Canada, and related multimedia contents such us audio interviews, videos and especially links to images and comments shared on Twitter, allows us to reconstruct the debate on the seal hunt that involved Canadian media in 2014. In specific, we propose an interpretation of the pro-sealing discourse by Canadian Inuit and Newfoundlanders as an ironic and incisive answer to the serious United (...) States animal rights activists discourse, explaining how these two different points of view on animals come from a different experience of the environment and a different conception of nature. The image of the seal became the friction point between Western naturalism against Inuit animism: a multinaturalist clash in the North America post-colonial situation. A clash solved by people as Tanya Tagaq and other Inuit artists that belong to these two different semiospheres and thanks to their border placement can allow a dialog between Inuit and North American cultures traducing aesthetic forms, values and meanings. To study the structures of meaning at the base of this clash and iconoclash Iconoclash. Beyond the image-wars in science, religion and art, pp 14–37, ZKM and MIT Press, Boston, 2002) on the artic seal between opposite cultures, it has been necessary to use the socio-semiotic approach with the help of semiotics of culture tools (Lotman in Universe of the mind. A semiotic theory of culture. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1990, Culture and explosion. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2009]. (shrink)

This article argues for a different outlook on the concept of extension, especially for the reference of general terms in scientific practice. Scientific realist interpretations of the two predominant theories of meaning, namely Descriptivism and Causal Theory, contend that a stable cluster of descriptions or an initial baptism fixes the extension of a general term such as a natural kind term. This view in which the meaning of general terms is presented as monosemantic and the referents as stable, homogeneous, and (...) unchangeable, however, does not reflect the various practices involved in the investigation of research materials and the related application of general terms in scientific practice. By drawing on the taxonomic diversity, particularly of structure-based classifications in chemical databases, this article illustrates the limited utility of such a concept of extension. Research materials often exhibit a plurality of material dimensions that, within different research contexts, allow for various and often equally significant taxonomic demarcations. In light of this, the extension of a general term cannot be uniquely determined by a supposedly independent nature of the referent but is relative to the model context under which the materials are investigated. This significance and plurality of the model context, I claim, needs to be mirrored in an account of meaning that is supposed to reflect scientific reality. On this account, the aim of this article is to present an alternative perspective on the concept of extension to accommodate the diverse material practices that determine the application of general terms in science. (shrink)

Both biosemiotics and evolutionary epistemology are concerned with how knowledge evolves. (Applied) Evolutionary Epistemology thereby focuses on identifying the units, levels, and mechanisms or processes that underlie the evolutionary development of knowing and knowledge, while biosemiotics places emphasis on the study of how signs underlie the development of meaning. We compare the two schools of thought and analyze how in delineating their research program, biosemiotics runs into several problems that are overcome by evolutionary epistemologists. For one, by emphasizing signs, biosemiotics (...) needs to delineate a semiotic threshold, which is a problem not encountered by evolutionary epistemologists. Instead, the latter recognizes that all organisms are knowers that evolve knowledge, which they recognize to extend toward phenomena produced by organisms such as behavior, cognition, language, culture, science, and technology. Secondly, biosemiotics attempts at continuing adaptationist notions on how organisms relate to their environment, while especially Applied Evolutionary Epistemology comes to redefine the nature of the organism–environment relationship in such a way that it recognizes the spatiotemporal boundedness of existence, which in turn makes adaptationist accounts obsolete. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show the real nature of Universal Grammar. Universal grammar is separate part of human mind which makes language learning possible and generative. Universal grammar is the symbolic and systematic rules inside our mind. These rules help us to classify, analyze, differentiate, assimilate, understand and recognize human language. This paper determines the real nature of philosophical grammar and discusses the modular and non-modular approach of it. I shall examine the critical approaches of Wittgenstein and Chomsky and their (...) comparison to investigate the philosophical grammar. (shrink)

The problem of the status of metaphysics -- what it is and what it is for, what use it is - has been with us for millennia, at least since Plato took issue with the Sophists, and continues to the present day. Here I attempt an intervention in this perennial dispute, with the aim of providing some kind of rapprochement between the factions. This intervention is based on how Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) understood metaphysics and the position presented here is (...) thus called `Peircean realism'. The basic idea is that everyone has a metaphysics and has to have one, just to get by in everyday life, and this is no different for scientific inquirers in their professional work. The subject matter of metaphysics is thus presuppositions, whether it is what we rely on to go shopping or to discover the Higgs boson. We rely on these in our activities and expect them to have an effect on outcomes, so when our expectations are frustrated, doubt may be thrown on our presuppositions. We would thus like the ability to inquire into our presuppositions so as not to repeat mistakes, but our instinctive, evolved capacity for reasoning may not be up the job, since it is entwined with what we take for granted. Instead, Peirce develops a science of good reasoning that includes a theory of inquiry, which would allow us to scrutinise our presuppositions, to perform metaphysical inquiry. The starting point for this science of good reasoning is basic principles of combination and organisation, because these are involved in all activity, and these are Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. This is also where I start in the exposition of and argument for Peircean realism as a scientific -- that is, truth-directed -- metaphysics that provides the best possible general presuppositions to the natural and human sciences, the special sciences that deal with matters in their particularity; that Peircean realism is a viable metaphysics for those sciences. This exposition and argument comprises the first part of this thesis. In the second part, the case for Peircean realism is further bolstered by turning a critical eye on positions that are deficient from the Peircean point of view, in that they lack one or other category and thus starve the special sciences of the resources they need, or that they try to ignore metaphysics entirely. All this is meant to demonstrate that metaphysics is unavoidable, that we need all three of Peirce's categories for a viable metaphysics for the special sciences, and that Peircean realism is just such a metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper offers a brand storytelling, that is a narratological account of Covid-19 pandemic’s emergence phase. By adopting a fictional ontological standpoint, the virus’ deploying media story-world is identified with a process of narrative spacing. Subsequently, the brand’s personality is analyzed as a narrative place brand. The narrative model that is put forward aims at outlining the main episodes that make up the virus’ brand personality as process and structural components (actors, settings, actions, relationships). A series of deep or ontological (...) metaphors are singled out as the core DNA of this place brand, by applying metaphorical modeling to the tropical articulation of Covid-19’s narrative. The virus’ kernel is identified with terror, as a menacing force that wipes out existing regimes of signification due to its uncertain motives, origins and operational mode. In this context, familiar urban spaces, cultural practices and intersubjective communications are redefined, repurposed and reprogrammed. This process is called terrorealization, as the desertification and metaphorical sublation of all prior territorial significations. This study contributes to the narrative sub-stream of place branding by approaching a globally relevant sociocultural phenomenon from a brand storytelling perspective. (shrink)

Brand Equity Planning with Structuralist Rhetorical Semiotics furnishes an innovative conceptual model and methodology for brand equity planning, with view to addressing a crucial gap in the marketing and semiotic literatures concerning how advertising multimodal textual elements may be transformed into brand associations, with an emphasis on rhetorical relata as modes of connectivity between a brand’s surface and depth grammar. The scope of this project is inter-disciplinary, spanning research areas such as brand equity, structuralist semiotics, textual semiotics, visual and film (...) semiotics, multimodal rhetoric, film theory, psychoanalysis. The proposed connectionist conceptual model of the brand trajectory of signification is operationalized through a methodological framework that encompasses a structuralist semiotic interpretative approach to the textual formation of brand equity, supported by quantitative content analysis with the aid of the software Atlas.ti and the application of multivariate mapping techniques. (shrink)

Intersemiotic translation (IT) was defined by Roman Jakobson (The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London, p. 114, 2000) as “transmutation of signs”—“an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems.” Despite its theoretical relevance, and in spite of the frequency in which it is practiced, the phenomenon remains virtually unexplored in terms of conceptual modeling, especially from a semiotic perspective. Our approach is based on two premises: (i) IT is fundamentally a semiotic operation process (semiosis) and (ii) (...) IT is a deeply iconic-dependent process. We exemplify our approach by means of literature to dance IT and we explore some implications for the development of a general model of IT. (shrink)

One of the leading concerns animating current philosophy of mind is that, no matter how good a scientific account is, it will leave out what its like to be conscious. The challenge has thus been to study or at least explain away that qualitative dimension. Pursuant with that aim, I investigate how philosophy of signs in the Peircean tradition can positively reshape ongoing debates. Specifically, I think the account of iconic or similarity-based reference we find in semiotic theory offers a (...) more promising variant of the phenomenal concept strategy. Philosophers who endorse this strategy think that the difficulties we have fitting conscious qualia into a scientific picture may owe to the peculiar nature of indexical concepts. They point to the fact that, when we try to convey the feel of our experiences, we employ context-dependent gestures and/or utterances that are indexed to perspectives unique to each person. However, according to the theory I defend, there are three ways signs can refer, namely by convention, causal contact, and similarity. Since similarity is not reducible to proximity, I argue that a theory of reference that turns on shared quality can bypass some of the implausible consequences that plague indexical accounts. In the first chapter, I describe the apparatus needed to make sense of this claim. In the second chapter, I present my account of iconic reference. In the third chapter, I justify my reliance on a distinction that is less than real yet more than nominal. In the fourth chapter, I sketch a trinitarian metaphysics well-suited to house the foregoing account of qualia. (shrink)

Like so many sciences, linguistics originated from philosophy's rib. It reached maturity and attained full independence only in the twentieth century (for example, it is a well-known fact that the first linguistics department in the UK was founded in 1944); though research which we would now classify as linguistic (especially leading to generalizations from comparing different languages) was certainly carried out much earlier. The relationship between philosophy and linguistics is perhaps reminiscent of that between an old-fashioned mother and her emancipated (...) daughter, and is certainly asymmetric. And though from philosophy's rib, empirical investigation methods have ensured that linguistics has evolved (just as in the case of the more famous rib) into something far from resembling the original piece of bone. Another side of the same asymmetry is that while linguistics focuses exclusively on language (or languages), for philosophy language seems less pervasive - philosophy of language being merely one branch among many. However, during the twentieth century this asymmetry was substantially diminished by the so called linguistic turn1, undergone by numerous philosophers – this turn was due to the realization that as language is the universal medium for our grasping and coping with the world, its study may provide the very key for all other philosophical disciplines. As for the working methods, we could perhaps picture the difference between a philosopher of language and a linguist by means of the following simile. Imagine two researchers both asked to investigate an unknown landscape. One hires a helicopter, acquires a birds-eye view of the whole landscape and draws a rough, but comprehensive map. The other takes a camera, a writing pad and various instruments, and walks around, taking pictures and making notes of the kinds of rocks, plants and animals which he finds. Whose way is the more reasonable? Well, one wants to say, neither, for they seem to be complementary.. (shrink)

From 1940 to 1945, Kruno Krstić published a series of articles on language in various newspapers and magazines. He approaches the language phenomenonfrom different points of view. In some of the articles he discusses the Croatian literary language and its relation to the Croatian dialects, while in others he considers the relation between the Croatian and Serbian language. At certain times he presents his views on the development of language, whereas at other he explores the relation between language and thought. (...) Krstiæ, regardless of the topic he deals with, is considered to be a predecessor in this field in Croatia: from sociolinguistics and theory of standard to philosophy of language in its narrower sense. On the other hand, Krstić also pays special attention to language and the analysis of meaning when he considers other philosophical problems. Thus he becomes closely associated with a particular approach to philosophy, sometimes also called linguistic philosophy. (shrink)

Digital technologies are pervasively used, and they are becoming part of our everyday actions by being designed to be connected to every aspect of our private life like emotions. However, it is not very clear how they are going to change who we are through their tight intertwinement. Especially in relation to emotions, it is not clear at all what happens when they become digitalized and visualized through these digital devices. Usually, the research focusses on the effect on the privacy (...) of the intrusion of digital devices in our lives as if this process of digitalization leaves the meanings human beings give to their emotions untouched. This article does not focus on the privacy related to the personal information captured by the devices, but it aims to open an analysis of the effects of this digitalization on the emotions in order to highlight the fact the introduction of these digital technologies change what emotions are. (shrink)

The pragmatic semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce has a lot of practical benefits for enhancing visual communication in illustrations. His triadic theory of Semiosis focuses on the dynamic interrelationships between the concept to be communicated, how it is represented through a semiotic sign, and how this affects the success of how the concept is eventually interpreted. Peirce's pragmatic semiotic theory uses complex language, and although Peirce is embraced in some design disciplines, the language that defines Semiosis is problematic beyond (...) academia. This paper is an attempt to address this by providing illustrators with a basic introduction to how Semiosis can help to enhance the success of the visual communication in their illustrations. This is done by translating Peircean terminology into illustrator-centric language and providing an example of how the Semiosis is implemented in an illustration. Within the limits of a short paper, illustrators can begin to understand how the triadic nature of concept/representation/interpretation can benefit them during their ideation and sketching phase to author effective images. In doing this, this paper will mostly discuss iconic, indexical, and symbolic semiotic representation within pragmatic semiotic signs of the intended concept to be communicated in an illustration. This paper's aim is to enact a pragmatic turn in illustrators, in which Semiosis theory becomes more integrated within their practical work, by providing a more illustrator-centric dissemination of Peirce's semiotic theory. (shrink)

The paper is focused on Genesis 1 – 3 where the primordial man [adàm] is created ‎and he was given the proper name Adam [adàm]. ‎ In Hebrew man and Adam are the same word, spelled the same way – [adàm]. ‎Different translations of Genesis 1-3 use for the first time the proper name Adam in ‎different places versions Gen 2:25; The German Luther ‎Bible Gen 3:8; Some English Protestant versions Gen 3:17; Bulgarian Protestant and many ‎English Protestant versions Gen (...) 3:20-21). The paper decodes the phenomenon by ‎studying the Hebrew original and several semiotic views on common and proper names ‎‎. Through these opinions the ‎important question “Who wrote the Bible?” is discussed. The analysis interfaces the new ‎linguistic relativity theory.‎ Four layers of symbolism are decoded: 1. The man became Adam; 2. The two men in ‎Gen 1:27 and in Gen 2:7 man [adàm] ‎is made by earth, ground [adamà]; 3. The two men in the New Testament ; 4. Edom, Adam and cultural discourses in both Testaments.‎. (shrink)

It is argued that the traditional philosophical/linguistic analysis of semiotic phe-nomena is based on the false epistemological assumption that linguistic and non-linguistic entities possess different ontologies. An attempt is made to show where linguistics as the study of signs went wrong, and an unorthodox account of the na-ture of semiosis is proposed in the framework of autopoiesis as a new epistemology of the living.

This dissertation responds to a recent zeitgeist and climate of controversy surrounding issues of "virtuality" and "simulation" Such terms are treated as problematic and essentially contested when framed in reference to notions of a fixed observable "reality" rather than considered in terms of socially constructed facts, relationships and identities. The concept of the "virtual stage" advanced in this thesis, refers to the current historical moment in communications technology development as well as to the dramaturgical perspective which informs the theoretical approach (...) and argument. (shrink)

This thesis arises out of a critique of the way language is decontextualized and presented from a reductively linguistic viewpoint in foreign language instruction. In particular, it focuses on the weaknesses of the broad approach known as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and highlights the disparity between its theoretical assumptions and practical applications. With this in mind, the thesis identifies and explores three foundational premises that should be considered as part of an attempt to design a theoretically coherent framework for foreign (...) language instruction. By applying three sets of principles based on these premises, the thesis goes on to outline such a framework. After providing a background to the study, the first consideration is the nature of cultural and communicative performance. The study turns to sociological concepts regarding cultural organization and production, in order to better conceptualize how 'culture' can be understood in the context of foreign language learning. The second part of this area focuses on meaning and communication in order to undermine current treatments of 'language' in foreign language pedagogy. The second area of interest is that of learning and thus considers a number of theories of how people learn. The focus here is on learning-in-general rather than learning languages specifically. What emerges from this are a number of principles that should be borne in mind when creating conditions favorable to language learning. Finally, one largely overlooked area in foreign language learning and applied linguistics more broadly, is how the field of foreign language pedagogy constructs and legitimizes its practices, as well as suppresses its foundational theoretical assumptions in its activities (including research, methodology and teaching). A chapter is therefore devoted to this issue, and a set of principles is formulated in order to ensure that the design of any instructional framework is honest and ethical. Thus furnished with the triangulation of principles, an attempt is made to outline how a learner-focused, ethical pedagogical framework that stresses culture might look. This thesis is theoretical in nature and relies on arguments and positions from diverse and less commonly considered academic fields in foreign language instruction. Its main theoretical inspiration comes from concepts and claims generally considered 'poststructural' or 'postmodern'. However, there is no exclusive devotion to any particular author or theory. It is hoped that this thesis can make a genuine, if not controversial, contribution to the field of foreign language teaching by initiating a dialogue concerning the (lack of) philosophical and epistemological reflexivity in the field. (shrink)

Keywords: climate change, integrated assessment, knowledge integration, transdisciplinary research, vulnerability, vulnerability assessment. This thesis explores how transdisciplinary knowledge integration can be facilitated in the context of integrated assessments and vulnerability assessments of climate change. Even though knowledge integration is fundamental in such transdisciplinary assessments, the actual process of integrating knowledge is rarely addressed explicitly and methodically. Here, knowledge integration is conceptualised into the subsequent phases of the elaboration of a shared language and the design of a methodology. Three devices for (...) facilitating knowledge integration are put forward: 1. semantic ascent or the shift from speaking in a language to speaking in a meta-language about the former, 2. formalisation or the translation of statements made in ordinary or technical language into a formal language, and 3. knowledge integration methods, which are methods that provide a meta-language for speaking about the knowledge to be integrated and organise the process of integration. Four cases of knowledge integration are presented. First, the general problem of methodology design is addressed and a graphical framework for representing methodologies is presented. Second, the problem of developing a shared language for speaking about vulnerability to climate change is addressed. A formal mathematical framework of vulnerability and related concepts is presented. Third, a special case of methodology design, the integration of computer models in the context of modular integrated assessment modelling is addressed. A modular approach developed in the PIAM project is presented. Fourth, the integration of computer models, this time in the context of a global assessment of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise, is addressed. A knowledge integration method, which was developed and applied in the DINAS-COAST project, is presented. These cases show that semantic ascent is a useful device in those cases in which it is difficult to directly elaborate a shared language at the beginning of the assessment. Formalisation can contribute to the elaboration of a shared language in those cases in which concepts overlap non trivially in their meanings. More emphasis should be placed on the development and application of iterative knowledge integration methods as iteration is crucial in order to benefit from the mutual learning during the course of the assessment. (shrink)