It is through ritual that religions often express their deepest truths, and historians and anthropologists of religion have long recognized the impor-tance of its symbolic dimension. Yet it remains to be explained how religious rituals perform this function. That is, in what ways do ritual gestures symbolize or refer – reserving these two general terms to cover all ways of bearing semantic-like relations to objects, events, and states of affairs? In this essay I will take some first steps toward answering (...) this question by constructing a taxonomy of symbolic gestures in the rituals of Judaism, drawing for this purpose on various categories of reference, first distinguished by Nelson Goodman in his study of symbol systems, including the arts, and more recently elaborated by Israel Scheffler. (shrink)

This paper examines the place of metaphorical interpretation in the current Contextualist-Literalist controversy over the role of context in the determination of truth-conditions in general. Although there has been considerable discussion of 'non-literal' language by both sides of this dispute, the language analyzed involves either so-called implicit indexicality, loose or loosened use, enriched interpretations, or semantic transfer, not metaphor itself. In the first half of the paper, I critically evaluate Recanati's (2004) recent Contextualist account and show that it cannot account (...) for the metaphorical-literal dependence characteristic of metaphor. I then turn to Carston's (2002), and Bezuidenhout's (2001) Contextualist accounts and show that they place no constraints on metaphorical interpretations. In the second half of the paper I sketch a Literalist theory of metaphor elaborated in Stern (2000) and respond to two kinds of Contextualist criticisms of that account by Camp (2005) and Stanley (2005). (shrink)

This paper examines the place of metaphorical interpretation in the current Contextualist‐Literalist controversy over the role of context in the determination of truth‐conditions in general. Although there has been considerable discussion of ‘non‐literal’ language by both sides of this dispute, the language analyzed involves either so‐called implicit indexicality, loose or loosened use, enriched interpretations, or semantic transfer, not metaphor itself. In the first half of the paper, I critically evaluate Recanati’s (2004) recent Contextualist account and show that it cannot account (...) for the metaphorical‐literal dependence characteristic of metaphor. I then turn to Carston’s (2002), and Bezuidenhout’s (2001) Contextualist accounts and show that they place no constraints on metaphorical interpretations. In the second half of the paper I sketch a Literalist theory of metaphor elaborated in Stern (2000) and respond to two kinds of Contextualist criticisms of that account by Camp (2005) and Stanley (2005). (shrink)

This paper argues first that, contrary to what one would expect, metaphorical interpretations of utterances pass two of Cappelan and Lepore's Minimalist tests for semantic context-sensitivity. I then propose how, in light of that result, one might analyze metaphors on the model of indexicals and demonstratives, expressions that (even) Minimalists agree are semantically context-dependent. This analysis builds on David Kaplan's semantics for demonstratives and refines an earlier proposal in (Stern, Metaphor in context, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2000). In the course of (...) this argument, I also discuss some new examples of linguistic phenomena that motivate a semantic structure underlying metaphorical interpretation, phenomena I argue that neither Minimalists nor Contextualists can explain. (shrink)

We discuss external and internal graphical and linguistic representational systems. We argue that a cognitive theory of peoples' reasoning performance must account for (a) the logical equivalence of inferences expressed in graphical and linguistic form, and (b) the implementational differences that affect facility of inference. Our theory proposes that graphical representation limit abstraction and thereby aid “processibility”. We discuss the ideas of specificity and abstraction, and their cognitive relevance. Empirical support both comes from tasks which involve the manipulation of external (...) graphics and tasks that do not. For the former, we take Euler's (1772) circles, provide a novel computational reconstruction, show how it captures abstractions, and contrast it with earlier construals and with Johnson‐Laird's (1983) mental models representations. We demonstrate equivalence of the graphical Euler system, and the nongraphical mental models system. For tasks not involving manipulation of external graphics, we discuss text comprehension, and the mental performance of syllogisms. By positing an internal system with the same specificity as Euler's circles, we cover the mental models data, and generate new empirical predictions. Finally, we consider how the architecture of working memory explains why such specific representations are relatively easy to store. (shrink)

Given the coterie of philosophers focused on everyday aesthetics, it's fascinating that gift reception has heretofore managed to escape their scrutiny. To enact a gift, recipients begin by imagining its use. On this level, gifts serve as a litmus test. In luring us, we're taken out of our normal ways of being to experience a different side of ourselves. Enacting a gift is thus a kind of performance, whose value depends on the donee’s interpretation, just as exhibitions, concerts, staged plays (...) or books are performances of visual art, scores, scripts or texts, whose interpretations demonstrate their aesthetic value. To develop the relationship between enacting gifts and performing artworks, I begin by surveying junctures along the gift-event’s arc: reply, imagination, trust, recognition, transformation and memory. Transformations arising from agonistic gifts strike me as significant because they characterise the way gifts challenge our beliefs, eventually altering our values. That we grow to love gifts, which we originally rejected out of hand, casts doubt on self-knowledge. Enacted gifts handily challenge self-knowledge’s twin features: authority and transparency. As this paper indicates, gift reception helps both to understand ourselves better and to remove the obstacles to what Quassim Cassim calls Substantive Self-Knowledge. (shrink)

A flop is a picture that mirror reverses the original scene. Some flops are reversed copies. For instance, mirror reversal is systematic with technologies that require contact between a template and an imprint surface. Other flops are just pictures that have undergone the operation of flopping. For example, a slide that is inserted backwards into a projector is a flop.

The present essay aims at integrating different concepts of meaning developed in semiotics, biology, and cognitive science, in a way that permits the formulation of issues involving evolution and development. The concept of sign in semiotics, just like the notion of representation in cognitive science, have either been used too broadly, or outright rejected. My earlier work on the notions of iconicity and pictoriality has forced me to spell out the taken-forgranted meaning of the sign concept, both in the Saussurean (...) and the Peircean tradition. My work with the evolution and development of semiotic resources such as language, gesture, and pictures has proved the need of having recourse to a more specified concept of sign. To define the sign, I take as point of departure the notion of semiotic function (by Piaget), and the notion of appresentation (by Husserl). In the first part of this essay, I compare cognitive science and semiotics, in particular as far as the parallel concepts of representation and sign are concerned. The second part is concerned with what is probably the most important attempt to integrate cognitive science and semiotics that has been presented so far, The Symbolic Species, by Terrence Deacon. I criticize Deacon’s use of notions such as iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity. I choose to separate the sign concept from the notions of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolicity, which only in combination with the sign give rise to icons, indices, and symbols, but which, beyond that, have other, more elemental, uses in the world of perception. In the third part, I discuss some ideas about meaning in biosemiotics, which I show not to involve signs in the sense characterised earlier in the essay. Instead, they use meaning in the general sense of selection and organisation, which is a more elementary sense of meaning. Although I admit that there is a possible interpretation of Peirce, which could be taken to correspond to Uexküll’s idea of functional circle, and to meaning as function described by Emmeche and Hoffmeyer, I claim thatthis is a different sense of meaning than the one embodied in the sign concept. Finally, I suggest that more thresholds of meaning than proposed, for instanceby Kull, are necessary to accommodate the differences between meaning (in the broad sense) and sign (as specified in the Piaget–Husserl tradition). (shrink)

Practically all theories of iconicity are denunciations of its subject matter (for example, those of Goodman, Bierman and the early Eco). My own theory of iconicity was developed in order to save a particular kind of iconicity, pictoriality, from such criticism. In this interest, I distinguished pure iconicity, iconic ground, and iconic sign, on one hand, and primary and secondary iconic signs, on the other hand. Since then, however, several things have happened. The conceptual tools that I created to explain (...) pictoriality have been shown by others to be relevant to linguistic iconicity. On the other hand, semioticians with points of departure different from mine have identified mimicry as it is commonly found in the animal world as a species of iconicity. In the evolutionary semiotics of Deacon, iconicity is referred to in such a general way that it seems to be emptied of all content, while in the variety invented by Donald the term mimesis is used for a particular phase in the evolution of iconic meaning. The aim of this article is to consider to what extent the extension of iconicity theory to new domains will necessitate the development of new models. (shrink)

This paper challenges two orthodox theses: (a) that computational processes must be algorithmic; and (b) that all computed functions must be Turing-computable. Section 2 advances the claim that the works in computability theory, including Turing's analysis of the effective computable functions, do not substantiate the two theses. It is then shown (Section 3) that we can describe a system that computes a number-theoretic function which is not Turing-computable. The argument against the first thesis proceeds in two stages. It is first (...) shown (Section 4) that whether a process is algorithmic depends on the way we describe the process. It is then argued (Section 5) that systems compute even if their processes are not described as algorithmic. The paper concludes with a suggestion for a semantic approach to computation. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)

Similarity-based cognition is commonplace. It occurs whenever an agent or system exploits the similarities that hold between two or more items—e.g., events, processes, objects, and so on—in order to perform some cognitive task. This kind of cognition is of special interest to cognitive neuroscientists. This paper explicates how similarity-based cognition can be understood through the lens of radical enactivism and why doing so has advantages over its representationalist rival, which posits the existence of structural representations or S-representations. Specifically, it is (...) argued that there are problems both with accounting for the content of S-representations and with understanding how neurally-based structural similarities can work as representations in guiding intelligent behavior. Finally, with these clarifications in place, it is revealed how radical enactivism can commit to an account of similarity-based cognition in its understanding of neurodynamics. (shrink)

In this article I argue that there are metaphoric pictures and that pictures have propositional content; but, I also argue, it does not follow that metaphoric pictures are to be explained in terms of metaphoric content. I develop a "comparison" or "predication" approach that stresses that metaphoric pictures depend on their use in contexts that invoke relevant background knowledge. Our competence with metaphoric pictures is a nonsystematic, nonspecifiable competence because it consists in our ability to harness any variety of relevant (...) background knowledge on the basis of contextual factors. It follows that insofar as our competence is not systematic, it is not possible to have a theory of metaphoric pictures, in the sense of a systematic specification of the types of factors or principles that allow one to grasp that a picture is metaphoric and what the metaphor is. (shrink)

This paper proposes that pictures are functional objects which figure in norm‐governed practices of usage yet whose specific function is to present the world as it looks to acculturated perceivers. Pictorial content presents the way the world looks to a subject's acculturated perceptual grasp. Hence, pictorial content needs to be explained in terms of a theory of perceptual content, but a novel theory which departs from the two‐stage sensation‐based approach to perception and the polarization between naturalism and conventionalism that it (...) engenders. Following a diagnosis of this polarization, I invoke a novel theory of perception that explains perceptual content as conceptually articulated and determinate in character. I show that (1) pictures present content of the same distinctive determinate type as perceptual content; and that (2) pictures do so by invoking perceptual experience and perceptual processes that are of the same kind as those invoked by actual scenes. This perceptualist approach considers and explains the role of norms as well as of the nature of our visual processes, allowing us to allocate the insights of both conventionalism and naturalism to their proper theoretical roles. (shrink)

A theory of Goodman and Elgin concerning the individuation of literary works is examined and criticized. An alternative account is offered to meet various of the difficulties in their proposal. In addition, it is suggested that there may not be asingle account of the notion of a literary work that can best do all the jobs we expect of it.

Philosophical discussions of depiction sometimes suffer from a lack of differentiation between several questions concerning the nature of pictorial representation. To provide a suitable framework I distinguish six such questions and several levels on which one might want to proceed in order to answer some of them. With this background, I reconstruct Goodman's and Elgin's answer to the specific question: What distinguishes the pictorial from the verbal or linguistic? I try to reveal some major motivations behind their system-oriented approach and (...) to indicate some reasons why a strategy of this kind is to a certain extent mandatory to grasp the nature of the pictorial. The system-relative and functional character of depiction has to be captured by every adequate theory. (shrink)

In recent papers [1997, in press] I have explored how two seemingly conflicting paradigms inform the conception and study of picture perception. The dominant paradigm, one especially favored by vision theorists, claims that seeing a pictorial representation of an object is, with qualifications, like seeing the object itself. The picture, being a geometrically sanctioned projection of its object, resembles it, or otherwise serves as a mimetic surrogate, “re-presenting” what it depicts [Danto, 1982]. Accordingly, pictorial representation is at its best when, (...) as in trompe l’oeil paintings, viewers can not tell the picture, the stand in or substitute, from the real thing. An alternative paradigm, the symbolic model, championed most forcefully by Nelson Goodman [1968], focuses attention on syntactic and semantic features of pictures. On this account, pictures are importantly allied with other forms of representation, including languages, maps, and music notation, and picture perception is to be understood in this context. (shrink)

In recent papers [1997, in press] I have explored how two seemingly conflicting paradigms inform the conception and study of picture perception. The dominant paradigm, one especially favored by vision theorists, claims that seeing a pictorial representation of an object is, with qualifications, like seeing the object itself. The picture, being a geometrically sanctioned projection of its object, resembles it, or otherwise serves as a mimetic surrogate, “re-presenting” what it depicts [Danto, 1982]. Accordingly, pictorial representation is at its best when, (...) as in trompe l’oeil paintings, viewers can not tell the picture, the stand in or substitute, from the real thing. An alternative paradigm, the symbolic model, championed most forcefully by Nelson Goodman [1968], focuses attention on syntactic and semantic features of pictures. On this account, pictures are importantly allied with other forms of representation, including languages, maps, and music notation, and picture perception is to be understood in this context. (shrink)

A careful, theoretical clarification of gender roles has only recently begun in social and political philosophy. It is the aim of the following piece to reveal that an analysis of women’s traditional position - her distinctive activities, labor and surrounding sense of ‘mine’ - can not only make valuable contributions towards clarifying traditional property disputes, but may even provide elements for a new conception of ownership. By way of illustration, the article focusses on the influential work of John Rawls and (...) argues that - when Rawls’s own analysis and principles of justice are supplemented by an account of what is here called ‘reproductive labor’ - his theory in fact tends to a form of democratic socialism. Stated somewhat differently, my aim is to shift the terms of the property debate as posed by Rawls fromwithinhis own position. I hope to show that the real ownership question which now emerges is no longerwhether‘justice as fairness’ countenances a private property or socialist form of democracy, but what preciseformsuch a socialism should take. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Goodman's theory of projectibility, although partly successful, is inadequate since it fails to take into consideration the "approximate" nature of certain scientific hypotheses.

Every materially adequate explication of the concepts ``picture''and ``the pictorial'' has to appeal to syntactical properties.From the available definitions, a conception of syntax is extractedthat is applicable to symbol systems of any sort. Against thisbackground, it is shown that a non-semantical characterization ofthe pictorial is mandatory. Finally, specific syntactical featuresare explicated that recommend themselves as necessary conditions forthe application of the concept of a picture.

This essay brings together questions from aesthetic theory and museum management. In particular, I relate a contextualist account of the value of copies to a pluralistic understanding of the purpose of museums. I begin by offering a new defence of the no longer fashionable view that the aesthetic (as opposed to the ethical, personal, monetary, historical, or other) value of artworks may be detached from questions regarding their provenance. My argument is partly based on a distinction between the process of (...) creating a work of art and the artwork in question.Next, I defend a pluralism about the purpose of museums and their exhibitions. I combine this with a pluralist account of the value of replicas which falls out of the above argument, exposing our preference for originality as being frequently fetishistic. I maintain that the importance of the provenance of artworks is relative to the specific purposes of any given exhibition or museum. Those that are primarily educational (such as encyclopaedic ones) are in many cases best served with high-quality replicas. This view may be extended to artefacts that are not artworks, such as fossils and dinosaur skeletons. Finally, I expound the variety of roles that replicas may play in museums and relate these to notions of authenticity. (shrink)

How do models represent reality? There are two conditions that scientific models must satisfy to be representations of real systems, the aboutness condition and the epistemic condition. In this article, I critically assess the two main fictionalist theories of models as representations, the indirect fiction view and the direct fiction view, with respect to these conditions. And I develop a novel proposal, what I call ‘the new fiction view of models’. On this view, models are akin to fictional stories; they (...) represent real-world phenomena if they stand in a denotation relation with reality; and they enable knowledge of reality via the generation of theoretical hypotheses, model–world comparisons and direct attributions. (shrink)

The discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in the late 19th century entails many problems, some of which are perceptual. Presenting doxology as a post-phenomenological way of approaching epistemic and perceptual questions, this article draws on the problematics of cave art and contemporary cognitive science to discuss the process of perception — what it takes to see what one sees — in caves (and elsewhere). The article concludes that in order to see and perceive anything at all, both our physical and (...) our conceptual resources — the light of the sun as well as the light of the mind, as Empedocles might have said — are needed. The light of the mind is always inextricably linked to doxa. Thus, the article argues that a doxological approach to questions of perception and knowledge is required. (shrink)

Pictorial representation is a subject of interest to both cognitive science and aesthetics. Standard theories of depiction often draw on vision science, and vision science must give an account of picture perception. I offer a critical overview of standard theories of depiction and argue that none of them is adequate. I then describe ways in which new theories of perception blend elements of representationalism with an emphasis on attention and motor control. Such theories, in effect, limit the reliance on mental (...) representation in perceptual tasks. This work provides the basis for a theory of depiction in which pictorial representation is explained in terms of both mental representations and perceptual strategies. I argue that, in the case, the mental representations are most plausibly individuated by the functional and conceptual roles, rather than by causal links to the external world. (shrink)

Music may be used to express emotion, to heighten a drama, to emphasize the meaning of a ceremony; but it is nevertheless an abstract art, with no power to represent the world. Representation, as I understand it, is a property that does not belong to music.

In this essay I argue for a constructivist account of the entities composing the object languages of Davidsonian truth theories and a quotational account of the reference from metalinguistic expressions to interpreted utterances. I claim that ‘radical quotation’ requires an ontology of repeatable events with strong similarities to Derrida's account of iterable events. In part one I summarise Davidson's account of interpretation and Olav Gjelsivk's arguments to the effect that the syntactic individuation of linguistic objects is only workable if interpreters (...) make richer assumptions about semantic properties than Davidson can tolerate. In part two I show that the objectivist account of syntactic objects which Gjelsivk's arguments presuppose is incompatible with one corollary of Davidsonian semantic indeterminacy: namely, the relativity of language to interpretative scheme. In place of this an account of radical interpretation is presented in which a quotational theory of metalinguistic reference furnishes the requisite relativity. In part three I argue that this account requires that particular utterance events must be repeatable to be radically quotable and give reasons why particularity and repeatability are not incompatible. (shrink)

We apply Carol Gilligan's distinction between a "male" mode of moral reasoning, focussed on justice, and a "female" mode, focussed on caring, to the reading of literature. Martha Nussbaum suggests that certain novels are works of moral philosophy. We argue that what Nussbaum sees as the special ethical contribution of such novels is in fact training in the stereotypically female mode of moral concern. We show this kind of training is appropriate to all readers of these novels, not just to (...) women. Finally, we explore what else is involved in distinctively feminist readings of traditional novels. (shrink)

I am generally unsympathetic to the project, pursued by many recent philosophers of music, of attempting to specify the identity conditions for musical works – of attempting to specify the conditions that something, typically a performance, must satisfy if it is to count as an instance of this or that work. Call this the identity-project. Elsewhere, I have suggested that any such project is fundamentally misconceived. Here, however, I want simply to explore a couple of the difficulties with which the (...) identity-project is confronted, and to point out some of the costs that are likely to be incurred in trying to overcome them. (shrink)