Of considerable importance in Plato and Aristotle’s educational outlook on the arts was Homer’s Iliad. This paper draws out some of the perceived weaknesses and strengths of this epic poem as it relates to the arguments in Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Poetics. I will attempt to do justice to Plato and Aristotle’s differing perspectives on the Iliad and their critique of art educational theory and practice. I will show why two philosophers with very different thinking on art education can still (...) significantly affect art teaching practice today. (shrink)

What are the implications of taking seriously Chaïm Perelman's proposition that “definitions are rhetorical”? Efforts to find Real Definitions are dysfunctional to the extent they direct argumentation toward pseudo “is” claims and away from explicit “ought” claims about how words are to be used. Addressing definitional disputes explicitly as propositions ofought rather thanis could put on the agenda the pragmatic concerns of definitional choice that might otherwise remain tacit.

Suzanne de Castell; On Writing of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 39–49, https://doi.org/10.1111.

Socrates famously compares himself to a midwife in Plato'sTheaetetus. Much less well known is the developed metaphor of pregnancy at the centre of the initiation ritual that begins Brahmanical education. In this ritual, calledUpanayana, the teacher is presented as becoming pregnant with the student. TheArthavavedastates:The teacher leads the student towards himself, makes him an embryo within; he bears him in his belly three nights.

To understand the impact which the newly self‐conscious technology of information is likely to have, and to develop that technology effectively, it is necessary to appreciate two previous revolutions in information technology, those which followed the introductions of writing and of printing. Understanding the role which these technologies have in our intellectual lives may help to avoid the misconceptions which are generated by the temptation to think of the instruments of communication as having a life independent of the use to (...) which humans put those artifacts. (shrink)

In this expansive and highly original two-volume work, Jim Behuniak reformulates John Dewey's late-period "Cultural turn" and proposes that its next logical step is an "intra-Cultural philosophy" that goes beyond what is commonly known as "comparative philosophy." Each volume models itself on this new approach, arguing that early Chinese thought is poised to join forces with Dewey in meeting an urgent cultural need: namely, helping the Western tradition to correct its outdated Greek-medieval assumptions, especially where these result in pre-Darwinian inferences (...) about the world. Relying on the latest findings in Chinese philosophy, these volumes establish "specific philosophical relationships" between Dewey's ideas and early Chinese thought for this purpose, showing how together they can assist us in getting our thinking "back in gear" with the world as it is currently known through the biological, physical, and cognitive sciences. Volume One: Dao and Nature engages Dewey with themes generally associated with "Daoism," and includes discussion of the organization of organic form, teleology, cosmology, knowledge, the body, and technology. Volume One thus works to establish "Chinese natural philosophy" as an empirical framework in which to consider the cultural-level phenomena examined in Volume Two: Dao and Culture. (shrink)

During the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic a variety of social activities migrated online, including religious ceremonies and rituals. One such instance is the case of Santo Daime, a Brazilian rainforest religion that utilizes the hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca in its rituals. During the pandemic, multiple Santo Daime rituals involving the consumption of ayahuasca took place online, mediated through Zoom and other online platforms. The phenomenon is notable since the effects of hallucinogens are defined by context and Santo Daime rituals are habitually governed (...) by punctilious regulations aimed at directing the experience of participants. The abrupt move to online space thus augurs significant implications in the context of hallucinogenic rituals. This paper looks at this development and its repercussions for entheogenic rituals, as it asks how do psychedelic rituals change when they move online? Building on the author’s previous work on set and setting in the Santo Daime religion, the paper introduces accounts from 12 semi-structured interviews with daimistas participating in online daime rituals, approached through the prism of set and setting, and the study of online religiosity. The analysis points at several key dynamics emerging in the context of virtual rituals. The migration online allowed for the continuation of Santo Daime entheogenic rituals at a time of social distancing, fostered a sense of global brotherhood and opened new possibility for religious participation and learning. Concurrently, online ritual produced an impoverished ritual experience and novel types of challenges including a higher potential for distractions, technical difficulties, and low sensory fidelity. Other novel challenges included social anxiety and an in-built tension between the social and spiritual dimensions of ritual. Finally, some participants were concerned by the cultural context of online rituals: technological mediation, consumerism, commodification, and digital divide. The limitations of digital technology appear amplified by the highly immersive, body oriented, experientially intensified context of the psychedelic experience. This paper contributes to the literature on the extra-pharmacological factors shaping experiences with psychedelics, as well as to the literature on the consequences of the adoption of digital media technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

Plato’s Phaedrus, perhaps his most enigmatic and structurally convoluted dialogue, could easily be said to inaugurate a pointed critique of mass media that persists to the present day. Indeed, in certain corners of media theory, the origin myth of writing furnished in the Phaedrus (in which the Egyptian god Theuth presents writing as a gift to King Thamus) has in turn come to serve as a kind of origin myth for media theory: a primaeval pharmacopoeia of media effects. And yet, (...) this is an origin myth that can only underwrite not only its own non-originarity and non-truth, insofar as its very status as a written text ensures that it will never meet the criteria that it itself establishes for a reasoned account of things (logos). It remains perpetually orphaned, unable to defend itself, irrevocably cut off from its ‘father’, the speaking subject, and thus from the vitality of living discourse. But this paradox, I argue, is not a failing of the dialogue, but is a device intended to encourage the reader’s active involvement in the text’s status as medium. The Phaedrus is not just diagnostic, but therapeutic. (shrink)

In book X, Plato's rejection of mimetic poetry can be read as a parallel to rejecting the conventions of the poetic style contemporary to his time. This rejection can, owing to the premises derived and the analyses made in this paper, further be read as to suggest that Plato presses for a reformation of the poetic vocabulary. That is, as to suggest that Plato proposes that the non-rational imagistic tradition, embodied in mimetic poetry, get replaced by a rational and noetic-aspiring (...) rhetoric that opts for knowledge and truth. (shrink)

According to the “extended mind” thesis, a significant portion of human cog-nition does not occur solely inside the head, but literally extends beyond the brain into the body and the world around us (Clark & Chalmers 1998; Clark 2003, 2008; Wilson 1995, 2004; Rowlands 1999, 2010; Menary 2007, 2012; Sutton 2010; Theiner 2011). One way to understand this thesis is that as human beings, we are particularly adept at creating and recruiting environmental props and scaffolds (media, tools, artifacts, symbol systems) (...) for the purpose of solving problems that would otherwise lie beyond our cognitive reach. We manipulate, scaffold, and re-design our environments in ways that transform the nature of difficult tasks that would baffle our unaided biological brains (e.g., math, logic, sequential problem-solving) into simpler types of problems that we are naturally much better equipped to solve. A central tenet of the “extended mind” thesis, then, is that “much of what matters for human-level intelligence is hidden not in the brain, nor in the technology, but in the complex and iterated interactions and collaborations between the two” (Clark 2001: 154). Over the past fifteen years or so, the “extended mind” thesis has become a hot ticket in the philosophy of mind. As with all great ideas, the thesis was hardly conceived ex nihilo, but builds on, and re-articulates many earlier strands of thought. Unfortunately, many of those cognate strands have become marginalized in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology, and do not receive the amount of attention they deserve. Part of what we hope to accomplish with this special issue is to reverse this trend, and to rekindle the dialogue between the “extended mind” thesis and its historical predecessors. (shrink)

This paper deals with a development of the ancient thought on mimesis in its modern reception as regards a certain idea of theatre. It defends the hypothesis that the figure of the character, as set up in Diderot’s Paradoxe sur le comédien, has its source in a curious reversal of the Platonic mimesis. After presenting the main tenets of Plato’s reflection on mimesis and of Diderot’s theory on character, showing their convergences and contrasts, it is analyzed how such a conceptual (...) turnaround has historically taken place, by establishing a chain of reception from Plato to Diderot passing through Cicero and the Renaissance artists. (shrink)

Even for those who do not believe in a life after death, the idea of the afterlife that a past culture held can serve as a marker in the evolution of human consciousness. Like a demarcation that begins a process of map-making, the description of the time and space of the life after death starts a process of exploring the nature of consciousness and the cultural ideas of individuation that derive from it. World literature is the chronicle of this cultural (...) process of individuation, and literary works of the past serve as milestones on the historical path of the moral and psychological development of humanity. (shrink)

Our thesis is that reasoning plays a greater—or at least a different—role in understanding oral discourse such as lectures and speeches than it does in understanding comparatively long written discourse. For example, both reading and listening involve framing hypotheses about the direction the discourse is headed. But since a reader can skip around to check and revise hypotheses, the reader’s stake in initially getting it right is not as great as the listener’s, who runs the risk of getting hopelessly lost. (...) We also consider how representing the content of discourse and dealing with its pragmatic logic differs in reading and listening. (shrink)

Ancient commentators identify several passages in the Iliad as “epigrams.” This paper explores the consequences of taking the scholia literally and understanding these passages in terms of inscription. Two tristichs spoken by Helen in the teikhoskopia are singled out for special attention. These lines can be construed not only as epigrams in the general sense, but more specifically as captions appended to an image of the Achaeans encamped on the plain of Troy. Since Helen's lines to a certain extent correspond (...) to the function and style of catalogic poetry, reading them specifically as captions leads to a more nuanced understanding of both Homeric poetry and Homeric self-reference. By contrasting Helen's “epigrams” with those of Hektor, one can also discern a gender-based differentiation of poetic functions. (shrink)

This paper investigates the origins of the Oral Theory as formulated by Milman Parry in Paris during the late 1920s by reexamining the scholarship on which it rests. Parry's Oral Theory compared the texts of oral performances in Yugoslavia with the Homeric texts in order to shed light on the presumed oral origins of the latter. His work integrated the work of the linguist and Indo-Europeanist Antoine Meillet, the linguist and scholar of oral poetics Matthias Murko, and the anthropologists Lucien (...) Lévy-Bruhl and Marcel Jousse. (shrink)

The discovery of social phenomena by a discipline whose roots are abidingly psychological has been a singular development in American educational research. Formulations of situatedness are emblematic of this rethinking, and depending on our understanding of it, we have in situatedness the possibility of a distinctive set of analytic commitments. This paper discusses these possibilities and their development in the educational research literature, in the particulars of the Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) publication Situated Cognition. In the end, situatedness is (...) understood as a unifying formulation. And while it opens a huge domain of topics for inquiry, it also proves, as its inclusiveness, of no use whatsoever as a parsing device. Situated cognition, for example, could not be, nor has ever been, otherwise. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Against Writing The Hole in the Argument Spotting the Defense of Philosophical Writing A Sociology of Symbols The Psychological Power of Symbols.

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)

In Plato’s dialogues we often find Socrates talking at length about poetry. Sometimes he proposes censorship of certain works because what they say is false or harmful. Other times we find him interpreting the poets or rejecting potential interpretations of them. This raises the question of whether there is any consistent account to be given of Socrates’ practice as a literary critic. One might think that Plato himself in the Ion answers the question that I have raised. Rhapsody, at least (...) in the Ion , is portrayed as the activity of interpreting and evaluating the works of the poets. At first glance at least, Plato seems to conclude that this activity cannot meet the standards of a τέχνη. Rhapsodes are divine madmen. Thus, there cannot be a systematic Platonic account of literary criticism because this activity is inherently irrational and, subsequently, not something that one could engage in in a systematic way, guided by a theory of any sort. In the first part of the paper I argue that the Ion does not simply consign the Interpretation of poetry to the irrational and, as a result, does not pose an obstacle to the possibility of a Platonic literary criticism. In the second part of the paper I turn to the task of finding an account of the purpose of reading poetry and strategies for fulfilling this purpose that make systematic sense of Socrates’ multifarious remarks about poetry. (shrink)

I argue that there is a distinction to be drawn between two kinds of mental realism, and I draw some lessons for the realism-antirealism debate. Although it is already at hand, the distinction has not yet been drawn clearly. The difference to be shown consists in what realism is about: it may be either about the interpretation of folk psychology, or the ontology of mental entities. I specify the commitment to the fact-stating character of the discourse as the central component (...) of realism about folk psychology, and from this I separate realism about mental entities as an ontological commitment towards them. I point out that the two views are mutually independent, which provides the possibility of considering folk psychology as not being in cognitive competition with scientific psychology. At the end I make a tentative suggestion as to how to interpret the former in order to avoid this conflict. (shrink)

This paper aims at exploring some classic concepts in the field of Communication Studies such as medium, content, and message, inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s thought. The paper will also recover a perspective which is still considered useful to the understanding of digital media: the idea that each technology of communication must be recognized as a kind of grammar capable of creating and shaping new modes of communication. Therefore, the dictum ‘the medium is the message’ will be analyzed by re-evaluating the (...) different meanings that the ideas of medium and content assume throughout McLuhan’s work. (shrink)

This article inquires whether and to which degree some fundamental traits of the World Wide Web may encourage us to revise traditional conceptions of what constitutes scientific information and knowledge. Turning to arguments for `open access' in scientific publishing and its derivatives (open content, open archives, etc.), contemporary tendencies in `social software' and knowledge sharing, the authors project a new look on knowledge, dissociated with linear notions of cumulation, progression, and hierarchy (e.g. of scientific argument), but related to circularity, heterarchy, (...) and evolution. Arguing from a medium theoretical perspective, they illustrate their ideas with developments in library science, current debates in epistemology and theories about information architecture, with a particular focus on `unsystematic' folksonomies. (shrink)

Against any obscurantist stand, denying the interest of natural sciences for the comprehension of human meaning and language, but also against any reductionist hypothesis, frustrating the specificity of the semiotic point of view on nature, the paper argues that the deepest dynamic at the basis of meaning consists in its being a mechanism of ‘potentiality navigation’ within a universe generally characterized by motility. On the one hand, such a hypothesis widens the sphere of meaning to all beings somehow endowed with (...) the capacity of moving and/or perceiving movement. On the other hand, through a new evolutionist interpretation of the concept of generativity, such a hypothesis preserves the peculiarity of human meaning, meant as essentially founded on a certain intuition of infinity. Two corollaries stem from this hypothesis: first, religiosity can be considered as a matrix of grammars of infinity, aiming at regimenting its flight of potentialities. Second, non-genetic transmission of cultural information exerts determinant influence also at the level of that very deep mechanism of the human predicament that is the cognitive navigation of motor potentialities. A re-reading of the structuralist epistemology, scientific literature on the nervous cells of jellyfish, and some recent experiments on the mirror neurons of dancers, as well as certain intuitions of Teilhard de Chardin, are the main arguments of the paper. (shrink)

This essay argues that Plato's “Gorgias,” a dialogue lauding dialectic over rhetoric, uses a question-and-answer format as a heuristic of argument. Specific observations are advanced to explain the implications of Plato's techniques and to provide a more sensitive understanding of the process by which sought to gain the adherence of his readers.

Dreams are used figuratively throughout Greek literature to refer to something fleeting and/or unreal. In Plato, this metaphorical language is specifically used to describe an epistemological distinction: the one who has false knowledge or opinion is said to be dreaming while the one who has true knowledge is said to be awake. These figures are also central to Philo of Alexandria's philosophical language in De somniis 1-2 and De Iosepho. Although scholars have documented these epistemological metaphors in Plato and related (...) treatments of the concept of sleep in Heraclitus, it has not been discussed in any detail in relation to Philo's treatment of Joseph in these two treatises. In De somniis 1-2, Philo primarily emphasizes his role as a dreamer and thus one incapable of true knowledge. In De Iosepho, Joseph is a dream interpreter who is not only awake but also capable of interpreting the figurative dream of life to which most people are subject. Although some scholars have considered these treatises contradictory in terms of their treatments of Joseph, an analysis of Philo's figurative use of sleep and dreaming reveals that they are a part of a coherent exegetical framework. (shrink)

En Después del fin del arte, Danto se refiere a la mímesis como un estilo artístico y como la respuesta filosófica a la pregunta acerca de qué es el arte. En el panorama del arte contemporáneo, la mímesis se habría agotado y no tendría ningún papel activo que cumplir. El objetivo de mi trabajo será mostrar cómo Danto construye un relato legitimador en torno a la mímesis que le permite justificar su tesis sobre el fin del arte. Luego, señalaré los (...) problemas que implica dicho relato, haciendo hincapié en la pluralidad de sentidos que entraña la noción de mímesis desde sus primeras formulaciones griegas. Finalmente, expondré algunas razones que permiten seguir sosteniendo la vigencia de la noción de mímesis en la discusión contemporánea, sin invalidar la crítica que subyace a la controvertida tesis de Danto sobre el fin del arte. (shrink)

From earliest times, Homer was regarded as an authority in education, and in shaping social and political life. For Homer in Iliad and Odyssey describes the dominant values, moral virtues of the Greek culture via its heroes. In fact, this narration has opened the way for him to be regarded as the first teacher of the Greeks. His most famous students are Achilles and Telemachus. He talks about Achilles’ education in Iliad, Telemachus’ in Odyssey through his teachers. But the education (...) of these two heroes is both similar and different in some ways. From the moment Achilles was born, he knows the values of the class he belongs to, who he is. On the contrary, Telemachus as a child without a father does not know who he is. Yet, their education which is centered around not only words but also deeds, makes these two heroes know what to say and what to do. In the end, they gain the honor of becoming a Homeric hero. So the aim of this paper is to elaborate both different and similar educations of these heroes. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDer vorliegende Artikel widmet sich der Frage, wie Spiele und spielen zur Big-Data-basierten Wissensproduktion in der Hochenergiephysik beitragen. Als Beispiel dienen Detektorkollaborationen am Large Hadron Collider der Europäischen Organisation für Kernforschung, in denen die Autorin seit 2014 kulturanthropologische Feldforschung unternommen hat. Der ludische Aspekt der Wissensproduktion wird hier in drei verschiedenen Dimensionen analysiert: der symbolischen, der ontologischen und der epistemischen. Erstere verweist auf das CERN als Ort, an dem ein kosmologisches Wahrscheinlichkeitsspiel mithilfe von Monte-Carlo-Simulationen durchgeführt wird. Die Zweite wird durch (...) kompetitive Infrastrukturen in der Arbeitspraxis verschiedener Kollaborationsgruppen sichtbar. Die dritte Dimension entfaltet sich durch ludische Plattformen, wie etwa Online Challenges und Citizen Science Games, die zur Entwicklung von machine learning algorithmen beitragen, deren Funktion notwendig ist, um die ungeheuren Mengen an Big Data verarbeiten zu können, die durch die Experimente gesammelt werden. Das CERN wird als Ort des Deep Play beschrieben, einem von Clifford Geertz entwickeltem Konzept, das dazu beiträgt, größere soziale und kulturelle Ordnungen durch die Analyse ludischer Kollektivphänomene zu begreifen. Der Artikel setzt sich darüber hinaus mit Peter Galisons Idee der Trading Zone auseinander und schlägt vor, diese in Zeiten von Big Data als Playground zu begreifen. Die Autorin hofft damit zu einer breiteren sozio-historiografischen Diskussion in den Science and Technology Studies und nicht zuletzt der Kulturanthropologie beizutragen, indem das Ludische in den Wissenschaften als zentrales Element für das Verständnis kollaborativer Wissensproduktion begriffen wird. (shrink)

The ability to think in abstractions depends on the imagination. An important evolutionary change was the installation of a suite of six imaginative activities that emerge at first in childhood, which include empathy, symbolic play, and theory-of-mind. These abilities can be built upon in adulthood to enable the production of oral and written stories. As a technology, writing has three aspects: material, skill based, and societal. It is in fiction that expertise in writing is most strikingly attained; imagination is put (...) to use to create simulations of the social world that can usefully be offered to others. Fiction is best conceived as an externalization of consciousness, which not only enables us to understand others but also to transform ourselves so that we can reach beyond the immediate. (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.