The article offers an attempt to understand the present state of Kant’s legacy in Russia on the threshold of the Tercentenary. An explanans is found in the metaphors of “ tabula rasa ” and “unplowed virgin soil,” first used by Leibniz in relation to Russia in his letters and memoranda addressed to tsar Peter I and other members of the Russian elite, which became the country’s “absolute metaphors to live by” up to present time. Several known and unknown episodes from (...) the history of the reception of Kantian ideas, his followers in Russia, and the transformation of the urban environment of Kant’s life in Königsberg, as it was becoming Kaliningrad, are presented through the prism of this metaphor. Without hoping to make specific recommendations of any use from such metaphorical grounds, this study aims to emphasize the depth, interconnectedness, and basic, metaphysical tension of the relationship between Europe and Russia, which cannot be terminated at will by either side, or by a third party. In a situation where the sides are doomed to dialog, Kant, appropriated by Russia as its “subject,” occupies the unique position of mediator of philosophical understanding and peaceful action. (shrink)

Some embodied theories of concepts state that concepts are represented in a sensorimotor manner, typically via simulation in sensorimotor cortices. Fred Adams (2010) has advanced an empirical argument against embodied concepts reasoning as follows. If concepts are embodied, then patients with certain sensorimotor impairments should perform worse on categorization tasks involving those concepts. Adams cites a study with Moebius Syndrome patients that shows typical categorization performance in face-based emotion recognition. Adams concludes that their typical performance shows that embodiment is false. (...) Moebius patients must draw on amodal (non-embodied) emotion concepts. In this paper, I review face-based emotion recognition studies with Moebius patients yielding conflicting results and diagnose these conflicts as a difference in experimental design. When emotion labels are provided, patients have typical performance, but when labels are not provided patients are severely deficient. I then show how an embodied, psychological constructionist view of emotions predicts and explains these performance differences. The upshot is that embodied theories of concepts are vindicated. (shrink)

The article depicts the topic of the nomination in professional language, in the context of onimical processes based on principles known to other target groups not associated with the automotive industry. Important in this context are rules of metaphor and metonymy and pragmatic context of used expressions.

(Penultimate draft) Embodied Cognition holds that bodily (e.g. sensorimotor) states and processes are directly involved in some higher-level cognitive functions (e.g. reasoning). This challenges traditional views of cognition according to which bodily states and processes are, at most, indirectly involved in higher-level cognition. Although some elements of Embodied Cognition have been integrated into mainstream cognitive science, others still face adamant resistance. In this paper, rather than straightforwardly defend Embodied Cognition against specific objections I will do the following. First, I will (...) present a concise account of embodied conceptual processing and highlight some of its advantages over non-embodied accounts, specifically focusing on the role of metaphors. Second, I will detail the influence of computational metaphors on theories of cognition and evaluation of these theories. Third, I will argue that embodied cognitive mechanisms, specifically those operating through computational metaphors, may drive some of the resistance to Embodied Cognition - and that Embodied Cognition is able to offer a uniquely compelling account of this. Ultimately, this will contribute to an improved understanding of Embodied Cognition, its explanatory power, and how it ought to be evaluated. Additionally, it will shed light on the role of metaphors in shaping philosophical thought and highlight the importance of these influences. (shrink)

What does it mean to be an aesthetic beholder? Is it different than simply being a perceiver? Most theories of aesthetic perception focus on 1) features of the perceived object and its presentation or 2) on psychological evaluative or emotional responses and intentions of perceiver and artist. In this chapter I propose that we need to look at the process of engaged perception itself, and further that this temporal process of be- coming a beholder must be understood in its embodied, (...) contextual and dynamic speci- ficity. Through both phenomenological and neuroscientific explorations I analyze what is characteristic about a more “aesthetic stance” and argue that there is a certain asym- metry between beholder and beheld, which has to do with a disengagement of goal- directed action, and which allows for other kinds of perceptual involvement than in a more “practical stance”. It is a multi-disciplinary project integrating a sensorimotor no- tion of aesthetic affordances, 18th century philosophy, and large-scale brain network findings. What ensues is a new dynamic framework for future empirical and theoretical research on aesthetic perception. (shrink)

The notion of Simulative Reasoning in the study of propositional attitudes within Artificial Intelligence (AI) is strongly related to the Simulation Theory of mental ascription in Philosophy. Roughly speaking, when an AI system engages in Simulative Reasoning about a target agent, it reasons with that agent’s beliefs as temporary hypotheses of its own, thereby coming to conclusions about what the agent might conclude or might have concluded. The contrast is with non-simulative meta-reasoning, where the AI system reasons within a detailed (...) theory about the agent’s (conjectured) reasoning acts. The motive within AI for preferring Simulative Reasoning is that it is more convenient and efficient, because of a simplification of the representations and reasoning processes. The chapter discusses this advantage in detail. It also sketches the use of Simulative Reasoning in an AI natural language processing system, ATT-Meta, that is currently being implemented. This system is directed at the understanding of propositional attitude reports. In ATT-Meta, Simulative Reasoning is yoked to a somewhat independent set of ideas about how attitude reports should be treated. Central here are the claims that (a) speakers often employ commonsense (and largely metaphorical) models of mind in describing agents’ attitudes, (b) the listener accordingly needs often to reason within the terms of such models, rather than on the basis of any objectively justifiable characterization of the mind, and (c) the commonsense models filter the suggestions that Simulative Reasoning comes up with concerning target agents’ reasoning conclusions. There is a yet tighter connection between the commonsense models and the Simulative Reasoning. It turns out that Simulative Reasoning can be rationally reconstructed in terms of a more general type of reasoning about the possibly-counterfactual “world” that the target agent believes in, together with an assumption that that agent has a faithful representation of the world. In the ATT-Meta approach, the reasoner adopts that assumption when it views the target agent through a particular commonsense model (called IDEAS-AS-MODELS). (shrink)

Kelly suggested that it was useful to consider anyone as functioning as a scientist, in the business of applying theories, making hypotheses and predictions and testing them out in the practice of everyday life. One of Charles Peirce’s major contributions was to develop the disciplines of logic and the philosophy of science. We can deepen and enrich our understanding of Kelly’s vision by looking at what Peirce has to say about the process of science. For Peirce, the essence of science (...) was the application of the laws of inference. He developed a much broader concept of logic, elaborating the processes of deduction and induction and adding to these the logic of hypothetical inference, or ‘abduction’, even as Kelly broadened it further in his “departure from classical logic”. Examining the implications of these three forms of inference allows us to elaborate the dynamics involved in the process of construing, ordinacy and the cycles of experience, creativity and decision making. This is the second of a three part series examining the relationship between the work of Peirce and Kelly. The third will include a look at phenomenology, bipolarity, the self, dialogical process and sociological considerations. (shrink)

Exocentric compounding is a creative morphological process that contributes to the English lexicon. However, because it lacks a syntactic or semantic head, it was deemed an exceptional case in most word-formation literature and hence neglected. Previous work has only been limited to syntax-based grammar and the notion of headedness and thus failed to address the other linguistic rules that constrain exocentric compounds. The current paper aims to identify the frequency of exocentric compounds and thus to determine their viability. The research (...) will also look into how conceptual metaphor and/or conceptual metonymy motivate exocentric compound formation. The results demonstrate that exocentric compounds are viable lexical units, generating content words (e.g., adjectives and adverbs) through productive word-formation processes, and extending word senses. The results also suggest that conceptual metonymy is more active than conceptual metaphor in the formation of exocentric compounds. The present findings have several implications for research on exocentric compounds, conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. (shrink)

The current paper expands on previous work done on the influence of learners’ language and preexisting knowledge on understanding physics terminology by exploring the concept of ACCELERATION in Arabic and English. The study attempts to answer two questions: (1) what are the similarities and differences between the polysemy of Arabic تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and the polysemy of English acceleration, and (2) to what extent do prototypes and factors motivating the conceptualization of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and the conceptualization of acceleration converge or (...) diverge? To this end, Arabic and English dictionaries and corpora, the ArabiCorpus (Arabic Corpus Search Tool) and the British National Corpus (BNC), were employed. The dictionaries were surveyed to explore the various meanings of تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) and acceleration, while the ArabiCorpus and the BNC were employed to investigate the senses and to identify the most frequent collocates and so the prototypes of these terms. The meaning extension of the terms is examined on the basis of the cognitive mechanisms which appear in the corpora. Theoretically, the paper is informed by the prototype theory (Rosch, 1973; 1975), image schemas (Johnson, 1987), and conceptual metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980/2003). The results show that تَسَارُع (tasāruʿ) (acceleration) and acceleration generally overlap in terms of polysemy, prototype, and images schemas as well as conceptual metaphor that organize the conceptualization of these terms. It was also found that both Arab and English speakers mix ACCELERATION up with SPEED and so misunderstand them in a scientific setting. The present findings have several implications for science curriculum design, education, and research on universal and culture-specific properties of language. (shrink)

The current paper investigates two productive morphological processes, namely compounds and portmanteau words (or blends). While compounds, a productive, regular and predicable morphological process, have received much attention in the literature, little attention was paid to portmanteau words, a creative, irregular and unpredictable word formation process. The present paper aims to find the commonalities and differences between these morphological devices, using Rosch et al.’s (1975; 1976) theory of prototypes and basic-level categories to achieve this goal. This theory will also be (...) employed to discuss the literature on the word formation mechanisms under investigation and propose a new categorization approach to these neologisms. The analysis suggests that compounds and blends compare and contrast and that the distinctions between them are blurry. The analysis confirms that a prototypical approach is well suited to compounds and blends in English. This has implications for future research into English word-formation processes in general and compounds and blends precisely. (shrink)

Mental imagery (varieties of which are sometimes colloquially refered to as “visualizing,” “seeing in the mind's eye,” “hearing in the head,” “imagining the feel of,” etc.) is quasi-perceptual experience; it resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of the appropriate external stimuli. It is also generally understood to bear intentionality (i.e., mental images are always images of something or other), and thereby to function as a form of mental representation. Traditionally, visual mental imagery, the most discussed variety, was thought (...) to be caused by the presence of picturelike representations (mental images) in the mind, soul, or brain, but this is no longer universally accepted. (shrink)

Recent works in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences draw an “unconventional” picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, some contemporary theories claim that cognition is a situated process that encompasses the human agent’s boundaries. In particular, the Extended Mind Hypothesis (EMH) and the Enactive approach to cognition claim that embodied action is constitutive of cognitive processes, and thus (...) of the mind. Although both theories give an “extended” or “extensive” picture of cognition and of the mind, they disagree on the epistemic value of internal representations. The EMH claims that we need to posit internal action- oriented representations (AORs). AORs would account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. The enactive approach to cognition argues against AORs. The concept of AOR does not fulfill the representational conditions necessary to talk about representations properly. Furthermore, AORs are expressive of an internalistic prejudice, which makes the EMH weak. Moreover, a semiotic analysis of AORs shows that these items called “representations” are not active at all. Therefore, the epistemic posit of AOR plays no interesting job in the project of extending the mind in virtue of a reassessment of the concept of representation aimed at making it embodied and active. Therefore I claim that the concept of AOR has to be rejected. Action- control, action-selection, and the anticipation of aspects of action-perception loops can be explained in a more enactive way. Embodied action in a field of affordances explains how agents respond selectively to environmental features and how action-perception loops are anticipated by the “affective agent”. Furthermore, the enactive approach to cognition - especially if coupled with a semiotic description of cognitive niches and with some insights from the affective sciences (e.g. appraisal of core relational themes) - gives an explanation of action that, in contrast to the EMH, is actually able to “extend the mind”. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new theorization of the concept of ‘framing’, in which argumentation has a central role. When decision-making is involved, to ‘frame’ an issue amounts to offering the audience a salient and thus potentially overriding premise in a deliberative process that can ground decision and action. The analysis focuses on the Roşia Montană case, a conflict over policy that led, in September 2013, to the most significant public protests in Romania since the 1989 Revolution.

Cognition is embodied when it is deeply dependent upon features of the physical body of an agent, that is, when aspects of the agent's body beyond the brain play a significant causal or physically constitutive role in cognitive processing. In general, dominant views in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science have considered the body as peripheral to understanding the nature of mind and cognition. Proponents of embodied cognitive science view this as a serious mistake. Sometimes the nature of the (...) dependence of cognition on the body is quite unexpected, and suggests new ways of conceptualizing and exploring the mechanics of cognitive processing. Embodied cognitive science encompasses a loose-knit family of research programs in the cognitive sciences that often share a commitment to critiquing and even replacing traditional approaches to cognition and cognitive processing. Empirical research on embodied cognition has exploded in the past 10 years. As the bibliography for this article attests, the various bodies of work that will be discussed represent a serious alternative to the investigation of cognitive phenomena. Relatively recent work on the embodiment of cognition provides much food for thought for empirically-informed philosophers of mind. This is in part because of the rich range of phenomena that embodied cognitive science has studied. But it is also in part because those phenomena are often thought to challenge dominant views of the mind, such as the computational and representational theories of mind, at the heart of traditional cognitive science. And they have sometimes been taken to undermine standard positions in the philosophy of mind, such as the idea that the mind is identical to, or even realized in, the brain. (shrink)

Philosophy of immunology is a subfield of philosophy of biology dealing with ontological and epistemological issues related to the studies of the immune system. While speculative investigations and abstract analyses have always been part of immune theorizing, until recently philosophers have largely ignored immunology. Yet the implications for understanding the philosophical basis of organismal functions framed by immunity offer new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology and medicine. Developed in the context of history of medicine, theoretical biology, and medical anthropology, (...) philosophy of immunology differs from these related branches of study in its focus on traditional philosophical questions concerning identity, individuality, ecology, cognition, scientific methodology and theory construction. This broad agenda derives from immunology’s multifaceted research program that has developed from its initial clinical challenges of host defense, transplantation, autoimmunity, tumor immunology, and allergy. In addition to these well-established research areas, immunity is now understood to play a central role in other physiological functions, development, ecology, and evolutionary mechanics. Holding together these diverse domains of inquiry lie philosophical commitments oriented by organismal identity. In this regard, pertinent issues are raised concerning cognition (organization of immune perception and information processing), the character of individuality (framed by the ecological context of immune-mediated assimilation and rejection), and the dynamics of complex systems (understood as holistic systems biology). Indeed, immunology, in the context of cognitive science, evolutionary biology, environmental sciences, and development provides multi-focal perspectives for philosophy of science. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is three-fold. First, it aims to show that perception requires action. This is most evident for some types of visual percept. Second, it aims to show that the distinction of the cortical visual processing into two streams is insufficient and leads to possible misunderstandings on the true nature of perceptual processes. Third, it aims to show that the dorsal stream is not only responsible for the unconscious control of action, but also for the conscious (...) awareness of space and action. (shrink)

In the aftermath of national or international tragedies, appeals for action such as, “Never Forget” or “Never Again” are ubiquitous. Theodor Adorno makes a similar call in the wake of the Holocaust, proclaiming that all education should be focused on the prevention of another genocide. While most would agree with such a statement, practically how do we respond to such a call, specifically in light of Adorno’s work? Answering this question is at the heart of this project and I argue (...) that imaginative memorials can fulfill Adorno’s criteria for post-Auschwitz education. I first present a theory of moral imagination by relying on contemporary accounts of the theory and then show how it complements Adorno’s work, specifically by offering an explanatory foundation to a number of his claims. I reveal that many of Adorno’s observations about the world are supported by recent advancements in the understanding of imagination and I argue that the combination of contemporary accounts of moral imagination and Adorno’s thought are mutually beneficial. After the two theories have been sufficiently discussed and integrated, I focus on Adorno’s arguments regarding education following Auschwitz. Adorno argues that we should investigate how such a horror could occur, and the people who committed the acts of genocide. Such information will be helpful for the prevention of another Auschwitz because we can attempt to overcome the values and ideas of those who perpetrated genocide. This dissertation is unique and of philosophical importance because it fleshes out Adorno’s discussion of the characteristics that led to the Holocaust and argues for a specific form of education that meets all of the criteria of Adorno’s post-Auschwitz education: memorials that stimulate the visitor’s imagination. In order to make this point, I highlight specific Holocaust memorials that are imaginative and argue for their efficacy. My goal for the project is to actualize Adorno’s post-Auschwitz education initiative through imaginative memorials. (shrink)

This dissertation is a collection of essays exploring the role of metaphor in Aristotle’s scientific method. Aristotle often appeals to metaphors in his scientific practice; but in the Posterior Analytics, he suggests that their use is inimical to science. Why, then, does he use them in natural science? And what does his use of metaphor in science reveal about the nature of his scientific investigations? I approach these questions by investigating the epistemic status of metaphor in Aristotelian science. In the (...) first essay, I defend an interpretation of metaphor as a type of heuristic reasoning: I claim that Aristotle uses metaphor to express conditions an explanation in natural science must meet if it is to explain regular, ordered change. These conditions specify the kinds of causes—particularly unmoved efficient causes—which the inquirer into nature is seeking. In the second essay, I look to Aristotle’s use of certain endoxa or common beliefs as explanatory principles in science, and show that his use of these principles is similar to his use of metaphor. In the final essay, I present a historical study of the analogy of art and nature, and I suggest that by looking to how the Greeks understood the role of inquiry in the arts, we can shed some light on Aristotle’s views concerning the method of inquiry he thinks the natural scientist should adopt. (shrink)

Heuristics are often invoked in the philosophical, psychological, and cognitive science literatures to describe or explain methodological techniques or "shortcut" mental operations that help in inference, decision-making, and problem-solving. Yet there has been surprisingly little philosophical work done on the nature of heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and a close inspection of the way(s) in which "heuristic" is used throughout the literature reveals a vagueness and uncertainty with respect to what heuristics are and their role in cognition. This dissertation seeks to (...) remedy this situation by motivating philosophical inquiry into heuristics and heuristic reasoning, and then advancing a theory of how heuristics operate in cognition. I develop a positive working characterization of heuristics that is coherent and robust enough to account for a broad range of phenomena in reasoning and inference, and makes sense of empirical data in a systematic way. I then illustrate the work this characterization does by considering the sorts of problems that many philosophers believe heuristics solve, namely those resulting from the so-called frame problem. Considering the frame problem motivates the need to gain a better understanding of how heuristics work and the cognitive structures over which they operate. I develop a general theory of cognition which I argue underwrites the heuristic operations that concern this dissertation. I argue that heuristics operate over highly organized systems of knowledge, and I offer a cognitive architecture to accommodate this view. I then provide an account of the systems of knowledge that heuristics are supposed to operate over, in which I suggest that such systems of knowledge are concepts. The upshot, then, is that heuristics operate over concepts. I argue, however, that heuristics do not operate over conceptual content, but over metainformational relations between activated and primed concepts and their contents. Finally, to show that my thesis is empirically adequate, I consider empirical evidence on heuristic reasoning and argue that my account of heuristics explains the data. (shrink)

A diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme, a World Health Organisation grade IV brain tumour, is devastating for patients and their families who bear the impetus of caregiving. GBM caregivers act as de facto health professionals when their loved ones are discharged prematurely from hospitals. Faced with complex healthcare needs, GBM caregivers report the highest psychological burden, and highest unmet needs of all cancer caregivers. Despite this, they rarely accessed rehabilitation services. Researchers hardly engaged with their stories. The current research on GBM (...) caregiving is predominantly from a biomedical perspective, not only offering limited understandings of psychosocial experiences, but also, evidencing the need for caregiver stories in caregiving research. The researcher recruited 7 bereaved caregivers, who had previously narrated stories online about caring for their loved ones diagnosed with GBM and; consented to the use of their stories as research data. These stories covered a period of between 1-3+ years, throughout the illness trajectory and post-bereavement. The researcher further conducted email interviews focussed on the retrospective perspectives of sharing stories online. Participants provided feedback on the preliminary findings of the DNA. The findings consisted of multiple layers of interpretations drawn from social constructionism, narrative and feminist relational theories, beginning with subjective stories, collective story typologies and core narratives, thereby illuminating the relationships between GBM caregivers, the stories they narrated and the event of narrating stories online. An additional layer of interpretation served to shed light on the relational, dialogical, performative and hindsight perspectives of storytelling and the storytelling landscape. This research decentres the dominance of biomedicine in caregiving research to present a perspective from GBM caregivers using their own stories, in their own voices, so as to inform counselling psychology research and practice. (shrink)

Many philosophers argue that the mind-body problem is unresolvable, that there are irreconcilable differences between the physical world and the way the mind experiences it. Several others argue that the problem represents an incompleteness of the Galilean view, which conceptually divides the world into two models (physical and consciousness). Recent debates have centered around a proposal to radically alter the physical model to account for the mind-body relationship. However, critics argue that the general approach is flawed and that the specific (...) proposal results in a ‘messy’ and highly complex model with inconsistencies with well-known phenomena. This paper, first, critically examines the argument that the general approach is flawed. Then this paper argues that the proposal is much broader than necessary and that the aspects required to resolve the mind-body problem are already present in the physical model. This results in, I argue, a resolution to the mind-body problem without increased complexity for either model or the aforementioned inconsistencies. (shrink)

Integrating the concept of place meanings into protected area management has been difficult. Across a diverse body of social science literature, challenges in the conceptualization and application of place meanings continue to exist. However, focusing on relationships in the context of participatory planning and management allows protected area managers to bring place meanings into professional judgment and practice. This paper builds on work that has outlined objectives and recommendations for bringing place meanings, relationships, and lived experiences to the forefront of (...) land-use planning and management. It proposes the next steps in accounting for people’s relationships with protected areas and their relationships with protected area managers. Our goals are to 1) conceptualize this relationship framework; 2) present a structure for application of the framework; and 3) demonstrate the application in a specific protected area context, using an example from Alaska. We identify three key target areas of information and knowledge that managers will need to sustain quality relationship outcomes at protected areas. These targets are recording stories or narratives, monitoring public trust in management, and identifying and prioritizing threats to relationships. The structure needed to apply this relationship-focused approach requires documenting and following individual relationships with protected areas in multiple ways. The goal of this application is not to predict relationships, but instead to gain a deeper understanding of how and why relationships develop and change over time. By documenting narratives of individuals, managers can understand how relationships evolve over time and the role they play in individual’s lives. By understanding public trust, the shared values and goals of individuals and managers can be observed. By identifying and prioritizing threats, managers can pursue efforts that steward relationships while allowing for the protection of experiences and meanings. The collection and interpretation of these three information targets can then be integrated and implemented within planning and management strategies to achieve outcomes that are beneficial for resource protection, visitor experiences, and stakeholder engagement. By investing in this approach, agencies will gain greater understanding and usable knowledge towards the achievement of quality relationships. It represents an investment in both place relationships and public relations. By integrating such an approach into planning and management, protected area managers can represent the greatest diversity of individual place meanings and connections. relationships, place meanings, trust, narratives, planning, protected areas. (shrink)

The Western idea of religion is of something that one does, aside from what one believes. We separate belief from action. This paper examines the Abrahamic idea of belief and the need for historicity and compares this to the Taoist belief in Lao Tzu and the lack of a need for a historical founder in terms of practice and belief.

Biosemiotics deals with the processes of signs in all dimensions of nature. Semiosis is the primary form of intelligence. Intelligent behaviour becomes immediately understandable in this approach because semiosis combines causality with the triadic structure of the semiotic sign. Intelligence is a process created in a given context. In the course of evolution organisms have learned to create increasingly sophisticated internal representations of external state. Semiosis is the precursor of the emergence of a feature we consider intelligence. Biosemiotics also draws (...) attention to the distributed intelligence, which relies on external semiotic scaffoldings as much as on the subject’s abilities and knowledge. (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)

The paper addresses the main questions to be dealt with by any semantic theory which is committed to provide an explanation of how meaning is possible. On one side the paper argues that the resources provided by the development of mathematical logic, theoretical computer science, cognitive psychology, and general linguistics in the 20th Century, however indispensable to investigate the structure of language, rely on the existence of end products in the morphogenesis of meaning. On the other, the paper argues that (...) philosophy of language, which, either in the analytic or the structuralist or the hermeneutical tradition, made little use of such resources (when they are not simply rejected). Left the main question unanswered. Though phenomenology intended to focus on the constitutive process, it ended up mostly with philology. Cognitive semantics paved the way to focus on patterns of bodily interaction within the natural environment out of which basic schemes emerge and are metaphorically “lifted” to any universe of discourse. The explanatory commitment is thus endorsed through two hypotheses: (1) these schemes, of topological and kinaesthetic structure, determine the range of forms of atomic sentences of any natural language, and (2) the category-theoretic notion of universality allows for a proper analysis of how such schemes are “lifted”. (shrink)

Half a lifetime ago, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson dismantled one of the mental tools we use to understand our reality, usually bamboozling ourselves in the process. Their classic study Metaphors We Live By (1980) showed how powerfully certain very basic physical parameters bracket our emotional response to the world and other people. One routine metaphor draws on height as a privileged characteristic: her Highness, ascending a hierarchy, sheer physiological tallness as a marker of worth and attractiveness. So what metaphors (...) and metonymies are invoked by the term “transcendent mind”? Doesn’t it immediately exert a claim on us of superior worth, purified of dross, even unearthly magnificence? Certainly that is suggested by the Oxford Dictionary, which finds “transcendent” to convey “surpassing the ordinary; exceptional, existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe,” and even, drawing on Kant, “not realizable in experience.” On the whole, then, a transcendent mind would be far more wonderful than the coarse, grubby, workaday thinking and feeling unit tucked away under our skulls. Look at the roots of the word, it’s that height thing again: from the Latin verb transcendere, “climbing up and over.” Then again, haven’t I just glibly tossed in another standard metaphor for mind, that it’s a kind of mechanism, a “workaday thinking and feeling unit,” a sort of neural abacus? I admit it. Contemporary science finds no use for the traditional hypothesis of an immaterial soul extended downward to the world of stuff from an empyreal beyond, infusing the flesh and working the mindless physical abacus. (shrink)

Current approaches in psychology have replaced the idea of a centralized, self-present identity with that of a diffuse system of contextually changing states distributed ecologically as psychologically embodied and socially embedded. However, the failure of contemporary perspectives to banish the lingering notion of a literal, if fleeting, status residing within the parts of a psycho-bio-social organization may result in the covering over of a rich, profoundly intricate process of change within the assumed frozen space of each part. In this paper (...) I show how thinking from this more intimate process may transform current views of metaphor, the unconscious, and the relation between affect and cognition. (shrink)

Alongside existing research into the social, political and economic impacts of the Web, there is a need to study the Web from a cognitive and epistemic perspective. This is particularly so as new and emerging technologies alter the nature of our interactive engagements with the Web, transforming the extent to which our thoughts and actions are shaped by the online environment. Situated and ecological approaches to cognition are relevant to understanding the cognitive significance of the Web because of the emphasis (...) they place on forces and factors that reside at the level of agent–world interactions. In particular, by adopting a situated or ecological approach to cognition, we are able to assess the significance of the Web from the perspective of research into embodied, extended, embedded, social and collective cognition. The results of this analysis help to reshape the interdisciplinary configuration of Web Science, expanding its theoretical and empirical remit to include the disciplines of both cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Between June 2-4, 2011 Sabancı University School of Languages welcomed colleagues from 21 different countries to a collaborative exploration of the challenging and inspiring journey of learners and educators in the field of language education. The conference provided an opportunity for all stakeholders to share their views on language education. Colleagues met with world-renowned experts and authors in the fields of education and psychology, faculty and administrators from various universities and institutions, teachers from secondary educational backgrounds and higher education, as (...) well as learners whose voices are often not directly shared but usually reported. The conference name, Eclipsing Expectations, was inspired by two natural phenomena, a solar eclipse directly before the conference, and a lunar eclipse, immediately after. Learners and educators were hereby invited to join a journey to observe, learn and exchange ideas in order. (shrink)

semantic minimalism and moderte contextualism.

يخلط كثير من المتعاملين مع موضوع اللغة – تدريسا أو بحثا- بين النحو، والإعراب. وحتى اللغة ولا يكاد التمايز يحصل بين هذه العناوين إلا عند فئة المتخصصين، الذين رفضوا الترادف لمثل هذه المصطلحات. سبب هذا الخلط بلبلة في الفهوم، وبخاصة في مراحل الطلب والاكتساب. وبما أن اللغة ذلك النظام الذي تتعايش فيه، جملة من الفنون اللغوية لكونها عناصر حيوية تحكمها علاقات مقدرة في الفكر، فلا يعني أنها قواعد نحوية أو تقنيات إعرابية وكفى. لأن النحو – بمفهومه التركيبي – لا يعدو (...) أن يكون مسلكا منهجيا للمتكلم بلغة العرب تأسيا بسمتهم، والتزاما بضوابطهم المؤدية إلى مصاف الفصاحة والبيان. (shrink)

The question that motivates the central hypothesis advanced in this paper regarding the emergence of early religious thinking is the following: ‘why does religion need material culture?’ What basic functional or symbolic need renders material culture an indispensable and universal component of religion and ritual activity? A common temptation, obvious in a number of recent archaeological and anthropological studies, is to seek an answer in the field of memory (Boyer 1993; 1996; 1998; 2001; McCauley and Lawson 2002; Whitehouse 2000; 2004; (...) Mithen 1998a). This paper argues that material culture does much more than simply offer a symbolic channel for the externalization, communication, and thus successful cultural transmission, of religious ideas. Although the mnemonic significance of the ritual object is not denied, it is proposed that the argument from memory, as traditionally premised, fails to provide a cognitively adequate account of the complex affective ties and multimodal interactions that characterise the distinctive phenomenology of religious experience. Moreover, and from a long-term evolutionary perspective, it is argued that the commonly implied ontological priority of the religious idea, over its material expression, leaves us with no explanation about why,and how, religious concepts emerge in the context of human cognitive evolution. Drawing on the theoretical lines of the Material Engagement approach (Malafouris 2004; Renfrew 2004) I want to advance a different hypothesis that places material culture at the heart of the human capacity for religious thinking (cf. Day 2004). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to reconsider certain assumptions about conceptual structure which have become influential in recent Cognitive Science and which are associated in particular with the Cognitive Linguistics research agenda. I will outline three areas within the Cognitive Linguistics theory of concepts which seem to create some difficulties in their present formulation: the 'embodied cognition' idea, the function of imagery and the role of metaphor in the structure of concepts.

The dualist / materialist debates about the nature of consciousness are based on the assumption that an entirely physical universe must ultimately be observable by humans (with infinitely advanced tools). Thus the dualists claim that anything unobservable must be non-physical, while the materialists argue that in theory nothing is unobservable. However, there may be fundamental limitations in the power of human observation, no matter how well aided, that greatly curtail our ability to know and observe even a fully physical universe. (...) This paper presents arguments to support the model of an inherently limited observer and explores the consequences of this view. (shrink)

The backward induction controversy in game theory flared up and then practically ended within a decade – the 1990s. The protagonists, however, did not converge on an agreement about the source of the controversy. Why was this the case, if opposing sides had access to the same modelling techniques and empirical facts? In this paper I offer an explanation for this controversy and its unsettled end. The answer is not to be found in the modelling claims made by the opposing (...) protagonists, but in the tacit metaphors they operate under. Aristotle defined metaphor as giving a 'thing a name that belongs to something else' (Poetica, 1457b). The meaning of metaphors has not changed much since then – in contrast to models which are comparatively new, and still not well-understood, scientific tools. The controversy of backward induction in game theory provides a test bed for the explanatory power of metaphors. This paper frames the controversy in terms of metaphor choice to provide a common framework for the protagonists. This results in the identification of three different domains – mathematical logic, game theory and the world – each connected to the other via different metaphors. The controversy around backward induction is placed in, and tentatively explained by, this framework. (shrink)

Jackson and Jackson argue that most current tests used to assess awareness of sequential material are flawed because of their emphasis on accuracy. They propose to distinguish two forms of sequence knowledge: Serial knowledge, that is, knowledge about the specific sequence that stimuli follow, which involves information about the statistical relationship between many sequence elements, and statistical knowledge, or knowledge about the probability of different transitions between adjacent sequence elements. Further, they suggest a new method to analyze generation performance, which (...) involves considering the correlation between subjects' responses and the distribution of transition probabilities, regardless of the accuracy of generation performance. In this comment, we first suggest that the distinction between serial and statistical knowledge is unwarranted except in one case which is not addressed by Jackson and Jackson. We propose instead that all sequence knowledge is essentially statistical in nature. Second, we suggest that using probabilistic instead of deterministic sequences is a better way to approach the assessment of explicit knowledge, and illustrate this contention with empirical and simulated examples based on previous and current research. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis analyses the concept of risk and how it functions as an organizing principle of discourse, paying close attention to actual linguistic practice. Article 1 analyses the concepts of risk, safety and security and their relations based on corpus data. Lexical, grammatical and semantic contexts of the nouns risk, safety and security, and the adjectives risky, safe and secure are analysed and compared. Similarities and differences are observed, suggesting partial synonymy between safety and security and semantic opposition to (...) risk. The findings both support and contrast theoretical assumptions about these concepts in the literature. Article 2 analyses the concepts of risk and danger and their relation based on corpus data. Frame semantics is used to explore the assumptions of the sociologist Niklas Luhmann that the risk concept presupposes decision-making, while the concept of danger does not. Findings partly support and partly contradict this assumption. Article 3 analyses how newspapers represent risk and causality. Two theories are used: media framing and the philosopher John Mackie’s account of causality. A central finding of the study is that risks are “framed” with respect to causality in several ways. Furthermore, newspaper reporting on risk and causality vary in complexity. In some articles, risks are presented without causal explanations, while in other articles, risks are presented as results from complex causal conditions. Considering newspaper reporting on an aggregated overall level, complex schemas of causal explanations emerge. Article 4 analyses how phenomena referred to by the term nano are represented as risks in Swedish newspaper reporting. Theoretically, the relational theory of risk and frame semantics are used. Five main groups of nano-risks are identified based on the risk object of the article: nanotechnology; nanotechnology and its artefacts ; nanoparticles, without referring to nanotechnology; non-nanotechnological nanoparticles ; and nanotechnology and nanorobots. Various patterns are explored within each group, concerning, for example, what is considered to be at stake in relation to these risk objects, and under what conditions. It is concluded that Swedish patterns of newspaper reporting on nano-risks follow international trends, influenced by scientific assessment, as well as science fiction. Article 5 analyses the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products. The controversy involves several actors: print and television news media, Government and parliament, governmental agencies, municipalities, non-government organisations, and companies. In the controversy, antibacterial silver is claimed to be a risk object that negatively affects health, the environment, and sewage treatment industry. In contrast, such claims are denied. Antibacterial silver is even associated with the benefit of mitigating risk objects that threaten health and the environment. In other words, both sides of the controversy invoke health and the environment as objects at risk. Three strategies organising risk communication are identified: representation of silver as a risk to health and the environment; denial of such representations; and benefit association, where silver is construed to mitigate risks to health and the environment. (shrink)

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 requires federal agencies to provide a meaningful role for rural subsistence harvesters in management of fish and wildlife in Alaska. We constructed an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Stakeholders' perceptions of their roles and motivations to participate in collaborative management are linked to unseen and often ignored cultural features and differing worldviews that influence outcomes of collaboration. Agencies need to better understand Yup'ik preferences for working (...) together and change their formats and methods of public engagement. More frequent and higher quality interactions among stakeholders in rural communities will create awareness of cultural differences. Improved awareness will allow managers to design and implement a process that is culturally appropriate and increase the meaningfulness of collaborative management. (shrink)

Članak tematizira ulogu kompleksnog mišljenja u razvoju znanstvene spoznaje i mišljenja općenito. Po Vigotskom, kompleksno mišljenje je početna faza u ontogenezi, pa i filogenezi, ljudskog mišljenja i ono je u tom slijedu predpojmovno. Prema istom autoru, ono ima svoju unutarnju genezu koja započinje asocijativnim kompleksima, a završava pseudopojmovima. Kompleksno mišljenje je po svojoj bitifluidno, neograničeno i omogućuje prenošenje značenja. Smatramo da kompleksno mišljenje dolazi do izraza prije svega u uporabi metafora i analogija. Metafore i analogije imaju važnu eksplanatornu i ponekad (...) čak heurističku ulogu u znanstvenom mišljenju. Kompleksno mišljenje dolazi do izražaja na svim razinama i etapama razvoja znanstvenog mišljenja. Metafore mogu biti dijelom kompleksnog mišljenja kao dominantnog načina mišljenja ili u pojmovnoj strukturi kao pomoćni elementi objašnjenja. Analogije predstavljaju izvjesno strukturiranje kompleksnog i pojmovnogmišljenja.Članak tematizira ulogu kompleksnog mišljenja u razvoju znanstvene spoznaje i mišljenja općenito. Po Vigotskom, kompleksno mišljenje je početna faza u ontogenezi, pa i filogenezi, ljudskog mišljenja i ono je u tom slijedu predpojmovno. Prema istom autoru, ono ima svoju unutarnju genezu koja započinje asocijativnim kompleksima, a završava pseudopojmovima. Kompleksno mišljenje je po svojoj bitifluidno, neograničeno i omogućuje prenošenje značenja. Smatramo da kompleksno mišljenje dolazi do izraza prije svega u uporabi metafora i analogija. Metafore i analogije imaju važnu eksplanatornu i ponekad čak heurističku ulogu u znanstvenom mišljenju. Kompleksno mišljenje dolazi do izražaja na svim razinama i etapama razvoja znanstvenog mišljenja. Metafore mogu biti dijelom kompleksnog mišljenja kao dominantnog načina mišljenja ili u pojmovnoj strukturi kao pomoćni elementi objašnjenja. Analogije predstavljaju izvjesno strukturiranje kompleksnog i pojmovnogmišljenja. (shrink)