Conceptual metaphors have received much attention in research on discourse about infectious diseases in recent years. Most studies found that conceptual metaphors of war dominate media discourse about disease. Similarly, a great deal of research has been undertaken on the new coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, especially in the English news discourse as opposed to other languages. The present study, in contrast, analyses the conceptual metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse in French-language newspapers. The study explored the linguistic metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse (...) in these newspapers and conceptual metaphors that underlie and motivate them, using a conceptual metaphor theory framework (CMT). Therefore, two North African French-language newspapers, namely Libération, published in Morocco, and La Presse de Tunisie, published in Tunisia, formed the corpus of the current study. The results showed that the most frequent framing of COVID-19 was in terms of WAR, followed by DISASTER and KILLER, respectively. (shrink)

I examined the proposition that there are psychological limits on what scientific problems can be solved, and that these limits may be based on a failure to be able to produce imagable, observation-based models for any possible solution, a position suggested by philosopher Colin McGinn in an argument attempting to prove that the mind-body problem is unsolvable. I examined another likely candidate for an unsolvable problem -- the ultimate origin of the universe (i.e., what might have preceded the Big Bang (...) or any other starting point; why there should be something rather than nothing) -- by exploring the reasoning of physicists about this problem and measuring visual imagery frequency and vividness, with the expectation that those who most believed the problem unsolvable would be more frequent/vivid imagers and therefore more affected by the apparent impossibility of producing an imagable solution. Eight physicists were interviewed and imagery frequency and vividness measurements performed using Cohen & Saslona's IDQ-IHS and Marks's VVIQ, respectively. All subjects considered the problem unsolvable within today's physics and all but one thought the problem still meaningful, though none were optimistic about a solution. The one subject who dismissed the problem had the lowest imagery frequency score, and there was also a significant rank order correlation (r = 0.83, p < .02) between degree of belief in problem unsolvability (extended to include viewing the problem as meaningful and not already solved) and a composite imagery frequency/vividness score, though the sample was too small to control for some possible confounding factors. (shrink)

What the Sorites has to tell us is a simple truth regarding our categories. It appears to saddle us with something other than a simple truth—something worse, a contradiction or a problem or a paradox—only when we insist on viewing it through a discrete logic of categories. Discrete categories and discrete logic are for robots. We aren’t robots, and the simple truth is that we don’t handle categories in the way any discrete logic would demand. For us non-robots, what the (...) Sorites has to offer is a straightforward truth regarding how incapable robots and their logic are of handling categories like ours. (shrink)

This thesis develops methods for representing how the contents of theories of meaning become conceived by their users. These contents are treated as the range of systematically elicited conceptions afforded by a designated corpus of key texts. The approach being taken involves first detailing a formal scheme for the components of situations attributed to various entities. This scheme is then applied as a framing device to form a template which accounts for the shared structure between the mental spaces which embody (...) how people conceive different theories of meaning. For the purposes of this task, cognition is treated as embodied in the sense that both the form and content of personal conceptualisations are largely dependent on what both bodily and ecological factors afford. The purpose of this approach is to help understand how theories operate when viewed as worldly entities within a materialist framework. The significance of such understanding lies in enabling analyses and comparisons which account for the effects of material restrictions such as how a theory’s presentation must necessarily be selective and how human cognition operates on models set by precedent. The framework being provided here allows the conceptions each individual theory of meaning elicits to be reduced to formal, commensurate models which account for differences between typical influences on the conceptions characteristic of different demographics such as experts of related fields. Approaching theories of meaning from this angle also reveals new avenues of comparison concerning otherwise implicit details. One involves theory-internal conditions on the full material identity of meaning-instantiating entities. The other concerns the extent of the domains for aggregating applicable influences for which a theory accounts and the range of those it may accommodate. (shrink)

During antiquity, the astronomical questions of the day and the methods used to formulate and answer them were clearly within the realm of philosophy. That changed most notably in the sixteenth century when Tycho Brahe turned astronomy into a modern empirical science by formulating (in principle) testable hypotheses, figuring out how to test them, building the proper instruments, and making – for that time – very accurate and systematic observations of the sky. These observations eventually led to the modern view (...) of the solar system and ultimately the rejection of the classical Aristotelian worldview. Since then, the exploration of space has been located clearly in the realm of natural science – and, to an increasing extent, technology. In parallel to that, space has – at least since World War II –to a high degree been a place for military and political ambitions and activities. The scientists that have been involved in space exploration have mainly been physicists, together with some chemists and geologists. Lately, the exploration of space has engaged more and more biologists in the search for extraterrestrial life. The international space station, along with plans to send humans to Mars, has led to an increased involvement of medical science. If present speculations about space tourism and mining on planets, moons, and asteroids hold true, in the future we will probably see many new professions dealing not just with exploration, but also exploitation of space. Philosophy has never totally left the realm of space exploration. As space exploration and exploitation become more and more interdisciplinary, and as space becomes a bigger part of our lives, it will be time once more for philosophy to turn its attention towards space. The mission for philosophers is not to indulge in speculations over questions that are better dealt with by empirical methods. Ther are, however, several questions connected to the exploration and exploitation of space that are of a philosophical nature and that deserve to be examined seriously from a philosophical perspective. I believe that philosophical scrutiny of these questions will be to the benefit of both space exploration and philosophy. Interesting and, indeed, important philosophical questions arise in many areas of space exploration. Some of the most interesting and important ones relate to the search for extraterrestrial life, of which some will be presented here. I will not attempt to answer these questions here. Instead, this chapter should be seen as an introduction to some of the philosophical questions raised by astrobiology. (shrink)

The ability to understand and communicate about the actions of others is a fundamental aspect of our daily activity. How can we talk about what others are doing? What qualities do different actions have such that they cause us to see them as being different or similar? What is the connection between what we see and the development of concepts and words or expressions for the things that we see? To what extent can two different people see and talk about (...) the same things? Is there a common basis for our perception, and is there then a common basis for the concepts we form and the way in which the concepts become lexicalized in language? The broad purpose of this thesis is to relate aspects of perception, categorization and language to action recognition and conceptualization. This is achieved by empirically demonstrating a prototype structure for action categories and by revealing the effect this structure has on language via the semantic organization of verbs for natural actions. The results also show that implicit access to categorical information can affect the perceptual processing of basic actions. These findings indicate that our understanding of human actions is guided by the activation of high level information in the form of dynamic action templates or prototypes. More specifically, the first two empirical studies investigate the relation between perception and the hierarchical structure of action categories, i.e., subordinate, basic, and superordinate level action categories. Subjects generated lists of verbs based on perceptual criteria. Analyses based on multidimensional scaling showed a significant correlation for the semantic organization of a subset of the verbs for English and Swedish speaking subjects. Two additional experiments were performed in order to further determine the extent to which action categories exhibit graded structure, which would indicate the existence of prototypes for action categories. The results from typicality ratings and category verification showed that typicality judgments reliably predict category verification times for instances of different actions. Finally, the results from a repetition priming paradigm suggest that high level information about the categorical differences between actions can be implicitly activated and facilitates the later visual processing of displays of biological motion. This facilitation occurs for upright displays, but appears to be lacking for displays that are shown upside down. These results show that the implicit activation of information about action categories can play a critical role in the perception of human actions. (shrink)

A theory of knowledge is the explanation of things in terms of the possibilities and capabilities of the human way of knowing. The human knowledge is the representation of the things apprehended sensitively either through the senses or intuition. A theory of knowledge concludes about the reality of the things studied. As such it is a priori speculation, based on synthetic a priori statements. Its conclusions constitute interpretation, that is, hermeneutics. Linguistics as the science studying real language, that is, the (...) language spoken, reverts to human subjects in as much as they speak, say and know. Language thus must be studied as a theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Este artículo intenta desvelar el complejo proceso de construcción identitaria que subyace en la manera en que mexicanos, mexicanos-americanos, afro-americanos y anglos se perciben unos a los otros en el ámbito multicultural de la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, específicamente en el área de El Paso / Ciudad Juárez. Por motivos de espacio, sólo me concentraré en analizar el uso de metáforas por parte de los actores fronterizos en su proceso de construcción identitaria.

Viewers have a way of using their somatosensory system to create temporary boundary changes that bring them into intimate relationships with art objects. Spectators experience this imaginary fusion when simultaneously attending to their own somatosensory sensations, which occur inside the body, and to qualities of the artwork, which exist in the external world. At such moments viewers reinterpret their somatosensory sensations as a quality of the artwork. When inside and outside are reinterpreted, viewers cross the conventional boundary between self and (...) object. This effect can be illustrated in first person reports and supported by current research in the neurosciences and the humanities. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs the ways in which metaphors are used in the text of “The Wealth of Nations”. Its claims are: a) metaphor statements are basically similar to those in the “Theory of the Moral Sentiments”; b) the metaphors’ ‘primary subjects’ refer to mechanics, hydraulics, blood circulation, agriculture, medicine; c) metaphors may be lumped together into a couple of families, the family of mechanical analogies, and that of iatro-political analogies. Further claims are: a basic physico-moral analogy is the framework for (...) Smith’s psychological theory as well as for his overall social theory and for his theory of market mechanisms; a iatro-mechanical analogy is as pervasive as the physico-moral analogy and provides the framework for his overall evolutionary theory of society; the invisible-hand simile relies on the physico-moral analogy, and elaborates on the role of vis attractiva and vis a tergo in mechanics. (shrink)

In the search for the foundations of cognition philosophers often encounter a familiar problem - the problem of content. The problem of content is essentially the problem of how content, whether experiential or intentional, is possible. In practice providing a response to this problem involves providing an account of how an active self-consciousness is able to conceive/perceive, or in some way be consciousness ofx. The unique nature of this problem imposes significant constraints on the field of explanatory possibilities. Since the (...) x which is to be accounted for is essentially the possibility of absolutely any x there is no y which is not also an x. Hence, nothing remains outside of the explanandum which can be appealed to in order to account for it without, to some extent, presupposing that which needs to be explained. In many of the theories we will examine overcoming this problem involves appealing to a transcendental “structure of awareness” which more often than not is composed of “universal-like” transcendental “entities” of indeterminate nature and ontological status. A major appeal of transcendental entities is that they can at least appear to provide a way of supplying the power of objective “determinateness” necessary to account for the possibility of determination without themselves being determinates. The general strategy of appealing to such transcendental “entities” has, however, for some time been suspiciously regarded as it is unclear how such an appeal is able to avoid the aforementioned presupposition of content. But if the appeal to transcendental cognizing intermediates is to be ‘ dismissed we may be left to face up to the fact that content simply “happens”- that the process of determination, of “judgment”, is a mysterious talent that can neither be taught nor understood. Through a critical examination of both Western and Eastern philosophical approaches to the problem of content this dissertation identifies and describes, insofar as is possible, “that” through which content is rendered possible. In so doing it draws attention to previously neglected points of contact between major philosophical traditions and clarifies the central issues surrounding the problem. The dissertation supports the conclusion that, although there is a need to acknowledge a particular role for a transcendental “self- consciousness” in providing a coherent response to the problem of content, the attempt to articulate a mechanism through which this role is fulfilled most likely misguided. Although it appears to be possible both to know something about this “self-consciousness”, and even to know it more directly, it cannot be understood in the usual sense. (shrink)

This paper analyses the cognitive image schemas structuring the ontological commitments of dominant conceptions of ethics and economics to show that the content of economics is implicated in conceptions of ethics, and that these conceptions cannot be separated from questions of research and professional ethics. This analysis of the metaphoric structuring of the ontological commitments of ethics and economics is based on an extension of Kuhn's construct sense of 'paradigm' as concrete analogy; and on techniques of metaphoric analysis developed in (...) cognitive linguistics. Analysis of the iconic and schematic representations of the concrete analogies and idealised cognitive models structuring economic and ethical theories expose both shared and conflicting ontological commitments. Read the Open Peer Discussion on this paper ». (shrink)

There has been growing interest in theory building in Information Systems research. We extend this literature by examining theory building perspectives. We define a perspective as a researcher’s choice of the types of concepts and relationships used to construct a theory, and we examine three perspectives – process, variance, and systems. We contribute by clarifying these perspectives and explaining how they can be used more flexibly in future research. We illustrate the value of this more flexible approach by showing how (...) researchers can use different theoretical perspectives to critique and extend an existing theoretical model. Overall, we suggest a shift from the traditional process-variance dichotomy to a broader view defined by conceptual latitude and conceptual fit. We explain why this shift should help researchers as they engage in the knowledge generation process. (shrink)

Since Durkheim’s characterization of the sacred and profane as “antagonistic rivals,” the strict dichotomy has been framed in such a way that “being religious” evokes images of a life filled with profound meaning and value, while “being secular” evokes images of a meaningless, self-centered, superficial life, often characterized by materialistic consumerism and the cold, heartless environment of corporate greed. Consequently, to identify as “neither religious nor spiritual” runs the risk of being stigmatized as superficial, untrustworthy, and immoral. Conflicts and confusions (...) encountered in the process of negotiating a nonreligious/nonspiritual identity, caused by the ambiguous nature of religious language, were explored through qualitative interviews with 14 ex-ministers and 1 atheist minister—individuals for whom supernaturalist religion had formed the central core of identity, but who have deconverted and no longer hold supernatural beliefs. The cognitive linguistics approach of Frame Semantics was applied to the process of “oppositional identity work” to examine why certain identity labels are avoided or embraced due to considerations of the cognitive frames evoked by those labels. -/- Through the constant comparative method of grounded theory, a host of useful theoretical concepts emerged from the data. Several impediments to the construction of a “secular but not superficial” identity were identified, and a framework of new theoretical concepts developed to make sense of them: sense disparity, frame disparity, identity misfire, foiled identity, sense conflation, and conflated frames. Several consequences arising from these impediments were explored: (1) consequences of sense conflation and conflated frames for the study of religion; (2) consequences of conflated frames for religious terminology; and (3) consequences of the negation of conflated frames for those who identify as not religious, not spiritual, or not Christian. Additionally, four types of oppositional identity work were identified and analyzed: (1) avoidance identity work, (2) dissonant identity work, (3) adaptive identity work, and (4) alternative identity work. Finally, the concept of conflated frames was applied to suggest a new interpretation of the classic Weberian disenchantment narrative. (shrink)

Light metaphors occurring in Chinese philosophy and Stoicism are of special interest for the unique ways they channel potentialities of the self. In this paper I apply ideas from cognitive linguistics to examine selected structural features of these metaphors. I also build on these ideas by presenting a framework regarding affects to assist in disclosing what is at stake for differing Chinese and Stoic technologies of the self. The paper adopts a high-level perspective to see these broad philosophical implications, interleaving (...) discussions of Chinese philosophy (mainly views associated with Daoism), Stoicism (bringing into relief important differences from these views), and contemporary research on socially constructed affects. This “triadic” comparative approach aims to shed new light on some root assumptions built into the projects of self-cultivation that are at the core of Chinese and Stoic worldviews. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against previous approaches to the semantics of generics which involved the notions of prototype, stereotype and relevant quantification. I assume that the logical form of generics includes a generic operator which, as Heim (1992) has suggested, can be construed as the modal operator of necessity. After demonstrating that the presence of the generic operator in a semantic representation, as well as its domain of quantification, are pragmatically supplied, I go on to show how the various (...) interpretations generics may receive can be successfully accounted for within a relevance-theoretic framework. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to sketch a preliminary framework for understanding the cognitive basis of the engagement of the mind with the material world. I advance the hypothesis that contrary to some of our most deeply-entrenched assumptions the relationship between the world and human cognition is not one of abstract representation or some other form of action at a distance but one of ontological inseparability. That is, what we have traditionally construed as an active or passive but always clearly (...) separated external stimulus for setting an internal cognitive mechanism into motion, may be after all a continuous part of the machinery itself; at least, ex hypothesi. (shrink)

A general definition of consciousness that accommodates most views (Vimal, 2010b) is: “ ‘consciousness is a mental aspect of a system or a process, which is a conscious experience, a conscious function, or both depending on the context and particular bias (e.g. metaphysical assumptions)’, where experiences can be conscious experiences and/or non-conscious experiences and functions can be conscious functions and/or non-conscious functions that include qualities of objects. These are a posteriori definitions because they are based on observations and the categorization.” (...) Non-conscious experiences are equivalent to relevant proto-experiences and nonconscious functions are equivalent to related proto-functions at various levels as these terms are precursors of respective conscious subjective experiences and conscious functions aspect of consciousness. The non-conscious experiences and non-conscious functions may be considered as a part of the definition of mind and/or awareness. (shrink)

This study contains a brief overview and comments on some basic texts on the semiotics and semantics of colour. It presents my view on the basic semiotic status of colour as a communication system and on the grammar features of colour language.

Ova teorija pokušava rasvijetliti kako razumijevamo i rabimo pojam istine. Teorija se nadovezuje na neka gledišta Putnama i Goodmana, no razvija ta gledišta tvrdeći kako se istina sastoji u tome da se iskaz podudara s jednim od sljedećih parametara ili s više njih: kriterij interne konsistentnosti; osjetilni podaci; podaci iz pamćenja; ne-verbalizirana vjerovanja; drugi dijelovi diskursa. Opća kognitivna struktura, koja, prema Rayu Jackendoffu, služi kao točka konvergencije za značenje preneseno jezikom, pozadinsko znanje, opažanje, zaključivanje, itd., identificira se kao medij podudaranja (...) koje rezultira kognitivnim učinkom: »to je istina«. Teorija također tvrdi kako je istina pojam-obitelj, obuhvaćajući različite vrste istine. Ukazuje se na to da istina ima normativnu dimenziju, koja se obrazlaže kao mogućnost izazova tvrdnjama koje pretendiraju na istinitost, što pak pretpostavlja regulativni ideal univerzalne ljudske racionalnosti. (shrink)

Studies based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999) usually identify conceptual metaphors by analysing linguistic expressions and creating a post hoc interpretation of the findings. This method has been questioned for a variety of reasons, including its circularity (Müller, 2008), lack of falsifiability (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 1996, 2004), and lack of predictive power (Ritchie, 2003). It has been argued that CTM requires additional constraints to improve its applicability for empirical research (Gibbs, 2011; Ritchie, 2003). This (...) paper sets out to propose additional methodological structure to CTM, a theory of conceptual metaphor in which much of abstract thought is generated by metaphorical mapping from embodied experience (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & Pérez Hernández, 2011). Introducing Objectification Theory defined by Szwedek (2002, 2007, 2011) ameliorates a number of methodological issues in CTM. First, the embodiment claim of CTM in its current form cannot be empirically proven incorrect (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 2004) as any mapping within it is possible (although only some actually happen). Objectification introduces pre-metaphorical structure of the kind suggested by Glucksberg (2001), constraining source and target domain selection, predicting which mappings are more likely to happen. Second, while many claim that metaphors trace back to a literal concept based on embodied physical experience (Gibbs, Costa Lima, & Francozo, 2004), it is unclear what criteria are used to define „physical”. Metaphorical domains are often described using the terms „abstract” and „concrete”, Objectification proposes objective criteria for deciding whether a concept is experientially grounded. Finally, Objectification provides grounds for introducing a hierarchical framework for metaphor typology, preventing post-hoc addition of metaphor types if and when suitable for the explanation of a phenomenon; thus increasing the consistency of the CTM framework, both internally and with other cognitive science disciplines. This thesis focuses on providing evidence for Objectification Theory and identifying its applications in metaphor and gesture research. (shrink)

Scientific concepts are defined by metaphors. These metaphors determine what atten- tion is and what count as adequate explanations of the phenomenon. The authors analyze these metaphors within 3 types of attention theories: (a) --cause-- theories, in which attention is presumed to modulate information processing (e.g., attention as a spotlight; attention as a limited resource); (b) --effect-- theories, in which attention is considered to be a by-product of information processing (e.g., the competition meta- phor); and (c) hybrid theories that combine (...) cause and effect aspects (e.g., biased- competition models). The present analysis reveals the crucial role of metaphors in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the efforts of scientists to find a resolution to the classic problem of cause versus effect interpretations. (shrink)

Naturalistic thinking and knowing, the tacit, experiential, and intuitive reasoning of everyday interaction, have long been regarded as inferior to formal reason and labeled primitive, fallible, subjective, superstitious, and in some cases ineffable. But, naturalistic thinking is more rational and definable than it appears. It is also relevant to design. Inquiry into the mechanisms of naturalistic thinking and knowledge can bring its resources into focus and enable designers to create better, human-centered designs for use in real-world settings. This article makes (...) a case for the explicit, formal study of implicit, naturalistic thinking within the fields of design. It develops a framework for defining and studying naturalistic thinking and knowledge, for integrating them into design research and practice, and for developing a more integrated, consistent theory of knowledge in design. It will (a) outline historical definitions of knowledge, attitudes toward formal and naturalistic thinking, and the difficulties presented by the co-presence of formal and naturalistic thinking in design, (b) define and contrast formal and naturalistic thinking as two distinct human cognitive systems, (c) demonstrate the importance of naturalistic cognition in formal thinking and real-world judgment, (d) demonstrate methods for researching naturalistic thinking that can be of use in design, and (e) briefly discuss the impact on design theory of admitting naturalistic thinking as valid, systematic, and knowable. (shrink)

We try to show that there is no difference in principle between communicating a piece of information to a human and to a machine. The argumentation depends on the following theses: Communicating is transfer of information; information has propositional form; propositional form can be modelled as categorization; categorisation can be modelled in a machine; a suitably equipped machine can grasp propositional content designed for human communication. What I suggest is that the discussion should focus on the truth and precise meaning (...) of these statements. However, in case these statements are true it follows that: For any act of communication that successfully transfers a piece of information to a human, that act could also transfer that piece of information to a machine. (shrink)

Neurological syndromes in which consciousness seems to malfunction, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, visual scotomas, Charles Bonnet syndrome, and synesthesia offer valuable clues about the normal functions of consciousness and ‘qualia’. An investigation into these syndromes reveals, we argue, that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia’. First, they are irrevocable: I cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, or (...) feel pain as if it were an itch; second, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in short-term memory, as opposed to non-conscious brain states involved in the on-line guidance of behaviour in real time. We suggest that qualia have evolved these and other attributes because of their role in facilitating non-automatic, decision-based action. We also suggest that the apparent epistemic barrier to knowing what qualia another person is experiencing can be overcome by using a ‘bridge’ of neurons; and we offer a hypothesis about the relation between qualia and one's sense of self. (shrink)

This portfolio presents the author’s current understanding of second language teaching. The main section of the portfolio consists of a teaching philosophy that expresses the author’s believe that definitions of learning direct second language teaching. Three artifacts explore language, culture, and literature and express the development of the author’s teaching philosophy. An annotated bibliography covers the essential readings done in the course of study and provides the foundations for the author’s ontological arguments.

In this paper I will analyse the relationship between metaphor and imagination. This issue has been recently studied by cognitive linguists who appreciate its importance, while other semantic perspectives neglect it. I will analyse the thesis which affirms that metaphors are based on cognitive components which are not logical-propositional but imaginative: the “image schemata” are recurrent models of corporeal experiences, centres of knowledge organization which structure – in a non-propositional form – an amount of salient information. This information emerges from (...) the sensorimotor activities such as: manipulation of objects, spatial orientation and focusing perceptive attention on different goals. According to this theory, imagination is the drive of the entire cognitive experience and, through metaphorical projection, it activates and coordinates the schemata from which the very linguistic activity originates. Starting with empirical studies about the cognitive and neurobiological plausibility of image schemata, I will assert the function of imagination as the trait d’union between experience and cognitive use of the metaphor, through the use of sensory and synesthetic metaphors as mediators among perceptive, physical and linguistic dimensions. I hope future research will concentrate on the relationship between synesthesia and image schemata because of their strong connection with human perceptive, cognitive and neural structures. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss scientific and philosophical issues related to the interdisciplinary area of Neurolinguistics, focusing on the origin and nature of human language. What kind of evolutionary process leads to the emergence of language? I propose that this process began with the adoption of bipedalism, triggering the co-evolution of new brain structures and forms of social organization. This process created a context that favoured the emergence of articulated vocalization using a combinatorial linguistic system. The identification of sufficient conditions (...) for the emergence of human language in this context depends on the paradigm adopted for the analysis. I look for a synthesis of nativist and constructivist paradigms, showing that both contribute to an understanding of the origin and nature of human language. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the practices of emotion work in the financial services industry as they are constructed in interviews with people employed in different financial organizations. The issues of emotion work in organizations are generally investigated in terms of emotion management, impression formation and negotiation or accomplishment. The previous research has also uncovered that emotions and market moods influence how people make financial decisions under conditions of fundamental uncertainty. In this study, I adopt a critical-interpretive approach and seek to develop (...) an in-depth understanding of organizational practices through which people employed in the financial services industry maintain emotion-reason dualism. This approach allows us to shift the analysis from categorizing what counts as rational versus emotional decision making to examining discourses that constitute claims of preferred rationality and devalue the significance of emotions at work. The transcripts of 23 interviews with 17 people employed in different financial organizations constituted the data for this study. The analysis of the interview discourse shows that emotions are conceptualized as an antipode to rationality, threat, weakness and as a source of stress. On one hand, the strategies of internal emotional control reflect the participants’ desire to take control over their feelings in order to fit into the discourse of preferred rationality. The concept of emotion also shapes the tactics of impression management. The interviewees were consciously aware of which feelings they wanted to display, and how to use emotions in order to build and maintain networks of relationships with different market participants. On the other hand, the simultaneous co-existence of negation and practical utility of feelings at work in the participants’ narratives suggests that meanings associated with preferred rationality and marginalized emotionality fluctuate along the following dimensions: absence-presence, chaos-order/discipline, weakness-power and subjectivity-objectivity. These findings open up a new space to explore the concepts of emotionality and rationality as socially constructed phenomena that are reproduced in the practices of emotion work. The focus on discourse not only offers a communication centered model of rationalized emotion, but also unveils social aspects of financial management. (shrink)

U članku se kroz višedisciplinarni pristup kognitivnih znanosti proučava osobito ljudsko iskustvo povezano s religioznim doživljajem stvarnosti, koje se u tradiciji discipline povijesti religija naziva ‘iskustvo svetoga’. U skladu s teorijom emergencije, predlaže se definicija iskustva svetoga kao stanja svijesti sa subjektivnom kvalitetom integracije, specifičnim neurološkim korelatom i funkcionalnim obilježjima. Emergentne teorije svijesti pružaju ontološki ujednačeno tumačenje iskustava svetoga nudeći »naravna« objašnjenja bez odricanja njihove fenomenološke subjektivnosti. Prijenos iskustva svetoga iz unitarnoga, svojevrsnog intencionalno neobojenoga stanja, u izrecivi jezični kôd intencionalno (...) relevantnih pojmova sa sveprožimajućim utjecajima na opojmljivanje svijeta razmatra se pomoću kognitivne jezične teorije u tradiciji Johnsona i Lakoffa. Sposobnost izricanja značenja iskustva svetoga sagledava se kao emergentno svojstvo pojmovnog procesuiranja metaforičkoga razmišljanja uvjetovanoga utjelovljenošću uma i kulturalnim odrednicama. Predloženi pristup omogućuje tumačenje nastanka složenih mitoloških i kulturalnih modela temeljem iskustva svetoga, ali i ukazuje na njegovu kulturalnu neuvjetovanost zadanu nediskurzivnom naravi samog iskustva.In this article a multidisciplinary approach of cognitive sciences is employed for the analysis of a special category of human experience related to the religious understanding of the world, termed according to the History of Religion as the ‘experience of sacred’. The experience of sacred is defined as the state of consciousness with a subjective quality of integration, a specific neural correlate and functional features. Emergentist theory of consciousness provides ontologically consistent perspective offering a “natural” explanation for this type of experience without denying its subjective phenomenology. The linguistic expression of the experience is examined in the light of Johnson’s and Lakoff’s cognitive linguistic theory. The linguistic competence enabling the expression of the sacred experience is defined as the emergent property of conceptual processing of metaphorical thinking shaped by the embodied mind. This approach explains the seminal role of the experience of sacred in the formation of complex mythological and cultural models, but also points to its non discursive nature. (shrink)

In the first half of the paper I critically review some previous attempts to deal with metonymy. I focus in particular on the classical approach, the associationist approach and the Gricean approach. The main point of my criticisms is that the notion of empirical associations among objects is in itself inadequate for a complete descriptive and explanatory account of metonymy.

The set of English modal verbs is widely recognised to communicate two broad clusters of meanings: epistemic and root modal meanings. A number of researchers have claimed that root meanings are acquired earlier than epistemic ones; this claim has subsequently been employed in the linguistics literature as an argument for the position that English modal verbs are polysemous (Sweetser 1990). In this paper I offer an alternative explanation for the later emergence of epistemic interpretations by liniking them to the development (...) of the child's theory of mind (Wellman 1990). If correct, this hypothesis might have important implications for the shape of the semantics of modal verbs. (shrink)

This study provides an integrated analysis of ϑυμός. A psychosomatic concept, found in Greek epics and medicine, θυμός designates courage as a “vital force around the chest”. Later, its meaning has been specified in two fields: 1) ϑυμός, thymós, the irascible soul, parallel to the concupiscible soul and opposite to the rational one, according to Plato’s tripartition; 2) ϑύμος, thymus, a cardiac gland of the vascular system. Today, the idea that θυμός, courage, and ϑύμος, cardiac gland, could have a common (...) semantic root – θύειν “to sacrifice by blowing and burning” – seems almost impossible. Our aim is to reconstitute the concept of ϑυμός, demonstrating how it has been reduced to a polarisation rational/irrational, and marginalised. We will examine the notion of ϑυμός in Greek tradition and describe one of its widespread manifestations, tattooing, both as a painful solicitation of interiority and for how the tattooed pictures reflect the personality of their wearers. (shrink)

In Science, Truth, and Democracy (2001a), Kitcher moderates the strongest ontological realist thesis he defended in The Advancement of Science (1993a), with the aim of making compatible the correspondence theory of truth with conceptual relativity. However, it is not clear that both things could be harmonized. If our knowledge of the world is mediated by our categories and concepts; if the selection of these categories and concepts may vary according to our interests, and they are not the consequence of the (...) existence of certain supposed natural kinds or some intrinsic structure of the world, it is very problematic to establish what our true statements correspond to. This paper analyzes the transformation in Kitcher's realism and expounds the main difficulties in this project. Finally, a modality of moderate ontological realism will be proposed that, despite of keeping the sprit of the conceptual relativity, is strong enough to support the correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)

If we had a balance of reasons, where the arguments presented in favor and against the case were weighed precisely and the verdict could be pronounced in favor of the most inclined scale ... [we would have] a more valuable art than that miraculous science of producing gold.

Conceptual metaphor provides a potentially powerful counseling framework, generalizable across theoretical orientations. According to the conceptual perspective, metaphor is not merely a matter of language, but is an indispensable dimension of human understanding and experience whereby more abstract ideas (like relationships) are understood in terms of more concrete experiences (like journeys). Consequently, when a couple in counseling says, “we're just spinning our wheels,” they are not only using a common colloquial expression, but also giving information about how they conceptualize their (...) relationship. This article provides a theoretical foundation for use of conceptual metaphor and offers examples of its potential for counseling. (shrink)