This article aims to explore the connection between freedom and language in T.W. Adorno's Notes to Literature, presenting freedom as a liberation of our way of thinking that has the potential to arrive at an unrestrained interpretation of art and representation of the intellectual experience. I also attempt to show some of Adorno's insights into language and freedom in The Essay as a Form and their role in his essays about Valéry and Proust. Namely I focus on (...) the problematics of the suspension of the subject of the artist within the production of the work of art. Through showing the connection between Adorno's insights into problematics of language, freedom and suspension of subject I hope to contribute to the explication of one of the constructive steps of Adorno's philosophy. (shrink)

There are several linguistic phenomena that, when examined closely, give evidence that people speak through characters, much like authors of literary works do, in everyday discourse. However, most approaches in linguistics and in the philosophy of language leave little theoretical room for the appearance of characters in discourse. In particular, there is no linguistic criterion found to date, which can mark precisely what stretch of discourse within an utterance belongs to a character, and to which character. And yet, without (...) at least tentatively marking the division of labor between the different characters in an utterance, it is absolutely impossible to arrive at an acceptable interpretation of it. As an alternative, I propose to take character use seriously, as an essential feature of discourse in general, a feature speakers and listeners actively seek out in utterances. I offer a simple typology of actions in discourse that draws on this understanding, and demonstrate its usefulness for the analysis of a conversation transcript. (shrink)

Providing empirically supportable instances of ontological emergence is notoriously difficult. Typically, the literature has focused on two possible sources. The first is the mind and consciousness; the second is within physics, and more specifically certain quantum effects. In this paper, I wish to suggest that the literature has overlooked a further possible instance of emergence, taken from the special science of linguistics. In particular, I will focus on the property of truth-evaluability, taken to be a property of sentences (...) as created by the language faculty within human minds (or brains). The claim will not be as strong as to suggest that the linguistic data and theories prove emergence. Rather the dialectical aim here is to say that we have some good reasons (even if not conclusive reasons) to think that the property is emergent. (shrink)

Our environment is saturated in the English language due to globalisation; yet accompanying western philosophical concepts can be contested, even resisted, in different cultural contexts. The philosophical ideas associated with the Anglosphere are rooted in the cultural, economic, religious and social traditions of broader Anglo-European, or “western” culture and are decontested ideologically within that culture. The contestation of western ideology is beneficial for global culture, but this aspect of cross-cultural dialogue is often neglected in South Asia where English (...) class='Hi'>language learning occurs in a post-colonial context and is often accompanied by the attempted internalisation of Anglo-European culture and norms. This paper contrasts the philosophical underpinnings of ethics in South Asia and the west. The metaphysical and cultural frameworks underlying these systems can result in conceptual misunderstandings that can only be resolved by dialogue. The aim of this theoretical paper is to examine ethical theories and show how English language can be instrumental in creating this cross-cultural dialogue. (shrink)

In recent years the term ‘family language policy’ has begun to circulate in the international sociolinguistics literature (cf. Spolsky 2004, 2007, 2012, King et al. 2008; Caldas 2012; Schwartz & Verschik 2013)1. From a conceptual standpoint, however, the creation and/or use of this syntagma, applied directly to the language decisions taken by family members to speak to one another, can raise questions about whether one should apply what appears rather to be a framework that pertains to actions (...) arising out of institutionalisation, public debate, and formal decisions to a phenomenon produced ‘spontaneously’. ‘Language policy’, which is also commonly associated with the term ‘planning’, has traditionally evoked the study of actions taken by public authorities at the level of the institutional and social use of languages and of their process of decision-making, implementation and any effects on social language behaviours that may ensue. The expansion of this concept to the level of interpersonal uses in families, which corresponds to another sphere involving elements that are distinct from those of the political level or of a formally constituted organisation, can be misleading and conceal phenomena specific to this level of social reality. (shrink)

The twenty-first century will witness an unprecedented decline in the diversity of the world’s languages. While most philosophers will likely agree that this decline is lamentable, the question of what exactly is lost with a language has not been systematically explored in the philosophical literature. In this paper, I address this lacuna by arguing that language loss constitutes a problematic form of illocutionary silencing. When a language disappears, past and present speakers lose the ability to realize (...) a range of speech acts that can only be realized in that language. With that ability, speakers lose something in which they have a fundamental interest: their standing as fully empowered members of a linguistic community. (shrink)

Acceptable analyticities, i.e. contradictions or tautologies, constitute problematic evidence for the idea that language includes a deductive system. In recent discussion, two accounts have been presented in the literature to explain the available evidence. According to one of the accounts, grammatical analyticities are accessible to the system but a pragmatic strengthening repair mechanism can apply and prevent the structures from being actually interpreted as contradictions or tautologies. The proposed data, however, leaves it open whether other versions of the (...) meaning modulation operation are required. Novel evidence we present argues that a loosening version of the repair mechanism must be available. Our observation concerns acceptable lexical contradictions that cannot be rescued if only a strengthening version of the pragmatic strategy is available. (shrink)

Assertions about appearances license inferences about the speaker's perceptual experience. For instance, if I assert, 'Tom looks like he's cooking', you will infer both that I am visually acquainted with Tom (what I call the "individual acquaintance inference"), and that I am visually acquainted with evidence that Tom is cooking (what I call the "evidential acquaintance inference"). By contrast, if I assert, 'It looks like Tom is cooking', only the latter inference is licensed. I develop an account of the acquaintance (...) inferences of appearance assertions building on two main previous lines of research: first, the copy raising literature, which has aimed to account for individual acquaintance inferences through the "perceptual source" semantic role; second, the subjectivity literature, which has focused on the status of acquaintance inferences with predicates of personal taste, but hasn't given much attention to the added complexities introduced by appearance language. I begin by developing what I take to be the most empirically-sound version of a perceptual source analysis. I then show how its insights can be maintained, while however taking anything about perception out of the truth conditions of appearance sentences. This, together with the assumption that appearance assertions express experiential attitudes, allows us to capture the acquaintance inferences of bare appearance assertions without making incorrect predictions about the behavior of appearance verbs in embedded environments. (shrink)

The most important stage of the sound phenomenon for children covers the time that starts from the mother's womb and continues until the school period. A child starting school (6:5 or 7 years old) is just learning to write. However, he acquired the language/s/ almost entirely thanks to the sound in the mentioned period. In this respect, the processing of language and sound in the brain of newborn babies becomes important. The language acquisition level of newborns may (...) vary in terms of such reasons as genetics, ability, and frequency of exposure, environmental factors, and whether they are physically and mentally healthy or not. This study deals with the question of what kind of a connection is there between the phenomenon of sound, especially the sound of music, and the acquisition of two languages in early childhood. In short, the subjects of language acquisition and musical sound in early childhood have been investigated in the literature with a qualitative method. Another question is how do the two languages acquired in early childhood stay with each other in a developmental relation. In the study, it was understood that there is not a single result from the studies on children grown up monolingual or bilingual in early childhood. The opinion that the sooner one or two languages are learned in early childhood (usually by exposure to the sound) the better the acquisition would be is outweighed, though there are different opinions about the results of the scientists. In addition, since it was concluded that there is a developmentally parallel relationship between the sound of music and the acquisition of language by newborns, it means that ontology gives us the summary of phylogenesis. (shrink)

In this article I consider the idea that Glasersfeld’s “radical constructivism” offers an ideal framework for putting in place such a reality of the best fit for us. Along with this, I examine also the fundamental biological and epistemological limitations that we are faced with when trying to fathom objective reality and, secondly, the inescapable gap between language – which we use as a primary cognitive tool in our attempt to comprehend the world. The paper then show that (...) class='Hi'>literature – especially fiction – best meets the criteria for addressing these gaps and constructing such a model of reality in line with what radical constructivism proposes. (shrink)

Several quantitative studies (e.g. Kidd & Castano, 2013a; Djikic et al., 2013) have shown a positive correlation between literary reading and empathy. However, the literary nature of the stimuli used in these studies has not been defined at a more detailed, stylistic level. In order to explore the stylistic underpinnings of the hypothesized link between literariness and empathy, we conducted a qualitative experiment in which the degree of stylistic foregrounding was manipulated. Subjects (N = 37) read versions of Katherine Mansfield's (...) 'The Fly', a short story rich in foregrounding, while marking striking and evocative passages of their choosing. Afterwards, they were asked to select three markings and elaborate on their experiences in writing. One group read the original story, while the other read a 'non-literary' version, produced by an established author of suspense fiction for young adults, where stylistic foregrounding was reduced. We found that the non-literary version elicited significantly more (p < 0.05) explicitly empathic responses than the original story. This finding stands in contradiction to widely accepted assumptions in recent research, but can be assimilated in alternative models of literariness and affect in literary reading (e.g. Cupchik et al., 1998). We present an analysis of the data with a view to offering more than one interpretation of the observed effects of stylistic foregrounding. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to explicate some unexpected and striking similarities and equally important differences, which have not been discussed in the literature, between Wittgenstein's methodology and the approach of Chinese Chan or Japanese Zen Buddhism. We say ?unexpected? similarities because it is not a common practice, especially in the analytic tradition, to invest very much in comparative philosophy. The peculiarity of this study will be further accentuated in the view of those of the ?old school? who (...) see Wittgenstein as a logical positivist, and Zen as a religious excuse for militarism or sadomasochism. If the second claim were true, the following investigation would not only be futile but also impossible. That the first claim, concerning the ?old school? perspective on Wittgenstein, is incorrect, we will demonstrate in the ensuing discussion. By now more experts have come to accept this claim and we hope that our comparative perspective will add even more momentum. (shrink)

This bibliographical guide gives a comprehensive overview of the historiography of philosophy and thought in the Japanese language through an extensive and thematically organized collection of relevant literature. Comprising over one thousand entries, the bibliography shows not only how extensive and complex the Japanese tradition of philosophical and intellectual historiography is, but also how it might be structured and analyzed to make it accessible to a comparative and intercultural approach to the historiography of philosophy worldwide. The literature (...) is categorized and organized according to thematic focus areas such as geographical regions and continents, nations or peoples, religious traditions and philosophical teachings such as Buddhism, Islam, Shintō, and Confucianism, as well as disciplines such as ethics, aesthetics, and political thought. The bibliography is accompanied by an introduction outlining the research method as well as quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyzing the material, followed by a chronological overview of the historiography of philosophy and thought in the Japanese language and of the Japanese tradition of writing “world histories of philosophy.” As a first step towards a “history of the historiography of philosophy” in non-European languages, we hope that this guide will provide a useful tool for interculturally oriented scholarship aimed at a non-Eurocentric and diversified historiography of philosophy in a global perspective. (Open access, see link below.). (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as (...) presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). (shrink)

This volume is the first to focus on a particular complex of questions that have troubled Wittgenstein scholarship since its very beginnings. The authors re-examine Wittgenstein’s fundamental insights into the workings of human linguistic behaviour, its creative extensions and its philosophical capabilities, as well as his creative use of language. It offers insight into a variety of topics including painting, politics, literature, poetry, literary theory, mathematics, philosophy of language, aesthetics and philosophical methodology.

This paper explores the integration of multiple intelligences and artificial intelligence (AI) in language learning, focusing on its potential to enhance personalization and engagement. Drawing from existing research and studies conducted in various contexts, including the Philippines, this study aims to contribute to the understanding of the benefits, challenges, and effectiveness of this integration. The paper begins with an introduction that highlights the background and significance of integrating multiple intelligences and AI in language learning, identifying research gaps, objectives, (...) research questions, and the theoretical framework. A literature review provides an overview of multiple intelligences theory by Howard Gardner, the role of AI in language learning, and identifies gaps in the existing literature. The methodology section outlines the research design and approach, participant selection, data collection methods, validity and reliability measures, and ethical considerations. Findings and results are presented through the analysis of qualitative data, exploring emergent themes and patterns. The discussion section critically examines the identified research gaps, discusses the validity and reliability of the study, addresses the scope and limitations, and explores the implications of the findings for theory, practice, and future research. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and contributions of the study, reflects on the achievement of research objectives, offers recommendations for further research, and provides final remarks tying together the main points of the study. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing insights into the integration of multiple intelligences and AI in language learning and its impact on personalization, engagement, and language learning outcomes. (shrink)

The paper questions the scientific rather than ideological problem of an eventual biological successor of the mankind. The concept of superhumans is usually linked to Nietzsche or to Heidegger’s criticism or even to the ideology of Nazism. However, the superhuman can be also viewed as that biological species who will originate from humans eventually in the course of evolution.While the society is reached a natural limitation of globalism, technics depends on the amount of utilized energy, and the mind is restricted (...) by its carrier, i.e. by the brain, it is language which seems to be the frontier of any future development of humans or superhumans. Language is a symbolization of the world and thus doubling in an ideal or virtual world fruitful for creativity and the modeling of the former. Consequently, the gap between the material and the ideal world is both produced by and productive for language. (shrink)

A growing conceptual and empirical literature is advancing the idea that language extends our cognitive skills. One of the most influential positions holds that language – qua material symbols – facilitates individual thought processes by virtue of its material properties (Clark, 2006a). Extending upon this model, we argue that language enhances our cognitive capabilities in a much more radical way: the skilful engagement of public material symbols facilitates evolutionarily unprecedented modes of collective perception, action and reasoning (...) (interpersonal synergies) creating dialogically extended minds. We relate our approach to other ideas about collective minds ( Gallagher, 2011, Theiner et al., 2010 and Tollefsen, 2006) and review a number of empirical studies to identify the mechanisms enabling the constitution of interpersonal cognitive systems. (shrink)

In this paper, we intend to promote an analysis of the use of the artificial language Heptapod B in Story of Your Life written by Ted Chiang and in its filmic adaptation, Arrival, written by Eric Heisserer and directed by Denis Villeneuve in relation to the authors’ views on the metaphysics of time. In both literary and filmic texts, the glossopoeia is used as a plot device upon which the alien race’s time perception is constructed and explicated in connexion (...) with the strong metaphor provided by Fermat’s principle of least time. Throughout the article, we discuss these hybrid interfaces of literature, cinema and science, researching the stories’ specific diegeses, the writers’ own elicitations as well as various texts on the Philosophy of time. The result consists of a comprehensive exegesis of the problematics generated by the narratives and an extensive philosophical debate on the subject. (shrink)

Imam Hatip schools (religious vocational schools) in Turkey have been taught teaching Arabic for many years. However, the objectives of learning Arabic have not yet been realized. The Education Council of the Ministry of Education prepares educational plans and programs for Arabic lessons in order to increase the quality of Arabic language teaching, the first of these programs was in 1973. This research is a field study carried out in 2016 on how to implement the educational programs prepared in (...) 2011 for Arabic lessons in Imam Hatip schools, and the problems facing the teacher in practical reality. The scope of the research is limited to Tekirdağ Anadolu Religious High School for boys, Süleymanpaşa Anadolu Religious High School for girls, Süleymanpaşa Religious Secondary school, and the teachers working in these schools. The research was based on the views of those educators as to how the educational programmes for Arabic lessons and the problems they faced during their exercise were implemented. The research was formulated through interviews with teachers. The results of the research according to the data received from the teachers were processed in the statistical program SPSS and then converted to frequency values and percentage values. These values were presented in tabular form. As a result of the findings, it was seen that most of the teachers did not read the Arabic lesson teaching program they were practicing, and they were unaware of the program’s vision, approach and goals; and they did not understand the program’s approach, vision, and objectives. Moreover, it was understood that the minds of the teachers were not clear about whether the Arabic language was a foreign language lesson or a religious vocational lesson, that the teaching practices and behaviors of teachers are incompatible with the educational program and they also had one view that the goals of the Arab lesson were largely unfulfilled. After the main results have been revealed and discussed, finally, following the disputed results, some suggestions were made to increase the quality of teaching Arabic such as making Arabic an effective, active and influential element in the lives of students and teachers through various awards and scholarships and the examination of Arabic as a foreign language in the university entrance examinations as an element of motivation and quality. In addition, in order to improve the quality of the Arabic teacher, we have made the Arabic exams as periodic, an increase in salaries according to the teachers’ receivables score, the continuation of in-service trainings, etc. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the motivation of students attending boarding schools/Islamic boarding schools in Makassar in the use of English and Arabic. The aims of this research are: (1) to find out and investigate the factors that influence students' motivation in using the two languages ​​by focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The method used is description. The population was taken from several Islamic boarding schools students in Makassar such as Annahdlah Islamic Boarding School, Madina (...) Islamic Boarding School and Ummul Mukminin Islamic Boarding School. In collecting data, the writer uses a questionnaire which is calculated using a Likert scale. The author also uses descriptive statistics based on the approach of Jerremy Harmer and Moslow's theory in analyzing the data obtained. This study found that there are two factors that influence a student's motivation when they use two languages ​​that they already know, namely: intrinsic and extrinsic factors. There are four intrinsic factors in using two languages, namely; physical conditions, methods, teachers, and success. Meanwhile, there are four extrinsic factors, namely integrative, instrumental, punishment, and also parental factors. The results of the overall analysis in this study indicate that extrinsic factors have a greater influence on student motivation in Islamic boarding schools than intrinsic factors. The implication of this research is to be able to provide more descriptions or descriptions to readers, especially to students majoring in English/Arabic Language and Literature about the factors that can influence students' motivation to use English and Arabic that they already know and how they are able to take lessons to increase their own intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. (shrink)

The significance and use of translation of ideas from literature, social science, science and spirituality are presented. The sameness and difference of such translation to the usual literature translation is discussed. The idea-translation as creativity and criticism are advanced with examples from my experiences of idea-translations. The translation of ideas on time and Upanishadic contents and their revolutionary scientific applications are elaborated. The new insights they provided and their utility; compared to hitherto available views are compared and contrasted. (...) And the varied way the idea of communism understood and its ideological implementation by various comrades from different nationalities and cultures is also presented. (shrink)

Thirteen essays in this volume explore and investigate diverse contemporary philosophicla themes and issues...

Ecosemiotics is the study of sign processes (semioses) in relation to the natural environment in which they occur. The paper examines the cultural, biological, and evolutionary dimensions of ecosemioses on the basis of C. S. Peirce's theory of continuity between matter and mind and investigates the ecosemiotic dimensions of natural signs. Ecosemiotics and the semiotics of nature are distinguished from pansemiotism, and the coevolution of sign processes with their natural enviromnent is discussed as a determining factor of ecosemiosis.

Protosemiotics is the study of the rudiments of semiosis, primarily in nature. The extension of the semiotic field from culture to nature is both necessary and possible in the framework of Peirce's semiotic theory. Against this extension, the critique of pansemiotism has been raised. However, Peirce's semiotics is not pansemiotic since it is based on the criterion of thirdness, which is not ubiquitous in nature. The paper examines the criteria of protosemiosis in the domain of physical and mechanical processes.

The book is a collection of papers and aims to unify the questions of syntax and semantics of language, which are included in logic, philosophy and ontology of language. The leading motif of the presented selection of works is the differentiation between linguistic tokens (material, concrete objects) and linguistic types (ideal, abstract objects) following two philosophical trends: nominalism (concretism) and Platonizing version of realism. The opening article under the title “The Dual Ontological Nature of Language Signs and (...) the Problem of Their Mutual Relations” provides a broad introduction into the problem area connected with this differentiation, while the logic-formal characteristics of the distinction are framed in the work entitled “On the Type-Token Relationships” (Chapter 1). The basic part of the book deals with issues relating to syntax (Chapters 2-4) and semantics of language (Chapters 5-6), as well as pertaining to syntactic-semantic pragmatic questions (Chapters 7-13). Throughout the book, language, categorial language, is characterized syntactically as generated by classical categorial grammar (Chapter 2) and formalized on two opposing levels: as language of expression-tokens (level of tokens) and language of expression-types (level of types). The author’s considerations contained in Chapters 2 and 4 lead to the important philosophical conclusion that in formal-logical syntactic studies on language the assumption that expression-types constitute the primary language layer while expression-tokens make the secondary one, can be neglected; thus, this speaks in favour of the opposing standpoint—the concretistic one—in the ontology of language syntax. In the works “Meaning and Interpretations”, Parts I and II (Chapters 5 and 6), it is underlined, however, that such semantic concepts as: meaning, denotation and interpretation are defined on the types level, yet their formal definitions require making use of notions of the tokens level. The semantic notions introduced in the above-mentioned articles are also used in the following works of the present selection, under the titles: “Three Principles of Compositionality” and “On Metaknowledge and Truth” (Chapters 7 and 8). They formalize two principles of compositionality that are well known in the literature on the subject, deriving from Frege, i.e. those of meaning and of denotation; they are related to the syntactic principle of compositionality which was introduced by the author. All the three principles are, at the same time, three conditions of homomorphism of categorial language algebra into three kinds of non-standard models of language (one syntactic and two semantic ones: intensional and extensional), which allows introducing three definitions of truthfulness into these models. The next two works in the collection, entitled: “On Language Adequacy” and “What is the Sense in Logic and Philosophy of Language” (Chapters 9 and 10) concern adequacy of categorial language syntax along with its dual semantics: intensional and extensional, and categorial compatibility of any of its syntactic categories with two corresponding semantic categories: intensional and extensional, based on the compatibility the syntactic category of each language expression with the ontological category assigned to its denotatum. The well-known problem of categorial compatibility for first-order quantifiers finds its solution in the paper “Categories of First-Order Quantifiers” (Chapter 11). In the work “Logic and Ontology of Language” (Chapter 12), being in a sense a summary of the considerations presented in the preceding chapters of the book, language is treated as an ontological being, characterized in compliance with the logical conception of language proposed by Ajdukiewicz. Application—like throughout the book—of tools of classical logic and set theory has resulted in emergence of a general formal logical theory of syntax, semantics and pragmatics of language, which takes into account duality in the understanding of linguistic expressions as tokens (concretes) and types (abstract objects). In terms that take into account a functional approach to language itself, there comes out an ontological neutrality of logic with respect to existential assumptions relating to the ontological nature of linguistic expressions and their extra-linguistic ontological counterparts. The issues connected with applying logic while explaining the manner of using linguistic tokens and linguistic types to determine notions of language communication are raised and illustrated in the last chapter of the work, bearing the title “A Logical Conceptualization of Knowledge on the Notion of Language Communication”. (shrink)

Muhammad Wazeh Rashid al-Hasani al- Nadawi is an eminent scholar of Islamic sciences and Arabic language and literature and also a celebrated Arabic journalist in contemporary India. He belongs to a famous family of Rai- Berali (U. P.), viz. Shah Elmullah family. He is an alumnus of Darul Ulum Nadwatul Ulama, Laknow and Aligarh Muslim University, two prestigious institutions of India. He is now occupying the post of Education Secretary in Darul Ulum Nadwatul Ulama, Laknow. He is also (...) the chief editor of Al Raid (a fortnightly Arabic news paper) and sub editor of Al- Ba’sul Islami (a monthly Arabic Journal). Till now, he has produced many articles, research papers which are published in various national and international journals and also written a good number of Arabic books in history of Arabic literature, biography, Islamic culture etc. which are well accepted among the readers. One of his famous book is أدب الصحوة الإسلامية (The literature of Islamic awakening). In this book the writer discussed the contribution of many Islamic thinkers, philosophers, writers such as Amir Shakib Arsalan, Hasan al- Banna, Al- Sayeed Kutub, Ali Tantawi, Muhammad Ekhba, Abul Hasan Ali Al Hasani al- Nadawi etc. in all round development of their society and also mentioned how they use their outstanding literary works to awaken the people of their society from their deep sleep in respect of religious and worldly affairs. This book is an important guide for those who want to do something for betterment of their society. I have studied this book analytically and the present article entitled "أدب الصحوة الإسلامية: دراسة تحليلية" is the output of this study. (shrink)

n this article, I try to defend the thesis that imagination against reason, moral progress through imagination not the reason, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc.) in enhancing empathy with one another and ultimately reducing philosophy to poetry in Richard Rorty's writings point to one thing: the priority of literature to philosophy. The literary or post-physical culture that Rorty defends is (...) opposed to the Enlightenment and the philosophical and religious culture. Rorty prefers literary culture among the religious culture and philosophical culture. The literary culture Rorty envisages is a radically historicist and nominalist one. Rorty’s romanticised version of pragmatism aims precisely at dealing with this literary or post-physical culture or, in generally, the literature. (shrink)

I here present and defend what I call the Triviality Theory of Truth, to be understood in analogy with Matti Eklund’s Inconsistency Theory of Truth. A specific formulation of is defended and compared with alternatives found in the literature. A number of objections against the proposed notion of meaning-constitutivity are discussed and held inconclusive. The main focus, however, is on the problem, discussed at length by Gupta and Belnap, that speakers do not accept epistemically neutral conclusions of Curry derivations. (...) I first argue that the facts about speakers’ reactions to such Curry derivations do not constitute a problem for the Triviality Theory specifically. Rather, they follow from independent, uncontroversial facts. I then propose a solution which coheres with the theory as I understand it. Finally, I consider a normative reading of their objection and offer a response. (shrink)

Blanchot often evoked the silence required for literary writing, a silence which he says must “be imposed” on a pre-existing and indistinct murmur of language. Likewise, he evokes this murmur itself as an originary ground of all speech, including literary speech. Less often recognized are the ways in which he also locates this murmur in the realm of public speech and everyday language, the rumor of speech spoken by no one and by everyone, a realm which he in (...) turn links with the exigencies of publication and publicity that bear on the literary work within modern societies marked by mass media and technically mediated communication. Blanchot himself thus points to an unexpected convergence, in these sonic images of impersonal murmuring flows of language, between literary language per se, and a language that is traditionally considered inauthentic, empty, superficial, a chattering nullity. This essay attempts to press on this border by showing Blanchot’s anxious, and probably futile, attempts to maintain the distinction he so profoundly and rigorously effaces. As literature is threatened by the indistinction of language from which it originates, it reveals an unexpected convergence with the leveling modes of language marked by mass media and by technicity in general. (shrink)

This paper gives a fIrst overview over the role of mereology the theory of parts and wholes - in semiotics. The mereology of four major semioticians - Husserl, Jakobson, Hjelmslev, and Peirce is presented briefly and its role in the overall architecture of each of their theories is outlined - with Brentano tradition as reference. Finally, an evaluation of the strength and weaknesses of the four is undertaken, and some guidelines for further research is proposed.

Globalization and sophisticated information technology continually flow in all aspects of human lives. Awareness and social control mainly derive from the society as the owner of literature, culture, and local wisdom. They are hoped to have deeply and powerful understanding about actualization in the presence of cultural values which exist in each ethnic in Indonesia. The awareness could create the character building “sipakatau, sipakalebbi, and sipakaraja”mutual honor, respect, and value. This research aims to find out and to describe: (a) (...) the meanings of literature/culture that have philosophical, religious, and social/humanity values and (b) the meanings of ancestral local wisdom. This research is texts and field research. Its approach is “Semiotic Symbols”.The managing of documentation and revitalization of language, literature, and culture has been done, but it is still not maximal yet. This is done in order to avoid extinction. Therefore, the teachers and lectures now must do research to reveal the meanings beyond meaning, and to teach them to their students that are contained in the songs and the ancestral local wisdom of each ethnic in Indonesia. The best solution is to teach them through education. By this way, our nation generations will know and understand their culture. Therefore, it could accelerate the character building and self dignity of our nation who has a high culture, high dignity, and high civilization. (shrink)

Chinese Chan or Zen Buddhism is renowned for its improvisational, atypical, and perplexing use of words. In particular, the tradition’s encounter dialogues, which took place between Chan masters and their interlocutors, abound in puzzling, astonishing, and paradoxical ways of speaking. In this chapter, we are concerned with Chan’s use of paradoxical language. In philosophical parlance, a linguistic paradox comprises the confluence of opposite or incongruent concepts in a way that runs counter to our common sense and ordinary rational thinking. (...) One naturally wonders about Chan masters’ rationales for their use of paradox. There are also concerns about whether the use violates the logical principle of noncontradiction to the effect that nothing can be both P and not-P all over in the same way at the same time. Chan became a viable Chinese Buddhist tradition during the Tang dynasty (618−907) and continued to develop for several centuries. The tradition had produced a huge literature; consequently, our investigation of its use of paradox cannot but be limited and selective. In the second section, I first sketch key ideas of Chan that are pertinent to our investigation and then examine the use of paradox in the sermons associated with certain Tang masters of the southern Chan. In the third section, I analyze the presence of paradoxical language in post-Tang encounter dialogues. The fourth section concludes. (shrink)

Creationism is an ancient worldview that was incorporated into ancient religious doctrines and survived in the western world due to its domination by religious institution such as the Catholic and Protestant Churches. Slowly, with the development of democratic political systems and science, the church lost its power of dominance over intellectual enterprises, and evolution became accepted by the majority as the inherent process in nature. Nevertheless, creationism is still very much alive among various fundamentalist churches and their organizations in the (...) United States. This article discusses the premises of the creationist movement, its varieties, and confronts it with the basic premises, characteristics, and modus operandi of the scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics tend to focus on his philosophy of painting. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to his philosophy of literature. However, he also draws significant conclusions from his work on literary expression. As I will argue, these reflections inform at least two important positions of his later thought. First, Merleau-Ponty’s account of “indirect” literary language led him to develop a hybrid view of phenomenological expression, on which expression is both creative and descriptive. (...) Second, a study of literature furnished him with the resources to develop a novel account of phenomenological “essences”, which holds that essences are revisable explanations of first-order experience. Both results have been overlooked by commentators. They demonstrate the systematic import of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of literature and language, and amount to a qualified extension of a basic Husserlian position. (shrink)

A logic is called 'paraconsistent' if it rejects the rule called 'ex contradictione quodlibet', according to which any conclusion follows from inconsistent premises. While logicians have proposed many technically developed paraconsistent logical systems and contemporary philosophers like Graham Priest have advanced the view that some contradictions can be true, and advocated a paraconsistent logic to deal with them, until recent times these systems have been little understood by philosophers. This book presents a comprehensive overview on paraconsistent logical systems to change (...) this situation. The book includes almost every major author currently working in the field. The papers are on the cutting edge of the literature some of which discuss current debates and others present important new ideas. The editors have avoided papers about technical details of paraconsistent logic, but instead concentrated upon works that discuss more 'big picture' ideas. Different treatments of paradoxes takes centre stage in many of the papers, but also there are several papers on how to interpret paraconistent logic and some on how it can be applied to philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics. (shrink)

:The language policy in Nigeria granted the English language the status of being the sole official language, and the language of instruction in the country. This approach influenced the educated people's competence, and subsequently, attitudes towards others within their locality and global arena. The study aims to investigate the role of the English Language in Nigerian Development. This paper argues that English as the Nigerian official language is well accepted due to the multi-lingual state (...) of Nigeria. The study observes that English language is a political and social element in the process of building, unification, and maintaining the Nigerian state and as an essential element of national development. This study contributes to the understanding of multi-lingual nations and supports the research literature which shows that English language plays a significant role in unifying multi-lingual Nigeria. (shrink)

A mixed methods study, this doctoral research explores the relationship between the classroom language assessment literacy (CLAL) and assessment practices of English teachers. It is based on the premise that if English teachers are properly oriented in assessment of language ability in classroom, the quality of classroom assessments will improve and in turn, teachers will be in a position to carry out “assessment for learning” effectively. The study is designed considering the assessment policies and practices in India as (...) a whole. The intervention takes place in three schools— a CBSE, a State-Board and an ICSE school— and six secondary school English teachers— two each from the above-mentioned schools— in Andhra Pradesh constituted the main participants. This research is significant in the sense that though the new assessment policy in schools demands that teachers carry out classroom assessments, and attaches a lot of importance to those, very little has been done to equip teachers with adequate skills and knowledge to enable them to meet the challenges of classroom assessment. This study tries to draw attention towards this problem and suggests a possible solution. For its theoretical framework, the study draws on classroom assessment, assessment literacy, second language teacher education, teacher development, teacher beliefs and teacher knowledge. The framework is built after studying and tracing the existing gaps in the research literature in areas relevant to the study. The study is conducted in three major phases: pre-intervention, intervention and postintervention. In the first phase, the researcher collects information about the CLAL of secondary school English teachers practicing in CBSE, state-board and ICSE schools through a state-wise survey. Then two teachers each from a CBSE, a state-board and an ICSE school are selected and information about their CLAL, beliefs about assessment and assessment practices is obtained. A teacher development (TD) programme based on the above-mentioned information is designed with a view to developing teachers’ CLAL. In the second phase, the programme is imparted separately to the three pairs of teachers for 18 hours. Records of teachers’ experience and the researcher’s observations are maintained during the intervention. In the last phase, once again, information is collected about the CLAL and assessment practices of the teachers in a similar manner as done in the first stage. Data are analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively, triangulated and meta-inferences are made after a few cross-case analyses. Finally, an effort is made to generalize and discuss the findings, state the implications of the study for policy makers, teacher education, curriculum designers, experts in language assessment and teacher educators, point out the limitations of the project and suggest directions for further research in the area of the study. The findings of the study suggest that there is a relationship between CLAL and assessment practices of teachers. But a lot of factors like the assessment policy at curricular level, institutional policy about assessment, motivation of teachers to utilize assessment for pedagogic purposes and their English language ability are found to have impact on teachers’ assessment practices. It is also found that a need-based TD programme can, to a great extent, generate the desired impact on teachers’ assessment practices. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). The copyright page has the date of this first edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having (...) a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. -/- In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). The philosophy centers around the two writers I have found the most important, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. -/- Now that I think I understand how the games work I have mostly lost interest in philosophy, which of course is how Wittgenstein said it should be. But since they are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put, it due to the lack of perspicuity of language, the problems run throughout all human discourse, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning principally with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. -/- "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) -/- Nevertheless, a real understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, and hence of how our psychology functions, is only beginning to spread in the second decade of the 21st century, due especially to P.M.S. Hacker (hereafter H) and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (hereafter DMS),but also to many others, some of the more prominent of whom I mention in the articles. -/- When I read ‘On Certainty’ a few years ago I characterized it in an Amazon review as the Foundation Stone of Philosophy and Psychology and the most basic document for understanding behavior, and about the same time DMS was writing articles noting that it had solved the millennia old epistemological problem of how we can know anything for certain. I realized that W was the first one to grasp what is now characterized as the two systems or dual systems of thought, and I generated a dual systems (S1 and S2) terminology which I found to be very powerful in describing behavior. I took the small table that John Searle (hereafter S) had been using, expanded it greatly, and found later that it integrated perfectly with the framework being used by various current workers in thinking and reasoning research. -/- Since they were published individually, I have tried to make the book reviews and articles stand by themselves, insofar as possible, and this accounts for the repetition of various sections, notably the table and its explanation. I start with a short article that presents the table of intentionality and briefly describes its terminology and background. Next, is by far the longest article, which attempts a survey of the work of W and S as it relates to the table and so to an understanding or description (not explanation as W insisted) of behavior. -/- The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides Standard Social Science Model. Democracy and equality are wonderful ideals, but without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation and any world that adopts them. The monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we sell our children’s heritage for temporary comforts. -/- The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the thoughts of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves an heuristic for how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it,includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- Thus all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth. -/- My writings are available in updated versions as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C . (shrink)

It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative linguistic System 2 and unconscious (...) automated prelinguistic System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of two of the most eminent students of behavior of modern times, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, on the logical structure of intentionality (mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything, but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I analyze various writings by and about them from the modern perspective of the two systems of thought (popularized as ‘thinking fast, thinking slow’), employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. I show that this is a powerful heuristic for describing behavior. -/- Thus, all behavior is intimately connected if one takes the correct viewpoint. The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s future. -/- . (shrink)

The reversal of the relationship between nouns and verbs.

How does fiction work? How can mere words create realities that exist only in the mind of the writer and the reader, yet seem so tangible in their realness? How can the first sentence of a novel transport one into a very real, yet purely objective, world — literally word-by-word? How do the subjective worlds of the writer and reader interact with the words on the page to create similar, yet always highly individualized, objective worlds? How can semiotics function as (...) a means to analyzing a written text in order to answer these questions about how the processes of writing and reading work? These, amongst others, are the questions explored in this paper, “Mrs. Dalloway and the Semiotics of a First Sentence”. In it I analyze Virginia Woolf ’s classic novel from a semiotic stance. Through exploring the semiotics of the novel’s first sentence, I attempt to show how we can read even the first nine words of a book and find ourselves transported to a whole, new, highly detailed world — the world of fiction. (shrink)

Contemporary post-aesthetic art implies an expanded concept of the work of art that also includes political functions. Beuys’s concept of social sculpture and Marcuse’s idea of society as a work of art can be complemented by Abreu’s project of a musical orchestra as a social ideal and the Neue Slowenische Kunst transnational state formed from the core of art. These concepts are close to the views of Hakim Bey, with D’Annunzio also touching upon them with his State of Fiume, for (...) which he wrote the constitution and defined music as its central governing principle. Although the art state is a utopian project, art can serve a variety of emancipatory functions even in the dystopian present to intervene in and change the political. In this article, we also discuss the case of art activism in Slovenia, where culture has become a central part of civil society oriented towards social change. Art activism contributes to an expanded concept of the political, which includes new subjects and new forms of antagonisms. Likewise, such repurposing of art emphasises its role in research. (shrink)

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding principle (...) of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value. (shrink)

This dissertation takes up questions of access at the level of language itself, as well as in the context of cultural institutions in emerging global communities. Using the texts of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Shani Mootoo, I argue experimental narrative techniques develop new understandings of mental disability by pushing against the limits of language, particularly in relation to mentally disabled women. The novels and plays examined function as creative objects that refigure the reader’s relationship to mental disability (...) through embodied reading practices. In resisting previous tendencies to read literary representations of mental disability as metaphor, I offer an alternative framework for understanding mental disability as an ongoing interactive process between bodies. Drawing on work from disability studies, critical gender studies, and trauma theory, I call for approaches to mental disability in literature that understand reading as an interactive process between reader and text, proposing a methodology for understanding how embodied reading practices inspire new understandings of mental disability and trauma in emerging global communities. In appreciating mental disability as an ongoing interactive process between bodies, readers can better attend to the nuanced ways in which complex embodiment calls for innovative modes of storytelling that challenge histories of representation. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on scientific explanation in neuroscience has been dominated by the idea of mechanisms. The mechanist philosophers often claim that neuroscience is in the business of finding mechanisms. This view has been challenged in numerous ways by showing that there are other successful and widespread explanatory strategies in neuroscience. However, the empirical evidence for all these claims was hitherto lacking. Empirical evidence about the pervasiveness and uses of various explanatory strategies in neuroscience is particularly needed because examples (...) and case studies that are used to illustrate philosophical claims so far tend to be hand-picked. The risk of confirmation bias is therefore considerable: when looking for white swans, all one finds is that swans are white. The more systematic quantitative and qualitative bibliometric study of a large body of relevant literature that we present in this paper can put such claims into perspective. Using bibliometric tools, we identify the typical linguistic patterns used in the alleged mechanistic, dynamical, and topological explanations in the literature, their preponderance and how they change over time. Our findings show abundant use of mechanistic language, but also the presence of a significant neuroscience literature using topological and dynamical explanatory language, which grows over time and increasingly differentiates from each other and from mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

This book examines the central role that language plays in understanding and human flourishing. The book begins by exploring Heidegger's idea that language is an essential element of how we dwell in the world and is, for the most part, ready-to-hand for us. With Gadamer, I then begin to explore phenomena where language is not ready-to-hand but calls for interpretation. The latter half of the book explores distinct ways in which language can become unready-to-hand for individuals (...) (e.g., in cases of trauma, depression, and social subordination) and examines the way that such situations have been analyzed by twentieth-century Continental thinkers (e.g., Blanchot, Kristeva, Derrida). (shrink)

Literature’s qualities can be highlighted by combining it with other forms of art. Manga, which is a Japanese traditional literary genre that involves visual art, has gained worldwide popularity in the last few decades. Subsequently, it was adapted into anime. This study explores the legitimacy of manga in literature, its global influence among notable figures such as prime ministers or presidents, and the zenith it attained in anime, which is a universal language. Are manga and anime universal (...) solely due to their graphics and stories? Or is it rather because of their ability to connect people to the sacred? Is image universal? If so, what kind of image? Static one? Moving one? Which, manga or anime, can rather be considered universal? What does the future hold for literature and its various adaptations? (shrink)