This paper first re-examines Levinson’s notion of activity type, followed by a review of ethnographic, sociopsychological and ecological studies of the same phenomenon under varied names. The activity type is generally treated as a context in pragmatics. This paper departs from this thinking by proposing that it be treated as the primary object and unit of investigation per se. The role the activity type plays should be that of an interface bridging the langue-parole dichotomy, and the individual-society dichotomy. It is (...) further proposed that the activity type be studied as embodied activities at the token level. It is thus re-conceptualized in term of land-borne situated discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Divine and Artistic Ideal:Ideas and Insights for Cross-Cultural Aesthetic EducationMing Dong Gu (bio)IntroductionPeople in different cultural traditions would praise an excellent work of art as a masterpiece that has attained the status of the divine. This is a practice inherited from the ancient past. In high antiquity, when people did not have sufficient knowledge of artistic creation, they attributed creative inspirations and superb art to gods. In ancient (...) Greece people believed that all the arts were created by the Muses, daughters of the supreme god Zeus.1 Accordingly, they viewed divine creation as the highest order of representation and used the divine as the yardstick to measure artistic excellence. In early Greek thought Plato, through the mouth of Socrates, praised Homer as "the best and most divine of all."2 Citing the exquisite lyric poetry by Tynnnichs of Chalcis as evidence, he declared, "the god would show us, lest we doubt, that these lovely poems are not of man or human workmanship, but are divine and from the gods, and that the poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage."3In the Chinese tradition similar ideas existed from high antiquity. In early Chinese thought there is a parable in Zhuangzi's (369–286 BC) philosophical writing. It narrates how a skillful carpenter was commissioned by a king to make an ornate music stand. When the stand was finished, people, struck by the life likeness of the carved birds and animals on the stand, believed that he was able to make such superb art work because he was endowed with the divine power of gods.4 In literary criticism Yan Yu (fl. 1180-1235), a literary theorist whose views have exerted a lasting impact on Chinese poetry and poetics, proclaimed the divine to be the ultimate standard for [End Page 88] the poetic art: "There is only one ultimate achievement in poetry: it is called 'entering the divine.' When poetry enters the domain of the divine, it has reached its perfection and limit. Nothing can be added to it!"5 In other traditions, if people want to pass the highest praise for an excellent work of art, a simple exclamation, "That is divine!" would be sufficient.Thus, across cultures art has been related to the divine. Without reference to it, aesthetic conceptions of art and artistic creation would not be what they are today. This is because in many traditions the divine used to be viewed as the ultimate aesthetic ideal, and aesthetics is full of notions, ideas, and concepts related to it, without which artistic criticism and aesthetic education would be in a much impoverished state. The divine in art, however, is a slippery category in aesthetics that has been intuitively explored since high antiquity. In this article I will examine some critical and theoretical data on the divine, divine creation, and divine spirit in artistic representation from the Chinese and Western traditions and explore how the Chinese and Western traditions employ ideas of the divine for artistic conceptions and aesthetic education. On the basis of comparison and contrast, I will try to obtain some rational insights into the relationship between artistic creation and the divine in terms of logical analysis. Finally, I will make some efforts to reconceptualize the insights drawn from both traditions and explore to what extent the divine is still relevant to present-day aesthetics, how an aesthetic ideal may be conceived according to ideas of the divine in artistic representation, and in what ways an artwork may be considered to have entered the divine realm of the artistic ideal.God, Nature, and the Artistic IdealDespite vast differences in aesthetic conceptions, we can observe a discernable movement in the Chinese and Western notions of the divine in art from theistic and intuitive characterization to rational and logical conceptualization. This movement is characterized by a shift in emphasis from a personal god to impersonal nature, and from divine creator to human creator. Chinese and Western traditions started with a similar concern: What is the aesthetic ideal in artistic representation? Both traditions believe that the artistic ideal is... (shrink)

This study reports on a longitudinal inquiry into professional identity construction among six novice cross-border English language teachers from mainland China, who completed their pre-service teacher education in Hong Kong (HK) and began their teaching practice in local HK schools. The findings indicate that the participants navigated obstacles in teaching by deploying their own multiple languages as a cultural and linguistic repertoire. The findings also show that the teachers experienced difficulty legitimising their professional identity in the teaching community, where contextual (...) issues and power interplays mediated the process. Furthermore, it is found that the participants? commitment to teaching was negatively influenced by their non-legitimate position in the teaching community and the discordance between their teaching beliefs and the norms and values of their workplace. This study suggests that complex inter-relationships between marginal status in and legitimate membership of the community, between historical and cultural background, present practice, and future expectations, between social discourse and personal location, are involved in the process of identity construction. Measures to legitimate these teachers? position and to transform the linguistic and cultural repertories of these teachers into valuable resources of the local schools are suggested. Implications for future research are outlined. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Adolph Goldschmidt, Ernst Meumann, Wilhelm Waetzoldt und Arnold Schering -- Bd. 2. Paul Frankl, Emilt Utitz, Gustav Johann von Allesch und Wilhelm Worringer.

The temporal‐focus hypothesis claims that whether people conceptualize the past or the future as in front of them depends on their cultural attitudes toward time; such conceptualizations can be independent from the space–time metaphors expressed through language. In this paper, we study how Chinese people conceptualize time on the sagittal axis to find out the respective influences of language and culture on mental space–time mappings. An examination of Mandarin speakers' co‐speech gestures shows that some Chinese spontaneously perform past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back (besides future‐in‐front/past‐at‐back) (...) gestures, especially when gestures are accompanying past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back space–time metaphors (Exp. 1). Using a temporal performance task, the study confirms that Chinese can conceptualize the future as behind and the past as in front of them, and that such space–time mappings are affected by the different expressions of Mandarin space–time metaphors (Exp. 2). Additionally, a survey on cultural attitudes toward time shows that Chinese tend to focus slightly more on the future than on the past (Exp. 3). Within the Chinese sample, we did not find evidence for the effect of participants' cultural temporal attitudes on space–time mappings, but a cross‐cultural comparison of space–time mappings between Chinese, Moroccans, and Spaniards provides strong support for the temporal‐focus hypothesis. Furthermore, the results of Exp. 2 are replicated even after controlling for factors such as cultural temporal attitudes and age (Exp. 3), which implies that linguistic sagittal temporal metaphors can indeed influence Mandarin speakers' space–time mappings. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of Chinese people's sagittal temporal orientation, but also have additional implications for theories on the mental space–time mappings and the relationship between language and thought. (shrink)

Investigating how people respond to and view AI-created artworks is becoming increasingly crucial as the technology’s current application spreads due to its affordability and accessibility. This study examined how AI art alters people’s evaluation, purchase intention, and collection intention toward Chinese-style and Western-style paintings, and whether art expertise plays a role. Study 1 recruited participants without professional art experience and found that those who made the paintings would not change their liking rating, purchase intention, and collection intention. In addition, they (...) showed ingroup preference, favoring Chinese-style relative to Western-style paintings, in line with previous evidence on cultural preference in empirical aesthetics. Study 2 further investigated the modulation effect of art expertise. Art experts evaluated less favorably AI-generated paintings relative to artist-made paintings, while non-experts showed no preference. There was also an interaction effect between the author and the art expertise and interaction between the painting style and the art expertise. Collectively, the findings in this study showed that who made the art matters for experts and that the painting style affects aesthetic evaluation and ultimate reception of it. These results would also provide implications for AI-art practitioners. (shrink)

The reasons conception is the most prominent account of the nature of critical thinking. It consists in responding appropriately to reasons. Responding to reasons can be following a rule, it can be making an exception to a rule, it can be responding to a situation that is unique. It depends on the context each time what is the appropriate response. Critical thinking is the educational cognate of rationality and is a sine qua non for a reasonable life in a modern (...) democratic society. Reasons are generally normative. If this is true then it is to be expected that critical thinking is normative and also rationality. Critical thinking consists in being appropriately moved by reasons. The normative element of reasons moves us to beliefs or actions. It depends on our character how reasons move us. This indicates that our character must be well formed to enable us to be appropriately moved. (shrink)

本书共分七章，内容包括：宋元东阳社会与理学、东阳理学先声、吕祖谦与东阳学术、朱熹与东阳学术、许谦学术、陈樵学术等。.

The present book is the English version of a monograph 'Die aristotelische Syllogistik', which first appeared ten years ago in the series of Abhand 1 lungen edited by the Academy of Sciences in Gottingen. In the preface to the English edition, I would first like to express my indebtedness to Mr. J. Barnes, now fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. He not only translated what must have been a difficult text with exemplary precision and ingenuity, but followed critically every argument and (...) check ed every reference. While translating it, he has improved the book. Of those changes which I have made on Mr. Barnes' suggestion I note only the more important ones on pages 4, 12, 24sq, 32, 39, 6lsq, and 158. Since the second edition of the German text appeared in 1963 some further reviews have been published, or come to my notice, which I have 2 been able to make use of in improving the text of this new edition. I must mention here especially the detailed critical discussions of my results and arguments published by Professor W. Wieland in the Philosophische Rundschau 14 (1966), 1-27 and by Professor E. Scheibe in Gnomon 39 (1967), 454-64. Both scholars, while agreeing with the main drift and method of my interpretation, criticise some of my results and disagree with some of my arguments. It would not be possible to discuss these technical matters here with the necessary thoroughness. (shrink)

As the rising costs of lifestyle-related diseases place increasing strain on public healthcare systems, the individual’s role in disease may be proposed as a healthcare rationing criterion. Literature thus far has largely focused on retrospective responsibility in healthcare. The concept of prospective responsibility, in the form of a lifestyle contract, warrants further investigation. The responsibilisation in healthcare debate also needs to take into account innovative developments in mobile health technology, such as wearable biometric devices and mobile apps, which may change (...) how we hold others accountable for their lifestyles. Little is known about public attitudes towards lifestyle contracts and the use of mobile health technology to hold people responsible in the context of healthcare. This paper has two components. Firstly, it details empirical findings from a survey of 81 members of the United Kingdom general public on public attitudes towards individual responsibility and rationing healthcare, prospective and retrospective responsibility, and the acceptability of lifestyle contracts in the context of mobile health technology. Secondly, we draw on the empirical findings and propose a model of prospective intention-based lifestyle contracts, which is both more aligned with public intuitions and less ethically objectionable than more traditional, retrospective models of responsibility in healthcare. (shrink)

Emotion plays a crucial role, both in general human experience and in psychiatric illnesses. Despite the importance of emotion, the relative lack of objective methodologies to scientifically studying emotional phenomena limits our current understanding and thereby calls for the development of novel methodologies, such us the study of illustrative animal models. Analysis of Drosophila and other insects has unlocked new opportunities to elucidate the behavioral phenotypes of fundamentally emotional phenomena. Here we propose an integrative model of basic emotions based on (...) observations of this animal model. The basic emotions are internal states that are modulated by neuromodulators, and these internal states are externally expressed as certain stereotypical behaviors, such as instinct, which is proposed as ancient mechanisms of survival. There are four kinds of basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, which are differentially associated with three core affects: reward (happiness), punishment (sadness), and stress (fear and anger). These core affects are analogous to the three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) in that they are combined in various proportions to result in more complex “higher order” emotions, such as love and aesthetic emotion. We refer to our proposed model of emotions as called the “ Three Primary Color Model of Basic Emotions.”. (shrink)

Kann man das Leben führen? Die in diesem Band versammelten Beiträge stellen sich in kritischer Absicht dem modernen Konzept der »Lebensführung«, das die Technikphilosophie mit der Lebensphilosophie im frühen 20. Jahrhundert eng verbunden hat und teilweise bis heute verbindet. Auch relevante soziologische Positionen wurden in diesem Kontext entwickelt. Anhand zentraler Autoren wie Simmel, Bergson, Husserl, Heidegger, Blumenberg, Berdjajew, Reuleaux, von Uexküll, Plessner, Freyer, Jonas und Günter Ropohl (dem dieser Band aus Anlass seines 75. Geburtstags gewidmet ist) werden die Bezugnahmen zwischen (...) Technik- und Lebensphilosophie analysiert, aber auch die Abgrenzungsversuche voneinander. Die Verhältnisbestimmung der Konzepte »Leben« und »Technik« kann systemischen Charakter annehmen und deshalb die Idee einer lebensbejahenden oder -verneinenden Technik nach sich ziehen, z.B. artikuliert als Technikoptimismus/-pessimismus oder als emanzipatorische Frage nach dem eigenen Leben und dessen Selbstverwirklichung. Wenn es um Lebensführung geht, werden also gleichzeitig die Ausgangsbedingungen der Identitätskonstruktion moderner Subjekte und die Frage thematisiert, inwieweit Systementwürfe jene ermöglichen oder begrenzen. (shrink)