In this article I offer a way of interpreting Richard Rorty's political suggestions. I believe Rorty's lack of offering concrete proposals for dealing with the usual key problems of liberalism is deliberate. I look at this lack from a generous point of view and claim that what Rorty offers us is another kind of political intentionality. As a pragmatist, Rorty does not look for a foundational way of justifying things but, instead, searches for a description that makes liberalism an attractive (...) practice. Following Gadamer and Rorty, I intend looking at liberalism as a kind of game and a public lifestyle. I claim that such a prior understanding illuminates and articulates liberal key terms such as: freedoms, public sphere, respecting the other. (shrink)

We present a novel spontaneous collapse model where size is no longer the property of a physical system which determines its rate of collapse. Instead, we argue that the rate of spontaneous localization should depend on a system’s quantum Integrated Information, a novel physical property which describes a system’s capacity to act like a quantum observer. We introduce quantum Integrated Information, present our QII collapse model and briefly explain how it may be experimentally tested against quantum theory.

SARS-CoV-2 has unleashed an unprecedented global crisis that has caused the demand for essential goods, such as medical and sanitation products, to soar while simultaneously disrupting the very supply chains that allow individuals and institutions to obtain those essential goods. This has resulted in stark price increases and accusations of price gouging. We survey the existing philosophical literature that examines price gouging and identify the key arguments for regulators permitting such behavior and for regulators restricting such behavior. We demonstrate how (...) the existing accounts are designed for localized emergencies rather than global persistent crises such as the coronavirus pandemic. In light of this, we highlight an understudied justification for price gouging that is much more salient during global crises: incentivizing increased production of essential goods. Furthermore, we pinpoint three conditions that help determine whether authorities should restrict price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic and similar global crises. (shrink)

The rationalization of context-based choice is usually based on the assumption that preferences are context-dependent. In this paper, we show that context-based choice can be due to the characteristics of the choice procedure applied by the individual and not to the dependence of preferences (stochastic or deterministic) on the context. Our arguments are illustrated focusing on the much-studied dominated-alternative effects.

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page W1-W3.

This study examines the linguistic construal and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in the genre of news narratives. We present a model of mental spaces that involves a News Space in which the deictic center is construed of the news actors at the time the newsworthy events took place, and a Reality Space in which the deictic here-and-now center of journalist and reader is construed. This model explains how the dynamic representation of narrative news discourse, characterized by shifts in (...) time and viewpoint, is steered by linguistic devices. An analysis of Dutch news narratives shows that temporal adverbs such as yesterdayand shifts from present tense to past tense may signal a moveforwardin narrative time, to a viewpoint in the future relative to the narrative now-point, rather thanbackward. These atypical time shifts can be accounted for by presupposing an Intermediate Space located at a point in time between the News Space and the Reality Space where the progression of narrative time comes to a halt and experiences are rather relived than reported. The salience of the Intermediate Space may be signaled by quotative conditionals reflecting the viewpoints of implicitly quoted sources. These results clarify how tense and temporal deixis steer the linguistic construal of time and viewpoint in news narratives, demonstrating that time and viewpoint are closely linked in the cognitive representation of these narratives. (shrink)

This study examines how audiovisual brand stories both invite and enable consumers to enact heroic archetypes. Integrating research on the archetypal structure of narratives with research on the event structure of narratives, we distinguish singular plot stories (i.e. stories that show a Hero’s Journey) from embedded plot stories (i.e. stories that not only show but also tell one or more Hero’s Journeys) and develop a conceptual and narratological framework to analyze their structural elements. Application of the framework to 20 brand (...) stories representing 8 different brands reveals meaningful variation in elements between the singular plot stories and embedded plot stories. Differences in the expression of archetypes and event structure are argued to evoke different types of Hero enactment which in turn result in different outcomes. We specifically hypothesize that the enactment of heroic archetypes in singular plot stories primarily results in catharsis (pleasure), whereas the enactment of heroic archetypes in embedded plot stories primarily results in an outcome we describe as phronesis: a form of moral sense making of the self that advances one’s practical wisdom and prudence. The final section of the paper discusses how cathartic and phronetic outcomes of hero enactment may foster the psychological bonding between brand and consumer, and invite consumers to align their moral values with the values that are reflected by heroic character traits. The central aims of the analysis presented are to provide an exploration of narrative phenomena in a reasonably broad range of brand story videos and foremost to provide a conceptual framework with an applicable instrument suited to analyze relevant categories in these brand stories. The present study is interdisciplinary in its approach to a contemporary, developing marketing phenomenon, applying psychological modeling of archetypes and heroic values with narratological insights on perspective-taking and story structure. Its contribution is to systemize, from a narratological viewpoint, how various narrative archetypes in brand video stories may contribute to the development of brand-consumer relations. (shrink)

In this introduction to the special issue on time and viewpoint in narrative discourse, we highlight the central contributions of the issue concerning the relation between the linguistic construal and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint. We explain how linguistic and gestural cues guide the representation of narrative time progression and argue that this representation involves various cognitive operations regulating the alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, addressee, and narrative characters. These operations are steered by a variety of linguistic phenomena, (...) including verb tense, adverbs, demonstratives, reduplication and negation, as well as body partitioning. We discuss how genre characteristics influence the relation between the linguistic and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint. Finally, we explain how the analyses presented in the various papers both demonstrate and clarify how the cognitive representation of time in narrative discourse relies on the human capacity to simultaneously manage multiple viewpoints, leading to the conclusion that time and viewpoint are closely related in the representation of narrative discourse. (shrink)

In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both across and within (...) stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal – narrator, character, reader – is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Fundamentally, viewpoint alignment is grounded in oral narrative interaction and, from this conversation, transferred to the written narrative situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and guiding readers’ route of processing the narrative (experientialversusreflective). Our claim is that variations in viewpoint alignment are functional to the communicative context and intended outcomes of narratives. This is illustrated with the analysis of a corporate journalistic narrative that comprises both interactional and non-interactional aspects of storytelling. The concept of viewpoint alignment further explains the oral fundaments of narrative discourse in conversational storytelling and poses new questions on the relation between the dynamic processing of stories on the one hand and their static outcomes on the other. (shrink)

The display of artefacts always implies an external mediation that influences, and often codifies, the reception of the exhibits. Objects are manipulated, restored, appropriated, staged, in short displayed, through various representational strategies that include pedestals, labels, and showcases. These elements, that we could define as parerga, are often ignored because of their utilitarian function. Yet, they play an important role in the history of the artefacts and define the setting in which the objects can exert their agency. They not only (...) shape their meaning, but also determine the effect that these artefacts have on their viewers. Framing devices create the conditions for interactions between the individual and the object to take place. This publication aims to explore the relation between artefacts and viewers as they are manifested in framing devices, and to develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the power of objects on display. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

ʻEdut be-Hosef -- Derekh ʻets ha-ḥayim -- Refuʼat ha-nefesh -- ha-Tapuaḥ.

kerekh 1. Ba-halakhah uve-agadah -- kerekh 2. [without special title].

This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on the previous book on indirect reports in this series, this volume adds an empirical (...) and cross-linguistic approach that covers an impressive range of languages, such as Cantonese, Japanese, Hebrew, Persian, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Armenian, Italian, English, Hungarian, German, Rumanian, and Basque. (shrink)

Disruptions in theory of mind faculties and the ability to relate to an intersubjective reality are widely thought to be crucial to schizophrenic symptomology. This paper applies a cognitive linguistic framework to analyze spontaneous perspective-taking in two corpora of stories told by people with a schizophrenia diagnosis. We elicited natural narrative language use through life story interviews and a guided storytelling task and analyzed the linguistic construal of viewpoint in these stories. For this analysis, we developed a reliable and widely (...) applicable viewpoint model that allows for the categorization and quantification of speakers’ linguistic presentation and navigation of spatiotemporal domains. We found that our participants skillfully presented, navigated and embedded different narrative viewpoints through a variety of linguistic viewpoint devices. They presented complex viewpoints of other people in both the here-and-now of the interaction and the there-and-then of a narrative, and made use of transition markers to demarcate spatiotemporal discourse domains. We found no differences in viewpoint variables when comparing their guided stories to a control group. If problems with intersubjectivity are indeed an essential part of schizophrenia, an explanation of how this group can take on and navigate complex linguistic viewpoints in natural narrative interaction is called for. (shrink)

A new view of the functional role of the left anterior cortex in language use is proposed. The experimental record indicates that most human linguistic abilities are not localized in this region. In particular, most of syntax (long thought to be there) is not located in Broca's area and its vicinity (operculum, insula, and subjacent white matter). This cerebral region, implicated in Broca's aphasia, does have a role in syntactic processing, but a highly specific one: It is the neural home (...) to receptive mechanisms involved in the computation of the relation between transformationally moved phrasal constituents and their extraction sites (in line with the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis). It is also involved in the construction of higher parts of the syntactic tree in speech production. By contrast, basic combinatorial capacities necessary for language processing – for example, structure-building operations, lexical insertion – are not supported by the neural tissue of this cerebral region, nor is lexical or combinatorial semantics. The dense body of empirical evidence supporting this restrictive view comes mainly from several angles on lesion studies of syntax in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Five empirical arguments are presented: experiments in sentence comprehension, cross-linguistic considerations (where aphasia findings from several language types are pooled and scrutinized comparatively), grammaticality and plausibility judgments, real-time processing of complex sentences, and rehabilitation. Also discussed are recent results from functional neuroimaging and from structured observations on speech production of Broca's aphasics. Syntactic abilities are nonetheless distinct from other cognitive skills and are represented entirely and exclusively in the left cerebral hemisphere. Although more widespread in the left hemisphere than previously thought, they are clearly distinct from other human combinatorial and intellectual abilities. The neurological record (based on functional imaging, split-brain and right-hemisphere-damaged patients, as well as patients suffering from a breakdown of mathematical skills) indicates that language is a distinct, modularly organized neurological entity. Combinatorial aspects of the language faculty reside in the human left cerebral hemisphere, but only the transformational component (or algorithms that implement it in use) is located in and around Broca's area. Key Words: agrammatism; aphasia; Broca's area; cerebral localization; dyscalculia; functional neuroanatomy; grammatical transformation; modularity; neuroimaging; syntax; trace deletion. (shrink)

Binz et al. highlight the potential of meta-learning to greatly enhance the flexibility of AI algorithms, as well as to approximate human behavior more accurately than traditional learning methods. We wish to emphasize a basic problem that lies underneath these two objectives, and in turn suggest another perspective of the required notion of “meta” in meta-learning: knowing what to learn.

In this paper I shall offer new definitions for what seem to be the most dominant terms in Epicurus’ theory of pleasures - “kinetic” and “katastematic”. While most of the scholarly literature treats these terms as entirely concerned with states of motion and states of stability, I shall argue that the distinction concerns whether pain is or is not removed by this or that pleasure. As the removal of pain is a necessary condition for the Epicurean goal of ataraxia and (...) aponia, “katastematic” pleasure, having to do with the removal of pain, is the necessary pleasure pertaining both to the process of removing pain and to its result, namely the absence of pain, while “kinetic” pleasure is an unnecessary pleasure having nothing to do with the removal of pain, e.g. it starts after pain has been removed. If my analysis and interpretation prove correct, the two conventional classifications - “kinetic-katastematic” and “necessary-unnecessary” - turn out to be referring to the same phenomenon and are aspects of one classification. Moreover, this new interpretation resolves some of the main problems arising from our testimonia concerning “kinetic” and “katastematic” pleasures. (shrink)

Decision making is a fundamental aspect of cognition that lies at the heart of theories about behaviour, learning, and mental processing. It spans multiple levels of complexity, from high-level planning to low-level movement control and perceptual recognition. Tracking the evolutionary trajectory of this elementary cognitive process can illuminate the foundations of behaviour and brain functions. This paper highlights a previously understudied defining feature of decision mechanisms: the ways in which mutual exclusion between alternatives is achieved. We argue that any decision (...) is defined by a set of mutually exclusive alternatives, and this exclusivity – rather than the specific identity of the alternatives – requires specialized mechanisms. We demonstrate how the physical body of simple decision-making entities can serve as such a mechanism, and that the detachment of these mechanisms from bodily and environmental constraints enabled complex decision-making. Furthermore, while many theories emphasize how the evolution of neural circuits enhanced integration and control through associative structures, we propose that the evolution of mutual exclusion requires non-associative constructions. We conclude that understanding the evolution of these mechanisms is crucial for studying cognitive evolution, and we propose a potential evolutionary trajectory. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that a Bio-Social conception of “race” is a socially salient conception within the United States. This conception is “socially salient” in the sense that is demonstrative of public understanding and public use of the race concept within context of the United States and its member institutions. This conception is “Bio-Social” in the sense that a set of biological and social properties form the necessary conditions for “race” and “racial group membership.” I explain that these biological (...) and social properties are the social interpretation of ancestral relations to geographically and culturally specified groups. (shrink)

The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, sometimes called ‘the Creative Explosion’, is seen as the period when the forefathers of modern forager societies emerged. Similarly to the Industrial and Neolithic Revolutions, it represents a short time span when numerous inventions appeared and cultural changes occurred. The inventions were in the domain of technology, that is, shaping of new stone tool forms, longdistance exchange of raw materials, the use of bone, antler and ivory as well as rare minerals for the production of domestic (...) and ritual objects. Spatial analysis of ‘living floors’ indicates the presence of a kitchen area, sleeping grounds, storage facilities (in certain regions) and a discard zone. We can also detect a certain increase in social hierarchy and the presence of shamans. Body decorations indicate the appearance of personal individuality. Several hypotheses were offered as an explanation for the initiation of all these cultural changes often grouped under the term ‘modern behaviour’. It stands to reason that attributing the new successful technologies observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to intrinsic social processes and economic innovations by local Middle Palaeolithic populations would need a better archaeological demonstration than that available today. For the time being, the emergence of Modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa, their socio-economic dynamism that caused their expansion through the Nile Valley into the Near East, and their migration along the ‘southern route’ of Asia as far as Australia, is the most plausible scenario though it still leaves much to be desired from future archaeological research. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a close analysis of the first scene in Plato’s Crito. Understanding a Platonic dialogue as a philosophical drama turns apparent scene-setting into an integral and essential part of the philosophical discussion. The two apparently innocent questions Socrates asks at the beginning of the Crito anticipate Crito’s two problems, namely how he regards his friendship with Socrates as opposed to his complicated relations with the polis and its sovereignty. These two questions are an integral part of (...) the philosophical discussion presented throughout the dialogue. (shrink)

In this article, I propose novel answers to three longstanding questions in the scholarship on Plato’s Crito: (1) Why does Socrates choose to respond to Crito in the second part of the conversation by using a speech?; (2) Why does this speech employ personification?; and (3) Why are the Laws, specifically, personified? The answers to these questions will reveal Socrates’ method of treating Crito and his worldview. The latter considers himself to be a good man for a twofold reason, namely, (...) he is concerned not only about helping a friend but also about the possible negative consequences of doing so. Crito takes care not to harm anyone while saving his friend and wishes to use only legitimate means. But Socrates will ultimately show Crito how, in fact, he uses violence to achieve his goals; how he harms others in the process, and how he is not nearly as good a friend as he believes himself to be. The result is a new way of looking at the dialogue, and of Plato’s message in composing it. (shrink)

Abstrak: Etika keduniawian Hannah Arendt muncul dari cara khasnya memikirkan dunia dan tindakan-tindakan manusia di dalamnya. Bagi Arendt, lewat berpikir, manusia mengungkapkan opini dan perhatiannya pada dunianya, apa yang terjadi di dunia. Lewat berpikir, manusia menunjukkan sebentuk tanggung jawabnya terhadap dunia dimana ia terlempar. Dengan menilai sebuah tindakan politik, manusia disetir oleh nilai-nilai moral yang berasal dari dunia itu sendiri. Penilaian yang ia berikan, pada gilirannya ada di bawah putusan orang-orang lain yang mengkonfrontasinya. Artinya, saat kita berpikir dan menilai, kita (...) mesti sadar akan makna tindakan politis bagi dunia pada umumnya, dan kita juga mesti menyadari apa yang akan dikatakan orang lain tentangnya. Kata-kata Kunci: Etika, keduniawian, berpikir, menilai, tanggungjawab. Abstract: This paper aims at reconstructing Arendt’s ethics of worldliness from her specific way of thinking about the world and how to judge an action takes place in it. For Arendt, in thinking, we express our concern and opinion about the world and what is going on in it. It is one way of showing our responsibility for the world into which we are thrown. In judging a political action we are directed by ethical constraints to come from the world itself and the verdict of spectators. That means, when we judge we should be aware of the things that an action could bring to the public realm and what others might say about it. Keywords: Ethics, worldliness, thinking, judging, responsibility. (shrink)

Beyond Scandal will give you the resources to talk to your kinds about: Sex, Gossip, Lying, Politics, Scandal, Friendship, Values, Leadership, Dirty Jokes.