Learn the tips and tricks used by a top photographer in the digital photography industry in Rick Sammon's Top Digital Photography Secrets. Filled with beautiful photographs and the techniques Rick Sammon used to capture them, this book offers you motivation to capture stunning photographs and the tools and tricks you need to capture them. With more than 100 techniques for use behind the camera, this book will improve the camera skills of both amateur and experienced photographers. Additionally, this (...) book includes a chapter on post-production secrets, and a Rick Sammon DVD Guide lighting, camera, and digital photography basics. In this 1-hour DVD, Rick shows you how to get great photos using a variety of lighting sources, camera-specific techniques, and basic rules of photography. (shrink)

A number of recent attempts to bridge Husserlian phenomenology of time consciousness and contemporary tools and results from cognitive science or computational neuroscience are described and critiqued. An alternate proposal is outlined that lacks the weaknesses of existing accounts.

In Knowing Emotions, Furtak argues that it is only through the emotions that we can perceive meaning in life, and only by feeling emotions that we are able to recognize the value or significance of anything whatsoever. Our affective responses and dispositions therefore play a critical role in human existence, and their felt quality is intimately related to the awareness they provide.

I argue against a growing radical trend in current theoretical cognitive science that moves from the premises of embedded cognition, embodied cognition, dynamical systems theory and/or situated robotics to conclusions either to the effect that the mind is not in the brain or that cognition does not require representation, or both. I unearth the considerations at the foundation of this view: Haugeland's bandwidth-component argument to the effect that the brain is not a component in cognitive activity, and arguments inspired by (...) dynamical systems theory and situated robotics to the effect that cognitive activity does not involve representations. Both of these strands depend not only on a shift of emphasis from higher cognitive functions to things like sensorimotor processes, but also depend on a certain understanding of how sensorimotor processes are implemented - as closed-loop control systems. I describe a much more sophisticated model of sensorimotor processing that is not only more powerful and robust than simple closed-loop control, but for which there is great evidence that it is implemented in the nervous system. The is the emulation theory of representation, according to which the brain constructs inner dynamical models, or emulators, of the body and environment which are used in parallel with the body and environment to enhance motor control and perception and to provide faster feedback during motor processes, and can be run off-line to produce imagery and evaluate sensorimotor counterfactuals. I then show that the emulation framework is immune to the radical arguments, and makes apparent why the brain is a component in the cognitive activity, and exactly what the representations are in sensorimotor control. (shrink)

We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse‐movement trajectories, to test the classic notion that negation acts as an operator on linguistic processing. In three experiments, participants verified the truth or falsity of simple statements, and we tracked the computer‐mouse trajectories of their responses. Sentences expressing these facts sometimes contained a negation. Such negated statements could be true (e.g., “elephants are not small”) or false (e.g., “elephants are not large”). In the first experiment, as predicted by (...) the classic notion of negation, we found that negation caused more discreteness in the mouse trajectory of a response. The second experiment induced a simple context for these statements, yet negation still increased discreteness in trajectories. A third experiment enhanced the pragmatic context of sentences, and the discreteness was substantially diminished, with one primary measure no longer significantly showing increased discreteness at all. Traditional linguistic theories predict rapid shifts in cognitive dynamics occur due to the nature of negation: It is an operator that reverses the truth or falsity of an interpretation. We argue that these results support both propositional and contextual accounts of negation present in the literature, suggesting that contextual factors are crucial for determining the kind of cognitive dynamics displayed. We conclude by drawing broader lessons about theories of cognition from the case of negation. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Matter is a journey in thinking through the material fate of the earth itself; its surfaces and undercurrrents, ecologies, environments and irreparable cracks. With figures such as Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres as philosophical guides and writings on New Materialism, Posthumanism and Affect Theory as intellectual context, Rick Dolphijn proposes a radical rethinking of some of the basic themes of philosophy: subjectivity, materiality, body (both human and otherwise) and the act of living. This rethink is (...) a work of imagination and meditation in order to conceive of "another earth for another people". It is a homage to courageous thinking that dares to question the religious, capitalist and humanist realities of the day. A poetic philosophy of how to live in troubling times when even the earth beneath us feels unstable, Dolphijn offers a way to think about the world with depth, honesty and glimpses of hope. (shrink)

The emulation theory of representation is developed and explored as a framework that can revealingly synthesize a wide variety of representational functions of the brain. The framework is based on constructs from control theory (forward models) and signal processing (Kalman filters). The idea is that in addition to simply engaging with the body and environment, the brain constructs neural circuits that act as models of the body and environment. During overt sensorimotor engagement, these models are driven by efference copies in (...) parallel with the body and environment, in order to provide expectations of the sensory feedback, and to enhance and process sensory information. These models can also be run off-line in order to produce imagery, estimate outcomes of different actions, and evaluate and develop motor plans. The framework is initially developed within the context of motor control, where it has been shown that inner models running in parallel with the body can reduce the effects of feedback delay problems. The same mechanisms can account for motor imagery as the off-line driving of the emulator via efference copies. The framework is extended to account for visual imagery as the off-line driving of an emulator of the motor-visual loop. I also show how such systems can provide for amodal spatial imagery. Perception, including visual perception, results from such models being used to form expectations of, and to interpret, sensory input. I close by briefly outlining other cognitive functions that might also be synthesized within this framework, including reasoning, theory of mind phenomena, and language. Key Words: efference copies; emulation theory of representation; forward models; Kalman filters; motor control; motor imagery; perception; visual imagery. (shrink)

This article outlines the main tenets of affect theory and links these to Sloterdijk’s spherology. Where affect foregrounds prepersonal energies and posthuman impulses, spherology provides a lens for considering how humans congregate in constantly reconfiguring socialities in their pursuit of legitimacy and immunity. The article then explores the relevance of “affective spheres” for contemporary social science research. The article’s main argument here is that research of contemporary organisational and professional practices must increasingly be spherogenic, or seeking to build “affective spheres.” (...) The basis of this argument are the in situ complexity and fast-changing nature of practices, and the increasing challenges involved in objectifying or ‘freezing’, and analysing or dissecting such practices. The article draws for its case study on a video-reflexive project conducted in a U.S. health service. The article concludes that the notion of research as spherogenics counterbalances the conventional methodological emphasis on a predetermined stance —whether neutral or political—in our construction and enactment of social science research. (shrink)

b>: The problem of how physical systems, such as brains, come to represent themselves as subjects in an objective world is addressed. I develop an account of the requirements for this ability that draws on and refines work in a philosophical tradition that runs from Kant through Peter Strawson to Gareth Evans. The basic idea is that the ability to represent oneself as a subject in a world whose existence is independent of oneself involves the ability to represent space, and (...) in particular, to represent oneself as one object among others in an objective spatial realm. In parallel, I provide an account of how this ability, and the mechanisms that support it, are realized neurobiologically. This aspect of the article draws on, and refines, work done in the neurobiology and psychology of egocentric and allocentric spatial representation. (shrink)

b>: In this article I outline, apply, and defend a theory of natural representation. The main consequences of this theory are: i) representational status is a matter of how physical entities are used, and specifically is not a matter of causation, nomic relations with the intentional object, or information; ii) there are genuine (brain-)internal representations; iii) such representations are really representations, and not just farcical pseudo-representations, such as attractors, principal components, state-space partitions, or what-have-you;and iv) the theory allows us to (...) sharply distinguish those complex behaviors which are genuinely cognitive from those which are merely complex and adaptive. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 4, Page 261-264, October 2022. According to Jean Moritz Müller's The world-directedness of emotional feeling, the reason why emotions do not apprehend or disclose value is that one cannot apprehend what one has already apprehended: the value in question, he claims, is apprehended prior to the emotional feeling. Emotions, then, should not be conceived as apprehending value since they already presuppose awareness of it. I can be acquainted with a fact without feeling aware of the (...) meaning it holds. Yet I argue that only an emotional reaction actually registers value or disvalue. My value-responsive concept of emotion is one that Müller rejects. Yet I contend that to recognize the loss of a beloved person, for instance, just is to feel the emotion of grief. (shrink)

This introduction to our special section of Human Rights Review on Reparations and Peacebuilding gives an overview of the challenges currently confronting both peacebuilding and reparations. The special section aims to explore the relationship between these two mechanisms and examines the role that reparations schemes can play in salving or exacerbating conflict.

_Philosophical Fragments _ was first published in 1991. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. At a time when the function of criticism is again coming under close skeptical scrutiny, Schlegel's unorthodox, highly original mind, as revealed in these foundational "fragments," provides the critical framework for reflecting on contemporary experimental texts.

Today we live in a world where the majority of wars are no longer interstate, a development that over the last few decades has often left the international community, in particular the United Nations as it was originally conceived, ill equipped to respond. The nimble action required for contemporary conflict resolution and peacebuilding now primarily lies in the hands of local actors and states, sometimes supported by international actors. But it is not always clear who these local actors are or (...) what they need in order to achieve sustainable peace. As part of the roundtable “World Peace (And How We Can Achieve It),” this essay looks in more detail at what we mean by “local” in conflict-affected contexts and asks how local is local enough when resolving conflicts and building peace. It identifies tensions and concerns such as the need for the international community to have a well-defined and easily identified “local agenda” when, in reality, there are often several competing local agendas. The essay presents the Everyday Peace Indicators project as a vehicle that can be used to help communicate these local needs to international actors, and argues for the importance of understanding people's perceived realities in addition to, if not more than, their actual realities when trying to understand peace and conflict trends. In order to do this, we need to more effectively problematize peacebuilding for positive conflict disruption. (shrink)

An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach according to which perception is imbued with spatial content in virtue of certain kinds of connections between perceiving organism's sensory input and its behavioral output. The most important aspect of the defense involves clearly distinguishing two kinds of perceptuo-behavioral skills—the formation of dispositions, and a capacity for emulation. The former, the formation of dispositions, is argued to by the central pivot of spatial content. (...) I provide a neural information processing interpretation of what these dispositions amount to, and describe how dispositions, so understood, are an obvious implementation of Gareth Evans' proposal on the topic. Furthermore, I describe what sorts of contribution are made by emulation mechanisms, and I also describe exactly how the emulation framework differs from similar but distinct notions with which it is often unhelpfully confused, such as sensorimotor contingencies and forward models. (shrink)

Nothing is more obvious than the fact that we are able to experience events in the world such a ball deflecting from the cross-bar of a goal. But what is the temporal relation between these two things, the event, and our experience of the event? One possibility is that the world progresses temporally through a sequence of instantaneous states – the striker’s foot in contact with the ball, then the ball between the striker and the goal, then the ball in (...) contact with the cross-bar, and so forth –, while the perceiver’s experience is likewise a sequence of experience states, each one of which corresponds to, or is experience of, a corresponding state of the world – for example, a perception of the foot in contact with the ball, followed by a perception of the ball in the air, following by a perception of the ball in contact with the cross-bar. This way of understanding the relationship between experience and the world is very natural, and nearly universal. However, it rests on two assumptions that can be brought into question. (shrink)

[1] It is well-known that Evans laid the groundwork for a truly radical and fruitful theory of _content_ -- a theory according to which content is a genus with at least conceptual and nonconceptual varieties as species, and in which nonconceptual content plays a very significant role. It is less well-recognized that Evans was also in the process of working out the details of a truly radical and groundbreaking theory of _representation_, a task he was unfortunately unable to bring to (...) any satisfactory stage of fruition. I am here drawing the distinction between a theory of. (shrink)

I briefly sketch a notion of generic phenomenology, and what I call the wave-collapse illusion to the effect that transitions from generic to detailed phenomenology are not noticed as phenomenal changes. Change blindness and inattentional blindness can be analyzed as cases where certain things are phenomenally present, but generically so.

I explain a strategy, called model-based control, which has proven useful in control theory, and argue that many aspects of brain function can be understood as applications of this strategy. I first demonstrate that in the domain of motor control, there is good evidence that the brain constructs models, or emulators, of musculoskeletal dynamics. I then argue that imagery, motor, visual and otherwise, can be supported by these emulatory mechanisms. I argue that the same apparatus to understanding aspects of psychological (...) development, including the development of theory of mind. I then show how features of linguistic competence can be addressed with the same mechanisms. Finally, I develop a semantic theory applicable to these emulators. (shrink)

Socrates is a man of faith whose love and pursuit of the truth is grounded in religious conviction. Faith, whatever else it may be, involves guiding one's life in terms of a transcendent dimension, recognizing a reality lying behind any particular experience. In Plato's Phaedo, a literary and philosophical masterpiece, we enter the narrative of Socrates' trial and execution on the day of his death, examining arguments for the immortality of the psyche. The dialogue combines logical argument and mythological speculation, (...) and presents Socrates simultaneously as an abstract theorist and an unforgettably singular person. Distinct persons, such as Socrates, have an interest in continuing to exist as the individuals that they are. When we cease to exist, we lose the opportunity to engage in any activity that is worth doing, such as—emphatically, for some of us—doing philosophy. What Socrates is presented as having discovered in the Phaedo—with the ostensibly absent Plato lurking behind every line in this literary gem of a text—is a way of transforming oneself with an eye on immortality. That Socrates dies utterly without fear is the supreme vindication of the philosophical life. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity, space and the body. Such connections have been the subject matter of much philosophical work. For example, the importance of the body and bodily action on perception is a growth area in philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, there are some key relations that, as will become clear, have not been adequately explored. We start by examining the relation between embodiment and agency, especially the dependence of agency on (...) perception and the dependence of perception on agency. We also consider the nature of subjectivity itself: In virtue of what do humans and animals but not rocks and pencils have genuine perceptual and agentive intentional contents? We sketch a hylomorphic account of subjects and subjectivity, which highlights connections between the conclusions argued for in the previous sections and some basic principles of teleosemantics. (shrink)

. . . I should like to ask some questions about a particular obviousness: that lie in English means both to say something false while knowing it to be so, and to rest or to be in a prostrate or recumbent position. A pun, after all, is likely to be a compacting or constellating of language and literature, of social and cultural circumstance. There is potency in the pun or the suggestive homophone. "Miscegenation" must be a bad thing. Does it (...) not confess that it is a mis-something? Similarly, "What's good for General Motors is good for America" presses us to concede the claim made by general ; a quite other route would have to be taken if the language were to press us to concede that "What's good for A.B. Dick is good for America." Again, the political energy of a strike profits from the crisp energy of the word, a word—strike—which accords to an enterprise which is one of withdrawal, passivity, and attrition the associations of something which is on the offensive, active, and speedy. Christopher Ricks, professor of English literature at the University of Cambridge, is the author of Milton's Grand Style, Tennyson, Poems and Critics, and Keats and Embarrassment. He is also editor of the journal Essays in Criticism. (shrink)

"I confess — I took virtually every picture in this book with my compact camera!" Pros like Rick Sammon make their living with top-of-the-line dSLR cameras.

The Early Dialectics Within Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology Rick Sprague. with me the very categories of thought I wish to understand critically. Thus coming to awareness must be coming to know the knowing with which I began.

Michel Serres captures the urgencies of our time; from the digital revolution to the ecological crisis to the future of the university, the crises that code the world today are addressed in an accessible, affirmative and remarkably original analysis in his thought. This volume is the first to engage with the philosophy of Michel Serres, not by writing 'about' it, but by writing 'with' it. This is done by expanding upon the urgent themes that Serres works on; by furthering his (...) materialism, his emphasis on communication and information, his focus on the senses, and the role of mathematics in thought. His famous concepts, such as the parasite, 'amis de viellesse', and the algorithm are applied in 21st century situations. With contributions from an international and interdisciplinary team of authors, these writings tackle the crises of today and affirm the contemporary relevance of Serres' philosophy. (shrink)

Historians have noted that many 19th-century founders and members of psychic societies were clergy, or had fathers who were clergy, seeking evidence for the survivalist hypothesis. One such member, psychologist Gardner Murphy, was influenced in childhood both by the Episcopalian faith of his father and the Transcendentalism of his mother's hometown, Concord, Massachusetts. We propose that these religious and philosophical influences, as well as his childhood experiences informed his life's work. They also prompted Gardner Murphy to focus on the survivalist (...) hypothesis and commit to discovering a scientific approach that might yield evidence of paranormal phenomena. Murphy was highly respected for his biosocial theory of personality and his contributions to the discipline of psychology, even while he persisted in studying parapsychology, an area of contention in the relatively new science of psychology. He drew on the potential synergy of world religions and philosophical traditions as a means of understanding human behavior – in each case revealing him as the polymath and ethical humanist for which he is remembered. Like William James, he viewed reported psychic experiences as simply another human phenomenon to be examined using the scientific method. His ability to entwine these interests seems motivated by his religious upbringing and academic training in the sciences. (shrink)

_Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde and the Fragments _ was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. For the last century and a half, Friedrich Schlegel has enjoyed a reputation for being the critical grey eminence behind the coming to power of the Romantic Movement. It was Schlegel, in his three series of aphoristic fragments _, who actually first defined and (...) employed the word "romantic" in the present sense; and it was he who in a chaotic, fragmentary, and often mysterious but forceful manner first proclaimed the doctrine that was to usher in the modern age in literature. He too was among the first to put his new program into practice in the shape of his unfinished _Lucinde_,a work variously denounced as pornography and heralded as a forerunner of modern novelistic experimentation, and probably the most famous novel to come out of German Romanticism. Both the _Fragments _and _Lucinde_,along with a brilliant _tour de force_, the "Essay on Incomprehensibility," are available now for the first time in a complete English translation in this volume, together with a brief scholarly introduction. This translation will enable non-German readers to examine at first hand the work of a man whom Rene Wellck has called "one of the greatest critics of history." At a time when the function of criticism is coming once again under close skeptical scrutiny, Friedrich Schlegel's unorthodox, unsystematic but seminal critical mind—all of literature, philosophy, art, and history were grist to his mill—should find many sympathetic readers. The book will be of particular interest to theorists of literature and fiction, comparative literature scholars, and historians of the intellectual history of Germany, and it is appropriate for course use in German and comparative literature classes. (shrink)

I argue for a possible Buddhist theory of free will that combines Frankfurt's hierarchical analysis of meta-volitional/volitional accord with elements of the Buddhist eightfold path that prescribe that Buddhist aspirants cultivate meta-volitional wills that promote the mental freedom that culminates in enlightenment, as well as a causal/functional analysis of how Buddhist meditative methodology not only plausibly makes that possible, but in ways that may be applied to undermine Galen Strawson's impossibility argument, along with most of the other major arguments for (...) free will skepticism. (shrink)

Within natural language semantics, pronouns are often thought to correspond to variables whose values are contributed by contextual assignment functions. This paper concerns the application of this idea to cases where the antecedent of a pronoun is a plural quantifiers. The paper discusses the modelling of accessibility patterns of quantifier antecedents in a dynamic theory of interpretation. The goal is to reach a semantics of quantificational dependency which yields a fully semantic notion of pronominal accessibility. I argue that certain dependency (...) phenomena that arise in quantificationally created contexts require a representation of context wherein the labelling of antecedents is not rigid but rather dynamic itself. I propose a stack-based alternative to classic assignment functions, along the lines of Vermeulen (1993) and van Eijck (2001), and give a dynamic semantics of quantification which correctly accommodates the problematic anaphoric phenomena. (shrink)

The moral psychology of sympathy is the linchpin of the sentimentalist moral theories of both David Hume and Adam Smith. In this paper, I attempt to diagnose the critical differences between Hume's and Smith's respective accounts of sympathy in order to argue that Smithian sympathy is more properly suited to serve as a basis for impartial moral evaluations and judgments than is Humean sympathy. By way of arguing this claim, I take up the problem of overcoming sympathetic partiality in the (...) construction of a moral point of view, acknowledged by both writers, as my primary platform. My contention is that Humean sympathy is too mechanistic to actually deliver an impartial adjudicatory perspective, and that Smithian sympathy, with its evaluative, imaginative components, succeeds where Hume's account falls short. The paper is comprised of six sections: (i) introductory remarks, (ii) a discussion of Humean sympathy, (iii) a discussion of Smithian sympathy and its distinctness, (iv) a critical analysis of Hume's attempt to correct for sympathetic partiality in the construction of the judicial spectator's general point of view, (v) a critical discussion of sympathetic partiality in Smithian sympathy & (vi) a critical analysis of Smith's construction of the impartial spectator perspective as a moral point of view. (shrink)

This is my response to the criticisms of Gregg Caruso, David Cummiskey, and Karin Meyers, in their roles as members of the “Author Meets Critics” panel devoted to my book, Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will: A Theory of Mental Freedom at the 2019 annual meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, organized by Christian Coseru. Caruso's main objection is that I am not sufficiently attentive to details of opposing arguments in Western philosophy, and Cummiskey's and Meyers’ objections, (...) similarly, are that I am insufficiently attentive to details of Buddhism. I argue that all such objections, however putatively correct, do not rise to the level of objections that actually undermine my account of mental freedom. (shrink)