There is a substantial literature in epistemology concerning whether knowledge can be transmitted. So-called generative cases of testimony seem to show that testimony cannot transmit knowledge. This article defends the thesis that knowledge transmission by testimony is possible. Once one thinks more carefully about the model of transmission we are employing, however, the stage is set for two surprising results. Supposed counter-examples to knowledge transmission feature transmission in the relevant sense, and, more surprisingly, it is possible (...) to transmit understanding, even when we are construing understanding as an internalist good. (shrink)

Maswood and Rajaram examine the transmission of false memories across small and larger networks. While the spread of false memories is not inherently beneficial, Maswood & Rajaram argued that a better understanding of the formation and propagation of false memories has practical and societal implications. For example, by better understanding how false memories transmit across groups, we might be better equipped to prevent detrimental behaviors that arise as a result of “fake news.”.

In this paper I argue that RadicalInterpretation (RI), taken to be a methodological doctrine regarding the conditions under which an interpretation of an utterance is both warranted and correct, has unacceptable implications for the conditions on (ascriptions of) understanding. The notion of understanding at play is that which underwrites the testimonial transmission of knowledge. After developing this notion I argue that, on the assumption of RI, hearers will fail to have such understanding in situations in which (...) we should want to maintain otherwise. The overall effect of the argument is to provide a heretofore unexamined source of motivation for anti-individualistic approaches to the semantics of utterances. (shrink)

This article announces the discovery of a Sinhalese version of the traditional meditation ( borān yogāvacara kammaṭṭhāna ) text in which the Consciousness or Mind, personified as a Princess living in a five-branched tree (the body), must understand the nature of death and seek the four gems that are the four noble truths. To do this she must overcome the cravings of the five senses, represented as five birds in the tree. Only in this way will she permanently avoid the (...) attentions of Death, Māra, and his three female servants, Birth, Sickness and Old Age. In this version of the text, when the Princess manages not to succumb to these three, Māra comes and snatches her from her tree and rapes her. The Buddha then appears to her to explain the path to liberation. The text provides a commentary, padārtha , which explains the details of the symbolism of the fruit in terms of rebirth and being born, the tree in terms of the body, etc. The text also offers interpretations of signs of impending death and prognostications regarding the next rebirth. Previously the existence of Khmer and Lānnā versions of this text have been recorded by Francois Bizot and Francois Lagirarde, the former publishing the text as Le Figuier a cinq branches (Le figuier à cinq branches, 1976). The Sinhalese version was redacted for one of the wives of King Kīrti Śrī Rājasiṅha of Kandy by the monk Varañāṇa Mahāthera of Ayutthayā. This confirms earlier speculation that this form of borān/dhammakāya meditation was brought to Sri Lanka with the introduction of the Siyam Nikāya in the mid-eighteenth century. It also shows that in Sri Lanka, as in Ayutthayā, this form of meditation—which in the modern period was to be rejected as ‘unorthodox’—was promoted at the highest levels of court and Saṅgha. (shrink)

This paper discusses ways in which empirical research investigating sexual networks can further understanding of the transmission of HIV in London, using information from a 24-month period of participant observation and 53 open-ended, in-depth interviews with eighteen men and one woman who have direct and indirect sexual links with each other. These interviews enabled the identification of a wider sexual network between 154 participants and contacts during the year August 1994-July 1995. The linked network data help to identify (...) pathways of transmission between individuals who are HIV+ and those who are HIVolderyounger’ men, and with male prostitutes. There appears to be considerable on-going transmission of HIV in London. The majority of participants reported having had unprotected anal and/or vaginal sex within a variety of relationships. The implications of these findings for policies designed to prevent the transmission of HIV are discussed. (shrink)

There are two dominant approaches towards understanding medieval Muslim philosophy: Greek ancestry approach and religiopolitical context approach. In the Greek ancestry approach, medieval Muslim philosophy is interpreted in terms of its relation to classical Greek philosophy, particularly to the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The religiopolitical context approach, however, views a thorough understanding of the religious and political situation of that time as the key to the proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy. Notwithstanding the immense significance of (...) the two approaches for understanding medieval Muslim philosophy, the question on the reason behind medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in political philosophy is not accurately answered. This preference is usually attributed either to the availability or unavailability of the text or to the suitability or unsuitability of the text for Islamic theological views. However, this article shows that neither the availability or unavailability of text nor its suitability or unsuitability for Islamic religious and theological views can appropriately explain medieval Muslim philosophers’ preference for Plato’s Republic over Aristotle’s Politics in their political thought. This article proposes that the key to understand this preference lies in understanding the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim philosophers. Contribution: This study highlights the significance of the thorough understanding of the transmission of Greek philosophy to medieval Muslim world as one of the important approaches towards proper understanding of medieval Muslim philosophy, particularly medieval Muslim political philosophy. (shrink)

This article explores the psychological phenomenon of the transgenerational transmission of trauma. Søren Kierkegaard’s conception of original sin serves as a template for the argument. After outlining the complex psychological process of trauma transmission, the article gleans insights regarding the transgenerationality of trauma as found in Kierkegaard’s thinking. With a focus on The Concept of Anxiety, the article highlights parallel structures of displaying and penetrating original sin and the transmission of trauma. The article argues that the Christian (...) perspective on salvation proves to be a substantial dialog partner for the secular understanding of posttraumatic healing. (shrink)

How environmental mechanical forces affect cellular functions is a central problem in cell biology. Theoretical models of cellular biomechanics provide relevant tools for understanding how the contributions of deformable intracellular components and specific adhesion conditions at the cell interface are integrated for determining the overall balance of mechanical forces within the cell. We investigate here the spatial distributions of intracellular stresses when adherent cells are probed by magnetic twisting cytometry. The influence of the cell nucleus stiffness on the simulated (...) nonlinear torque-bead rotation response is analyzed by considering a finite element multi-component cell model in which the cell and its nucleus are considered as different hyperelastic materials. We additionally take into account the mechanical properties of the basal cell cortex, which can be affected by the interaction of the basal cell membrane with the extracellular substrate. In agreement with data obtained on epithelial cells, the simulated behaviour of the cell model relates the hyperelastic response observed at the entire cell scale to the distribution of stresses and strains within the nucleus and the cytoskeleton, up to cell adhesion areas. These results, which indicate how mechanical forces are transmitted at distant points through the cytoskeleton, are compared to recent data imaging the highly localized distribution of intracellular stresses. (shrink)

Understanding the pervasiveness of sin is central to Christian theology. The question of why humans are so sinful given an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God presents a challenge and a puzzle. Here, we investigate Friedrich Schleiermacher’s biocultural evolutionary account of sin. We look at empirical evidence to support it and use the cultural Price equation to provide a naturalistic model of the transmission of sin. This model can help us understand how sin can be ubiquitous and unavoidable, even (...) though it is not biologically transmitted, and even if there is no historical Fall that precipitated the tendency to sin. (shrink)

Understanding the pervasiveness of sin is central to Christian theology. The question of why humans are so sinful given an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God presents a challenge and a puzzle. Here, we investigate Friedrich Schleiermacher’s biocultural evolutionary account of sin. We look at empirical evidence to support it and use the cultural Price equation to provide a naturalistic model of the transmission of sin. This model can help us understand how sin can be ubiquitous and unavoidable, even (...) though it is not biologically transmitted, and even if there is no historical Fall that precipitated the tendency to sin. (shrink)

The Third Covenant explores the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and Albert LaChance, revealing through the lens of spirituality, science, and ecology, their understanding of human origin and evolution. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, an early twentieth century geologist and priest, devoted his life as a scientist, clergyman, and mystic, to reuniting the artificial fracture between science and religion. Thomas Berry, a follower of Teilhard de Chardin and a highly respected cultural historian, furthered this reunification by repositioning (...) the human in the unfolding of an evolving universe, integrated and interdependent with the rest of the life systems of the planet. Albert LaChance, himself a six-year, face-to-face student of Berry, brought this new paradigm into his work as a poet, psychologist, addiction recovery professional, and most importantly, as a mystic and scholar of religion. Along with his daughter, Rebecca LaChance Goodwin, LaChance explores the development of this crucial shift in human understanding and its implications for the future. Parts I and II explore the elements of polarized thinking that makes us believe that we are separate from each other and the life systems of the planet. Thomas Berry's list of twelve principles for understanding the universe and the role of the human in the universe process describes the creative unfolding of our place in the universe. Part III introduces practical steps for achieving personal, familial, and cultural change. LaChance outlines his Twelve Steps of Ecological Spirituality to help us move from powerlessness and isolation to a state of reawakening to self, to humanity, to all species, to the planet, and to the universe. (shrink)

Male partners’ involvement in human immunodeficiency virus intervention programmes is crucial in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. However, male partner involvement in PMTCT is low in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring the major factors associated with male partner involvement in PMTCT of HIV programmes in the Gokwe North District of Zimbabwe. The study utilised qualitative methods. Data was collected using a pretested interview guide. Purposive sampling methods were used to select participants (...) of focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Interviews were conducted from May to September 2015. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. The study revealed that local traditional leaders played a role in mobilising men in communities. Awareness campaigns enhanced communities’ knowledge about PMTCT. Couple communication proved to be vital in promoting male involvement. However, stigmatisation against men utilising antenatal-care services, fear of HIV results and a lack of knowledge of the practices surrounding PMTCT of HIV programmes were hindrances to male partner involvement. Collaboration and engagement amongst stakeholders especially with traditional leadership can be essential in increasing male partner participation in PMTCT. Education has proved to be a catalyst in the de-stigmatisation of men in PMTCT programmes. Moreover, HIV counselling can illuminate an understanding on the implications of HIV test results. The significant contribution of this article is its demonstration of the role of African traditional leadership and belief systems in curbing HIV infections, particularly in terms of male partners’ involvement in PMTCT initiatives.Contribution: The significant contribution of this article is its demonstration of the role of African traditional leadership and belief systems in curbing HIV infections, particularly in terms of male partners’ involvement in PMTCT initiatives. (shrink)

This paper intends to understand the experience of enlightenment in Zen Buddhism from a perspective of poetics. Enlightenment is understood as an existential breakthrough, which delivers people from the habitual or conventional mind set into new horizon of consciousness. This breakthrough takes place in one’s overall consciousness rather than only in cognitive thought. Therefore, it cannot be adequately described on an abstract level with a conceptual paradigm. The poetic language provides a significant alternative for capturing this leap and revealing the (...) spiritual meaning and the practical wisdom of enlightenment. Enlightenment, as concrete experiences in the “flux” of the mind, can be most directly expressed and effectively transmitted in poetic language. (shrink)

Conventional understanding and research regarding prognostic understanding too often focuses on transmission of information. However, merely overcoming barriers to patient understanding may not be sufficient. In this article the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of prognostic awareness, using oncological care as an overarching example, and discuss factors that may lead to prognostic discordance between physicians and patients. We summarize the current literature and research and present a model developed by the authors to characterize barriers (...) to prognostic awareness. Ultimately, multiple influences on prognostic understanding may impede acceptance by patients even when adequate transfer of information takes place. Physicians should improve how they transmit prognostic information, as this information may be processed in different ways. A model of misunderstandings in awareness, ranging from patient understanding to patient belief, may be useful to guide future discussions. Future decision-making studies should consider these many variables so that interventions may be created to address all aspects of the prognostic disclosure process. (shrink)

In terms of classical tafsir literature, it is possible that the speeches made to a person or group in the Qurʾān carry messages for other individuals or groups. According to some approaches that emerged in the modern period, when the speech was made and to whom it was directed not only determine the meaning, but also limits it. This dilemma has to be based on the theoretical dimension. The most obvious example of the transition of the speech from direct counterpart (...) to the other is the transition of the speeches made to the unbelievers to the believers. Therefore, in this study, the possibility of the transcendence of the speech in the Qurʾān will be handled in the context of the messages for believers in the speeches directed to the unbelievers. One aspect of the issue of the transcendence of the speech in the Qurʾān can be explained by the style that the Qurʾān follows. However, the subject should also be based on linguistic aspects. As a matter of fact, the expansion of the speech can sometimes be related to the meanings of words and sometimes with the possibilities and literary aspects of language, and sometimes with an analytical effort. In this study, the related examples will be analyzed and it will be revealed that the transition between the speeches in the Qurʾān is possible in terms of the style of the Qurʾān. In the study, the methodological findings related to the linguistic aspects of the issue will also be studied.Summary: The discourse that the Qurʾān is an address by God makes different associations in terms of classical literature and some modern methods of understanding. In the works of classical method and rhetoric, a theoretical framework is drawn around the nature, arbitrariness, conditions and types of the book. In this context, the varieties, indications and scopes of the addresses in the Qurʾān are discussed. While it is emphasized that the Qurʾān is an address in modernist contextualist approaches, it is stated that understanding the address requires having contextual information, therefore reading the address as a book evaporates meaning. Because, according to these approaches, the meaning is sought in the text with the transformation of address to book (verbal culture to written culture), thus the Qurʾān is converted from a literal meaning into a system. Knowing what the Qurʾān tells and why it tells that, depends on the comprehension of all the contextual elements of the Qurʾān, which was sent as an address. In fact, knowledge of when, where and when the Qurʾān was sent about what events and to whom it is addressed, is the data that is primarily considered in the comprehension of the verses, as emphasized by the classical interpretation literature. However, the perception of the classical interpretation evaluates these data in different categories in terms of the integrity of religion, judgment and experience. For example, the narrations on the reason of sending and the Makki-Madani information are only examples of the meanings of the verses. They sometimes serve as elements that contribute to the comprehension of the verses, while sometimes with the help of other chapters they can narrow the meanings of the verses. The realist-methodological basis of the method science provides the emergence of this holistic-categorical perspective.It is difficult to justify the claim that there is an absolute relationship between the address and the addressee in terms of the classical literature. In the classical literature, the expressions, which come in the form of an address and have a mandatory relationship with addressees, are dealt with the concept of direct address. Direct addresses are binding for the first addressees. Because when an address is mentioned, it is mandatory to have an addressee. It can be assumed that this discourse has the same position with the context theories considering its premises. However, it is not possible to compare these theories with each other in terms of the scope of the address. Classical theories of reasoning consider that direct addresses cover indirect addressees by methods, such as shar’i (legal) necessity or analogy (qiyas), while contextualists and historians can convert the text beyond the virtual level by identifying what a command means within the context of the address-addressee relationship. When the Qurʾān is completely considered as an address, or when direct addresses are taken into consideration, it is very difficult for the modern period's comprehension methods that the verses, which mention or address the disbelievers-polytheists, can also address Muslims. In fact, the dialectic of the address-addressee requires this. Moreover, the addressees (polytheists-Muslims) who are spoken within the context of the verses have two different beliefs that cannot be dealt with at the same time and mentioned in the same verse. Therefore, it is not possible to direct the messages given to the polytheists to the believers and to attribute the qualities in these verses to Muslims.However, the classical literature did not even consider as a problem to address Muslims with the verses that directly addressing unbelievers-polytheists. It is because both linguistics and facts requires this. The method practitioners and interpreters discussed this issue in a very wide range. They examined the transitivity of the book between parties, such as people of the book-Muslims, Muslims-unbelievers, Prophet-ummah. In the context of the interpretation literature and the perception of modern-day interpretation, the possibility of the transitivity of the book can be clarified in the context of the inclusiveness of a verse that speaks of polytheists-disbelievers to include Muslims, or the conversion of an address to polytheists-unbelievers to Muslims. Classical literature explains this point sometimes with the literal indication (circularization) and the circumstance of literary use of language (rhetoric) and sometimes with the possibility of the address (stylistic features).In verses and hadiths, belief bases categorical classes, such as believers, unbelievers, polytheists, hypocrites, people of the book are mentioned, as well as descriptions of the characteristic-practical dimensions of these classes. In this context, commands sometimes refer to the practices that need to be performed in order to be a believer, sometimes works that must not be performed by the believer, and sometimes matters that might put the believer's faith-practice integrity at risk when it is done. In the Qurʾān, in some of the addresses to the believers, it is apparent that they are prohibited from being like unbelievers or having unbeliever-like qualities. Moreover, sometimes negative results that may arise for Muslims when they act like unbelievers are cited in the verses. Sometimes at the end of the verses that address and mention Muslims, information is included on situations involving unbelievers and the torment they will encounter. In addition, in cases where adjectives belonging to opposing belief profiles are mentioned, the address to non-Muslims expresses warning, evaluation, gratitude and perseverance in faith for Muslims, while the address to Muslims contains elements of incentive and opportunity for non-Muslim groups. It is possible to justify this matter with the style of the Qurʾān. However, it can be said that the transitivity of the address in the Qurʾān takes place in two theoretical aspects. The first of these is related to linguistic-rhetoric premises and it is used in antithesis, allusion, metaphor etc. The second one is the similitude-comparison. Here, the comparison is a phenomenon that occurs in the mind without the need for propositions. Because when the mind hears these statements, it can instantly reach a stronger meaning than the literal wording. In this study, it is discussed whether it is possible to transition from direct addresses to indirect addressees, with reference to the problems of the modern period. In this context, the study primarily focuses on the fact that the Qurʾān sometimes transmits its messages and teachings to addressees through opposing belief systems. Thus, the manner adopted by the Qurʾān while directing certain commands and negations, not directly but through the opposing side, has been presented. In this study, the possibility of the verses that only mentions polytheists-unbelievers to also addressing Muslims was analyzed and these verses were compared with addresses to Muslims on the same matters. In the last part of the study, a theoretical framework was drawn on the subject and the method of interdisciplinary transitivity was determined. (shrink)

To enhance the emotional communication of image oil painting art and better analyze the image oil painting art, this article puts forward the research on color emotional information communication in image oil painting art. First, starting from the artistic characteristics of color and its embodiment in various oil painting art forms, this article expounds the relationship and the significance between color language and emotional expression. Then, it summarizes the development of color in image oil painting from a macro perspective and (...) analyzes the emotional expression of color in oil painting. Finally, it discusses the color law of the oil painting art and analyzes the emotional expression of the oil painting art from two aspects: image and artistic conception. The research shows that the design method can better convey emotion and make it easier for people to understand the connotation of image oil paintings. (shrink)

Gricean communication is communication between utterers and their audiences, where the utterer means something and the audience understands what is meant. The weak transmission idea is that, whenever such communication takes place, there is something which is transmitted from utterer to audience; the strong transmission idea adds that what is transmitted is nothing else than what is communicated. We try to salvage these ideas from a seemingly forceful attack by Wayne Davis. Davis attaches too much significance to the (...) surface structure of sentences of the type ‘S communicates the belief (desire …) that p to A’ by assuming that the communicated entity is denoted by the grammatical object following ‘communicates’. On our proposal, what is communicated in all Gricean cases is a thought. And since S communicates the thought that p to A only if S means that p and A understands what S means, the thought that p will be transmitted from S to A. (shrink)

In this article I examine an important episode in the growth of ‘mindfulness’ as a biomedical modality in Britain: the formation and establishment of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) by John Teasdale and his colleagues Mark Williams and Zindel Segal. My study, focusing on Teasdale’s contribution, combines ethnographic, oral historical and archival research to understand how mindfulness was disseminated or, to use a term sometimes used by mindfulness practitioners themselves, ‘transmitted’. Drawing on theoretical support from Max Weber, Michel Foucault and Gilles (...) Deleuze, I argue that transmission had a very specific form within the Buddhistic milieu that Teasdale occupied and within which he developed MBCT. To ‘transmit’ mindfulness was to transmit an experiential essence; a type of subjectivity that was seen as perennial, universal and radically distinct from its historical context. In tracing the recurring metaphysical, metaphorical and visual tropes of mindfulness and its transmission, I attempt to understand how Teasdale was embedded in both local and global networks of discourse and practice, and how his life and work contributed and depended upon an assemblage whose elements (institutional, technical, conceptual, textual) straddled empiricist psychology and religious mysticism. I also examine how authority, experience and knowledge were closely interwoven in the birth of British mindfulness, coming together to form an affectively compelling ‘diagram’ that shaped the way mindfulness was practiced and disseminated. In doing so, I aim to open up the possibility of studying the history of the human sciences from a new perspective: one which places an emphasis on the emotional impetus generated by metaphysical assumptions. (shrink)

According to the Standard Model account of religion, religious concepts tend to conform to “minimally counterintuitive” schemas. Laypeople may, to varying degrees, verbally endorse the abstract doctrines taught by professional theologians. But, outside the Sunday school exam room, the implicit representations that tend to guide people’s everyday thinking, feeling, and behavior are about minimally counterintuitive entities. According to the Standard Model, these implicit representations are the essential thing to be explained by the cognitive science of religion. It is argued here (...) that this theoretical orientation of mainstream CSR misses a whole dimension of religiosity—the acceptance of certain religious authorities, that is, the acceptance of other people’s superior expertise. Average believers tend to accept the authority of religious experts who espouse highly counterintuitive ideas that they understand in a distorted form, if at all.... (shrink)

This essay explores the significance of Agamben’s sparse references to medieval Jewish thinkers (that is, the Rishonim) and raises the question as to whether the modern interpretive horizon of “history” is adequate for providing an understanding of these thinkers.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 66.4 (2005) 483-506 [Access article in PDF] Lorenzo Valla and the Traditions and Transmissions of Philosophy C. S. Celenza Johns Hopkins University What is "philosophy"? Who is a "philosopher"? These questions underlay much of Salvatore Camporeale's work, and they are deeper than one might suppose. We can begin with one of Camporeale's favorite figures, Lorenzo Valla, and listen to one of the ways (...) he answered these questions. In the introduction to his work reforming Aristotelian logic, the Repastinatio totius dialectice, Valla situates the debate on wisdom by recalling the case of Pythagoras.1 "What a marvelous praise of modesty it was," Valla wrote, when Pythagoras, asked whether he considered himself wise, replied that he was not "wise," but was rather a "lover of wisdom"—not sophos, but philosophos.2 Valla uses here a humanistic trope, found also in Petrarch's advice to Luigi Marsili, to the effect that Marsili should shape the practice of his life in order to become a "verae sapientiae amator," a "lover of true wisdom."3These citations from Petrarch and Valla alert us to the well-studied fact that, in the view of some humanists, academic "philosophy" had usurped the name "philosophy" and the self-searching meaning behind it. Certain humanists were proposing an alternative notion of what wisdom signified and consequently of what philosophy itself—the "love of wisdom"—represented. It seemed that wisdom needed to be located in a more persuasive way in the world of human beings, history, and language, rather than in one of eternal [End Page 483] suprahuman essences; in short, "philosophy" had to be brought closer to rhetoric and philology.The goal of this paper is to examine this idea in a twofold manner: through the history of terms and concepts as these are refracted by and through the history of institutionalized learning; and through a brief foray into Valla's preface to his great critique of western logic. There has been a lot of challenging and interesting work on this topic in the last few decades. At the same time, there may be cause to wonder whether relatively recent historians have unwittingly become too bogged down in names, failing to see the real conflict. They have tended to assume that the modern, sharp separation of humanistic "disciplines," such as rhetoric and philosophy, existed in the same way and with the same force of conviction in the premodern era. True, there are famous ancient, medieval, and early modern examples of self-defined "philosophers" differentiating themselves from "philologists" and vice versa, most notably Seneca, who—lamenting the professionalization of education in his day—complained in a letter that "what was once philosophy, has become philology" (Ep. 108.23). Yet, the more one investigates this problem, and the more one peers beneath the surface of the seemingly stark divisions between "philosophy" and "philology," the more difficult this strong separation is to maintain.This notion of the possible interpenetrability of "philosophy," and "philology," and "rhetoric" as concepts was probably easier to understand in the Renaissance than it is now. The differences between the Renaissance and our own era lie in institutional context and personal approach, both of which have been, for about six or seven intellectual generations now (but no more than that), supported by a fourfold set of assumptions about what "real" or "professional" philosophy represents: first, that philosophy is primarily about metaphysics and ontology, or rather that there exists a hierarchy in which metaphysics and ontology stand at the top; other things, such as history, language, or rhetoric are "just not philosophy." Second, a retrospectively understood Cartesian split between mind and body is basically true (and that it is legitimate to project that dualistic split back onto thinkers who did not hold the same sort of dualism as axiomatic); and consequently third, that epistemology should be privileged, that is, that knowing and the study of how knowing happens are primarily what philosophy is about. Hence "philosophy" is regulative, a master-discipline that oversees the truth claims of all... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 66.4 (2005) 483-506 [Access article in PDF] Lorenzo Valla and the Traditions and Transmissions of Philosophy C. S. Celenza Johns Hopkins University What is "philosophy"? Who is a "philosopher"? These questions underlay much of Salvatore Camporeale's work, and they are deeper than one might suppose. We can begin with one of Camporeale's favorite figures, Lorenzo Valla, and listen to one of the ways (...) he answered these questions. In the introduction to his work reforming Aristotelian logic, the Repastinatio totius dialectice, Valla situates the debate on wisdom by recalling the case of Pythagoras.1 "What a marvelous praise of modesty it was," Valla wrote, when Pythagoras, asked whether he considered himself wise, replied that he was not "wise," but was rather a "lover of wisdom"—not sophos, but philosophos.2 Valla uses here a humanistic trope, found also in Petrarch's advice to Luigi Marsili, to the effect that Marsili should shape the practice of his life in order to become a "verae sapientiae amator," a "lover of true wisdom."3These citations from Petrarch and Valla alert us to the well-studied fact that, in the view of some humanists, academic "philosophy" had usurped the name "philosophy" and the self-searching meaning behind it. Certain humanists were proposing an alternative notion of what wisdom signified and consequently of what philosophy itself—the "love of wisdom"—represented. It seemed that wisdom needed to be located in a more persuasive way in the world of human beings, history, and language, rather than in one of eternal [End Page 483] suprahuman essences; in short, "philosophy" had to be brought closer to rhetoric and philology.The goal of this paper is to examine this idea in a twofold manner: through the history of terms and concepts as these are refracted by and through the history of institutionalized learning; and through a brief foray into Valla's preface to his great critique of western logic. There has been a lot of challenging and interesting work on this topic in the last few decades. At the same time, there may be cause to wonder whether relatively recent historians have unwittingly become too bogged down in names, failing to see the real conflict. They have tended to assume that the modern, sharp separation of humanistic "disciplines," such as rhetoric and philosophy, existed in the same way and with the same force of conviction in the premodern era. True, there are famous ancient, medieval, and early modern examples of self-defined "philosophers" differentiating themselves from "philologists" and vice versa, most notably Seneca, who—lamenting the professionalization of education in his day—complained in a letter that "what was once philosophy, has become philology" (Ep. 108.23). Yet, the more one investigates this problem, and the more one peers beneath the surface of the seemingly stark divisions between "philosophy" and "philology," the more difficult this strong separation is to maintain.This notion of the possible interpenetrability of "philosophy," and "philology," and "rhetoric" as concepts was probably easier to understand in the Renaissance than it is now. The differences between the Renaissance and our own era lie in institutional context and personal approach, both of which have been, for about six or seven intellectual generations now (but no more than that), supported by a fourfold set of assumptions about what "real" or "professional" philosophy represents: first, that philosophy is primarily about metaphysics and ontology, or rather that there exists a hierarchy in which metaphysics and ontology stand at the top; other things, such as history, language, or rhetoric are "just not philosophy." Second, a retrospectively understood Cartesian split between mind and body is basically true (and that it is legitimate to project that dualistic split back onto thinkers who did not hold the same sort of dualism as axiomatic); and consequently third, that epistemology should be privileged, that is, that knowing and the study of how knowing happens are primarily what philosophy is about. Hence "philosophy" is regulative, a master-discipline that oversees the truth claims of all... (shrink)

In contrast to bilaterian animals, non‐bilaterian mitochondrial genomes contain atypical genes, often attributed to horizontal gene transfer (HGT) as an ad hoc explanation. Although prevalent in plants, HGT into animal mitochondrial genomes is rare, lacking suitable explanatory models for their occurrence. HGT of the mismatch DNA repair gene (mtMutS) from giant viruses to octocoral (soft corals and their kin) mitochondrial genomes provides a model for how barriers to HGT to animal mitochondria may be overcome. A review of the available literature (...) suggests that this HGT was mediated by an alveolate endosymbiont infected with a lysogenic phycodnavirus that enabled insertion of the homing endonuclease containing mtMutS into octocoral mitochondrial genomes. We posit that homing endonuclease domains and similar selfish elements play a crucial role in such inter‐domain gene transfers. Understanding the role of selfish genetic elements in HGT has the potential to aid development of tools for manipulating animal mitochondrial DNA. (shrink)

The Kāśikāvṛtti, the oldest available complete commentary on Pāṇini’s grammar, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, is found quoted often in the later Pāṇinian grammatical tradition. These quotations throw light on a number of aspects of the text of the Kāśikāvṛtti. This paper focuses on how this later Pāṇinian grammatical tradition views the modifications in the text of the Aṣṭādhyāyī and concludes that also the tradition ascribes these modifications to the Kāśikāvṛtti. Further, this paper also attempts to show that these quotations can be shown (...) to have interacted with the manuscript tradition of the Kāśikāvṛtti and indeed with the help of these quotations it becomes easier to better understand the manuscript transmission of the Kāśikāvṛtti. Thus, this article focuses on one of the applications of the study of quotations: through an analysis of the content of the quoted passages of the Kāśikāvṛtti in later Grammatical literature, it discusses the history of the transmission of the KV and of the text it comments upon, i.e., Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī. It also shows how a study of quotations is an unavoidable complement of the analysis of manuscripts for scholars aiming at the reconstruction of texts so remote in time. (shrink)

In recent years, the biological inheritance of what has been traditionally known as original sin has come more clearly to the fore. Examining the genetic forebears of Homo sapiens has allowed for a richer understanding of what exactly the "propagation" of original sin might really mean. The wounded imperfection of the human biological inheritance has clarified matters concerning the question of where exactly original sin comes from. Since the human experience of sentience and agency is built biologically upon the (...) shoulders of its ancestors, the human experience of being always-already bound by sin—an essential component of the meaning of original sin—comes into clearer relief. At the same time, a much richer... (shrink)

This paper presents the newly rediscovered ‘Syriac Galen Palimpsest’. The manuscript has been subjected to the latest imaging techniques, which has allowed scholars to identify its undertext as containing a Syriac translation of Galens Book of Simple Drugs. After discussing the history, imaging and identification of the manuscript, we proceed to consider its significance for our understanding of the transmission of Greek medical lore in Syriac and Arabic, for which the Book of Simple Drugs serves as a convenient (...) model. Several common misconceptions,regarding the Syriac medical traditions are addressed, including the assumed inferiority of the Syriac translations, compared to the Arabic ones, and the role of Syriac as an intermediary between Greek and Arabic. (shrink)

The Bhagavadgītā is often considered the holiest text of Hinduism. It was commented by a legion of commentators, and a number of philologists, starting with Wilhelm von Humboldt, tried to establish the layers of its text, which shows traces of several redactions. Some scholars noticed some seams in the text correctly, and some came close to a general picture of the text history. On the other hand, many scholars were discouraged by the uncertainties in the investigation of the text history (...) and preferred to interpret the Gītā as an indivisible whole. However, between the 1970s and 2009, it was possible to come to very precise results concerning the textual layers of the Bhagavadgītā, which were internationally largely accepted since ca. 2000. These results imply that, over time, views of several philosophical systems were incorporated into the poem, as well as polemics with different doctrines. The teachings and exhortations conveyed by the poem are very synthetic and innovative because they are derived from a very complex set of premises. These results of text analyses have been, on the one hand, accepted by a number of prominent scholars worldwide, but, on the other hand, fiercely contested by some Western post-modernist scholars of religion and by some scholars of Indian origin sensibilised negatively against Western scholarship. What they lack in their reading of the Bhagavadgītā can best be made clear by means of the comparison with a visitor to an artistic monument of a religious character, which underwent centuries of modifications, like the Split cathedral. If such a visitor considered that the sanctity and artistic credibility of a monument depended on its being completely constructed at one stroke by a single architect with a single conception, he would miss the complex, sometimes even polemical, rich and impressive way in which such a monument conveys its messages. This is the fruit of the long and complex history of the Split cathedral, that was first built as the mausoleum of a Roman emperor, and later turned into the church consecrated to his victims, passing thereafter through many subsequent modifications and ‘reinterpretations’. In the history of art, such prejudices are not as common as they are in the study of sacred texts. That is why a suitable example of a monument having religious character, like the Split cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, also consecrated to Diocletian’s victims Domnius and Anastasius, can best illustrate how we should understand a literary monument of a religious and philosophical character, like the Bhagavadgītā, which underwent a comparably complex history. (shrink)

In the late seventeenth century, a Chinese Buddhist priest named Donggao Xinyue 東皋心越 introduced a selection of qin 琴 songs to Japan. Over the following centuries, Japanese qin players continued to sing these songs in Chinese. This paper looks into this cross-cultural interaction from both Donggao’s and the Japanese perspectives, against the historical background of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition and the breakdown of the Sinocentric world order in East Asia. I argue that Donggao and Japanese literati understood the significance of (...) these songs differently as they both connected the songs to their own cultural past. Nonetheless, they were brought together by the shared belief that the performance of qin songs would bridge the past and the present and hence realize their vision of the ideal civilization. Meanwhile, neither Donggao nor the Japanese literati regarded the qin—as well as the ideal society it symbolized—to be exclusively Chinese or Japanese. My analysis shows how the idea of being Chinese/Japanese was intertwined with the changing understandings of the hua–yi/ka-i 華夷 worldview during this period, and how it was negotiated through the cultural memories that shaped and reshaped the past. This particular case also explains how qin songs as a medium for cultural memory differed from other musical and non-musical forms. (shrink)

Atran's account of cultural transmission can be further refined by considering constraints from early-developed, domain-specific intuitive ontological understanding. These suggest specific predictions about the cultural survival of “memes,” depending on the way they activate intuitive understanding. There is no general dynamic of cultural inheritance; only complex predictions for domain-specific competencies that cut across cultural domains.

This contribution to the topical collection presents an overview of my previous work in epistemology. Specifically, I review arguments for the claim that important skeptical arguments in the history of philosophy motivate externalism in epistemology. In effect, only externalist epistemologies can be anti-skeptical epistemologies. I also review motivations for adopting a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity. Such an account, I argue, has considerable explanatory power regarding the nature, value and scope of knowledge. In addition, a virtue-theoretic account is tailor made (...) for externalism. In effect, it shows how externalist epistemologies can also be normative epistemologies. Finally, I review arguments in favor of a general framework for understanding the epistemology of testimony, and, in particular, the transmission of knowledge. The framework motivates anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, as well as the common anti-reductionist theme that trust can be epistemically significant, as opposed to merely practically significant. The framework, I argue, also weds nicely to a virtue-theoretic account of epistemic normativity, and in doing so answers an important objection to virtue epistemology—that the view is overly individualistic. (shrink)

We must allow that knowledge can be transmitted. But to allow this is to allow that an individual can know a proposition despite lacking any evidence for it and reaching belief by an unreliable means. So some explanation is required as to how knowledge rather than belief is transmitted. This paper considers two non-individualistic explanations: one in terms of knowledge existing autonomously, the other in terms of it existing as a property of communities. And it attempts to decide what is (...) at issue between these explanations. (shrink)

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo develar la implicación de los nexos entre la cultura y los procesos de comprensión y desarrollo psíquico para la concepción e instrumentación de una enseñanza desarrolladora atendiendo a que el desarrollo psíquico del sujeto es una condición esencial para lograr su papel activo y creador en el desarrollo social. Por ello su tránsito a niveles cualitativamente superiores, constituye una prioridad para los sistemas educativos. La teoría histórico - cultural del desarrollo psíquico le da especial (...) importancia al papel de la cultura y su asimilación en la formación y desarrollo de la personalidad. Además, disciplinas como la semiótica reconocen el papel del texto y los procesos textuales en la conservación, transmisión y re-creación de la cultura. El estudio realizado se basa en la sistematización de postulados básicos de la teoría histórico - cultural del desarrollo psíquico y la semiótica de la cultura. This article aims at revealing the implications of the links between culture and the processes of understanding and psychic development towards the conception and implementation of developmental teaching taking into account that an individual's psychic development is an essential condition to fulfil its active and creative role in social development. That is why its movement to qualitatively superior levels is a priority for educational systems. The historical-cultural theory gives special importance to the role of culture and its assimilation in the formation and development of the personality. Furthermore, disciplines such as semiotics recognize the role of texts and textual processes in the conservation, transmission and recreation of culture. This study is based on the systematization of basic postulates of the historical-cultural theory of psychic development and Culture Semiotics. (shrink)

Humans have developed the capacity to approve or disapprove of the behavior of their children and of unrelated individuals. The ability to approve or disapprove transformed social learning into a system of cumulative cultural inheritance, because it increased the reliability of cultural transmission. Moreover, people can transmit their behavioral experiences (regarding what can and cannot be done) to their offspring, thereby avoiding the costs of a laborious, and sometimes dangerous, evaluation of different cultural alternatives. Our thesis is that, during (...) ontogeny, the evaluative communication (approval/disapproval) between parents and offspring is substituted by other evaluative communications among peers, like individuals of the same generation. Each person belongs to a reference social group with individuals that interact more intensively. Humans have developed psychological mechanisms that enable cultural transmission by being receptive to parental advice as well as their reference social group. The selective pressure that promoted these new evaluative interactions arose to facilitate the establishment of efficient cooperative relationships. In short, the social control of behavior is essential to understand human cultural transmission. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the kind of historical understanding presupposed in the writing of classical Chinese Ch'an Buddhist "transmission" narratives and places this historical understanding into comparative juxtaposition with modern Western historiographic practice. It finds that fundamental to Chinese Ch'an historical awareness are genealogical metaphors structuring historical time and meaning in terms of generations of family relations and the practices of inheritance. These metaphors link the Ch'an historian to the texts of historical study in ways that contrast with (...) the posture of modern historians. The essay outlines four basic differences between the self-understanding presupposed in Ch'an Buddhist historical writing and that assumed in modern historical research and concludes by suggesting how contemporary historical thinking might benefit from reflection on these differences. (shrink)

Whereas communication is today conceived as the “transmission” of “signals” along a “conduit,” Latin speakers’ understanding of this concept was delivered by a system of metaphors recruiting images of cooking, serving, eating, and digesting food. More than providing simply colorful ways of speaking about thought and speech, however, these alimentary metaphors functioned together to deliver a coherent overall model of how mental representations come to be verbally shared among individuals. While it is not the only metaphorical model available (...) to Latin speakers in conceptualizing communication, the alimentary model also represents a privileged model that informs scholarly and philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

Against Transmission introduces the technical history and phenomenology of media, a field of study that explains the characteristics of contemporary life by looking to the technical properties of machines. By studying the engineering of signal processing, the book interrogates how the understanding of media-as-machine exposes us to a particular phenomenological relationship to the world, asking: what can the hardware of machines that segment information into very small elements tell us about experiences of time, memory and history? This book (...) offers both a detailed and radical investigation of the technical architecture of media such as television, computers, cameras, and cinematography. It achieves this through in-depth archive research into the history of the development of media technology, combined with innovative readings of key concepts from philosophers of media such as Harold A. Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich Kittler, Siegfried Zielinski and Wolfgang Ernst. Teaming philosophical inquiry with thorough technical and historical analysis, in a broad range of international case studies, from early experimental cinema and television to contemporary media art and innovative hardware developments, Barker shows how the technical discoveries made in these contexts have engineered the experiences of time in contemporary media culture. (shrink)

Biological evolution and cultural evolution are distinct evolutionary processes; they are apparent also in human language, where both processes contributed in shaping its evolution. However, the nature of the interaction between these two processes is still debated today. It is often claimed that the emergence of modern language was preceded by the evolution of a language-ready brain: the latter is usually intended as a product of biological evolution, while the former is believed to be the consequence of cultural processes. I (...) label this account separationist, and I argue that current evidence coming from the archaeological and fossil record suggests that cultural evolution has played a pivotal role in shaping not only modern language but also the language-ready brain. I label the latter the integrative perspective. I analyze the two accounts from two different conceptual frameworks, the Standard Evolutionary Theory and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, and I discuss the limits of the sharp proximate–ultimate distinction in this specific case study arguing in favor of a causal feedback model. I extend the argument to the debate on gradual and punctuational evolutionary rates, suggesting that the debate on patterns in language evolution should leave room for discussion of the nature of the processes involved in producing those patterns, providing reasons in favor of the eco-evolutionary feedback dynamics underlying the integrative perspective. (shrink)

Testimony, the transmission of knowledge through communication, requires a shared understanding of linguistic expressions and utterances of them. Is this understanding itself a kind of knowledge, knowledge of meaning? The intuitive answer is ‘yes’, but the nature of such knowledge is controversial, as is the assumption that understanding is a kind of knowledge at all. This article is a critical examination of recent work on the nature and role of semantic knowledge in the generation of the (...) linguistic understanding needed for testimony. After describing a default view – that linguistic understanding partially consists in the possession and application of knowledge of a compositional theory of truth conditions – it scrutinizes two recent charges against this view: that linguistic understanding and knowledge of meaning are conceptually distinct, and that semantic ‘knowledge’ is knowledge without an object. (shrink)

This paper presents the hypothesis that linguistic capacity evolved through the action of natural selection as an instrument which increased the efficiency of the cultural transmission system of early hominids. We suggest that during the early stages of hominization, hominid social learning, based on indirect social learning mechanisms and true imitation, came to constitute cumulative cultural transmission based on true imitation and the approval or disapproval of the learned behaviour of offspring. A key factor for this transformation was (...) the development of a conceptual capacity for categorizing learned behaviour in value terms - positive or negative, good or bad. We believe that some hominids developed this capacity for categorizing behaviour, and such an ability allowed them to approve or disapprove of their offsprings- learned behaviour. With such an ability, hominids were favoured, as they could transmit to their offspring all their behavioural experience about what can and cannot be done. This capacity triggered a cultural transmission system similar to the human one, though pre-linguistic. We suggest that the adaptive advantage provided by this new system of social learning generated a selection pressure in favour of the development of a linguistic capacity allowing children to better understand the new kind of evaluative information received from parents. (shrink)

The main objective of Zika transmission studies is to work out the simplest approach to scale back human mortality and morbidity caused by the disease. Therefore, it is essential to spot the relative importance of the various factors contributing to the transmission and prevalence of the disease. Many mathematical models have been formulated incorporating vector-to-human transmission or human-to-human transmission. However, they do not take into consideration the mixture of both sorts of transmission. It raises the (...) question of the impact of both sorts of transmission on the disease dynamics. We develop a mathematical model of Zika with the vertical transmission in the vector population and human-to-human transmission to answer this question. It includes the immature phase of mosquitoes, adult mosquitoes, and human hosts. Results show that neglecting sexual transmission results in an understatement of the proportion of the infected population. Furthermore, it reduces the speed of disease spreading. On the other hand, vertical transmission in mosquitoes has a negligible effect on the dynamics of disease spread. We perform a sensitivity analysis of the reproductive number R 0 to raise to understand the parameters driving the dynamics of the disease. It appears that the most sensitive parameters in decreasing order are as follows: the adult mosquito death rate, the sting rate, the transmission probability of mosquito to human, and, therefore, the transmission probability of human to mosquito. Furthermore, the proportion at the equilibrium of infected humans is extremely sensitive to the transition rate from the immature vector stage to the adult stage, the human-to-human transmission rate, and, therefore, the human recovery rate. These results confirm that control policies targeting the vector population and, therefore, the recovery rate of people are pretty effective solutions. To validate the model and estimate the important parameters of the model and the prediction of the disease, we consider the real cases in Colombia from 2016. In a series of graphic maps, we presented the comparative study to estimate the disease scenarios and to predict the time limit of the epidemic control measure. (shrink)

The articles in this theme issue seek to understand the evolutionary bases of social learning and the consequences of cultural transmission for the evolution of human behaviour. In this introductory article, we provide a summary of these articles and a personal view of some promising lines of development suggested by the work summarized here.

The cultural nature of religion is closely linked with the characteristics of religion. The interaction between religious culture and secular culture is shown as the alternation and coexistence of benign and malignant. In fact, the development of religious culture has a very close relationship with human beings in ancient times. Some activities of human worship, summarized and promoted from generation to generation, have gradually spread and developed widely among various nationalities and regions, and finally formed a series of spiritual theories (...) and behavior norms, which are more systematic. In terms of the external communication of religious culture, we should also pay attention to it. Although the help of mass media has appeared in this regard, it has had little effect. It enables the believers to change from passive to active, and understand and accept the religious culture more deeply. This paper analyzes the relationship between traditional religious culture and Chinese calligraphy art, and discusses how to better inherit Chinese calligraphy art. In religious and cultural communication, the eastward communication of calligraphy has existed in ancient times and has become mature, while the westward communication has become a focus of attention in recent years under the influence of comprehensive factors such as the national cultural development strategy and cultural soft power competition. (shrink)

I discuss the conjecture that understanding what is said in an utterance is to be modelled as knowing what is said in that utterance. My main aim is to present a number of alter- native models, as a prophylactic against premature acceptance of the conjecture as the only game in town. I also offer preliminary assessments of each of the models, including the propositional knowledge model, in part by considering their respective capacities to sub-serve the transmission of knowledge (...) through testimony. In each case, the preliminary assessment is unfavourable. I end by very briefly sketching an additional model as an object for future consideration. (shrink)

Disease transmission is a fruitful domain in which to examine how scientific and folk theories interrelate, given laypeople’s access to multiple sources of information to explain events of personal significance. The current paper reports an in-depth survey of U.S. adults’ causal reasoning about two viral illnesses: a novel, deadly disease that has massively disrupted everyone’s lives, and a familiar, innocuous disease that has essentially no serious consequences. Participants received a series of closed-ended and open-ended questions probing their reasoning about (...) disease transmission, with a focus on causal mechanisms underlying disease contraction, transmission, treatment, and prevention; non-visible biological processes; and ontological frameworks regarding what kinds of entities viruses are. We also assessed participants’ attitudes, such as their trust in scientific experts and willingness to be vaccinated. Results indicated complexity in people’s reasoning, consistent with the co-existence of multiple explanatory frameworks. An understanding of viral transmission and viral replication existed alongside folk theories, placeholder beliefs, and lack of differentiation between viral and non-viral disease. For example, roughly 40% of participants who explained illness in terms of the transmission of viruses also endorsed a non-viral folk theory, such as exposure to cold weather or special foods as curative. Additionally, participants made use of competing modes of construal when explaining how viruses operate, such as framing the immune system response as cells trying to fight off the virus. Indeed, participants who displayed greater knowledge about viral transmission were significantly more likely to anthropomorphize bodily processes. Although comparisons of COVID-19 and the common cold revealed relatively few differences, the latter, more familiar disease elicited consistently lower levels of accuracy and greater reliance on folk theories. Moreover, for COVID-19 in particular, accuracy positively correlated with attitudes, self-protective behaviors, and willingness to be vaccinated. For both diseases, self-assessed knowledge about the disease negatively predicted accuracy. The results are discussed in relation to challenges for formal models of explanatory reasoning. (shrink)

Almost everyone believes that testimony can transmit knowledge from speaker to hearer. What some philosophers mean by this is ordinary and pedestrian-- they mean only that, in at least some cases, a speaker S knows that p, S testifies that p to a hearer H, and H comes to know that p as a result of believing S's testimony. There is disagreement about how this occurs, but that it does occur is sufficient for the transmission of knowledge in the (...) intended sense. On this understanding of transmission, the natural questions are these: (1) What conditions, in addition to speaker knowledge and speaker testimony, are sufficient for the hearer to gain testimonial knowledge?; and (2) Is speaker knowledge always necessary for testimonial knowledge? That is: Is all testimonial knowledge transmitted knowledge? (shrink)

Culture, defined as shared behavior or information within a community acquired through some form of social learning from conspecifics, is now suggested to act as a second inheritance system. Cultural processes are important in a wide variety of vertebrate species. Birdsong provides a classic example of cultural processes: cultural transmission, where changes in a shared song are learned from surrounding conspecifics, and cultural evolution, where the patterns of songs change through time. This form of cultural transmission of information (...) has features that are different in speed and form from genetic transmission. More recently, culture, vocal traditions and an extreme form of song evolution has been documented in cetaceans. Humpback whale song ‘revolutions’, where the single population-wide shared song type is rapidly replaced by a new, novel song type introduced from a neighbouring population, represents an extraordinary example of ocean basin-wide cultural transmission rivalled in its geographic extent only by humans. In this review, we examine the cultural evolutions and revolutions present in some birdsong and whale song, respectively. By taking a comparative approach to these cultural processes, we review the existing evidence to understand the similarities and differences for their patterns of expression and the underlying drivers, including anthropogenic influences, which may shape them. Finally, we encourage future studies to explore the role of innovation vs. production errors in song evolution, the fitness information present in song, and how human-induced changes in population sizes, trajectories and migratory connections facilitating cultural transmission may be driving song revolutions. (shrink)

Federica Malfatti criticizes recent arguments against the possibility of understanding transmission. While she offers no positive argument for the claim that understanding can be transmitted, she does defend a liberal conception of transmission that allows for the possibility of understanding transmission. In this article, I have three aims. First, I will show that there is a stronger version of one of the arguments against understanding transmission that Malfatti considers, which avoids her objection. (...) This argument also fails, however, and the reason it fails suggests that if understanding cannot be transmitted this is not due to the nature of epistemic trust. Second, I will offer a positive argument for understanding transmission on Malfatti's behalf, and defend the view of understanding on which it depends. Finally, I will raise a further challenge to the proponent of understanding transmission. The upshot is that although Malfatti is right that we have no clear reason to exclude the possibility of understanding transmission – and, if I am right, we have positive reason to accept it – nevertheless a puzzle remains about such transmission. (shrink)