In this article, I explore the consequences of two commonsensical premises in semantics and epistemology: (1) natural language is a complex system rooted in the communal life of human beings within a given environment; and (2) linguistic knowledge is essentially dependent on natural language. These premises lead me to emphasize the process-socio-environmental character of linguistic meaning and knowledge, from which I proceed to analyse a number of long-standing philosophical problems, attempting to throw new light upon them on these (...) grounds. In particular, I criticize the use of expressions such as ‘absolute truth’, ‘absolute existence’ and ‘the thing in itself’, arguing that they lead to what I call ‘the ultralinguistic paradox’ (a fatal antinomy). In the same way, I review a number of mainstream topics in philosophical semantics, epistemology and metaphysics, reformulating them in terms much more naturalistic – and less mysterious – than usual. (shrink)

The article suggests specific grammatical features of some languages of the leading philosophical traditions of Eurasia, which can explain some of the differences in philo­sophical thinking that exist in these traditions. In particular, the use of Genetivus Objec­tivus in Sanskrit, New European, Latin and Arabic languages is considered, its possible correlation with the socio-practice of cultures in which these languages are dominant is analyzed. As a theoretical preamble, which allows not only to raise, but also to compre­hend the designated (...) problems, the author refers to the logical-semantic theory proposed by the Russian philosopher and arabist Andrei V. Smirnov (b. 1958), which deals with subject-predicate constructions in substantive and procedural logic, the problems of cor­relation of language and thinking, as well as the commensurability of the bases rationality in different philosophical cultures. Analyzing the peculiarities of the use of the so-called object genitive case (Genetivus Objectivus) in different linguistic traditions, the author comes to the conclusion that it is the grammar of a language that often determines the pe­culiarities of a person’s thinking, which in turn are reflected in the socio-practice of a par­ticular culture. Using the example of the Sanskrit fragment “Śrībhāṣya” by the Indian me­dieval philosopher Rāmānuja (XI–XII), in which the compound word (brahmajijñāsā) is proposed to be read as a combination of two nouns in the construction of Genetivus Ob­jectivus (brahmano jijñāsā) (with reference to the grammar of Pāṇini), the author of the article shows the peculiarity of Sanskrit-speaking thinking in comparison with New Euro­pean, Arabic and Latin languages. This feature is understood in the light of the defini­tions offered by philosophical traditions to understand the nature of God or the Absolute Principle. (shrink)

In the debate between internalists and externalists in philosophy of language and philosophy of psychology, internalists such as Jerry Fodor have invoked a strong a priori argument to show that externalist descriptions can play no role in a science of the human mind and of human action. Shifting the ground of the debate from psychology to social science, I try to undermine Fodor's reasoning. I also point to a role for externalist theorising in the area where the socio-semantic theory (...) of the 'division of linguistic labour' makes contact with traditional micro-sociological theorising. (shrink)

With the use symbols by political subjects arises the problem of their understanding. Groups of symbols can be created in such a way to contain a message. The state coat of arms is a political symbol, in which is concentrated a number of meanings and significance. The coat of arms — it is a symbol garnished with colossal endless meaning and potential withing its power. Besides this, the state coat of arms appears in numbers like mandalas: it is like this (...) archaic symbol, that combines various geometric shapes expressing the idea of order. The state coat of arms perceptively unites people of different genders, ages, social status andfaith into a united orderly community. A person contemplating the state coat of arms understands it as the center of the universe. The coat of arms is transformed into endlessness, attaining the result of uniting the macrocosm — society and state — and with the macrocosm — man. The function of political symbols exists so as to represent the “body” of a concrete political subject or society as a whole, at the same time in every part of a text “is highlighted” yet another part of the endless semantical richness of the symbol. Political symbols have important significance for the support or destruction of socio-political order. But the chief essence ofpolitical symbols — is the ability to give meaning to all political activities, and the regular “exposition” of state symbols guarantees the stability of the existing socio-political system. (shrink)

The co-evolutionary concept of tri-modal stable evolutionary strategy (SESH) of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based on the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined by descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot be instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of human evolution by two gear mechanism ˗ genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. Explanatory model and (...) methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. The mechanism of influence of each module on the evolution of the two remaining modules of SESH a priori can be twofold: (1) informational co-evolution (direct selective pressure); (2) semantic co-evolution (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the biological, socio- cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). More rapidly evolving autonomous element of the co-evolutionary pair becomes making sense factor for the partner. Semantic co-evolution is the discrete acquisition of adaptive significance of individual alleles by changing socio-cultural types, manifested as an increase in the genetic variability of populations of Homo sapiens, and domesticated species parallel to socio-culturogenesis. The socio- cultural landscape leads to drastically difference of direction in biological evolution of Atlantic and East-Slavic ethnicities/civilizations. (shrink)

Zimbabwean literature produced after the attainment of independence has been predominantly engrossed with thematisation of the postcolonial subaltern subjects’ existential conditions, enunciated together with gender politics, religion and socio-economic environment that frame politics of difference, and sites of suffering or resistance. These tropes remain absorbing and critical even in contemporary female-authored novels that also engage with a deeply fractured modern-day Zimbabwe. Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body, offers important site to debate the enduring concerns of gender inequalities, politics, and (...) religion. A stylistic approach is adopted to identify the semiotic construction of the text and discuss the different styles that are deployed to foreground central tropes in the novel. The adoption of stylistics as an underlying conceptual model locates this current study in the interdisciplinary research which brings together gender, applied linguistics, poetics, politics, and religion, in order to provoke new ways of reading the dialogic and polyphonic elements of the text. The study contends that the politics of difference is an unsettling subject that profoundly impacts on gender relations and religio-political practices in a milieu where precarity is a major defining feature of the subaltern sections comprising women and the marginalised poor. Thus, the novel’s title figuratively foregrounds the (un)mournable bodies of the people, who are both dehumanised and heavily burdened by surviving at the margin.Contribution: Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel, This Mournable Body demonstrates a deep concern with the plight of the subaltern people in a gendered society and how their conditions of the Othered bodies are further amplified by both religion and politics in present-day Zimbabwe. Thus the study contributes to the mounting discourses about politics of fragmentation and binary practices, and the ensuing agony suffered by the sidelined persons. The adopted stylistic reading of the focus novel underscores the interdisciplinary urgency to literary interpretative process. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to reveal the role of religious, political and cultural factors on the way of understanding the concept of Ahl al-ḥaqq, one of the most important theopolitical concepts of Islamic thought, and to identify the projections of the semantic traansformatinon that concept of Ahl al-ḥaqq has experienced. In the comparative study with the group of "Ahl al-Shirk", "Ahl al-Kitāb", "Ahl al-Bid'at" and "Ahl al-Hawā", it has been determined that the concept of Ahl al-Haq has a (...) multi-layered spectrum of meaning. A number of critical periods can be mentioned in the formation of this multi-layered meaning structure. The first of these periods is the founding period in which a conception is constructed through the description of the superstitious actions of the "Ahl al-Shirk" and "Ahl al-Kitâb" groups in belief and practice, even though the term "Ahl al-haqq" is not mentioned in the Qur’ān. In this context, it can be said that all Muslims who confess and recite the shahada or the word tawhid with the intention of illa'l-haqq in faith and deeds are included in the category of Ahl al-haqq. After the first semantic period in which the opposition between Islam and un-Islam was decisive, the socio-political issues that emerged among Muslims moved the debate on who could be included in the scope of Ahl al-haqq to the intra-Islamic plane. In the second semantic period, in which every sect considered itself to be right, the scope of Ahl al-Haq was mostly described through the nass-centered references of the Salafiyya and the superstitious practices in belief and practice of Muslims included in the Ahl al-Bid'at category. The third semantic period was shaped relatively by the encounter with philosophical traditions. This is the period in which theologians defending the Islamic faith tried to keep dynamic the outward/objective epistemological aspect of the concept. In the fourth semantic period, which coincided with post-modernism, Ahl al-Haq returned to the socio-political meaning of the opposition between Islam and un-Islam in the founding period as an anti-imperial attitude against colonization activities. As a result, considering all these definitions, it is concluded at the present time that, it would be more accurate that the concept of Ahl al-Haq is better defined to include all Muslims who have accepted the principles of Islamic belief and declared their adherence to the Qur’ān and Sunna. (shrink)

This paper offers a general model of the semantics of lexicalized social meanings, i.e. semiotic properties of certain expressions in a socio-political context. Examples include slurs, problematically charged expressions such as inner city, as well as terms such as mother, which also carry implicit ideological associations. Insofar as their linguistic properties are concerned, social meanings can be construed as context-structuring devices: without introducing specific at-issue contents, they evoke background assumptions which shape the context of conversation. An inferentialist model (...) of discourse is developed to account for this effect, in which the discursive significance of an utterance is defined as the set of inferences it licenses relative to a discursive context. A discursive context is a set of propositions that can serve as auxiliary premises in material inferences, together with a salience ranking that makes some of these propositions more readily available and therefore more relevant to determining discursive significance. Social meanings are defined as functions on discursive contexts that modify the salience ranking, increasing the salience of certain assumptions and stereotypes. As a result, they impact the discursive significance of utterances indirectly and independently of at-issue contents. They are also largely independent of speaker intentions in virtue of the ideological nature of discursive contexts. (shrink)

The 25th of January, 2011 witnessed a wave of political unrest all over Egypt, with repercussions that have re-shaped the future of contemporary Egypt. For the first time in the modern history of Egypt since the 1952 Nasserite revolution, grass-root protestors went to streets chanting slogans against the military regime headed by the (since then ex-) President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. This placed the then regime, as well as its mainstay, the National Democratic Party (NDP), in a political crisis on (...) both local and international scales. It is this critical moment that led Mubarak to give his unprecedented speech on February 1st, 2011. The speech has brought about epoch-making political changes in the history of contemporary Egypt. Under public pressure, two seminal declarations were made in this speech: (1) Mubarak’s intention not to nominate himself for a new presidential term; (2) a call on the Houses of Parliament to amend articles 76 and 77 of the constitution concerning the conditions on running for presidency and the period for the presidential term in Egypt. The present paper seeks to answer the following overarching question: what are the discursive strategies used for saving the political face of Mubarak in his speech on February 1st, 2011? I follow a text-analytic framework based on the socio-semantic theory of social actors and the pragmatic models of speech acts and face-threatening acts. The analysis reveals Mubarak’s attempt to save his positive political face as a legitimate President who regarded himself as the official ruler invested with absolute power over Egypt. (shrink)

The article considers the place and role of discourse in human life. The basis for this is the im- portance of language and speech as one of the leading features of humanity. Thanks to language, a person’s own reality is formed, which has a semantic character. Four dimensions of the effect of speech in the constitution of the human world are identified. These are: the function of se- mantic productivity and reliability of speech; function of organization and accumulation of ex- (...) perience; the function of normativity of human life; personalization function. The acquisition of the discourse format by speech is associated with the assertion of significance and substantiation of the validity of judgments. These qualities of discursive practices are inseparable from their normative effect. If speech as such is dominated by the effect of communication and statements, the discourse is primarily a semantic ordering of reality. It always creates, transforms or cancels a certain semantic order. The thesis on the growing role of discursive practices in the contempo- rary world is substantiated. This is due to the epoch-making changes in human life, namely the end of the era of production. The whole history of human civilization can be represented as the development of production (from the invention of the production mode of economy in the form of the Neolithic revolution). The end of the era of production means at the same time the actu- alization of the great historical task of man’s appeal to himself, to his own nature and organic ability to live. Taking care of yourself, not the conditions of existence (external goods) will be a priority for human development in the near historical perspective. However, this reorientation of human existence is confronted with the contradictory impact of virtualization of reality for man, which entails changes in the classical vocation of discourse. In this regard, the effect of discourses in the highly powerful information environment of today is analyzed, which is becoming the leading force of global reality in the form of information power. (shrink)

Despite a proliferation of research on Islam and Muslims in the media, very little work has focused on Muslim women, a much-debated social group that merits special consideration. This article aims to investigate how Muslim women are represented in BBC News website texts using a purpose-built corpus. The research employs analytical tools from the discourse-historical, socio-cognitive, and sociosemantic approaches to critical discourse studies. These are combined with corpus-based methodologies to investigate the semantic macrostructures that tend to be associated with (...) Muslim women and the discursive strategies employed in the representation of the hijab. The study is novel in its exhaustive approach to identifying salient and underreported issues related to Muslim women in news discourse. It also introduces a more integrated analysis that combines manual and automated techniques and tackles the quantification of qualitative results where possible. Findings suggest that Muslim women’s representations are largely restricted in terms of regional coverage. Semantic macrostructures related to conflict and crime are prevalent. The hijab remains a nodal discourse surrounding Muslim women whose function as a descriptive feature is often unclear, raising serious questions about its relevance. A number of recommendations are made for journalists to become cognizant of their own context models when reporting on Muslim women. (shrink)

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of immanent (...) criticism by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

The present article is the first of a trilogy of papers, devoted to analysing the influence of semantic Platonism on contemporary philosophy of language. In the present article, I lay out the discussion by contrasting semantic Platonism with two other views of linguistic meaning: the socio-environmental conception of meaning and semantic anti-representationalism. Then, I identify six points in which the impregnation of semantic theory with Platonism can be particularly felt, resulting in shortcomings and inaccuracies of various kinds. These points (...) are the following: the limitations of regarding logico-philosophical analysis as the only working methodology; the tendency to avoid investigating a number of aspects of linguistic meaning; the recurring confusion between sentences, statements, and propositions; the weakness of transcendent assumptions about meaning; the weakness of meaning assumptions adopted on the basis of pure intuition; and inconsistencies caused by some over-eager attempts to escape semantic Platonism. (shrink)

What is the function of concepts pertaining to meaning in socio-linguistic practice? In this study, the authors argue that we can approach a satisfactory answer by displacing the standard picture of meaning talk as a sort of description with a picture that takes seriously the similarity between meaning talk and various types of normative injunction. In their discussion of this approach, they investigate the more general question of the nature of the normative, as well as a range of important (...) topics specific to the philosophy of language. (shrink)

In the wave of Umberto Eco’s oppositional binomial Dictionary-Encyclopedia, the paper aims to apply the rhizomatic system to the practical case of the (ethno)racial lexicon as a broad semantic area of the word race, which previously involved both physical predisposition and cultural habits. Given its critical issues, the dictionarial approach is distinguished into two different stages, intra-dictionarial (properly dictionarial) and inter-dictionarial (resulting from the metaphorical chain of meanings). Originally, race referred to horses (stud and herds) and property (as ownership and (...) essential attribute), which extended metonymically to other senses – general zoological-botanic, human (lineage, offspring) and typological qualitative ones. Comparing its correspondents in Romance and Germanic languages, reference to many different contexts and a continuous misalignment between lexeme and concept emerge. The liquidity within the semantic sphere of race (embracing the three semantic cores racial, ethnic, and typological) can be explained by taking a phenomenological and semiotic perspective. If the ethnic sense (people, nation, etc.) is connected to a socio-cultural Lifeworld in an interplay of identities and differences, the aporia of synonymy emerging from the inter-dictionarial analysis finds its balance in the local encyclopedic approach, which proves to be the real deterrent to Porphyry’s tree through the rhizome, conceived not in its entirety, but in the partiality and contingency of its branches. (shrink)

This meta-study applies a socio-semiotic framework combining five basic communicational aspects, form, content, act, time, and space, developed to help answering the questionCan animals refer?It further operates with four levels, sign, utterance, genre, and lifeworld, studying relations between utterance and genre in particular. Semantic key terms found in an excerpted ‘resource collection’ consisting of three anthologies, two academic journals, and a monography, studying content in animal communication, are inspected, and discussed, especially information, functional reference, and reference. Since a temporary (...) inspection concluded that the field seems unable to give convincing joint answers, the scope of the meta-study was extended to include critical investigations of implicit communicational epistemologies applied in the sources. Two major challenges were brought to surface. Firstly, the problem of conflicting interrelatedness in animal utterances (parts versus whole). Positioning analyses revealed that theories and project-designs were mostly dyadic, prioritising form/content, content/function, or function/form, and rarely form/content/function, as a whole. The second concerned the issue of functional openness of animal communication systems. The meta-study found that more recent studies tend to reduce an essentialist search for ‘clear’ categories in favor of more complex designs, where focus is less on references in utterances as such and more on a species’ communicational system. This shift in turn leads to a problematisation of the role of context, kinds of communication (life-genres) and semantic levels in animal utterances, in other words, on animal communication for particular species as a whole. (shrink)

The recent development of the research field of Computing and Philosophy has triggered investigations into the theoretical foundations of computing and information. This thesis consists of two parts which are the result of studies in two areas of Philosophy of Computing and Philosophy of Information regarding the production of meaning and the value system with applications. The first part develops a unified dual-aspect theory of information and computation, in which information is characterized as structure, and computation is the information dynamics. (...) This enables naturalization of epistemology, based on interactive information representation and communication. In the study of systems modeling, meaning, truth and agency are discussed within the framework of the PI/PC unification. The second part of the thesis addresses the necessity of ethical judgment in rational agency illustrated by the problem of information privacy and surveillance in the networked society. The value grounds and socio-technological solutions for securing trustworthiness of computing are analyzed. Privacy issues clearly show the need for computing professionals to contribute to understanding of the technological mechanisms of Information and Communication Technology. The main original contribution of this thesis is the unified dual-aspect theory of computation/information. Semantics of information is seen as a part of the data-information-knowledge structuring, in which complex structures are self-organized by the computational processing of information. Within the unified model, complexity is a result of computational processes on informational structures. The thesis argues for the necessity of computing beyond the Turing-Church limit, motivated by natural computation, and wider by pancomputationalism and paninformationalism, seen as two complementary views of the same physical reality. Moreover, it follows that pancomputationalism does not depend on the assumption that the physical world on some basic level is digital. Contrary to many believes it is entirely compatible with dual quantum-mechanical computing. (shrink)

This short essay attempts to challenge some of widely held philosophical assumptions on the nature of the relationship between logic, language and reality. In Section 1 the hegemony of theoretical logic is being questioned; Section 2 proposes a hypothesis on socially mediated semantics; Section 3 addresses the problem of ontology of logical sentential moods.

In this article the argumentation structure of the court’s decision in the Popov v. Hayashi case is formalised in Prakken’s (Argument Comput 1:93–124; 2010) abstract framework for argument-based inference with structured arguments. In this framework, arguments are inference trees formed by applying two kinds of inference rules, strict and defeasible rules. Arguments can be attacked in three ways: attacking a premise, attacking a conclusion and attacking an inference. To resolve such conflicts, preferences may be used, which leads to three corresponding (...) kinds of defeat, after which Dung’s (Artif Intell 77:321–357; 1995) abstract acceptability semantics can be used to evaluate the arguments. In the present paper the abstract framework is instantiated with strict inference rules corresponding to first-order logic and with defeasible inference rules for defeasible modus ponens and various argument schemes. The main techniques used in the formal reconstruction of the case are rule-exception structures and arguments about rule validity. Arguments about socio-legal values and the use of precedent cases are reduced to arguments about rule validity. The tree structure of arguments, with explicit subargument relations between arguments, is used to capture the dependency relations between the elements of the court’s decision. (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed at studying the specificity of anthropological problematics in pragmatism from the perspective of its ability to be the source of analytic philosophy evolution in the socio-humanitarian direction. Theoretical basis of the research is determined by the works of the representatives of classical pragmatism, neopragmatism, post-pragmatism and analytic pragmatism. Their works give a clear understanding of the important place of anthropological searches in the theory of pragmatism. Originality. On the basis of the analysis of logical, (...) epistemological and metaphysical ideas formulated by representatives of pragmatism, it is proved that pragmatic methodology is anthropocentric. It is established that the ideological and social foundations of pragmatism can be determined as pluralistic ones due to the attention to the human person. It is revealed that theoretical and methodological searches of pragmatism can be effective in the formation of the socio-humanitarian concepts in analytic philosophy through the specification of strategies for the cognition of human existence in such terms as experience or self and the development of practical ways to justify the truth of knowledge. Conclusions. Pragmatists criticized impersonal, formal thinking, which cannot be an effective means of cognition. Thinking has a social basis and is entirely personal. Justifying its dependence on the socio-cultural sphere and the internal intentions of the subject, it is possible to develop an effective logical theory that operates symbols not only at the syntactic or semantic level but also takes into account the pragmatic aspect of language. Anthropological problematics is also important in the theory of knowledge, the core of which is the notion of pragmatic belief, which enables truth and religious beliefs, since the foundation of the theory of truth is determined by the principle of humanism, and the truth is interpreted as a value orientation. Knowing the external world, we find in it the similarity with us – that’s why the metaphysical foundations of being, according to pragmatism, are personified, and the methodology is defined in anthropomorphic terms. Applying it, the study of human existence is specified in the analysis of psychological and socio-cultural dimensions of such concepts as experience or self. Attempts to comprehend the nature of human existence in pragmatism are empirically grounded. Appealing to science, methodological pluralism, the search for socio-cultural background for thinking and suitable linguistic forms of expression of human experience are the achievements of pragmatism, which are the basis for the socio-humanitarian redescription of analytic methodology. (shrink)

Language evolves continuously through the creation of neologisms, reflecting shifts in cultural, scientific, and social paradigms. This study provides a philosophical analysis of English cultural and scientific neologisms through the lens of social semantics, exploring how language identity and conceptual meaning change over time. Drawing on theories of linguistic identity, meaning construction, and cultural semiotics, the study compares the formation, dissemination, and contextual integration of neologisms from cultural and scientific domains. Findings reveal that cultural neologisms often emerge from (...) class='Hi'>socio-political discourses and popular media, emphasizing collective identity and social norms, while scientific neologisms are rooted in technological advancements and epistemological precision. The interplay between these linguistic forms underscores a dynamic process where language both shapes and is shaped by human experience. This inquiry highlights the philosophical significance of neologisms as carriers of evolving meaning, cultural heritage, and intellectual identity, offering insights into the relationship between language, belief systems, and societal change. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on the notion of worldview as a conceptual scheme and the role of language in shaping our view of reality. In particular, I engage with Wittgenstein’s notion of World-picture in order to suggest an alternative account to the deceptive dogmatic conception of worldview, which is exemplified by C.I. Lewis’s account of cognitive experience. I argue that worldviews constitute the way in which the world is given in a particular socio-linguistic context and they presuppose the (...) mastery of a World-picture, that is, the inherited background of our acting and thinking. First, I will distinguish between two different uses of the term “worldview”. Then I will show the way in which a metaphysical-dogmatic conception of worldview leads to the Myth of the Semantic Given. Finally, I will present Wittgenstein’s notion of World-picture and its connection to the notion of worldview. (shrink)

This article presents a fresh perspective on the interplay among visual, verbal, and auditory modalities, positing that these modalities, as semogenic resources, compete to express dynamic meanings. The theoretical paradigm emphasizes that whether a modality or an element within a modality gets or loses semantic status, it will elicit an additional layer of social meaning to depict a comprehensive picture of a story together with an explicit semiotic meaning. The article adopts a qualitative method to analyze the data, which are (...) drawn from The Good Wife and My Roommate is a Gumiho and annotated in ELAN 6.3. It was found that modal competition can shed light on the dynamic meaning-making processes in semiotic and societal orientations. Modal competition may distort space and time of different stories, and reconstruct a different discursive spatio-temporal dimension in the TV world. It can diversify the dynamic orientations from New to Given in visual, verbal, and auditory texts of multimodal discourses to tell stories. Modal competition provides a lens to understand the multidimensional reality and to appreciate the aesthetics of a modern TV series. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' mental state words used in mother-child picture-book reading is linked with children's theory of mind skills. Furthermore, mothers' use of cognitive terms is more strongly related to children's theory of mind performances than (...) the mothers' references to other mental states, such as desires or emotions (Rollo and Buttiglieri, 2009 ). Current literature has established that early maternal input is related to later child mental state understanding; however it has not yet clarified which maternal terms are most useful for the socio-emotional and cognitive development of the child, and which aspect of the cognitive development benefits from the mother-child interaction. The present study addresses this issue and focuses on the relationship between mothers' mental state talk and children's behavior in conceptual and semantic tasks, and in a theory of mind task. In this study fifty pairs consisting of mothers and their 3 to 6-year-old children participated in two sessions: (1) The mothers read a picture book to their children. To assess the maternal psychological lexicon, their narrative was codified according to the categories of mental state references used in literature: perceptual, emotional, volitional, cognitive, moral, and communicative. (2) After a few days, the conceptual and semantic skills of the children (tasks of contextualization and classification, memory, and definition of words) and their psychological lexicon were assessed. The results suggest close links between the frequency and variety of mothers' mental state words and some semantic and conceptual skills of children. (shrink)

The paper examines changing media representations of Jacinda Ardern, former Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister, from the global broadcaster, BBC News Online, across three key milestones in the politician’s career: her appointment, re-election and resignation. Our socio-semantic analysis of this representation demonstrates how the media intersect her professional identity with age, gender, social class, and later, her identity as a mother. Whilst earlier coverage of Ardern’s career praises her successfully reconciling these aspects of her personal, social and professional identities, (...) later coverage implies that ‘having it all’ was never really possible longer term. We argue that the visibility of this discourse, and the focus on intersectional aspects of Ardern’s personal and social identities, leads to her resignation being positively evaluated as her ‘finally’ succumbing and committing to the ‘natural’ inevitabilities of heterosexual family life. The article considers what such representation means for Ardern and women politicians and leaders more broadly, and contextualises these findings in relation to existing research on media representations of women in politics and leadership. Finally, we also consider the value of a more longitudinal approach to tracking the cumulative effects of the representation of social actors and groups. (shrink)

This article is devoted to the analysis of the socio-semiotic theory of M.Foucault, which allows clarifying the phenomenal horizon in the socio-political space. Social semiotics is viewed as a grammar of a separate sign system that describes the area of a specific communicative phenomenon controlled by a system of meanings. Power, using semiotic techniques, marking space, creates a disciplined body, a disciplined person, and a disciplined consciousness. The means of coercion reveal those on whom they influence but also (...) manifest the very place of Power. At the same time, Power, functioning as a draft mechanism, attracts and extracts both the norm and deviations, which it tirelessly monitors. Specific ways of speaking, pronouncing, and certain constructions of signs and symbols that shape the social space reveal the space for the manifestation of Power. Through the use of the technique of signs that permeates the entire social space, Power is economically and efficiently distributed throughout the body of society, codifies all possible behavior, and therefore reduces the indefinite area of all possible actions. All human gestures and actions can be interpreted as semantic units that can be rationally explained and systematized. (shrink)

The range of research on value issues is quite wide today. The transition from understanding values as a philosophical category to a psychological interpretation of the nature of values has led to the emergence of many trends and psychological concepts of value problems. In this study, we will reveal the main modern views of researchers on the essence of the value-semantic matrix of both an individual and the entire world community. The modern socio-economic situation in the world is characterized (...) by an almost permanent crisis state both in the social, and in the spiritual, cultural sphere, which is due to the existence of the consequences of the epidemic situation in the world. Based on this, the problem of teaching the dynamics of the value-semantic matrix, its development and changes under the influence of personality crises of various origins, both external ones caused by the social situation in the country, the impact of new information technologies, and internal ones, caused by growing up, growth, psychological development personality in time and space. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to conduct a theoretical study of the value-semantic sphere as a system that undergoes changes during the crisis periods of a person's life and to investigate the main deformations that have taken place in the Mind of existence of today's post-pandemic reality. (shrink)

The co-evolutionary concept of three-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based on the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined by descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot be instrumental reduced to other ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of biological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution by two gear mechanism — genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian (...) balance. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). (shrink)

The present paper, adopting some of the tools offered by Cognitive Linguistics, namely the mechanisms of conceptual metaphor and metonymy, is a qualitative study of a sociolinguistic nature. Its overall purpose is an attempt at exhibiting a paradigm shift in the representation of women in Anglo-American proverbs. Combining the potential of the cross-fertilisation between Cognitive Linguistics and paremiological studies, the study appertains to the sense-threads embedded in the figurative language of proverbs, with the main focus on a cognitive semantic analysis (...) of selected Anglo-American paremias directed towards women and animals. The main goal of the research is the juxtaposition of the meaning coded in two proverbs of traditional status, as representatives of a larger group of paremiological units (i.e. A woman, a cat, and a chimney should never leave the house; A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to no good end), reflecting the deep-rooted gender-biased ideology in patriarchal Anglo-American society, with the content of the selected anti-proverb (i.e. The early bird gets up to serve his wife breakfast in bed) and a contemporary proverb (i.e. A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle), serving as sample evidence of the heralds of a paradigm shift in the issue of gender stereotyping stored in paremiological wisdom. The paper shows that the motivation behind the use of the analysed proverbs is to be accounted for by reference to the mechanism of metaphor-metonymy interaction, while the rise of new gender-related proverbs can be regarded as a sign of socio-cultural changes. Specifically, through the medium of modern paremiology, asymmetrical representation of male and female gender, coupled with traditional masculine and feminine characteristics as well as social roles, appears if not endangered then, at least, to be taking a promising path. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problem of semantic evolution of pagan terminology in Christian theology. A specific token becomes the subject of consideration "σωτήρ", which has gone through a long history of semantic transformation: from the savior to earthly adversities and misfortunes in the pagan world (natural objects, people, mythological creatures could act as saviors and even the gods) to the Savior of human souls in Christianity. The authors demonstrate how the content of the concept was modified and how, (...) along with the religious meaning, a political component emerged and established itself in the structure of meaning by the Hellenistic era, and then was again pushed into the background. It is suggested that the political connotations are caused not so much by the "power ambitions" of the Church, but, firstly, by the socio-cultural context in which Christianity arose, and, secondly, by the specifics of the pagan worldview in which the idea of sacralizing power was rooted. The task of the authors, who worked with rather archaic material, was not only to reveal the logic of semantic shifts, to understand how Christian theology could become heard in the space of pagan culture. The authors believe that the success of Christian preaching was not least due to the cognitive strategies chosen by the Church, which were directly poisoned by pagan concepts in the work. (shrink)

The article discusses the methodology for studying reflective systems, which are very specific objects of study. However, such objects include almost all phenomena of the socio-humanitarian sciences, including scientific knowledge. It is noted that in the era of the “sixties” original concepts of reflexive analysis arose in Russian philosophy, among which the three most striking ones, associated with the names of V.A. Lefebvre (1936-2020), G.P. Shchedrovitsky (1929-1994), M.A. Rozova (1930-2011). The main attention is paid to the methodology that was (...) built within the framework of the theory of social relay races by M.A. Rosova. It is shown how systems with reflection function and why they are able to rebuild, changing the order of sociality. (shrink)

Even before trust became a buzzword, theoretical developments were made, which have instigated the development of two forms of trust which are described as personal trust and system trust/confidence. However, this distinction remained rather secondary in the overall literature. There is an overall lack on the historical developments of these forms of trust, their internal logic and how they interlink, overlap, or work against each other. The paper aims to advance these three aspects: first through a historical overview of the (...) semantic of this distinction, followed by a theoretical reconstruction of the historical material and third by demonstrating how these theoretical concepts can be applied to political crises (Revolutions of 1989), thus revealing their logic and mutual interlocking. (shrink)

Attempt of trans-disciplinary analysis of the evolutionary value of bioethics is realized. Currently, there are High Tech schemes for management and control of genetic, socio-cultural and mental evolution of Homo sapiens (NBIC, High Hume, etc.). The biological, socio-cultural and technological factors are included in the fabric of modern theories and technologies of social and political control and manipulation. However, the basic philosophical and ideological systems of modern civilization formed mainly in the 17–18 centuries and are experiencing ever-increasing and (...) destabilizing risk-taking pressure from the scientific theories and technological realities. The sequence of diagnostic signs of a new era once again split into technological and natural sciences’ from one hand, and humanitarian and anthropological sciences’, from other. The natural sciences series corresponds to a system of technological risks be solved using algorithms established safety procedures. The socio-humanitarian series presented anthropological risk. Global bioethics phenomenon is regarded as systemic socio-cultural adaptation for technology-driven human evolution. The conceptual model for meta-structure of stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens (SESH) is proposes. In accordance to model, SESH composed of genetic, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules, and global bioethics as a tool to minimize existential evolutionary risk. An existence of objectively descriptive and value-teleological evolutionary trajectory parameters of humanity in the modern technological and civilizational context (1), and the genesis of global bioethics as a system social adaptation to ensure self-identity (2) are postulated. -/- . (shrink)

This essay, between serious and facetious, addresses an apparently secondary implication of the planetary tragedy produced by Covid-19. It coincides with the ‘problem of the veil,’ a bone of contention in Islam/West relationships. More specifically, it will address the question of why the pandemic has changed the proxemics of public spaces and the grammar of ‘living together.’ For some time—and it is not possible to foresee how much—in many countries people cannot go out, or enter any public places, without wearing (...) a sanitary mask. In short, almost all of us, by obligation or by urgent advice from the public authorities of the various countries, will not live the public sphere with our faces uncovered. The alteration of the social context affecting many Western countries will inevitably involve also the ‘local’ perception of the Islamic veil and—as a matter of equality—the consistency of the prohibition of wearing it. What will thus become of the ban on wearing it in public places established by some countries such as France and asseverated by the ECHR? If everyone can and will have to go around with their faces covered, why should only Islamic women be discriminated against? Will not the change in boundary conditions produced by Covid-19 also induce Western people to re-categorize the meaning of the veil? And will this re-categorization not directly affect the ‘fact’ of wearing the veil, that is, its empirical perception? And still, will this psycho-semantic change not show how empirical perceptions are cultural constructs rather than ‘objective facts,’ as such allegedly independent from the observer’s point of view? Consequentially, will the plurality of perceptions and cultural meanings related to the gesture of covering one’s own face not gain renewed relevance in determining the legitimacy of wearing the veil? The socio-semantic earthquake produced by Covid-19 compels us to rethink this and other issues orbiting around the translation of ‘facts’ into legal language; furthermore, it highlights the instrumentality of many ideological/partisan and ethnocentric assumptions passed off as objectivity regarding those alleged ‘facts.’ The essay will attempt to provide an answer to the above questions by proposing a semiotic-legal approach to intercultural conflicts and, indirectly, the pluralism in law. (shrink)

This paper is a multimodal critical discourse study of other-representation in ISIS’s magazine, Dabiq, It focuses on both the micro-level analysis of actor and action representation, and the macro-structure of negative other-depiction in Dabiq from both textual and visual perspectives. Through in-depth examination of linguistic and non-linguistic elements, the study aimed to unfold ISIS’s ideology at the global level, which is to construct its desired reality and eventually to recruit supporters. The analysis was carried out on fifteen issues of Dabiq (...) following a conceptual and analytical framework within Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis employing Van Leeuwen’s Socio-semantic inventory. The results show a considerable number of systematic utilizations of discursive strategies by ISIS to belittle its enemies and downgrade their practices. Throughout Dabiq, the out-group participants are represented either as passive reactants who are afflicted by ISIS’s attacks or as powerless agents whose actions are trivial and carry no significant weight. Ineffectuality of ‘others’ has further been substantiated by the visual analysis. Deactivation of out-groups is closely tied to ISIS’s propaganda of self-alteration to achieve the double aim of casting fear among their adversaries and brainwashing the audience by twisting the reality, and persuading them that the enemies’ chance of winning this war is dim. (shrink)

This book carries forward the discourse on the mind’s engagement with the world. It reviews the semantic and metaphysical debates around internalism and externalism, the location of content, and the indeterminacy of meaning in language. The volume analyses the writings of Jackson, Chomsky, Putnam, Quine, Bilgrami and others, to reconcile opposing theories of language and the mind. It ventures into Cartesian ontology and Fregean semantics to understand how mental content becomes world-oriented in our linguistic communication. Further, the author explores (...) the liaison between the mind and the world from the phenomenological perspective, particularly, Husserl’s linguistic turn and Heidegger’s intersubjective entreaty for Dasein. The book conceives thought as a biological and socio-linguistic product which engages with the mind-world question through the conceptual and causal apparatuses of language. A major intervention in the field of philosophy of language, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in philosophy, phenomenology, epistemology, and metaphysics . (shrink)

While a much investigated concept because of its importance in shaping human discourse, modality has still not been given an agreed understanding. Using authentic Chinese court judgments in Hong Kong, this paper aims to unravel the complexity of modality as exemplified in its usage in the legal domain. It examines formal, semantic, and functional approaches to modality, showing their weaknesses in identifying and explaining modality in legal discourse. It proposes a socio-semiotic approach as an alternative for giving us a (...) better understanding of modality in respect of its meaning and function in our language as a sign system. (shrink)

There is a well-established social practice whereby we hold one another responsible for the things that we say. Speakers are held liable for the truth of the contents they express and they can be sanctioned and/or held to be unreliable or devious if it turns out what they say is false. In this paper chapter we argue that a better understanding of this fundamental socio-linguistic practice – of ascribing what we will term (following Borg (2019)) ‘linguistic liability’ – helps (...) to shed light on a core debate in semantics and pragmatics, concerning how and where to draw the line between different kinds of content. We suggest that attributions of linguistic liability form a heterogenous (rather than a homogenous) class and seek to show that different kinds of liability judgements are useful because they track divergent kinds of content – specifically the kinds that have come to prominence in recent theorising theorizing about the semantics/pragmatics divide. (shrink)

Relevance of research. The article investigates the values of sociocultural life of a person in the context of the characteristics of the formation of systems of subjective-personal meanings, analyzes the parameters of psychological, mental and cultural integrity of a person in the conditions of functioning of modern processes of socio-cultural reality. Setting objectives. The research emphasizes that sociocultural reality leads to the effect of cultural factors - values and values-semantic landmarks as carriers of the content of human existence, factors (...) of semantic content of individual consciousness and social practice of human life. Analysis of recent research and publications. The source of the research identifies the works of philosophical and culturological and philosophical and psychological orientation, in which the problem of the value measurement of the socio-cultural life of man is considered in aspects of understanding the nature of the value-and-meaning search of a person. Selection of unexplored parts of the general problem. The study focuses on the problem of intrapersonal development of a person with philosophical and cultural positions: the phenomenon of harmonization of the inner world of man is presented as a factor in ordering the system of relations "man - the world", the relationship of social nature. Methodology. The culturological plane of the study is covered with the help of methods of sociocultural and reflexive analysis within the framework of a value-ethical paradigm. Essential material. The article analyzes the value of the sociocultural life of a person, which is conditioned by the dialectical unity of the mental and axiological systems of the individual capable of synergetic self-organization and self-regulation, within which the new meanings and structures of the value hierarchy arise and develop, and which forms the basis of the expansion and modification of the forms, processes, phenomena of socio-cultural existence of a modern person. Conclusions. The work makes a generalization that the value-semantic personality positions lead to the development of important personal qualities, features, opportunities, contributing to the emergence of modern trajectories of the course of individual and collective life, the functioning of the world of everyday life. (shrink)

Objective. Study of the Covid-19 related quarantine concept as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. -/- Materials & Methods. The strategy of the study is based on the logical and methodological concept of inductivism. Respondents were asked to write down their own understanding of the quarantine, formulate an appropriate definition and describe the situation, which in their opinion is the exact opposite to quarantine. Respondents also assessed how much their psychological well-being, their daily lifestyle during quarantine had changed, (...) and ranked their preferences for the quarantine strategies proposed to them. A discursive analysis was applied to the obtained texts, as a result of which nine discourses were identified. These data, along with some socio-demographic characteristics were subjected to multidimensional mathematical and statistical processing. -/- Results. Covid-19 related quarantine is represented in the linguistic consciousness of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by a discursive field, which includes at least nine recognizable, semantically autonomous discourses. Empirically discovered such phenomenon as – inter-discourse semantic dissociation. Its essence is a statistically significant reduction in the probability of some discourses appearing in the texts when others are being actualized there. This feature is associated with the innate negativity of the language and determines the semantic biasing of the quarantine concept. Inter-discourse semantic dissociation, as well as the influence of non-discursive factors constitute the discursive formation of the quarantine concept, which is qualitatively characterized by the hierarchical relationship of its components. At the same time, it was revealed that part of the discourses interacting “horizontally” are indirectly associated “vertically”, which forms the stable semantic core of the quarantine concept. Partial empirical confirmation has been found of the previously put forward assumptions about: a) the existence of such a relationship between discourses and psychological defense mechanisms (as character-forming factors) that contributes to the hierarchical structure construction of discursive formations; b) the differential nature of discourses and mechanisms of psychological defenses interaction, which makes it possible to single out the discursive aspect in a characterological profile and consider a discourse as an operator of characterological semantics. -/- Conclusions. An empirical study made it possible to form a primary idea of the substantive and structural semantic features of the quarantine concept, as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. The results obtained have a potentially useful application perspective. Thus, when implementing anti-epidemiological measures, it is important to consider the studied features of the discursive formation hierarchical structure of the quarantine concept, since discursive semantics are associated with cognitive focusing, which, in turn, affects the behavior direction and its upshots. (shrink)

This paper builds on the critique that Renaud Filleule addresses in this issue to radical ecological economics – known also as socio-ecological economics (SEE) – and more specifically to the works of one of his most famous representatives, Clive Spash. Filleule builds his critique from Austrian economics. I adopt a broader perspective. Indeed, although Austrian economics identifies key caveats of SEE, one may challenge its whole scientific substance on more general grounds. True, Clive Spash’s works are keen on putting (...) forth methodological arguments to institute SEE not only as a scientific theory but also as the major paradigm in ecological economics. However, such arguments are unconvincing, amounting to activism-in-disguise of science, as reflected in Spash’s semantic ambiguity, his misconception of social science and overstated claims and pointless ordering of scientific knowledge. Moreover, Spash’s critique of economic growth is not only empirically wrong – as correctly noticed by Filleule – but also conceptually irrelevant. This is because defective theories necessarily lead to wrong or insignificant statements. (shrink)

The theory of language must predict the possible thought—signal (or meaning—sound or sign) pairings of a language. We argue for a Meaning First architecture of language where a thought structure is generated first. The thought structure is then realized using language to communicate the thought, to memorize it, or perhaps with another purpose. Our view contrasts with the T-model architecture of mainstream generative grammar, according to which distinct phrase-structural representations—Phonetic Form (PF) for articulation, Logical Form (LF) for interpretation—are generated within (...) the grammar. At the same time, our view differs from early transformational grammar and generative semantics: We view the relationship between the thought structure and the corresponding signal as one of compression. We specify a formal sketch of compression as a choice between multiple possible pronounciations balancing the desire to transmit information against the effort of pronounciation. The Meaning First architecture allows a greater degree of independence between thought structures and the linguistic signal. We present three arguments favoring this type of independence. First we argue that scopal properties can be better explained if we only compare thought structures independent of the their realization as a sentence. Secondly, we argue that Meaning First architecture allows contentful late insertion, an idea that has been argued for in Distributed Morphology already, but as we argue is also motivated by the division of the logical and socio-emotive meaning content of language. Finally, we show that only the Meaning First architecture provides a satisfying account of the mixing of multiple languages by multilingual speakers, especially for cases of simultaneous articulation across two modalities in bimodal speakers. Our view of the structure of grammar leads to a reassessment of priorities in linguistic analyses: while current mainstream work is often focused on establishing one-to-one relationships between concepts and morphemes, our view makes it plausible that primitive concepts are frequently marked indirectly or unpronounced entirely. Our view therefore assigns great value to the understanding of logical primitives and of compression. (shrink)

The article examines the impact of the French Enlightenment and the French revolution on the Russian socio-political language, on the literary process of Romanticism in Russia and, finally, on the change of the intellectual paradigm in the second half of the 19th century. The history of the concepts of citizen, of society, and of political opposition is traced from the second half of the 18th century (on the example of Nakaz by Catherine II, the texts by the writer A. (...) Radishchev) to the 1830s (on the example of the political texts of the Decembrists). In conclusion, it is argued that the defeat of the Decembrist’s republicanism that was inspired by the French Enlightenment had oriented, in the second half of the 19th century, the Russian intellectuals to the problematics of human diversity and the nationalisation of the Empire. The universal principles of the Enlightenment were replaced by an interest in the human diversity of the Russian Empire that in turn required the development of a specific language and its concepts. However, this turn itself is viewed as a consequence of the reception of the ideas of the French Enlightenment and accelerated by the French Revolution. (shrink)

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in relativism. Proponents have defended various accounts that seek to model the truth-conditions of certain propositions along the lines of standard possible world semantics. The central challenge for such views has been to explain what advantage they have over contextualist theories with regard to the possibility of disagreement. I will press this worry against Max Kölbel’s account of faultless disagreement. My case will proceed along two distinct but connected lines. First, (...) I will argue that the sense of faultlessness made possible by his relativism conflicts with our intuitive understanding of disagreement. And second, that his meta-epistemological commitments are at odds with the socio-epistemic function of disagreement. This latter problem for relativistic accounts of truth has thus far been largely ignored in the literature. (shrink)

Why do we say that something is unspeakable, even though we know the issue well? We find in many cultural contexts the classification of something as ‘unspeakable'. Using semantics and semiotic theory separating between ‘concept', ‘sign', and ‘reference object of the sign' in several cases where the ‘unspeakable' is described, we will discuss the functions of ‘the unspeakable‘ as a cultural phenomenon. Philosophers use the term frequently with reference to their culture. In our article we will look at the (...) socio-cultural conditions of the concept of ‘the unspeakable'. While it seems that this concept is universal, functions and meanings of this concept vary depending on the cultural settings. We will examine in this article the functions of this concept comparing the use of it in different cultures with religious and mythological impact expressed in this concept. Furthermore, we will look at the linguistic settings that allow us a construction like ‘the unspeakable' to be used as a representation for something not spoken in speech, but existing in another cultural or transcendental sphere. We will show that the expression serves as a semiotic replacement for issues that could be articulated, but due to cultural limits like religion or myths as act of cultural censorship should not be articulated in speech. (shrink)

Originally written in 1990, this reviews largely late 20th century debates on the study of law as Logic, Discourse, or Experience; the Unity of the Legal System and the Problem of Reference; Semiotic Presuppositions of Traditional Jurisprudence (Austin, Hart, Kelsen, Dworkin, Legal Realisms); then turns to legal philosophies explicitly Employing Forms of Semiotics (Kalinowski, the Italian Analytical School, Rhetorical and Pragmatic Approaches, Sociological and Socio-Linguistic Approaches, Peircian Legal Semiotics, Greimasian Legal Semiotics and Aesthetic/Symbolic Approaches). A major section then offers (...) (from a largely Greimasian point of view) some hypotheses for legal semiotics on the Problem of Reference, Semantic and Pragmatic Levels, Semiotic Groups and “The Legal Culture”, Normativity and Justification, and finally considers the implications for particular legal phenomena: the “Legal System”, Legal Institutions, Legal Codes, Legal Rules, Rights, Courtroom Behaviour: Witness and Counsel, The Judge: Justification of Decisions on Law, and the Criminal Justice Process. A conclusion addresses the status of legal semiotics. (shrink)

Author: Bonecki Mateusz Title: HUMANISTIC INTERPRETATION AND THEORETICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF CULTURE (Interpretacja humanistyczna a teoretyczna rekonstrukcja kultury) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 189-211 Keywords: CULTURE, SOCIO-REGULATORY THEORY OF CULTURE, KMITA, INTERPRETATION, HUMANITIES, FUNCTIONALISM, CULTURAL STUDIES, KULTURWISSENSCHAFTEN Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:In this paper the author presents crucial aspects of Jerzy Kmita’s socio-regulatory conception of culture in order to define it as a theoretical background of (...) “humanistic interpretation”. When the latter is to be understood as a method of explanation of human behavior with regard to its cultural meaning, the theoretical background is provided by variety of research activities which the author defines as “theoretical reconstruction of culture”. They consist in e.g. socio-functional explanation, linguistic and semantic analysis, or even in epistemological considerations, and guarantee theoretically independent justification of the interpretive hypotheses applied in the course of “humanistic interpretation”. Such “reconstruction” specifies further conditions of intersubjective acceptability of the statements within the discourse of humanities and therefore it also limits the subjective and individual character of the attribution of cultural beliefs to the members of a certain cultural community. (shrink)

This article aims to overcome the representational conceptions of landscape in or-der to recover its substantive character. Landscape appears as a semantically ambiguous and tensive concept in both conceptualizations, but if the representational approaches draw on the dualisms of modernity (between nature and culture, subject and object, art and sciences) and understands landscape in terms of a spiritual / artistic / visual construction opposed to nature, a substantive approach towards landscape emphasizes the continuity between the natural and the anthropic and, (...) without denying the constructive potential of subjective or cultural perceptions, endows the geographical forms with the capacity to produce meanings, constraints and socio-political options by means of their aesthetic qualities. The article is divided in five paragraphs: the first four discuss different kinds of representational attitude towards landscape elaborated during the XX century (the cognitive, the idealistic, and the critic approach), while in the fifth paragraph I will pin down some elements to build an integrally substantive conception of landscape, opening the path for further research developments. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis consists of five research papers that address four tangential topics, all of which are relevant for the challenges we are facing in our socio-technical society: information, security, privacy, and anonymity. All topics are approached by similar methods, i.e. with a concern about conceptual and definitional issues. In Paper I—concerning the concept of information and a semantic conception thereof—it is argued that the veridicality thesis is false. In Paper II—concerning information security—it is argued that the current leading (...) definitions suffer from counter-examples, and lack an appropriate conceptual sense. Based on this criticism a new kind of definition is proposed and defended. In Paper III—concerning control definitions of privacy—it is argued that any sensible control-definition of privacy must properly recognize the context as part of the defining criteria. In Paper IV—concerning the concept of privacy—it is argued that privacy is a normative concept and that it is constituted by our social relations. Final, in Paper V—concerning anonymity—it is argued that the threat from deanonymization technology goes beyond harm to anonymity. It is argued that a person who never is deanonymized can still be harmed and what is at stake is an ability to be anonymous. (shrink)