This paper discusses the fundamental sense in which the components of an argument should be relevant to the intended audience. In particular, the evidence advanced should be relevant to the facts and assumptions that are manifest in the cognitive environment of the audience. A version of Sperber and Wilson's concept of the cognitive environment is applied to argumentative concerns, and from this certain features of audience-relevance are explored: that the relevance of a premise can vary (...) with the audience; that irrelevant premises can be made relevant; that evidence can be relevant by degrees; and that this notion of relevance will assist the argumentation analyst in the identification and assessment of hidden premises. (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel longitudinal approach to the study of the rhetorical effects of media by combining Audience Research (e.g. Schrøder et al., 2003), Social Semiotics (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001; van Leeuwen, 1999; Machin and Mayr, 2012) and Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995). After introducing a more nuanced model of RT’s contextual effect, the paper reports an empirical case study to explicate the methodological approach. Evidence is provided that a specific text can have (...) a long-lasting effect on an audience: a hierarchy of effects and the cognitive circumstances under which this may happen are discussed. (shrink)

How does intentional communication evolve? Comparative studies can shed light on the evolutionary history of this relevant feature of human language and its distribution before modern humans. The current animal literature on intentional signaling consists mostly of ape gestural studies with evidence of subjects persisting and elaborating with sometimes arbitrary signals toward a desired outcome. Although vocalizations can also have such imperative qualities, they are typically produced in a functionally fixed manner, as if evolved for a specific purpose. Yet, intentionality (...) can sometimes transpire even in functionally fixed calls, for example, if production is adapted to audience composition. In this study, we carried out field experiments to test whether free-ranging sooty mangabeys adjusted snake alarm call production to their audiences. We found a positive relation between alarm call production and naïve individuals arriving, suggesting that callers attempted to influence their behaviors relative to the snake. Subjects called more with smaller audiences, if they had not heard other calls before, and if socially important individuals were in the area. We concluded that sooty mangabeys alarm call production can be explained as an active attempt to refer to an external event, rather than a mere readout of an internal state. (shrink)

A Relevance-Theoretic Classification of Jokes Relevance Theory pictures communication as an inferential activity that adjusts, in parallel, the explicit content of utterances, the implicated premises and conclusions that can be derived, and the right amount of contextual information needed to obtain them. When applied to jokes, a relevance-theoretic classification may be proposed depending on whether the humorist plays with the audience's inferential activity aimed at an explicit interpretation, with the audience's inference devoted to deriving implications (...) or with their access to the right amount and quality of contextual information needed to obtain relevant interpretations. In this paper three types of jokes are proposed which focus on these aspects. A fourth type is also added, but this time referred to broad contextual assumptions on social or cultural values of society that are targeted by humorists. (shrink)

As web analytics become increasingly common in newsrooms worldwide, it is imperative to understand how they are employed to meet news organizations’ journalistic and business goals. This study examines the evolution and applications of web analytics in newsrooms through a comprehensive analysis of relevant literature. It situates the rise of web analytics in the larger historical, social, and financial context. It explores the strategies news organizations adopt to integrate web analytics in news production. After discussing the impact of analytics on (...) news production, the project juxtaposes the pessimistic ethical concerns—primarily the prediction of market logic uprooting journalistic logic—surrounding the use of web analytics in newsrooms with ground realities. Finally, in view of the analysis, we reflect on the ethical concerns against analytics, the state of editorial autonomy in newsrooms, the implications of newly empowered audience for news ecosystem, and conclude with a practical view of analytics in newsrooms. (shrink)

In public communication contexts, such as when a company announces the proposal for an important organizational change, argumentation typically involves multiple audiences, rather than a single and homogenous group, let alone an individual interlocutor. In such cases, an exhaustive and precise characterization of the audience structure is crucial both for the arguer, who needs to design an effective argumentative strategy, and for the external analyst, who aims at reconstructing such a strategic discourse. While the peculiar relevance of multiple (...) audience is often emphasized in the argumentation literature and in rhetorical studies, proposals for modelling multi-audience argumentative situations remain scarce and unsystematic. To address this gap, we propose an analytical framework which integrates three conceptual constructs: Rigotti and Rocci’s notion of communicative activity type, understood as the implementation of an interaction scheme into a piece of institutional reality, named interaction field; the stakeholder concept, originally developed in strategic management and public relations studies to refer to any actor who affects and/or is affected by the organizational actions and who, accordingly, carries an interest in them; the concept of participant role as it emerges from Goffman’s theory of conversation analysis and related linguistic and media studies. From this integration, we derive the notion of text stakeholder for referring to any organizational actor whose interest becomes an argumentative issue which the organizational text must account for in order to effectively achieve its communicative aim. The text stakeholder notion enables a more comprehensive reconstruction and characterization of multiple audience by eliciting the relevant participants staged in a text and identifying, for each of them, the interactional role they have, the peculiar interest they bear and the related argumentative issue they create. Considering as an illustrative case the defense document issued by a corporation against a hostile takeover attempt made by another corporation, we show how this framework can support the analysis of strategic maneuvering by better defining the audience demand and, so, better explaining how real arguers design and adapt their topical and presentational choices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 38-52 [Access article in PDF] Artist-Audience Communication: Tolstoy Reclaimed Saam Trivedi Whoever is really conversant with art recognizes in [Tolstoy's What is Art?] the voice of the master.1There has to be some presumption that, as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, Tolstoy might actually have known what he was talking about.2It is widely accepted in contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics that, (...) despite Tolstoy's own literary achievements, his "moralism" about art is a view without much merit. For the most part, I concur with this current consensus about Tolstoy. However, despite the many flaws in his view, I think Tolstoy was on to something, after all. In particular, I believe a concept of artist-audience communication similar to what Tolstoy had in mind can be fleshed out so as to avoid the problems that Tolstoy ran into, while reclaiming the insights in his view.3In what follows, I begin by suggesting briefly that recognizing a quasi-Tolstoyan concept of artist-audience communication may have important implications for how we should approach artworks, and thus also for aesthetic education. Next, I spell out this concept. I then offer trenchant criticisms of Tolstoy's view. Finally, I point out affinities between Tolstoy's concept and mine, while also distinguishing my concept of artist-audience communication from Tolstoy's concept of artistic communication. It will emerge, I hope, that while I disagree more than agree with Tolstoy, the issues where I agree with him may be more significant. Artist-Audience Communication I begin by discussing briefly how talk of a quasi-Tolstoyan artist-audience communication bears relevance for how we should approach artworks, and thus has relevance for aesthetic education. If I am right, then in approaching [End Page 38] and experiencing artworks, we should seek a correct experiential understanding of them that is shared between the artist and audience, and between ourselves and other members of the audience. This does not meanthat we seek what the artist did intend in creating the artwork, as actual intentionalism would have us do. Rather, as members of a competent audience, we should first analyze what a given artwork means by attending to the work itself.4 This includes the broad art-historical context of production (including the period, style, category, or genre of the work; the artist's public persona; the oeuvre of the artist; works by the artist's contemporaries; the social, cultural, and political milieu of the artist; and so on) and the public conventions that apply to it. In cases of irony, satire, and allusion, we may also need to broaden the context and appeal to artistic intentions. Then we should attribute this "work-meaning" to the historical artist as part of what she or he could have intended, so long as this was historically possible. If this historically possible work-meaning coincides with what she or he did intend in that artistic intentions are successfully realized in the work, then we have a real sharing of a correct, experiential understanding of the work between artist and audience, and thus real communication between them in the sense of artist-audience communication explained above. On the other hand, if what the artist did intend is not realized in the work and thus does not coincide with work-meaning as part of what she or he could have intended, then we still have at least a minimal, hypothetical sharing and communication insofar as our correct, experiential understanding of the work is shared with what the artist could have intended.This bears relevance for aesthetic education, assuming one of the purposes of aesthetic education is to teach children and other newcomers to art how to appreciate artworks.5 In teaching people how to appreciate artworks, I suggest we emphasize the shared, communicative aspects of the experience of artworks when they are understood more or less correctly. We should tell them that they should seek to communicate with the artist via the artwork, trying to understand the artwork correctly in the very experience of the... (shrink)

En matière d'audience, la qualité technique du dispositif de mesure ne suffit pas. La pertinence des concepts mesurés et leur insertion dans un processus de prise de décision sont déterminants. Les chaînes généralistes bénéficient de toute une tradition préalable à l'audimétrie et d'un savoir qualitatif permettant une utilisation complexe de données d'audience en phase avec leur économie. À l'inverse, les chaînes thématiques sont dépendantes de chiffres insuffisants à eux seuls pour juger de leur viabilité économique et qui sont (...) utilisés à défaut de tout autre outil de réflexion. Elles feraient bien de tirer parti des leçons de la crise des sites web pour comprendre que leur économie ne repose pas principalement sur leur part d'audience, mais plutôt sur la satisfaction d'un public fidèle et sur un équilibre entre coûts réels et recettes à court terme.In the field of audience ratings, the technical quality of the measurement device is not enough. The relevance of the measured concepts and their insertion in a process of decision-making are crucial. The traditional TV channels benefit from a whole tradition that existed before the introduction of viewing figures and also have qualitative know-how permitting complex use of audience data in phase with their economic profile. Conversely, thematic TV channels depend on viewing figures which are not enough on their own to judge the channels’ economic viability and which are used in the absence of any other review and reflection tools. They would be advised to learn from the crisis faced by certain Web sites that their economy is not principally based on their market share but rather on the satisfaction of a faithful public and on balancing between real costs and short-term turnover. (shrink)

Older people are an increasingly important consumer group and hence advertising target, yet relatively little research in the UK and in Europe has examined how older adults are portrayed in advertising. In this study, a sample of 221 magazine advertisements depicting older adults were coded for features such as the advertised products, setting, role prominence, rhetorical scheme, tone and type of portrayal. In a departure from previous studies, we devised a set of six descriptive ‘types’ which encapsulate the way older (...) people are portrayed in these advertisements. Also, and as the main focus of this paper, we compared a magazine designed for people over 50 to ten general readership magazines in order to investigate any differences in the portrayal of older adults in age-targeted vs. general readership advertising. Previous research on old age stereotyping, social identity theory and inter-group theory form the basis of our analysis. (shrink)

Although personal relevance is key to sustaining an audience’s interest in any given narrative, it has received little systematic attention in scholarship to date. Across centuries and media, adaptations have been used extensively to bring temporally or geographically distant narratives “closer” to the recipient under the assumption that their impact will increase. In this review article, we review experimental and other empirical evidence on narrative processing in order to unravel which types of personal relevance are more likely (...) to be impactful than others, which types of impact (e.g. aesthetic, therapeutic, persuasive) they have been found to generate, and where their power may become excessive or outright detrimental to reader experience. (shrink)

British cultural studies, represented perhaps chiefly by the so-called Birmingham School, is much marked by its strong orientation towards the application of grounded theory in the analysis of concrete cases, rather than the development of abstract Theory with a Capital T (in Stuart Hall’s words). As a leading figure of the Birmingham School and a key representative of the active audience model in television studies, or broadly, media studies, David Morley stands at a point where this trend was set, (...) as is evidenced in this interview. Questioned by Huimin Jin, Morley puts his audience studies into the contexts of British cultural studies, postmodernism, Marxism, social movements, and so on; and in doing so, he shows the ambiguity, and subtlety of his concepts of how to best theorize the active audience. Only by this method, Jin believes, could Morley launch his version of audience studies, which aims not to invent a general theory of media effects, but to use an interdisciplinary range of theories to explore how people actually respond to a TV programme; and only by this approach to audience studies, furthermore, could Morley develop a theory of the audience’s activity, which is embedded in the course of their everyday life and that cannot be thoroughly colonized by discourses. Cultural studies, wherever it is conducted, therefore, Morley suggests, has to construct modes of analysis that are relevant to its own conditions of production in a particular place, at a particular time. This is the tradition, as we know it, but also the future, as Morley envisages, of cultural studies. (shrink)

La mesure d'audience, comme toute statistique, est une construction qui tente de rendre compte du réel. Elle constitue une application des sondages et doit son originalité à ses implications économiques, puisque les résultats d'audience constituent la clé de répartition de la manne publicitaire et conditionnent la viabilité de la plupart des supports. Si la notion d'audience est simple , la définition de cette «exposition» et la manière de la relever sont problématiques. D'où un certain nombre de conventions, (...) différentes selon les médias, pour aboutir à une délimitation plausible des faits d'audience, malgré la multiplicité des modalités selon lesquelles un individu est susceptible d'entrer en contact avec un média et les contraintes inhérentes au recueil d'information.Audience measurement, like any other form of statistics, is a construction which tries to report reality. It consists of an application of surveys and owes its originality to its economical involvement, since audience results are seen as the key to the distribution of advertising revenue and also condition the economical viability of most media. The notion of audience is relatively simple but the definition of this "exposure" and the methods required to survey it remain problematical. Thus one may conclude that a certain amount of conventions exist to help reach a plausible delimitation of audience facts, despite the multiplicity of means by which an individual is likely to come into contact with a media and the constraints inherent to the information collected. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the notion of relevance as it appears in debates within the philosophy of art. ;Chapter one begins by exploring the extent to which notions of relevance inform many of the central debates within the philosophy of art. I distinguish some contexts in which questions about relevance arise and show that there are at least two importantly distinct notions of relevance that get referred to in the literature---a metaphysical notion and an epistemological notion. Chapter (...) two addresses a recent challenge posed by Mary Mothersill to the applicability of the concept of relevance in the aesthetic domain. I argue that Mothersill presents no good reasons to think relevance fails to apply in the artistic domain. Chapter three explores and criticizes the main candidate theories of aesthetic relevance. I argue that causal-psychological theories of aesthetic relevance suffer from two flaws: they fail to capture the normative aspect of relevance; and they unreasonably restrict the effects relevant information must have on audiences. The natural successor to psychological theories of aesthetic relevance---an ideal observer account---does a better job of capturing the normativity of relevance but suffers from the difficulty of determining what counts as an ideal observer in the artistic realm. Chapter four is devoted to exploring and criticizing the widespread view that artistic value is a form of instrumental value determined solely by the valuable experiences works of art can provide. I show that the arguments that purport to establish that the non-experiential effects of art are irrelevant to artistic value and evaluation are fatally flawed. The fifth and final chapter focuses on the connection between artistic value and relevance. I argue that both essentialist and anti-essentialist theories of artistic value fail to deal satisfactorily with the issue of relevance. I then argue for a pragmatic and relativist conception of relevance. This leads to a pragmatic and relativist conception of artistic evaluation. (shrink)

To whom, if anyone, are the writings of philosophers of science relevant? There are three potential groups of people: Philosophers, Scientists, and Interested Citizens, within and beyond the academy. I argue that our discipline is potentially relevant to all three, but I particularly press the claims of the Interested Citizens. My essay is in dialogue with a characteristically insightful lecture given thirty years ago by Arthur Fine. Addressing the Philosophy of Science Association as its president, Fine argued that general philosophy (...) of science was dead, and that all the action lay in the philosophy of the special sciences. I try to identify what was correct about Fine’s diagnosis, while supplementing his message by describing fruitful projects that have since emerged. I also hope to share his subversive spirit. (shrink)

Despite increased attention since 2015, there is little consensus on why audiences believe or share disinformation. In our study, we propose a shift in analytical perspective by applying the concept of resilience. Through a systematic literature review (n = 95), we identify factors that have been linked to individuals’ resilience and vulnerability to disinformation thus far. Our analysis reveals twelve factors: thinking styles, political ideology, worldview and beliefs, pathologies, knowledge, emotions, (social) media use, demographics, perceived control, trust, culture, and environment. (...) By applying the results to the socio-ecological model (SEM), we provide a comprehensive view on what constitutes resilience to disinformation, delineate between different levels of influence, and identify relevant gaps in research. Our conceptualization contributes to an under-theorized field, in which the term resilience is much used yet rarely sufficiently defined. (shrink)

In the spring of 1985, 272 upper?class and graduate students from four large journalism schools completed a questionnaire indicating their beliefs on issues relevant to media ethics. Respondents indicated a strong tendency to follow their audiences rather than their personal beliefs, when the two conflict, in making editorial judgments. They also placed high emphasis on audience research rather than on audience needs not fully appreciated by audience members. Contrary to what recent research literature suggests, those inclined to (...) stress audience research most tended to subscribe to a least common denominator mode, rather than an audience segmentation approach, when taking their audiences into account as prospective professional communicators. Results are considered in light of four postulates derived from recent literature on ethics. (shrink)

Assessing the quality of translation is never straightforward and rarely objective. Context, audience, text type, function and lexis are only some of the criteria that need to be taken into account. In the case of constrained intersemiotic translation, subtitling being a prime example thereof, determining universal criteria for assessment is particularly testing. Often referred to as “necessary evil”, audiovisual translation needs to avoid distracting the audience, while aiding their comprehension of the audiovisual message. This is particularly the case (...) for additive AVT, for instance subtitling, where the translation does not replace the original, but coexists with it. Relevance Theory, a controversial but flexible approach to communication, may provide a viable framework for gauging subtitling quality. The interplay between relevance, communicative intention and processing effort can help explain the rationale behind the process of decision-making in the practice of AVT. This paper provides a theoretical foundation for the application of Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory to interlingual subtitling, followed by an analysis of selected examples from a large corpus of mostly English-language movies, series and documentaries streamed on Netflix with Polish subtitles. Though the corpus is Polish-centred, the research conclusions are intended to be universal enough to apply regardless of the language pair. (shrink)

This article argues that a theory of media selectivity needs a theory of attention, because attention to a media stimulus is the starting point of each process of reception. Attention sequences towards media stimuli – pages of newspapers and online-newspapers – were analyzed using eye-tracking patterns from three different perspectives. First, attention patterns were compared under varying task conditions. Second, different types of media were tested. Third, attention sequences towards different forms of news with different design patterns were compared. Attention (...) was seen as a prerequisite for reception: Its selective functions for these processes are especially important. Reception itself was examined within an action-theoretical framework and therefore described as a form of interaction between recipient and the media. Eye-tracking data were used as indicators of attention. Starting with a hypothesis on the impact of different media such as printed newspapers and online newspapers on the agenda-setting process of their audience, the study examined how the type of media and the form of news influences attention and selectivity. Our findings showed that visual cues such as salient photos or graphics and information hierarchies signalled by design and layout guide attention processes, not as an automatic process driven from the bottom up, but as stimuli for an active, intention-driven selection process. The results indicate that the form of news affects these patterns of interactive attention more than the medium itself. (shrink)

Schopenhauer had important things to say about ethics in both normative and meta-ethical senses, but his impact on the evolution of moral theory has been minimized by the unfortunate neglect of his philosophy in general. A contemporary assessment of his ethical views reveals that they are both imaginative and interesting, not least because they challenge assumptions held by more canonical figures in the history of philosophy, both before and after his time. Since the roots of ethics are currently being vigorously (...) re-examined, it is regrettable that Schopenhauer's ideas have been omitted from mainstream discussion in the field. I attempt to remedy this lack by investigating how his ethics of compassion contributes to the following areas: reconciling ethics with strict determinism; naturalizing ethics; developing the philosophy of education; seeking inner peace and world peace; re-visioning our relationship with non-human animals and the environment. As this list indicates, Schopenhauer's moral theory has relevance for a much wider audience, beyond the limited sphere of professional philosophy. And because the world is in dire need of moral rejuvenation, any inspiration provided by a major thinker such as Schopenhauer should be heartily welcomed. While certain internal problems are posed by his metaphysical and epistemological doctrines, we can see past these in order to appropriate the living insights still to be found in Schopenhauer's ethical thought. (shrink)

Scholars studying the ethical, legal, and social issues associated with emerging technologies maintain the importance of considering these issues throughout the research and development cycle, even during the earliest stages of basic research. Embedding these considerations within the scientific process requires communication between ELSI scholars and the community of physical scientists who are conducting that basic research. We posit that this communication can be effective on a broad scale only if it links societal issues directly to characteristics of the emerging (...) technology that are relevant to the physical and natural scientists involved in research and development. In this article, we examine nano-ELSI literature from 2003 to 2010 to discern the degree to which it makes these types of explicit connections. We find that, while the literature identifies a wide range of issues of societal concern, it generally does so in a non-specific manner. It neither links societal issues to particular forms or characteristics of widely divergent nanotechnologies nor to any of the many potential uses to which those nanotechnologies may be put. We believe that these kinds of specificity are essential to those engaged in nano-scale research. We also compare the literature-based findings to observations from interviews we conducted with nanoscientists and conclude that ELSI scholars should add technical- and application-related forms of specificity to their work and their writings to enhance effectiveness and impact in communicating with one important target audience—members of the nanoscale science community. (shrink)

Here's the thing: when you look at it from just the right angle, it's entirely obvious how semantics for second-order relevant logics ought to go. Or at least, if you've understood how semantics for first-order relevant logics ought to go, there are perspectives like this. What's more is that from any such angle, the metatheory that needs doing can be summed up in one line: everything is just as in the first-order case, but with more indices. Of course, it's no (...) small matter finding the magical angle from which everything becomes obvious. And even having found this perspective, one cannot assume one's audience will find things as obvious as oneself. All that to say this: if the results in the paper below strike you as obvious, pay attention to the perspective that makes that possible. And if they don't, feel free to ignore this preamble in its entirety. (shrink)

Derived from Heidegger's interpretation of attractive force with a high volume of inspired beauty care and a master not only the followers. And in order to maintain this special, he followed the great classical psychologists: Ferdinand learning. He also won in the traditional school psychology professor at the certificate, but his real motive is not subject to the ancient hope臘Heidegger was carried out by the interpretation of the full amount of impact force. Nevertheless, Heidegger's classic is still up to the (...) United States: "true management and methods" to maintain significant influence over. Up to the United States as a major interpreter of Heidegger's thinking, and faithful friend. In about two more people, I turned to introduce three other in Heidegger, Gadamer's major research on the influence of the philosopher: Park Latin chart, sub-km Aristotle and Hegel. First we look at the future Park Latin chart, I think the focus on conversation and dialogue up to the United States and the "dialectic dialogue" concept. The relative importance of making it true, so true that people with reasonable doubt and dialogue. Although there are many plans to pull up to the United States Park effect, but I make up as two points and a U.S. interlocutor's talent and try to prove. I have given up by the United States with three coming from Aristotle's concept of sub-km: wise , mimetic and tragedy. Wise is to predict the results of practical wisdom for the rational, he does not see a formula-based learning, as can be, but based on life experience. That mimic the Department of Aristotle in the sub-km only copy, and is reasonable in real life, the ultimate communicator. Finally, the tragedy is not the only sub-km Aristotle considers the six parts of the structure, but compassion and fear the experience of change in the audience angle of view, it is up to the United States in view of the viewer's experience of understanding and application, is a kind of tragedy action meaningful participation and experience. Beneficiary of up to U.S. history in Hegel's awareness of personal, Hegel's dialectic, as well as their knowledge to the arts is the current acceptance of the senses. He does not agree with Hegel referred to the "art of the past things," Hegel explains how this point. Shortly we will be able to see the remarkable work of art as a nervous balcony. Let me give you a visit in Heidelberg, Heidegger's experience in the United States up to the lecture, he objected to clarify and to hide his own dialectic and Hegel's dialectic with links, because at the end of Hegel's philosophy of total abstraction knowledge. In the second part of this lecture, I turned to the analysis of Gadamer's thesis on the art of "the relevance of the United States," and Heidegger in this direction is the famous "Art works of origin> thesis compared. In the late writings, Heidegger shows that there is not his main independent and self-study will be presented in the art of the earth and the world as a tension. In Gadamer's thesis in art, he follows Heidegger in the hope臘by establishing the art of human culture, learn the origin of works of art ontology analysis. He discussed all the cultural roots of the game , the difference between symbolic meaning and religious ceremonies. But he formed an art theory of the problem to analyze, it also clarifies the classical art and contemporary abstract art. In these three elements: the game, symbols and festivals, art up to the United States to find a structure is more deep cultural roots. As in the early hope臘ceremony, dance performances and tragedy. Gadamer's encounter with the magnetic force of Heidegger's interpretations made him cautious not to become simply a follower of the great master. To maintain his independence, he studied with Paul Friedländer, the great classical philologist. He attained certification in classical philology to teach in the secondary schools, but his true motive was to be able to resist the powerful interpretations of Greek philosophy put forward by Heidegger. Nevertheless, Heidegger remained a major leavening influence on Gadamer's classic, Truth and Method, and Gadamer became a major interpreter of Heidegger's thought, and a constant friend. After a few comparisons between them, I turn to three major philosophers other than Heidegger who contributed concepts to Gadamer's masterwork: Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel. Regarding Plato, I point to the emphasis in Gadamer on dialogue and conversation and the concept of eumeneis elenchoi, the respect the opponent that recognizes that he could be right, so they join together in dialogue in quest of the truth. Although there are many other debts to Plato in Gadamer, I point to these two and testify to Gadamer's gifts as a conversationalist and debater. I single out three concepts of Aristotle that Gadamer used: phronesis, mimesis, and tragedy. Phronesis is the practical wisdom that goes beyond calculative reason. It is based not on formulas that can be learned but on experience of life . Mimesis in Aristotle is not just copying, but on a recognition that ultimately conveyed truth about life. Finally, tragedy for Aristotle is not just a structure with six parts but an experience of pity and terror that transformed the perspective of the viewer. This was important in the hermeneutics of Gadamer that looked at the viewer's experience of recognition and application, a participatory experience of the meaning of the action of the tragedy. Gadamer is indebted to Hegel for the historical character of consciousness, the Hegelian dialectic, and the recognition that that art is a sensuous representation of the real. He did not agree with Hegel that art was a thing of the past, and also explained what Hegel meant by this: we no longer saw art as a disclosure of the divine. I mention an experience I had of Heidegger's visit to Heidelberg, where he spoke after Gadamer's lecture rejecting his effort to connect his dialect of clearing and concealing with Hegelian dialectic, because Hegel's philosophy always ended in absolute knowledge. For the second major part of the lecture, I turn to an analysis of Gadamer's essay on art, The Relevance of the Beautiful , comparable in a way to Heidegger's famous lectures on The Origin of the Work of Art . In the latter work, Heidegger declares his independence of his masterwork and presents art in terms of the tension between earth and world. In Gadamer's essay on art, he goes beyond the Heideggerian emphasis on the ontology of the artwork by seeking to establish the anthropological roots of art in Greek culture. He discusses the roots of all culture in play, the significance of the symbol, and the meaning of religious festivals. But he begins with an analysis of the problem of formulating a theory of art that does justice both to classical art and contemporary nonrepresentational art. In all three elements, play, symbol, and festival, Gadamer finds a foundation for art in the deep roots of our culture as found in the ritual, dance, and tragic plays of ancient Greece. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence commonly claimed to show the presence of slaves in the audience of Plautus’ comedies (above all the evidence of his prologue toPoenulus) and to argue that it more probably shows the opposite, that slaves werenotpresent, or at least were expected not to be. The question is given some urgency by the appearance of Amy Richlin's new book, which takes the presence of slaves in the audience for granted and (...) builds on it to develop a view of Plautine comedy as addressing the experiences, hopes and fears of those slaves. Richlin cites thePoenulusprologue at pages 89–90, accepting it without detailed discussion as indicating the presence of slaves in the audience; and it has been cited similarly in standard handbooks from which I quote a representative sample of remarks below. Some scholars have said things in passing which suggest a different conclusion, but they too have not discussed the question in detail or examined the other evidence that has been thought relevant to the issue. I think that the time is ripe for closer scrutiny of all this evidence. (shrink)

This essay departs from conventional American Studies treatments to resituate Bellamy's utopia of 1888 within transnational debates over industrialism, socialism, and the state in European nations and their settler societies between 1890 and 1940. Building upon critical studies and information about the reception of Bellamy's utopia abroad, it offers three approaches: a genre-based analysis of the utopian hybrid that suggests textual bases for multiple readings; a transnational history of evolutionary socialism that helps explain Bellamy's global relevance in the 1890s (...) and again in the 1930s; and a comparative approach that contrasts the reception of Looking Backward in different national contexts. In the face of traditionally exceptionalist scholarship and the narrower, nationalistic frame of Bellamy's sequel, Equality, to understand Bellamy's global appeal we must recover the international context of Looking Backward and the internationalist views expressed in its pages. (shrink)

In any field, we might expect different features relevant to its understanding and development to receive attention at different times, depending on the stage of that field’s growth and the interests that occupy theorists and even the history of the theorists themselves. In the relatively young life of argumentation theory, at least as it has formed a body of issues with identified research questions, attention has almost naturally been focused on the central concern of the field—arguments. Focus is also given (...) to the nature of arguers and the position of the evaluator, who is often seen as possessing a “God’s-eye view” (Hamblin 1970). Less attention, however, has been paid in the philosophical literature to the .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual TraditionsRonnie LittlejohnRationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual Traditions. By Henry Rosemont, Jr.Chicago: Open Court, 2001. Pp. vii + 106.In April 2000, Henry Rosemont delivered the first Hsuan Hua Memorial Lecture at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley. The following year, this lecture—originally titled "Whither the World's Religions?"—was published by Open (...) Court in this small book, Rationality and Religious Experience: The Continuing Relevance of the World's Spiritual Traditions. The volume is divided into four sections: (1) the lecture itself, which has the new title "Rationality and Religious Experience"; (2) a commentary by Huston Smith; (3) response and discussion, in which Rosemont replies to Smith and takes questions from the audience; and (4) an epilogue, in which Rosemont makes revisions and expansions on the lecture based on the comments and discussion.In section 1, Rosemont makes a bold claim: "By urging everyone to approach their own text tradition afresh, and alongside others, I am assuming what many of you might find implausible, namely, that in many basic respects all sacred texts are saying the same things, and contain the same truths we can all come to believe without in any way surrendering our rationality" (p. 11). Having said this, he nonetheless does not mean that we can accept the statements of religious texts as stating factual truths, much less that they are putting forward identical descriptions of the world.Rosemont faces the epistemological difficulties of religion directly, saying that we cannot accept the statements of religious texts as factual accounts of the world. He reminds us that it is not merely the Abrahamic traditions that pose an epistemological problem for us: "It no less flies in the face of modern science to believe that the preserver god Vishnu once incarnated himself as Krishna, not merely to give counsel to the spiritual warrior Arjuna, but also, among many other exploits, to make love to 20,000 milkmaids in a single day" (p. 5). Even so, he holds that there is much truth in the sacred texts and narratives of the world's religions (pp. 31-32). As will become apparent in my later remarks, it is not altogether clear to me what sort of truth Rosemont is talking about, but it seems to be more a matter of a certain ego-reduction and a sort of mystical feeling than anything else.Rosemont recognizes not only the epistemological objections to religion, but also the moral ones. He understands the violence and suffering that has been directly and indirectly associated with religion in human history. Yet, in this connection, he says:[E]fforts to exorcise religion from the human realm because of the mischief that has been committed in its name is to throw out the baby with the bath water, and equally to suggest a third response, that there is no hope for the cross-cultural dialogues necessary for [End Page 404] the creation and maintenance of a more peaceful and just twenty-first century until and unless everyone can come to understand how an intelligent and thoroughly decent human being might come to be, or remain, a subscriber to one or another of the world's faiths.(p. 10)It is the phenomenon of spiritual experience and not the doctrine or ontology of any tradition that Rosemont finds of philosophical interest. He thinks that instead of focusing on some purported factual knowledge about the world that we are to believe directly, we should instead concentrate on the instructions that the traditions offer about how to live purposively in the world and derive nonmaterial nurturance from it. "The basis of such nurturance is religious experience" (p. 17).Rosemont begins his remarks on religious experience with a critique of Kierkegaard the purpose of which is to show that lived experience is of one piece. Rosemont attributes to Kierkegaard the position that there are distinguishable and autonomously separable spheres of existence such as the aesthetic, ethical, and spiritual. Speaking of Kierkegaard's three stages, he says that "Almost all of the world's religious traditions, especially the Asian, affirm... (shrink)

In this article I critically discuss some recent English language books in African philosophy. Specifically, I expound and evaluate key claims from books published by sub-Saharan thinkers since 2017 that address epistemology, metaphysics, and value theory and that do so in ways of interest to an audience of at least Anglo-American-Australasian analytic philosophers. My aim is not to establish a definitive conclusion about these claims, but rather to facilitate cross-cultural engagement by highlighting their relevance particularly to many western (...) philosophers and by presenting challenges to these claims that such philosophers would be likely to mount. (shrink)

BERTRAND RUSSELL ON MODALITY AND LOGICAL RELEVANCE - SECOND EDITION of 2015. Praise for the first edition of 1999: "In the twenty-nine years since Russell's death, much of the major scholarship has drawn heavily on his manuscripts and unpublished correspondence. The author shows that the published Russell is capable of new interpretations; in particular, that modal notions such as possibility have a greater place in various aspects of his logical and philosophical thought than has been previously imagined." -Ivor Grattan-Guinness, (...) Foreword to the first edition. EXCERPT FROM PUBLISHED REVIEW: "Dejnožka's book is the first full-length study of modality in Russell. It is useful for its very full survey of passages in which Russell makes use of or alludes to modal notions. Dejnožka's command of Russell's huge output is indeed impressive and his utilization of it thorough...." - Nicholas Griffin, Studia Logica. EXCERPT FROM PUBLISHED REVIEW: "Dejnožka's book raises a very important point in the history of formal logic. Until now the major studies on this topic have drawn heavily on the development of classical logic as standardized by Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. Dejnožka challenges the reader to open his mind for a new interpretation of Russell's work, in particular that modal and relevance notions have a greater place in his philosophy of logic than has been stressed before.... "Dejnožka rightly observes that many of Russell's insights on modality are a result of his discussions with Hugh MacColl, who was indeed the first to seriously attempt to develop formal modal logic. This particularly applies to Russell's conception of a modal logic without modal operators....That is, classical logic can be used to simulate modal expressions. Thus, the notions of (logical) necessity and possibility are not 'fundamental notions'....On this basis, Dejnožka develops a higher level of modality, where the quantification scope extends to the predicates yielding what Russell calls 'fully general propositions'.... "The best studied translation method is known as the standard translation, and it is quite compatible with Dejnožka's suggestions.... "Dejnožka's book is full of material which stimulates [one] to rethink Russell's philosophy of logic and...it is greatly to the author's credit that he brings to light such a wealth of crucial issues in the history and philosophy of logic. - Shahid Rahman, History and Philosophy of Logic. BOOK DESCRIPTION: This book is the only exhaustive study of Russell on modality and logical relevance ever written. This is the second edition, revised over a period of over sixteen years, and over twice as long. Russell initially rejects the possibility of a modal logic in an unpublished paper written ca. 1903-05 and read to an audience in 1905. But the very next year, he adopts the theory of modality he had rejected, and he repeats that theory in published works for many years to come. That theory, together with other texts scattered among Russell's writings, implies eight modal logics which Russell himself never expressly accepted. And Russell's express acceptance of the early Wittgenstein's theory of entailment ("following from") as truth-ground containment implies a deductive relevance logic in Russell's writings which Russell himself never expressly accepted. The book ends with a look at John Maynard Keynes and Anglo-American evidence law as the origins of Russell's theory of probability as degree of logical relevance. Thus the book is written toward the reunion of modern classical logicians with modal logicians and relevantists. On the reunion of modern classical logicians with relevantists, please see also The Concept of Relevance and the Logic Diagram Tradition (2012). Thus I hope to have created two new fields of Russell studies. I may have created a new legal field as well: the history of logical relevance in evidence law: 132 pages (368-500) in chapter 10. (shrink)

I have a painfully vivid memory of performing the Venezuelan choreographer Vincente Nebrada’s ballet Pentimento.After graduating from high school at age 15 and before entering college, I spent a number of years working as a professional ballet dancer with North Carolina Dance Theatre , among other companies. I was a new member of North Carolina Dance Theatre, and although the company had presented the piece on a number of occasions, this was the first time the director was watching from the (...) audience rather than the wings. In the middle of a pas de deux, I choked big time and blanked out on the choreography; try as I may, I could not remember a single step. My partner, who had been with the company for years, knew what was going on and manipulated my limbs until something clicked and I was able to find the choreography again. Following the performance, when we gathered onstage for notes, the director was so appalled that the only comme .. (shrink)

Plato and Aristotle both consider the arts to be forms of mimesis , but their meanings of mimesis do not entirely overlap. Plato employs the term mimesis with several meanings, which include reproducing the speeches, tones, and gestures of another person; the making of accurate copies or likeness of real objects; impersonating another person; and representing men in action. But his emphasis was on mimesis as the production of accurate copies of real objects , and the reproduction of speeches and (...) gestures of another person , and this has led him to conclude that artists are making redundant reproductions that contribute nothing to knowledge. Worse, these artists sometimes even mislead or deceive their spectators. He claims that painters deceive foolish men and children into believing that what they painted were real objects, and poets deceive by making false claims about the gods and heroes from legend . Hence, artists have no place in Plato’s ideal republic; and they must be expelled if they choose to stay. Although agreeing with Plato’s definition of mimesis, Aristotle defended the arts by emphasizing artistic mimesis as the representation of human action. As representations of human action, art goes beyond the production of accurate copies of the original because it has its own rules of unification and integration of parts, which enables the spectators to view artworks as coherent and intelligible wholes. Unlike the historian, the poet or dramatist describes events to satisfy the conditions of artistic unity, and it is never his intention to claim that the events he describes really took place . Plato never reached this conclusion that artworks are actually not merecopies but are entities existing in their own right, with their own rules of internal structuring that enable them to be presented as unified wholes, which means they can be intelligible to the audience without reference to originals existing in the real world. And this is because Plato did not emphasize art as representations of human action, and he chose instead to see them as mere copies or reproductions of originals existing in this world. My chief contributions would be, firstly, to show how Aristotle’s notion of mimesis distinguishes claims made in works of art from similar assertions made in the social sciences; and secondly, to support certain interpretations of artistic unity and coherence through my employment of textual analysis of the Poetics. (shrink)

Contrary to the narrative of collapse that attends much of the discussion of the humanities today, recent data suggest that for many programs in the United States, at least, stagnation is the real challenge. Committed to teaching models that support faculty rather than student needs, graduate programs, in particular, are struggling to extend their reach beyond an established constituency of students interested in traditional disciplinary specialization and academic research. By emphasizing the teaching of empathy and communication, which underlie the various (...) humanities disciplines, pursuing inter- and transdisciplinary teaching within and beyond the humanities, and securing administrative support for academic innovation, programs can find and serve a larger graduate student audience. Facing unique financial pressures, smaller colleges may prove more open to such innovation and merit greater attention in the discussion of the future of humanities graduate education. (shrink)

Kierkegaard makes a controversial and little-understood claim: irony, humor, and the comic are essential to ethics and religion. This account, grounded in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, explicates that idea for a philosophical and theological audience with a level of conceptual analysis never seen before in Kierkegaard scholarship.

Communication by scientists with policy makers and attentive publics raises ethical issues. Scientists need to decide how to communicate knowledge effectively in a way that nonscientists can understand and use, while remaining honest scientists and presenting estimates of the uncertainty of their inferences. They need to understand their own ethical choices in using scientific information to communicate to audiences. These issues were salient in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with respect to possible sea level rise (...) from disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Due to uncertainty, the reported values of projected sea level rise were incomplete, potentially leading some relevant audiences to underestimate future risk. Such judgments should be made in a principled rather than an ad hoc manner. Five principles for scientific communication under such conditions are important: honesty, precision, audience relevance, process transparency, and specification of uncertainty about conclusions. Some of these principles are of intrinsic importance while others are merely instrumental and subject to trade-offs among them. Scientists engaged in assessments under uncertainty should understand these principles and which trade-offs are acceptable. (shrink)

Aristotle in the central chapters of his Sophistical Refutations gives advice on how to counter unfair argumentation by similar means, all the while taking account not only of the adversary's arguments in themselves, but also of his philosophical commitments and state of mind, as well as the impression produced on the audience. This has offended commentators, and made most of them, medieval and modern alike, pass lightly over the relevant passages. A commentary that received the last touch in the (...) very early 13th century is more perceptive because, it is argued, the commentator had lived in a 12th-century environment of competing Parisian schools that was in important respects similar to the one of Aristotle's Athens. (shrink)

This study analyzes the interests of Spanish audiences in travel magazines within the current context of press consumption. The objectives are to identify the readers' reading frequency and reasons for reading, what contents interest them, and what aspects of the photographs attract them. The methodology involves a structured questionnaire completed by a representative sample of the Spanish population (n=1000). The main results reveal a low reading frequency, great interest in practical information, preference for landscape photography (over the age of 54) (...) and nightlife photography (young people), and indifference regarding the journalistic source of the images. These data provide relevant information on which to adapt travel magazines' content strategy. (shrink)

This paper corroborates the claim that soft hate speech develops argumentative inferences that justify discriminatory hatred, all the while helping establish a common ground of exclusionary and denigrating attitudes in society. Through the prism of Critical Discourse Studies, we synthesise ideas coming from the domains of Argumentation Theory and Cognitive Pragmatics, while drawing on examples from a corpus of comments made in response to LGBTQI + -related articles in Greek news portals. On the one hand, we employ the Argumentum Model (...) of Topics, which enables us to break down how standpoint-argument couplings are inferred in discourse, showcasing how, despite not being overtly argumentative, the relevant discourses can be taken to still manifest an inherent argumentativity that justifies the development of discriminatory stances. Turning, on the other, to Relevance Theory and more specifically its specific approach to communication, which underlines the automaticity by which contextual interpretation takes place, we present a way in which, even though not directly communicated, the denigrated attitudes that are embedded in instances of soft hate speech still manage to creep in an audience’s cognitive environment. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is defined by the need to create a set of linguistic means, which would contribute to effective communication with the general public, and the need to study different functional-semantic categories, including appeals, for the competent formation of public opinion in the political context. The research aims to comprehend the functioning of linguistic means used as appeals in the example of political propaganda texts in the English media field. The methodology is based on the theoretical (...) study of the works of modern linguists, linguistic, structural, and communicative analysis of appeal linguistic units and contexts. The research considered the linguistic means that form the functional-semantic category of the appeal, examples of political contexts from the British and American media were presented, the functions of appeal were presented using specific examples, an idea of the communicative side of political propaganda texts and audience participation in this process was formed, emphasis was placed on different types of propaganda (white, black, gray), the following groups of appeals were characterized: imperatives (volitional and involuntary). The materials presented in this research can be used to form an idea of the functional-semantic category of appeal, the choice of linguistic means for the purpose of information promotion in the media or social networks, the study of communicative strategies in linguistics and their successful implementation, consideration of political propaganda texts, increasing efficiency when influencing the audience, further implementation of means of appeal in machine learning. (shrink)

_Relevance. _The role of internal audit in the entity's governance structure is constantly evolving. For a variety of reasons, internal auditors engage in an in-depth analysis of business processes to help ensure that these processes are working properly and effectively. One reason is that advanced entities expect internal auditors not only to verify compliance with laws and procedures, but also to suggest ways to make internal control more effective. However, often internal auditors in entities do not perform the function they (...) could and should perform. They focus on tax matters, financial statements, and assess compliance with procedures. Internal auditors are sent where problems arise to play the role of auditors to detect errors and report blame. In some entities, internal auditors are separated from business or operational problems, leaving them with the traditional function of verification [Daujotaitė et.al. (2015), Tarptautiniai vidaus audito profesinės praktikos standartai (2004), Rupšys et.al. (2007), Lakis (2017)]._ _ Scientists investigate internal audit from different angles, highlighting issues in the design and implementation stages of internal audit. Recently, the scientific literature has increasingly focused on the quality of internal audit and its evaluation. The collapse of banks also contributed to this, although in 2007 Bank SNORAS Internal Audit Service was awarded the title of "Oldest Internal Audit Service" by the Lithuanian Association of Internal Auditors. Although it is believed that poor quality audit is only due to insufficient qualification and professionalism of the auditor, this view can be negated by the list of factors determining the internal audit environment [Lakis (2007), Lietuvos Respublikos vidaus kontrolės ir vidaus audito įstatymas (2002), Pickett (2011)]. Modern performance and business management tools require employees to change their well-established work habits, but internal audit is still associated with the function of verifier for many managers and internal auditors themselves. The speed of adapting to changes in the environment depends on the success of operations and business, which requires managers to have a modern approach to their internal audit function. _Research aim:_ Identify and evaluate the determinants of the internal audit environment. _Research methods: _Systemic analysis of scientific literature and legislation and questionnaire survey. _Research results and conclusions_: Systematic analysis of the literature suggests that the following key factors exist in the internal audit environment: the legislative environment; regulatory enactments; business practices in the region. The first two factors are otherwise known as legal regulation. It should be noted that there are significant differences in the legal level of audit regulation between external, public and internal auditing. Most of the regulations are for external audit, and least for internal audit. An analysis of the legal literature and regulatory documents on internal audit suggests that only the public sector and, to some extent, commercial banks are required to comply with statutory and regulatory requirements that are binding on them. The activities of private sector internal auditors are not regulated by law, the functions of internal auditors are determined by the managers of the entity in which they work, and the standards are purely advisory. The beginning of the establishment of internal audit in Lithuania is considered to be 1995, when the Board of the Bank of Lithuania approved the Procedure of the Internal Audit Service of Commercial Banks and obligated commercial banks to establish internal audit services. The development of internal audit in the Lithuanian public sector was started only in 2000. In accordance with the 2000 February 7th Government of the Republic of Lithuania resolution no.127 On Internal Audit of State-owned Enterprises and Institutions, internal audit units or positions have been established within public institutions. 2002 January 1st this resolution was replaced by the Republic of Lithuania Law on Internal Control and Internal Audit. International Standards on Internal Auditing that set out the principles for conducting internal auditing are applied worldwide. The standards themselves are fairly generalized, setting only basic requirements and guidelines, as TVAI seeks to have the standards adopted by the widest possible audience. The Internship Regulations provide interpretations and more detailed explanations of the Standards of Professional Practice in Internal Auditing. Standardization and other supporting materials include methodological literature, studies and reviews, books, seminars, conferences and more. A systematic analysis of the literature indicates that sufficient legislation and regulations have been adopted, which has a positive impact on the internal audit environment. In order to assess the impact of business practices in the region on the internal audit environment, a questionnaire survey was conducted among the employees of the entities. It showed that a manager's attitude towards internal audit is strongly influenced by his education. Internal audit is acceptable to higher education managers because they are more open to change and open to change. Educated executives enable the internal auditor to be qualified and understand that internal audit requires an appropriate amount of knowledge. Respondents were also asked about their views on the internal audit process. When employees are not hostile to auditing and evaluating their work, it positively affects the internal audit environment, enabling internal auditors to play the role they would like to have in the company. (shrink)

The scope and mission of the history of science have been constant objects of reflection and debate within the profession. Recently, Lorraine Daston has called for a shift of focus: from the history of science to the history of knowledge. Such a move is an attempt at broadening the field and ridding it of the contradictions deriving from its modernist myth of origin and principle of demarcation. Taking the move from a pluralistic concept of medicine, the present paper explores the (...) actual and possible contributions that a history of knowledge can offer to the history of medicine in particular. As we will argue, the history of medicine has always been a history of knowledge, but for good reasons has always stuck to the concept of medicine as its object and problem throughout the ages, including the modern, scientific one. We argue that, in the history of medicine, the demarcation between scientific and non‐scientific represents an accident, but is not foundational as in the case of natural science. Furthermore, the history of medicine programmatically played a role in at least two academic domains (history proper and medical education), adjusting historical narratives of medical knowledge to its audience. Accordingly, we underscore that the history of both science and medicine, as traditionally defined, already provides room for almost the whole spectrum of approaches to history. Moreover, their different myths of origin can, and indeed must, be included in the reflexivity of the historical gaze. We argue that the position towards a history of science, medicine, or knowledge is not a question of narrative or theory, rather, it is a question of relevance and awareness of extant contexts. (shrink)

Relevance Theory is the influential theory of linguistic interpretation first championed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. Relevance theorists have made important contributions to our understanding of a wide range of constructions, especially constructions that tend to receive less attention in semantics and philosophy of language. But advocates of Relevance Theory also have had a tendency to form a rather closed community, with an unwillingness to translate their own special vocabulary and distinctions into more neutral vernacular. Since (...) Robyn Carston has long been the advocate of Relevance Theory most able to communicate with a broader philosophical and linguistic audience, it is with particular interest that the emergence of her long-awaited volume, Thoughts and Utterances has been greeted. The volume exhibits many of the strengths, but also some of the weaknesses, of this well-known program. (shrink)

Initially motivated by their relevance in foundations of quantum mechanics and more recently by their applications in different contexts of quantum information science, violations of Bell inequalities have been extensively studied during the last years. In particular, an important effort has been made in order to quantify such Bell violations. Probabilistic techniques have been heavily used in this context with two different purposes. First, to quantify how common the phenomenon of Bell violations is; and second, to find large Bell (...) violations in order to better understand the possibilities and limitations of this phenomenon. However, the strong mathematical content of these results has discouraged some of the potentially interested readers. The aim of the present work is to review some of the recent results in this direction by focusing on the main ideas and removing most of the technical details, to make the previous study more accessible to a wide audience. (shrink)

The study relevance lies in the fact, that the prestige and success functioning of the high education national system depends on both the teacher and the high education institution. Such requirements make it necessary to purposefully prepare future high school teachers for creating their own effective professional and pedagogical image. Modern society perceives image as a political and socio-cultural category. Image acts as a link between the individual and the audience. At the same time, it serves as a (...) reflection of both the audience interests and the professional interests, seeking to combine these interests, to move away from the unilateral pressure from above, typical of a totalitarian state. A recent research’s and publications’ analysis. In the study we consider the essence of a specialist’s professional image and his effective self-presentation features, which are presented in the works of I. Alekhin, V. Bebik, M. Vudkoka, F. Genov, F. Kuzina, N. Skripachenko, E. Utkin, D. Francis. The scientific achievements in the pedagogical image formation and a high school teacher’s "professional image" of such scholars as I. Volodarska, N. Guzy, A. Morozov, S. Panchuk, V. Khoroshikh, O. Chebikin, I. Chertikova deserve attention. An unexplored parts of a common problem s election - regularities in the development of the educational personnel pedagogical skills and a formation of professionally important qualities in future managers. The study foundation - the basic scheme for the individual image formation, is represent a novelty. The professional and pedagogical teacher image ensures a high social prestige and success of national system, which is simultaneously based on the strict requirements that the target audience puts forward. The study’s aim is to analyze the influence of personality characteristics on a professional image formation. The main material presentation. The modern image perception analysis is carried out not only in economic, but also in political and socio-cultural categories; presents the "image" definition; it was found that the image can be divided into two types: the ideal and the real analyzed sign systems, contribute to the image’s creation; highlighted the main image management types, which has a positive effect on the leader image and the whole team work’s result; selected elements in the individual with the personalization strategy of building a favorable image; it is established that the image has a very clear attachment to this time, reflecting even the nuances of changes in public opinion. The research methodology was made by methods of analysis and generalization. Conclusions - a concept has been formed in which a person must clearly maintain his image and the corresponding actions and actions. (shrink)

This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining the rhetorical and the sociological perspectives. The scientific fact is presented as an entity having both an epistemic and a social meaning, and the scientific paper is presented as a discourse that has both an epistemic value and role related to knowledge and to the description of the ‘world,’ and a social value, fulfilling social roles within its relevant discourse community. The discussion leads to some insights (...) into the connection between scientific language and facts. Scientific language reflects the degree of facticity of the utterance at every stage: various linguistic and discursive elements reflect the current factual status of the utterance. This conception of fact is dynamic and open to discussion, and it is presented from the author’s point of view. On the other hand, language, or the choice of language usage, creates facticity in the sense of social acceptance: by using language, the researcher reports on his belief that what he is describing is indeed a fact. The essence of the scientific paper as an argumentative text is that its point of departure is the faith of the speaker in the facticity of the new information, and its rhetorical aim is to convince the audience, based on its disciplinary rationality, to accept that same faith and thereby usher the new claim into the shared disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (spirit consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience and work. By projecting Kant’s, and Schiller’s somewhat modified Kantian philosophy of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art into the qiyun-focused context, we shall see (...) that reflection on parallels and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

This handbook offers the first comprehensive reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of model-based reasoning. It highlights the role of models as mediators between theory and experimentation, and as educational devices, as well as their relevance in testing hypotheses and explanatory functions. The Springer Handbook merges philosophical, cognitive and epistemological perspectives on models with the more practical needs related to the application of this tool across various disciplines and practices. The result is a unique, reliable source of information that (...) guides readers toward an understanding of different aspects of model-based science, such as the theoretical and cognitive nature of models, as well as their practical and logical aspects. The inferential role of models in hypothetical reasoning, abduction and creativity once they are constructed, adopted, and manipulated for different scientific and technological purposes is also discussed. Written by a group of internationally renowned experts in philosophy, the history of science, general epistemology, mathematics, cognitive and computer science, physics and life sciences, as well as engineering, architecture, and economics, this Handbook uses numerous diagrams, schemes and other visual representations to promote a better understanding of the concepts. This also makes it highly accessible to an audience of scholars and students with different scientific backgrounds. All in all, the Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science represents the definitive application-oriented reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of model-based reasoning. (shrink)

C.A.J. Coady, in his book Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), offers conditions on an assertion that p to count as testimony. He claims that the assertion that p must be by a competent speaker directed to an audience in need of evidence and it must be evidence that p. I offer examples to show that Coady’s conditions are too strong. Testimony need not be evidence; the speaker need not be competent; and, the statement need not be (...) relevant or directed to someone in need of evidence. I give alternative conditions. Coady was led into the stronger conditions by investigating testimony as it occurs in legal contexts, where special steps are taken to ensure that testimony provides the jury or the judge with evidence by a competent speaker that is relevant to the disputed question of the guilt or innocence of the defendant. (shrink)

This essay explores the relevance of Socrates’ mythical introduction of recollection in the Meno. I argue that the passage at 81a5–e2 addresses different levels of understanding, a superficial and a deeper one, corresponding to a literal and a metaphorical reading respectively. The major themes addressed in this passage—the immortality of the soul, transmigration, rewards and punishments in the after-life, Hades, the kinship of all nature and anamnesis—have distinct meanings depending on whether we approach them with a Platonic or an (...) Orphico-Pythagorean eye. The literal understanding is appealing to Meno and is offered in reply to his challenge in order to persuade him to continue the investigation of virtue. It is, however, the deeper sense that Plato’s Socrates intends for a more philosophically attuned audience. (shrink)

This monograph presents a general theory of weakly implicative logics, a family covering a vast number of non-classical logics studied in the literature, concentrating mainly on the abstract study of the relationship between logics and their algebraic semantics. It can also serve as an introduction to algebraic logic, both propositional and first-order, with special attention paid to the role of implication, lattice and residuated connectives, and generalized disjunctions. Based on their recent work, the authors develop a powerful uniform framework for (...) the study of non-classical logics. In a self-contained and didactic style, starting from very elementary notions, they build a general theory with a substantial number of abstract results. The theory is then applied to obtain numerous results for prominent families of logics and their algebraic counterparts, in particular for superintuitionistic, modal, substructural, fuzzy, and relevant logics. The book may be of interest to a wide audience, especially students and scholars in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, computer science, or related areas, looking for an introduction to a general theory of non-classical logics and their algebraic semantics. (shrink)

Background The prioritization protocols for accessing adult critical care in the extreme pandemic context contain tiebreaker criteria to facilitate decision-making in the allocation of resources between patients with a similar survival prognosis. Besides being controversial, little is known about the public acceptability of these tiebreakers. In order to better understand the public opinion, Quebec and Ontario’s protocols were presented to the public in a democratic deliberation during the summer of 2022. Objectives (1) To explore the perspectives of Quebec and Ontario (...) citizens regarding tiebreakers, identifying the most acceptable ones and their underlying values. (2) To analyze these results considering other public consultations held during the pandemic on these criteria. Methods This was an exploratory qualitative study. The design involved an online democratic deliberation that took place over two days, simultaneously in Quebec and Ontario. Public participants were selected from a community sample which excluded healthcare workers. Participants were first presented the essential components of prioritization protocols and their related issues (training session day 1). They subsequently deliberated on the acceptability of these criteria (deliberation session day 2). The deliberation was then subject to thematic analysis. Results A total of 47 participants from the provinces of Quebec (n = 20) and Ontario (n = 27) took part in the online deliberation. A diverse audience participated excluding members of the healthcare workforce. Four themes were identified: (1) Priority to young patients - the life cycle - a preferred tiebreaker; (2) Randomization - a tiebreaker of last resort; (3) Multiplier effect of most exposed healthcare workers - a median acceptability tiebreaker, and (4) Social value – a less acceptable tiebreaker. Conclusion Life cycle was the preferred tiebreaker as this criterion respects intergenerational equity, which was considered relevant when allocating scarce resources to adult patients in a context of extreme pandemic. Priority to young patients is in line with other consultations conducted around the world. Additional studies are needed to further investigate the public acceptability of tiebreaker criteria. (shrink)

Narrative fictions have surely become the single most widespread source of entertainment in the world. In their free time, humans read novels and comics, watch movies and TV series, and play video games: they consume stories that they know to be false. Such behaviors are expanding at lightning speed in modern societies. Yet, the question of the origin of fictions has been an evolutionary puzzle for decades: Are fictions biological adaptations, or the by-products of cognitive mechanisms that evolved for another (...) purpose? The absence of any consensus in cognitive science has made it difficult to explain how narrative fictions evolve culturally. We argue that current conflicting hypotheses are partly wrong, and partly right: narrative fictions areby-productsof the human mind, because they obviously co-opt some pre-existing cognitive preferences and mechanisms, such as our interest for social information, and our abilities to do mindreading and to imagine counterfactuals. But humans reap some fitness benefits from producing and consuming such appealing cultural items, making fictionsadaptive. To reconcile these two views, we put forward the hypothesis that narrative fictions are best seen asentertainment technologiesthat is, as items crafted by some people for the proximate goal to grab the attention of other people, and with the ultimate goal to fulfill other evolutionary-relevant functions that become easier once other people’s attention is caught. This hypothesis explains why fictions are filled with exaggerated and entertaining stimuli, why they fit so well the changing preferences of the audience they target, and why producers constantly make their fictions more attractive as time goes by, in a cumulative manner. (shrink)