Consumer behavior knowledge is essential to designing successful products. However, measuring subjective perceptions affecting this behavior is a complex issue that depends on many factors. Identifying visual cues elicited by the product’s appearance is key in many cases. Marketing research on this topic has produced different approaches to the question. This paper proposes the use of Noise-Based Reverse Correlation techniques in the identification of product form features carrying a particular semantic message. This technique has been successfully utilized in (...) social sciences to obtain prototypical images of faces representing social stereotypes from different judgements. In this work, an exploratory study on subcompact cars is performed by applying Noise-Based Reverse Correlation to identify relevant form features conveying a sports car image. The results provide meaningful information about the car attributes involved in communicating this idea, thus validating the use of the technique in this particular case. More research is needed to generalize and adapt Noise-Based Reverse Correlation procedures to different product scenarios and semantic concepts. (shrink)

Do properties of a word's features influence the order of its acquisition in early word learning? Combining the principles of mutual exclusivity and shape bias, the present work takes a network analysis approach to understanding how feature distinctiveness predicts the order of early word learning. Distance networks were built from nouns with edge lengths computed using various distance measures. Feature distinctiveness was computed as a distance measure, showing how far an object in a network is from other objects based (...) on shared and non-shared features. Feature distinctiveness predicted order of acquisition across all measures: Words that were further away from other words in the network space were learned earlier. The best distance measures were based only on non-shared features and did not include shared features. This indicates that shared features may play less of a role in early word learning than non-shared features. In addition, the strongest effects were found for visual form and surface features. Cluster analysis further revealed that this effect is a localized effect in the object feature space, where objects' distances from their cluster centroid were inversely correlated with their age of acquisition. Together, these results suggest a role for feature distinctiveness in early word learning. (shrink)

Forms of thought are involved whenever we name, describe, or identify things, and whenever we distinguish between what is, might be, or must be the case. It appears to be a distinctive feature of human thought that we can have modal thoughts, about what might be possible or necessary, and conditional thoughts, about what would or might be the case if something else were the case. Even the simplest thoughts are structured like sentences, containing referential and predicative elements, and studying (...) these structures is the main task of philosophical logic. This clear and accessible book investigates the forms of thought, drawing out and focusing on the central logical notions of reference, predication, identity, modality and conditionality. It will be useful to students and other interested readers in epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and philosophical logic. (shrink)

Feature-placing sentences are often confused with the general sentences in the canonical predicate calculus. The confusion is largely caused by their perceived commonality that both lack the subject-predicate form. In this paper, I offer some clarification of the fundamental differences between the two: the general sentences of the canonical predicate calculus contain predicates and variables which take individual objects as their values, and it is the sense of predication implied by the existence of predicates in these general sentences that (...) is completely absent in feature-placing sentences. (shrink)

Explanations of biological phenomena such as cell division, protein synthesis or circadian rhythms commonly take the form of models of the responsible mechanisms. Recently philosophers of science have attempted to analyze this practice, presenting mechanisms as organized collections of parts performing operations that together produce the phenomenon. But in some cases what researchers seek to explain is not a general phenomenon, but a specific feature of a more fine-grained phenomenon. In some of these cases, it is not the model (...) of the mechanism that performs the explanatory work. I consider a case in which the investigator offered an abstract representation of a fine-grained phenomenon to show why in had the feature in question. I consider a second case in which a researcher abstracted from the mechanism to identify a design principle that explains why the functioning mechanism exhibits a specific feature. (shrink)

One of the sub-branches of Central Semitic, Northwest Semitic, contains a number of languages with no established hierarchical relation among them: Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite, Deir Alla, and Samalian. Over the years, scholars have attempted to establish a more accurate sub-branching for Northwest Semitic or to suggest a different genetic affiliation for some languages, usually Ugaritic. In this paper, we will argue that Aramaic and Canaanite share a direct ancestor, on the basis of a number of morphosyntactic features: the fs (...) demonstrative *ðaˀt, the direct object marker *ˀayāt, the development of dative subjects with adjectival predicates, the use of the construct state with prepositions, the G imperfect inflection of geminate verbs, and the plural form of *bayt. We will also address arguments that Ugaritic is a Canaanite dialect, or that Canaanite and Ugaritic are more closely related. This proposal not only outlines a more coherent family tree for Northwest Semitic, but also accounts for numerous “Aramaic”-like features in some Canaanite dialects, primarily Biblical Hebrew, which have thus far been treated as the result of language contact in the early Iron Age. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss the results of two experiments, one off-line (acceptability judgment) and the other on-line (eye-tracking), targeting Object Cleft (OC) constructions. In both experiments, we used the same materials presenting a manipulation on person features: second person plural pronouns and plural definite determiners alternate in introducing a full NP (“it was [ DP1 the/you [ NP bankers]] i that [ DP2 the/you [ NP lawyers]] have avoided _ i at the party”) in a language, Italian, with (...) overt person (and number) subject-verb agreement. As results, we first observed that the advantage of the bare pronominal forms reported in previous experiments (Gordon et al., 2001 ; Warren and Gibson, 2005, a.o.) is lost when the full NP (the “lexical restriction” in Belletti and Rizzi, 2013 ) is present. Second, an advantage for the mismatch condition, Art 1 -Pro 2, in which the focalized subject is introduced by the determiner and the OC subject by the pronoun, as opposed to the matching Pro 1 -Pro 2 condition, is observed, both off-line (higher acceptability and accuracy in answering comprehension questions after eyetracking) and on-line (e.g., smaller number of regressions from the subject region); third, we found a relevant difference between acceptability and accuracy in comprehension questions: despite similar numerical patterns in both off-line measures, the difference across conditions in accuracy is mostly not significant, while it is significant in acceptability. Moreover, while the matching condition Pro 1 -Pro 2 is perceived as nearly ungrammatical (far below the mean acceptability across-conditions), the accuracy in comprehension is still high (close to 80%). To account for these facts, we compare different formal competence and processing models that predict difficulties in OC constructions: similarity-based (Gordon et al., 2001, a.o.), memory load (Gibson, 1998 ), and intervention-based (Friedmann et al., 2009 ) accounts are compared to processing oriented ACT-R-based predictions (Lewis and Vasishth, 2005 ) and to top-down Minimalist derivations (Chesi, 2015 ). We conclude that most of these approaches fail in making predictions able to reconcile the competence and the performance perspective in a coherent way to the exception of the top-down model that is able to predict correctly both the on-line and the off-line main effects obtained. (shrink)

This paper studies the feature extraction and middle-level expression of Convolutional Neural Network convolutional layer glass broken and cracked at the scene of road traffic accident. The image pyramid is constructed and used as the input of the CNN model, and the convolutional layer road traffic accident scene glass breakage and crack characteristics at each scale in the pyramid are extracted separately, and then the depth descriptors at different image scales are extracted. In order to improve the discriminative power of (...) the depth descriptor, Hellinger kernel and Principal Component Analysis are used to perform nonlinear and linear transformations. Two aggregation strategies based on depth descriptors are proposed to form a global image representation. The classification experiment of the data set shows that Hellinger kernel, PCA transformation, and two aggregation strategies are all conducive to improving the classification accuracy. In addition, the convolutional layer road traffic accident scene glass breaking and crack feature coding can obtain better classification performance than the fully connected layer feature. We conducted dynamic impact tests on plate glass and Polyvinyl Butyral- laminated glass under different boundary conditions and studied the crack propagation and failure process of the glass under different impact speeds. The results show that there are radial cracks and circular cracks on the glass specimens under the impact load; the glass specimens show partial damage under high-speed impact and the characteristics of glass breaking and cracks at the scene of road traffic accidents; the four-frame plate glass is supported by sharp dagger-like fragments. This paper compares the energy absorption of glass specimens under different boundary conditions. The results show that the energy absorption effect of the four-point supporting glass specimen is generally stronger than that of the four-frame supporting glass. (shrink)

This study consists of a series of essays on the metaphysics and epistemology of Plato's Philebus. My chief aim is to determine to what extent Plato maintains the theory of Forms in that dialogue. Because it is generally thought to be a late dialogue, the Philebus is a key to setting a long-standing debate about Plato's philosophical development. Scholars disagree on whether the theory of Forms is maintained in Plato's late dialogues. Most recent interpretations of the Philebus claim that it (...) is incompatible with the theory of Forms. My study shows, however, that the Philebus reaffirms the ontological and epistemological claims of that theory. To secure my thesis I make extensive comparisons with Plato's middle dialogues, particularly the Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Republic, and Cratylus. This sort of comparison is crucial because Plato's actual descriptions of Forms differ in significant ways from standard accounts of his theory. I show that the distinctions between being and becoming and between knowledge and opinion, which were essential to the theory of Forms in the middle dialogues, are reaffirmed in the Philebus. As in the middle dialogues, Forms in the Philebus are the prime bearers of the attributes their names describe. Forms are logical causes of the attributes of sensibles, and each Form is a unit having many sensible participants. Plato's reaffirmation of the essential features of the theory of Forms in the Philebus shows that he did not substantially revise that theory in dialogues after the Parmenides. (shrink)

The frame model, originating in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, has recently been applied to change-phenomena traditionally studied within history and philosophy of science. Its application purpose is to account for episodes of conceptual dynamics in the empirical sciences suggestive of incommensurability as evidenced by “ruptures” in the symbolic forms of historically successive empirical theories with similar classes of applications. This article reviews the frame model and traces its development from the feature list model. Drawing on extant literature, examples of (...) frame-reconstructed taxonomic change are presented. This occurs for purposes of comparison with an alternative tool, conceptual spaces. The main claim is that conceptual spaces save the merits of the frame model and provide a powerful model for conceptual change in scientific knowledge, since distinctions arising in measurement theory are native to the model. It is suggested how incommensurability as incomparability of theoretical frameworks might be avoided. Moreover, as nontranslatability of worldviews, it need not to be treated as a genuine problem of conceptual representation. The status of laws vis à vis their dimensional bases as well as diachronic similarity measures are discussed. (shrink)

The frame model, originating in artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, has recently been applied to change-phenomena traditionally studied within history and philosophy of science. Its application purpose is to account for episodes of conceptual dynamics in the empirical sciences suggestive of incommensurability as evidenced by “ruptures” in the symbolic forms of historically successive empirical theories with similar classes of applications. This article reviews the frame model and traces its development from the feature list model. Drawing on extant literature, examples of (...) frame-reconstructed taxonomic change are presented. This occurs for purposes of comparison with an alternative tool, conceptual spaces. The main claim is that conceptual spaces save the merits of the frame model and provide a powerful model for conceptual change in scientific knowledge, since distinctions arising in measurement theory are native to the model. It is suggested how incommensurability as incomparability of theoretical frameworks might be avoided. Moreover, as nontranslatability of worldviews, it need not to be treated as a genuine problem of conceptual representation. The status of laws vis à vis their dimensional bases as well as diachronic similarity measures are discussed. (shrink)

Iconic words are supposed to exhibit imitative relationships between their linguistic forms and their referents. Many studies have worked to pinpoint sound-to-meaning correspondences for ideophones from different languages. The correspondence patterns show similarities across languages, but what makes such language-specific correspondences universal, as iconicity claims to be, remains unclear. This could be due to a lack of consensus on how to describe and test the perceptuo-motor affordances that make an iconic word feel imitative to speakers. We created and analysed a (...) database of 1,860 ideophones across 13 languages, and found that seven articulatory features, physiologically accessible to all spoken language users, pattern according to semantic features of ideophones. Our findings pave the way for future research to utilize articulatory properties as a means to test and explain how iconicity is encoded in spoken language. The perspective taken here fits in with ongoing research of embodiment, motivation, and iconicity research, three major strands of research within Cognitive Linguistics. The results support that there is a degree of unity between the concepts of imitative communication and the spoken forms through cross-domain mappings, which involve physical articulatory movement. (shrink)

The chief goal of this dissertation is to attain some clarity with respect to the interconnected issues which constitute the problem of personal identity. The logical and linguistic categories developed by Saul Kripke provide the tools through which these issues can be separated and put into perspective. In the first two chapters I examine the modal and other semantic features of rigid singular terms and such rigid predicates as natural kind terms. I defend both the transworld identity of named (...) individuals and the real essence of genuine natural kinds. ;In the third chapter this linguistic framework is used to explicate the distinction between the numerical identity of individuals and the qualitative identity of properties. I suggest that individual identity consists in a principle of uniqueness typically supplied through indexical identification and a principle of individuation through which a given individual can be tracked through qualitative change. Property identity is explicated as a form of qualitative similarity. ;In the final two chapters I consider personal identity as a form of individual identity and personal identity as a form of property identity. I reject the former interpretation on the grounds that 'person' fails to supply a principle of individuation for actual persons. I adopt the latter interpretation and suggest that person designates a necessary dispositional property of actual persons. I consider alternative theories of personal identity from the standpoint of a property identity theory of personal identity and I argue that the property identity theory provides a compelling account of a series of widely discussed problem cases. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between the philosophical idea that logic is a science studying logical forms, and a mathematical feature of logical systems called the principle of uniform substitution, which is often regarded as a technical counterpart of the philosophical idea. We argue that at least in one interesting sense the principle of uniform substitution does not capture adequately the requirement that logic is a matter of form and that logical truths are formal truths. We show that some (...) specific logical expressions can produce propositions of different kinds and the resulting diversity of informational types can lead to a justified failure of uniform substitution without undermining the view that logic is a purely formal discipline. (shrink)

This study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the acquisitional features of English existential constructions at the syntax-pragmatics interface by Chinese learners, and explore the factors for non-native performance from the perspective of the Interface Hypothesis. A questionnaire was administered online to 300 Chinese learners of English and 20 English natives at a university in China, which included a picture description test and a context-matching test. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 Chinese learners. The experimental data were conducted (...) using comparing means and generalized linear mixed model. Results showed that Chinese learners overproduced existential constructions and reached a native-like level until the advanced stage. Moreover, Chinese learners displayed different preference patterns for existential constructions from English natives, and basically reached a native-like level by the intermediate stage. The qualitative data provided possible explanations for non-native performance. The analysis revealed that non-native performance in production attributed to L1 negative transfer and input frequency, while that in comprehension resulted from underspecification of form-function mapping, input frequency and contexts. Based on the findings, some implications on syntax-pragmatics teaching and L2 interface studies are provided. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of modeling-based abductive reasoning as a disciplinary practice of inquiry in the domain of earth science. The study was based on an undergraduate course of a university of education, Korea, offered for preservice elementary teachers majoring in science as their specialty. The course enrollees participated in an inquiry project in which they were asked to abductively generate models representing past geologic events in order to explain how two units in (...) a sedimentary rock outcrop had been formed. Three students were selected as major informants for the study, and multiple types of qualitative data were collected, including the students’ sketchbook records, audio-recording of whole-class presentation and discussion, and interviews with the students. The data were analyzed according to the method of analytical induction, which yielded three assertions as the findings of the study. First, while an explanatory model can be generated by combining resource models, the combination of resource models does not necessarily result in a scientifically sound explanatory model. Second, a systemic approach can help activate a critical resource model which can in turn lead to a scientifically sound explanatory model. Third, simulations with a model can enhance the plausibility of the model. Based on these findings, causal combinations of resource models, a systemic approach to earth scientific problem-solving, and simulations with a model are suggested and discussed as implications for science education and relevant research. (shrink)

This inaugural lecture, delivered on 17 November 2021 at the University of Neuchâtel, addresses the question: Are material objects analyzable into more basic constituents and, if so, what are they? It might appear that this question is more appropriately settled by empirical means as utilized in the natural sciences. For example, we learn from physics and chemistry that water is composed of H2O-molecules and that hydrogen and oxygen atoms themselves are composed of smaller parts, such as protons, which are in (...) turn composed of yet smaller parts, such as quarks, and so on. While the question at the center of this lecture might thus appear to fall more appropriately into the empirical domain of natural science, I argue that metaphysics in fact has an important role to play in determining how best to answer the question before us. More concretely, I propose that the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism, when appropriately interpreted, provides the best metaphysical answer to the question of whether and how material objects are analyzable into more basic constituents. Hylomorphism holds that those entities to which this doctrine applies are, in some sense, compounds of matter (“hylē”) and form (“morphē” or “eidos”). Thus, the title of this lecture, “Form, Matter, Substance”, refers to the claim that lies at the center of the doctrine of hylomorphism, as applied to the domain of material objects, namely that sensible substances are the result of combining matter and form in the right sort of way; or, for short, “form + matter = substance”. I begin in Section II by providing some historical background which brings out Aristotle’s motivations for proposing the doctrine of hylomorphism in the context of his analysis of change. Section III turns to some of the main features of the contemporary hylomorphic theory I have defended especially in Koslicki (2008) and Koslicki (2018). Section IV discusses some challenging questions concerning artifacts which arise for both hylomorphic and other approaches to the metaphysics of concrete particular objects. Section V concludes by summarizing why, as contemporary metaphysicians, we should prefer a hylomorphic theory over its competitors as an analysis of concrete particular objects that is compatible with our current scientific understanding of the world. (shrink)

Harris, Barnier, Sutton and Savage examine the communication styles that boost the mnemonic consequences associated with conversations for long‐term married couples and the circumstances under which the couples form a TMS. Harris and colleagues demonstrated that specific communication styles (e.g., cueing each other) promote group memory success whereas others (e.g., correcting each other) did not enhance group recall performance. These results showed that even in well‐established and enduring distributed cognitive systems such as long‐term intimate couples (Harris, Barnier, Sutton & (...) Keil, 2014), memory benefits depend on effective communication and the specificities of the task performed (e.g., remembering lists of words vs. remembering shared, autobiographical experiences). (shrink)

Luigi Pareyson’s concept of formativity is one of his most relevant and original concepts. In this paper I will give a short exposition of this concept in Pareyson’s Estetica and try to show how it can account, better as other object-, subject-, target- oriented theories, even of some features of contemporary art. The very relevant innovation that we can find in this concept is the shift from a concept of art as poiesis—as it is in Aristotle, namely, as a (...) production of an object—to the concept of art as praxis, that is, as an activity which involves the entire doing of the artist. As a doing that invents the form of doing, formativity appears as a kind of schematism that operates, not only without concept, as it is in Kant’s Critique of Judgement, but even without object. The thesis here suggested is that formativity can be understood as a transcendentalism of invention. (shrink)

Recognition of sarcastic statements has been a challenge in the process of sentiment analysis. A sarcastic sentence contains only positive words conveying a negative sentiment. Therefore, it is tough for any automated machine to identify the exact sentiment of the text in the presence of sarcasm. The existing systems for sarcastic sentiment detection are limited to the text scripted in English. Nowadays, researchers have shown greater interest in low resourced languages such as Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Indonesian, etc. (...) To analyse these low resource languages, the biggest challenge is the lack of available resources, especially in the context of Indian languages. Indian languages are very rich in morphology which pose a greater challenge for the automated machines. Telugu is one of the most popular languages after Hindi among Indian languages. In this article, we have collected and annotated a corpus of Telugu conversation sentences in the form of a question followed by a reply for sarcasm detection. Further, a set of algorithms are proposed for the analysis of sarcasm in the corpus of Telugu conversation sentences. The proposed algorithms are based on hyperbolic features namely, Interjection, Intensifier, Question mark and Exclamation symbol. The achieved accuracy is 94%. (shrink)

The current situation in the manufacture and positioning of clay toys in Russia — a country with rich traditions of the existence of large and small crafts of this kind — is ambiguous, but has positive dynamics. The appeal to the activities of individual toy makers, both amateur and professional artists, provides the basis for understanding the current state of the craft. Of interest is the analysis of the search by craftsmen from different parts of the country for new artistic (...) solutions both in terms of the shape of products and their decoration, in conditions of following the principles of craftsmen of the past. Currently, there is a surge of interest in clay toys in the works of modern masters from Russian researchers. However, a comprehensive study of its existence in various villages and cities of Russia has not been conducted. This determines the need to establish "hotbeds" of craft development, identify the most prominent representatives, establish links between modern creative activity and the traditions of the past, as well as identify new things that artists offer in their activities. The study also includes those crafts that have emerged recently and are not the result of continuity, but have a rather distinctive form and use elements of the artistic language of other crafts. (shrink)

Taking as a point of departure the thesis that philosophical content and stylistic form are internally related to each other, we explore in our text the possibilities enabled by the literary form of the letter. We begin with a brief description of the current situation of the academic philosophy around the world characterized by international migrations of thinkers and thoughts. In the second section, we highlight the importance of the literary form of the letter in the current (...) background dominated by the canonical format of the paper. In the third and fourth sections we focus on the main features and current use of this literary form and examine its possibilities for philosophy. In the final section, we render plausible our thesis examining with different examples how is possible to write letters about philosophy and to do philosophy in and through letters. (shrink)

The prevailing assumption is that anResearch underlying this study was conducted with support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant #17-06-00460.agreement feature originates in one linguistic element, that is a controller, and is copied onto another one, a target. This form-to-form approach encounters massive difficulties when confronted with data, such as missing controllers or feature mismatches. A cognition-to-form mapping approach is proposed instead, suggesting that agreement features, such as person, number, and gender, are associated with (...) referents in the cognitive representation. They serve to specify referents on either notional or conventional grounds, and are thus referential features. Referential features are mapped onto various sites in linguistic structure, including inflections. Parallel agreement between various sites is observed, as a side effect of mappings from the same cognitive source. Languages differ in which and how many sites for marking referential features they require. Analysis of Russian evidence suggests that the cognition-to-form mapping approach has a much greater explanatory force than the traditional form-to-form approach. There are only peripheral classes of instances in which form-to-form agreement may be needed as a supplementary factor. In general, the roots of agreement lie in cognitively motivated discourse processes associated with reference. (shrink)

It is known that the science of recitation is one of the important branches of Islamic sciences in terms of its subject. It is stated that the science of recitation is intertwined with the Qurʾān and has an important place in terms of tafsīr, ḥadīth and law sciences. In this respect, it is understood that the recitation of Yaʿqūbis one of the ten sound recitations accepted as authentic and mutawātir (Consecutive). Although there are comparative works in whichYaʿqūb's recitation is mentioned (...) together with other recitations, it is striking that there is no study in whichYaʿqūb's recitation is handled separately. In this study, it is aimed to clarify the issues in Yaʿqūb’s recitation, even though they are not in other recitations. It is understood that Yaʿqūb’s recitation has some differences compared to other recitations and contains some unique features. In this respect, these issues specific to Yaʿqūb reading are frequently encountered in dictionaries and tafsīr sources. In this article, it is planned to evaluate the recitation of Yaʿqūb in two parts. In the first chapter, the procedural rules of Yaʿqūb recitation are given and the subjects are explained with the sampling method. In the second part, attention is drawn to the points where Yaʿqūb recitation differs from other recitations. What is meant by the rules of procedure in the science of recitation is the set of general rules that take place when conditions such as madd, qasr, izhār, idghām and iqlāb are met. Farsh, recitation on the other hand, is the different reading of certain words independent of these rules. There are different views on the reading of the pronoun hā, which is evaluated within the framework of the rules of procedure. Recitation imams state that it is controversial whether the pronoun hā in the dual and plural pronouns which comes after the silent letter, can be read with damma (u sound) or kasrah (i sound). When the recitation of Ya'qūb is examined, it is understood that all pronouns of this type are read with damma and this view is preferred. It is stated that there is no consensus on the use of the letter mīm, which is a sign of plurality with kasrah or damma. In this regard, Ya'qūb subordinates the letter mīm to the letter hā, Where the letter hā is pronounced damma, it reads the letter mīm as damma, and where the letter hā is pronounced as damma, it reads the letter mīm with kasrah and does not go beyond this limit. Idghām, which is used as a concept in the science of recitation, is the combination of two letters that are mutamasil, mutaqārib or mutajānis, transforming them into a single letter and forming it. It is stated that Abu 'Amr was the imam of the recitation, who practiced İdghām-ı kabir, which is one of the important subjects of the science of recitation and tajwīd (the rules of recitation), and that Ya'kūb came later. It is seen that some recitation imams on the subject of waqf (stopping) did not make any changes regarding the words dedicated on it, by complying with the way it was written in the musḥaf (the Qur’ān). However, it is striking that there are some changes in the recitation of Ya'qūb. As a concept used in the science of recitation, farsh is the reading of the words in the Qur'ān in different ways by the recitation imams and attributing each recitation to its owner. Therefore, these differences take place in all recitations and this subject is also known as Farshu'l-Khurūf or al-Furū'. When we look at the difference between farsh and usūl in the science of recitation, it is seen that the usūl is realized within the framework of certain rules, while the farsh is formed independently of these rules. (shrink)

Our interpretation of the "parmenides" 132a1 - 132b2 has the following features. (i) it stresses that the third man argument is an infinite regress and (ii) notes its epistemological thrust. (iii) a faithful translation of the last line of the argument reads "and no longer will each of the forms be for you one but each is infinite in multitude." parmenides' point is that each form, which socrates believed to be complete (one), turns out to be an unbounded, (...) incompletable series of subforms useless for comprehending the unity of many particulars. (iv) related problems are seen to occupy plato in the "philebus" and in the "sophist". (shrink)

In his latest book, Descola analyzes more than 150 graphic works from all over the world, among which are animal statuettes of the Koryaks, a people of the Kamchatka region of Russia. Those figurines always represent animals lying in wait, ready to jump or already running. Such representations, the anthropologist argues, incline us to pay attention to what motivates and what troubles the animals: “All those animals that we see undertaking an action manifestly intentional or properly responding to unexpected events (...) cannot but impose on the observers of their image the idea that they are moved by aims, that they have an interiority just like humans.” This type of animal figuration is especially common in peoples that in Descola's previous book, Beyond Nature and Culture, he referred to as “animist.”In that book, published in 2005, he described the animist ontology and three other modes of paying attention to continuities and differences between humans and animals: naturalism, analogism, and totemism. At the time, he focused exclusively on the description of those ontologies, as opposed to any study of their evolution. He begins his study of the genesis of ontologies in Les formes du visible by suggesting that each type of graphic work induces a different way of paying attention to psychological and physical continuities and differences. For instance, in contrast to a Koryak statuette, an anatomical plate (to use a simple example not covered in the book) depicts only the body of a dead and dissected specimen. By referring simultaneously to an anatomical description of the human body and to that of another mammal, we tend to see how similar our bodies are. Whereas the animist ontology emphasizes the psychological continuity of humans and animals, the naturalist ontology insists instead on their physical continuity. By producing and using repeatedly some kinds of graphic works, each society comes to favor one or another ontology, one or another way of paying attention to the world. (Descola never says so in these words, but what he seems to mean by ontologies are modes of attention).Descola's questions in this new book are engaging: What do images make us pay attention to? What modes of attention do images stimulate? Each case study selected by the author is, moreover, fascinating in itself: an Amerindian mask, an Aboriginal painting on a piece of bark, a sixteenth-century Mongolian drawing of an elephant. The answers offered for the questions asked are unfortunately always already canvassed by the theory of the four ontologies. In previous work, Descola built that theory based on discursive and ethnographic material; sometimes we are left with the impression that images (as opposed to spoken words) do not make any significant difference, since they did not motivate him to modify in any way his theory in his new book.In addition, Descola's framework brings him to focus only on a particular aspect of what images induce in our modes of attention: in his thinking, ontologies are defined solely by the way we notice (or do not notice) differences and continuities between beings on two levels, physical and psychological, which respectively he terms the exteriority and the interiority of beings. By combining these two pairs of opposing features (continuity/difference, interiority/exteriority), he constitutes his four ontologies. But depictions can produce more fine-grained ontologies by making us pay attention to, say, the separation or the blending of bodies, the stability or fluidity of souls, the equality or inequality of power between beings. Moment by moment, while reading Descola, we find ourselves tied to his four ontologies and indeed find it almost impossible to imagine ontologies other than the four he has set out. In a structuralist vein, he even presents that number as a necessary, logical, and cognitive limit to the construction of ontologies. Nevertheless, by opening the analysis of the modes of attention to more than just the double pair of features picked out by the anthropologist, we could well unearth more diversified ontologies, induced by images (and by other cultural and technical particulars). We could detect, in other words, more than four modes of paying attention to our environment and to our companion beings. (shrink)

Feature structures are employed in various forms in many areas of linguistics. Informally, one can picture a feature structure as a sort of tree decorated with information about constraints requiring that specific subtrees be identical (isomorphic). Here I show that this informal picture of feature structures can be used to characterize exactly the class of feature structures under their usual subsumption ordering. Furthermore, once a precise definition of tree is fixed, this characterization makes use only of standard domain-theoretic notions regarding (...) the information borne by elements in a domain, thus removing (or better, explaining) all apparentlyad hoc choices in the original definition of feature structures. In addition, I show how this characterization can be parameterized in order to yield similar characterizations of various different notions of feature structure, including acyclic structures, structures with appropriateness conditions and structures with apartness conditions (used to model path inequations). The generalizations to other notions of feature structure also emphasize that the construction given here is in fact independent of the application to feature structures. (shrink)

Is it possible to have a materialist definition of the subject which nonetheless separates the latter from any given type of object? In this article I start from the criticism – which both Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze provide – of the identification of the subject with a given type of substance, provided with specific modes of correlation with other objects. Namely, I try to show how for both authors the identification of the subject with a res – be it (...) the res cogitans, the human animal, or even the conditions of the possibility of experience of the latter –, pins down the subject to a specific place and function, and in this way ultimately provides a representation of the subject as a specimen of a given category of objects. More precisely, the identification of the subject with a specific class of objects is exposed by Deleuze as the very structure that tends to reduce the transformative capacity of the latter into the limits of a finite form; in a similar way, Badiou exposes this identification as one of the fundamental features of reactionary ideology. The article also shows how it is in this sense that one needs to read Deleuze’s refusal of the subsumption of the subjective process under the sole name ‘subject’, especially when the latter is identified with the cognitive structures of the human animal. Aiming nonetheless at maintaining a materialist definition of the subject, both authors stress the idea that the subject is an always singular process in which a new figure is created via a process of disidentification from a specific class of objects. This article then follows in particular three formal characteristics that Deleuze and Badiou find for the subjective process: first, that a subject appears as (or under condition of) a fracture or an inconsistency in the mode of organization of a class of objects; second, that a subject tends to turn such an evanescent fracture into a new body; and finally that a subject exposes such moments of disidentification and of production of novelty as being infinitely repeatable and universally valid. Starting from this, the article concludes by identifying a set of internal limits and contradictions in Badiou’s and Deleuze’s positions (namely a re-naturalization and re-anthropologization of the category of the subject) and by highlighting a series of developments in contemporary philosophy that allow the further elaboration of further the idea of the subject as an always singular (and yet universally repetable) practice of disidentification from a specific class of objects. (shrink)

The most ancient monuments of ancient Christian art were found in catacombs located outside the cities. The Christian catacombs were a complex plexus of underground narrow galleries with numerous niches where the coffins of martyrs and bishops were placed. These niches formed a kind of rectangular chambers, the walls and surfaces of which were decorated with images. Thus, early Christian art begins with catacomb paintings.

One measure of the validity of [Joseph] Frank's insight is the extent to which other versions of his ideas appear in other contexts: for if "spatial form" refers to something real, it cannot have escaped notice by other readers. One thinks, for example, of Northrop Frye's description of the critic viewing all the elements of the poem as a simultaneous array before him; or of Gaston Bachelard's evocative descriptions of The Poetics of Space. Or Pound's interest in ideographic script; (...) or the frequent critical association of modern literature with impressionist painting. Or Eliot's poet synthesizing Spinoza, the sound of the typewriter, and the smell of cookery into a unified whole. Or—at the root of it all, perhaps—Poe's insistence on the unified effect of the story or poem.1 All of these instances reflect a more or less casual assumption of the basic premise of Frank's essay. More recently another critic, Frank Kermode, has offered an alternative description of this general problem. In The Romantic Image2 he assesses symbolist poetic theory; here the verbal image , autonomous and autotelic, presumably unites meaning and feeling without intervening reflection or discourse: the "image" so hypostatized seems very close to a "spatial" form, and certainly the suppression of discourse, of reflection generally, follows from the disruption of syntax and narrative that results from the impulse toward "spatial" effects. Provisionally, we might say that Joseph Frank's essay is grounded in an essentially formalist conception of the literary work as artifact, and that the striking features of his argument result from an attempt to assimilate extended works to a theory basically lyric in its orientation: as corollary, we must assume that the modern writers he cites had themselves operationally defined the concept in the course of their writing. · 1. Northrop Frye, "Literary Criticism," in The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature, ed. James Thorpe , p.65. See also Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology , p. 21. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas . Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, ed. Ezra Pound . T.S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets," Selected Essays , p. 247. Edgar Allan Poe, review of Twice-Told Tales, in Works, 17 vols., ed. James A. Harrison 11: 104-13.· 2. Frank Kermode, The Romantic Image . William Holtz, professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is currently preparing an edition of an unpublished juvenile manuscript by Charlotte Brontë. (shrink)

The article deals with to the early forms of categorical thinking. The conceptual schemes are formed independently of each other in various ancient civilizations, and that is an evidence of the universal nature of some fundamental features of early categorical thinking. The author proceeds from the idea that defning characteristics of categorical thinking are the apriority and the extreme generality of concepts. Thus, a category is an extremely generalized concept, the last basis for the explanation of the all being (...) by reducing it to a few defning beginnings; and this is an original, structuring perception form of conceptuality, which man has before any empirical experience. The same, with some reservations, can be said about the ancient sages’ elemental principles of being because these principles meet the above mentioned requirements of categoricity. These basic conceptual constructs with extreme generality reflect the structure of the world around and serve as the structural basis for less general concepts. Proposed explication of the conceptual nature of the Chinese “fve elemental forces” is appealing to the Kantian idea of the transcendental scheme. This idea brings us closer to understanding the early forms of categorical thinking in general and the schematism of Chinese thinking in particular. The article also considers the original interpretation of the Kantian scheme by Umberto Eco. (shrink)

This article presents an analytical overview of the critical modernisation features of Socialism with Chinese characteristics doctrine in the new era, which was proposed at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The authors reconstructed and systematically represented the central philosophical and political principles of the doctrine of Socialism with Chinese characteristics in the context of the fundamental principles of Chinese Marxism. The authors also analysed and presented in a systematic form the essence and basic (...) theoretical principles of the concept of Socialism with Chinese characteristics following Xi Jinping's works and reports. The study includes a comparative analysis that concludes with the critical features of the modern concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics. These features embrace the need for constant modernisation of the very doctrine of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the state management system, as well as social and cultural practices, which are possible through the implementation of innovations and the integration of modern philosophical thought with traditional Chinese philosophy and culture. The article concludes that the main feature of the modernisation of Socialism with Chinese characteristics at the current stage reveals in the development and implementation of a system of creative practices at the level of everyday culture, high-tech sectors of social production and the practice of intercultural communication within the framework of China's Belt and Road Initiative. In the discussion, the authors argue that implementing creative practices and creative industries could become an effective tool for developing China's Belt and Road Initiative in European countries and improving mutual understanding in the intercultural communication practices between China, European countries, and Ukraine. (shrink)

The emergence of Hasidism as a mystical form of the Jewish tradition during the eighteenth century caused organizational divisions in Judaism. This split, which swept half of the Jewish world of Central and Eastern Europe, was largely caused by the extraordinary success of the new religious movement among the common people.Many researchers point to the attractiveness of Hasidism, which was, first and foremost, the over-accessibility of truths proclaimed by the followers of Boal-Shem- This is the founder of the movement. (...) At least the use of moral and instructive sentiments, aphorisms, and even "legendary anecdotes" to express the ideas of Hasidic teachings and their outspoken propaganda among the commoners have made this new movement of the Jewish tradition popularized. Figuratively speaking, the Hasidim sought to fill the inner world of man with properly crafted mystical ideas. (shrink)

This book introduces the phenomenology and theory of hadron form factors in a consistent manner, deriving step-by-step the key equations, defining the form factors from the matrix elements of hadronic transitions and deriving their symmetry relations. Explained are several general concepts of particle theory and phenomenology exemplified by hadron form factors. The main emphasis here is on learning the analytical methods in particle phenomenology. Many examples of hadronic processes involving form factors are considered, from the pion (...) electromagnetic scattering to heavy B-meson decays. In the second part of the book modern techniques of the form factor calculation, based on the method of sum rules in the theory of strong interactions, quantum chromodynamics, are introduced in an accessible manner. This book will be a useful guide for graduate students and early-career researchers working in the field of particle phenomenology and experiments. Features: The first book to address the phenomenology of hadron form factors at a pedagogical level in one coherent volume. Contains up-to-date descriptions of the most important form factors of the electroweak transitions investigated in particle physics experiments. (shrink)

Two hundred and sixty-three subjects each gave examples for one of five geographic categories: geographic features, geographic objects, geographic concepts, something geographic, and something that could be portrayed on a map. The frequencies of various responses were significantly different, indicating that the basic ontological terms feature, object, etc., are not interchangeable but carry different meanings when combined with adjectives indicating geographic or mappable. For all of the test phrases involving geographic, responses were predominantly natural features such as mountain, (...) river, lake, ocean, hill. Artificial geographic features such as town and city were listed hardly at all for geographic categories, an outcome that contrasts sharply with the disciplinary self-understanding of academic geography. However, geographic artifacts and fiat objects, such as roads, cities, boundaries, countries, and states, were frequently listed by the subjects responding to the phrase something that could be portrayed on a map. In this paper, we present the results of these experiments in visual form, and provide interpretations and implications for further research. (shrink)

This article presents Simondon’s psycho-biological thinking as a type of heterodox naturalism centring on the self-organizing activity of vital forms. Despite his critique of classic notions of form, notably Aristotelian hylomorphism, Simondon revises this concept through a critical expansion and synthesis of information theory and Gestalt psychology. In his lecture series Imagination and Invention (1965–6) in particular, he develops an account of psycho-biological activity as governed by what he calls ‘images’: relatively autonomous informational sub-systems that serve to regulate the (...) relationship between organism and environment and that constitute the condition for creative action or invention. Focusing on his analysis of the individualization of perceptual objects, the article goes on to show that ‘forms’ for Simondon feature as emergent properties of quantum thresholds of ‘information’ within these systems. It also argues that such a conception offers a more promising alternative to both idealist philosophies of perception and materialist interpretations of deconstruction. (shrink)

This book is a re-thinking of Aristotle's metaphysical theory of material substances. The view of the author is that the 'substances' are the living things, the organisms: chiefly, the animals. There are three main parts to the book: Part I, a treatment of the concepts of substance and nonsubstance in Aristotle's Categories; Part III, which discusses some important features of biological objects as Aristotelian substances, as analysed in Aristotle's biological treatises and the de Anima; and Part V, which attempts (...) to relate the conception of substance as interpreted so far to that of the Metaphysics itself. The main aim of the study is to recreate in modern imagination a vivid, intuitive understanding of Aristotle's concept of material substance: a certain distinctive concept of what an individual material object is. (shrink)

The social doctrine of Catholicism was formed during the twentieth century - first as an addition to moral theology, and then acquired a certain autonomy, enriched with continuous, organic and systematic reflection on new and complex social problems. The most important point in the development of social doctrine is that it, being a doctrinal corps, with a stable theological basis, is not confined to a closed theological system, but proves its adaptability to the evolution of society, depending on the situation (...) in the world and the human ability to respond to new problems and time calls It stems from the impartial consideration of the social documents of all the Pontiffs - from Leo XII to John Paul II - and becomes even more evident from the Second Vatican Council. So, in order to understand the historical development of social doctrine, it is necessary to understand the socio-cultural context of each document, to consider the economic, social, political and cultural conditions in which they were formed and applied. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is primarily to consider some basic concepts and their meanings related to contemporary social interactions, starting from the classical sociological concepts of social relationship and social interaction, and to see what is changing and what remains the same in the age of networking and “moving” to virtual space. In other words, we want to re-examine their form and content in an age without the necessity of the spatial dimension for a relationship, in which new (...) forms and concepts occur, such as network, networking, virtuality, etc. The first chapter will show the meaning of social relations and social interaction, which imply those social relations in which contact/encounter or communication is present and which leads us to the concept of social interaction in the same space and at the same time. The topic of the second chapter is social interaction at the same time without space, when, with the application of information technology, individuals and societies enter the cyberspace of a new virtual reality. This leads us to the development of various forms of interaction on social networks, which is the topic of the third chapter. The fourth chapter discusses some of the risks and positive possibilities of virtual interactions over real ones. (shrink)

The notion of a minimal form is defined as an extension of the notion of a normal form in λ-β-calculus and its meaning is discussed in a computational environment. The features of the Knuth-Gross reduction strategy are used to prove that to possess a minimal form, for a generic term, is a semidecidable predicate.