This article aims at introducing the relation between the use of CCTV systems in urban spaces and social control. More specifically, its purpose is to problematize and reaffirm the use of the theoretical background of the panopticon in order to interpret such a relation. In CCTV studies, as a consequence of literal interpretations, as well as the existence of a hegemony in ethnographic studies carried out in control rooms, the theoretical use of the panopticon is then questioned. In this article, (...) based on an ethnographic study conducted in the public spaces surveilled by a CCTV system in a Brazilian city, it can be concluded that the effects of social control through surveillance are paradoxical. The indifferent way in which citizens deal with surveillance, or even the lack of awareness of it, imposes limits to the interpretation of the system as a tool of social control. Thus, the use of the panopticon becomes problematic. However, this research has shown how the presence of cameras in public spaces makes it conducive for a state of control in the form of a network whose project would be a mythical and homogeneous ordering of the spaces. The importance of the interpretation of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon by Michel Foucault is then reaffirmed, that is, panopticism as a trend of normalization and moralization of the public spaces. (shrink)

What is the proper unit of analysis in the psycholinguistics of dialog? While classical approaches are largely based on models of individual linguistic processing, recent advances stress the social coordinative nature of dialog. In the influential interactive alignment model, dialogue is thus approached as the progressive entrainment of interlocutors' linguistic behaviors toward the alignment of situation models. Still, the driving mechanisms are attributed to individual cognition in the form of automatic structural priming. Challenging these ideas, we outline a dynamical framework (...) for studying dialog based on the notion of interpersonal synergy. Crucial to this synergetic model is the emphasis on dialog as an emergent, self-organizing, interpersonal system capable of functional coordination. A consequence of this model is that linguistic processes cannot be reduced to the workings of individual cognitive systems but must be approached also at the interpersonal level. From the synergy model follows a number of new predictions: beyond simple synchrony, good dialog affords complementary dynamics, constrained by contextual sensitivity and functional specificity. We substantiate our arguments by reference to recent empirical studies supporting the idea of dialog as interpersonal synergy. (shrink)

The paper draws a parallel between natural language symbols and the symbolic mode in living systems. The inextricability of symbols and the dynamics with which they are functionally related shows that much of their structuring is due to dynamics and self-organization. It is also stressed that important factors that determine the shape of language structure lie outside individual mind/brains and they draw on time-scales quite different from those of phenomenological experience. Analysis of language into units and subsystems is thus not (...) straightforward, since they show functionality on many levels and many time-scales. Finally it is recognized that, as a specific and specialized system of inter-individual coordination, natural language is many hierarchical levels away form simpler forms of information transmission in biological systems. (shrink)

Here, I defend the view that fictional narratives are illusionary and that fictional names are to be accounted metalinguistically, a blend of Walton’s and Donnellan’s theories. Besides, I offer a remedial semantic for sentences external to the story which connects those uses back to the text of the story and to the neighborhood of its retellings.

This volume collects new, previously unpublished articles on Kaplan, analyzing a broad spectrum of topics ranging from cutting edge linguistics and the ...

Over the past several decades, research in the cognitive sciences has foregrounded the importance of active bodies and their continuous dependence on the changing environment, strengthening the relevance of dynamical models. These models have been steadily developed within the ecological psychology approach to cognition, which arguably contributes to the “ecological turn” we are witnessing today. The embodied and situated nature of cognition, regarded by some as a passing trend, is presently becoming a largely accepted assumption. In this paper, I claim (...) that in light of these developments, ecological psychology, in alliance with related approaches, such as enactivism and interactivism, has the potential to deeply transform our perspectives on cognition and action, restoring their pertinence to humans as persons. However, an important challenge to the realization of this potential has to be noted: neither the mainstream information-processing approach nor the dynamics-oriented perspective on cognition provides an account of how the capacity of humans to use language and think “symbolically” can be derived from the continuous flow of agent−environment interaction. I will attempt to show that posing the “dynamical” and “computational” hypotheses about the nature of cognition as mutually exclusive approaches to cognition results in undesirable reductionism, which makes it difficult to meet this challenge. There are good reasons, advanced over half a century ago by, for example, Michael Polanyi or Howard Pattee, to think that we need complementary descriptions to understand cognizing systems, in order to grasp the fact that they are governed both by physical laws and by emergent historical constraints. Details of such a complementarity-based approach still await elucidation, but some proposed solutions have the potential to ease the tension between the information-processing and dynamical approaches to cognition and to lead to a better understanding of their interrelation. (shrink)

Introduction: The two sections of this volume present theoretical developments and practical applicative papers respectively. Theoretical papers cover topics such as intercultural pragmatics, evolutionism, argumentation theory, pragmatics and law, the semantics/pragmatics debate, slurs, and more. The applied papers focus on topics such as pragmatic disorders, mapping places of origin, stance-taking, societal pragmatics, and cultural linguistics. This is the second volume of invited papers that were presented at the inaugural Pragmasofia conference in Palermo in 2016, and like its predecessor presents papers (...) by well-known philosophers, linguists, and a semiotician. The papers present a wide variety of perspectives independent from any one school of thought. (shrink)

This paper considers some foundational concepts in ecological psychology and in enactivism, and traces their developments from their historical roots to current preoccupations. Important differences stem, we claim, from dissimilarities in how embodied experience has been understood by the ancestors, founders and followers of ecological psychology and enactivism, respectively. Rather than pointing to differences in domains of interest for the respective approaches, and restating possible divisions of labor between them in research in the cognitive and psychological sciences, we call for (...) a deeper analysis of the role of embodiment in agency that we also undertake. Awareness of the differences that exist in the respective frameworks and their consequences, we argue, may lead to overcoming some current divisions of responsibility, and contribute to a more comprehensive and complementary way of dealing with a broader range of theoretical and practical concerns. While providing some examples of domains, such as social cognition and art reception, in which we can observe the relative usefulness and potential integration of the theoretical and methodological resources from the two approaches, we demonstrate that such deeper synergy is not only possible but also beginning to emerge. Such complementarity, as we envisage, conceives of ecological psychology that allows felt experience as a crucial dynamical element in the explanations and models that it produces, and of an enactive approach that takes into consideration the ubiquitous presence of rich directly perceived relations among variables arising from enactments in the social and physical world. (shrink)

In "The Measure of the Mental" (Davidson 1990), replying to a series of criticisms, that grow out of inadvertence or misunderstanding, Davidson has revisited his thesis concerning the physical and the mental, which he called "anomalous monism" (henceforth, AM). The thesis is subtle and elusive, as it is most often the case with Davidson: there is only one kind of event and state, which has a physical description (i.e., a description in physical terms) and may have a mental description too (...) (i.e., a description in mental terms) -- that shows the monism. But there is no strict law to go from a mental to a physical description of events and states or vice versa -- that shows the anomalousness.This sophisticated third way captures the intuition, generally shared today, that we are physical machines, whereas it acknowledges the mind a peculiarity: the mental is identical with a part of the physical, but no part of the mind is specifically identifiable with any part of the physical; or, more weakly, each mental event or state is identical with a physical one, though there is no systematic way to connect the mental and the physical. (shrink)

Les modifications profondes de notre système socio-culturel font émerger des questions éthiques nouvelles, à l'intérieur de toutes les disciplines qui ont l'homme pour objet, telles l'esthétique, la philosophie, la politique, le droit, la médecine.Pour comprendre ces questions, par-delà leur « actualité ponctuelle », dans le flux vivant de leur constitution, leur approche doit être patiente, complexe, parfois aussi éprouvante qu'une initiation au parcours du labyrinthe. C'est cette tâche difficile que les auteurs de ce livre ont tenté d'amorcer.Leurs contributions sont issues (...) du cycle de leçons publiques qui ont été organisées durant l'année académique 1984-1985, par l'École des sciences philosophiques et religieuses des Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis à Bruxelles. (shrink)

Die hundertste Wiederkehr des Geburtstages Max Schelers war im Jahre 1974 der Anlaß zu zahlreichen Gelegenheitsveröffentlichungen, die jedoch wahrscheinlich lediglich als ein kurzes Auffiammen des Interesses an der Philosophie dieses Denkers eingeschätzt werden dürfen. Sowohl die Reichhaltigkeit wie die Vielseitigkeit seines Werkes dürfte der vornehmlichste Grund für die Tatsache sein, daß nur wenige Denker und um Darstellung bzw. Interpretation bemühte Forscher sich ein gehend und umfassend mit Schelers Philosophie befaßt haben. Hinzu kommt die Unvollendetheit dieses Schaffens, die einerseits auf seinen (...) frühen Tod zurückzuführen ist, die andererseits aber wesentlich in der Eigenart seines Philosophierens verankert ist. Es besteht jedoch die berechtigte Hoffnung, daß die Herausgabe des unveröffentlichten Nach lasses diese Unvollendetheit zwar nicht aufheben, sie aber in ihren Grenzen präziser als bisher möglich umreißen wird, und dies insbeson dere in bezug auf die von ihm geplante Metaphysik und Anthropologie. Vorliegender Arbeit lag der Versuch zugrunde, zwei der wesentlich sten Grundpfeiler dieser Philosophie freizulegen und somit zur Ausar beitung der diesem Denken "noch fehlenden architektonischen Ordnung" beizutragen. Abgesehen von einigen geringfügigen Änderungen für den Druck wurde diese Arbeit im Juni 1974 von der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universite Catholique de Louvain als Doktoratsthese angenommen. Für die Ausarbeitung dieser Dissertation steht der Autor in tiefster Dankesschuld vor allem bei seinem Promotor, Herrn Professor Dr. (shrink)

I emphasize the general character of the central claim made by Terrence Deacon about the necessity of complementary description of evolving cognitive systems. Next, I clarify and augment one of the claims made in the paper about the tools offered by information theory. Finally, I point to the need of further clarification of some central notions, which should help to make connections across discourses.

This article is an attempt to shortly outline the approaches to the mind-body problem that are currently discussed within psychology. In the introduction the attitude of a contemporary psychologist to the mind-body problem is assessed. It seems that due to the functional approach, that for the last 50 years prevailed (especially in cognitive psychology), the mind-body issue is not central to psychological thinking, and in the investigation of many problems researchers can abstract away from it. Next, three approaches to the (...) mind-body problem viewed from a perspective of the embodiment of a symbolic (and/or symbolically described) mind are briefly sketched. The already "traditional", symbolic information-processing approach in contrasted with 1) an approach that accepts both symbolic and dynamic description of mind, analyzes their relation, and advocates the indispensability of symbols; and 2) an approach that agrees that brain is a dynamical device but still cannot see the possibility of the same level description for the brain and its emergent properties. Neither approach, of course, offers a definitive solution to the mind-body problem. What they try to do is take away some of the "formal", "digital", "syntactic" properties of symbols, make them more "semantic" and "embodied", and show how they relate to the dynamics of the cognitive system. In conclusion of the article a supposition is made that the growing acknowledgement of the role of semantics and embodiment in description of symbolic systems (which means abandoning functionalist assumption), may result in a greater involvement in the mind/body problem even in those areas of psychology, in which previously scientists could just turn their back on it. (shrink)

In the sentence “Tom sits,” the name distinguishes Tom from anyone else, whereas the predicate assimilates Tom, Theaetetus, and anyone else to whom the predicate applies. The name marks out its bearer and the predicate groups together what it applies to. On that ground, his name is used to trace back Tom, and the predi- cate is used to describe and classify what it applies to. In both cases, the semantic link is a direct link between expressions and particulars. Here, (...) I will explore the workings of predicative names along the direction just hinted at. The analysis of predication has been less central to philosophical investigation than that of referen- tial expressions. Some problems have concerned the unity of the sentence—what makes us understand “The baby cries” as a sentence rather than a list of words? Other problems have been what a predicate was taken to stand for, properties and relations, and the understanding of either at the ontological level. If a predicate refers to a property or a relation, yet predication, which is central to our understand- ing of predicates, applies it to one or more particulars. On the background hinted at, these problems might be differently viewed. (shrink)

Quine is one of the most influential of contemporary philosophers, whose work has ranged broadly across a great number of topics and issues in a career spanning some fifty years. In this collection a group of distinguished philosophers offer a sustained critical evaluation of the full range of Quine's writings. Amongst the topics addressed are interpretation, epistemology, ontology, modality, and mathematical truth. This collection will certainly influence all future discussion of Quine. The contributors include: George Boolos, H-N. Castaneda, Donald Davidson, (...) Umberto Eco, Dagfinn Follesdal, James Higginbotham, Charles Parsons, Hilary Putnam, Barry Stroud, and Bas van Fraassen. However, Quine is given the last word, responding to the essays in the final contribution. (shrink)

Speaker’s meaning is the act at the core of meaning shift, where meaning can be the very act or its output. What are its conditions, which intentions direct it? What’s its mechanics? I will give a first answer to the first question. Then, I will discuss the mechanics of speaker’s meaning, as well as meaningful links different from speaker’s meaning. This will bring me to surmise a second answer to the first question. Along the way, I will compare the act (...) of meaning with other acts. In closing, I will try a limited elucidation of the notion of intention, which I use throughout. On these issues there is the conspicuous tradition of studies, originating from the late Paul Grice, to confront us with. Rather naturally, I will move from it. But I am interested in the notion of speaker’s meaning and its place in an analysis of meaning, and not in that tradition as such. The notion of speaker’s meaning, I think, is relevant even for those who do not subscribe to a Gricean approach to meaning, as I don’t. (shrink)

Frege’s claim that sentences are names of truth-values, I argue, was drawn to fit the formal project, but it respects our pre-theoretical intuitions and does not undermine the sentence’s central semantic role. I do a minimal work both on the expression and on its referent, connecting the sentence and the definite description, suggesting an intuitive referent for a true sentence, suggesting a motive for Frege’s choice of the truth-values as referents, and finally suggesting an understanding of the False as a (...) referent. (shrink)

This article examines the cameraless negatives revealing the imprints of four fingers obtained in Turin in February 1907 during the second of two séances with renowned medium Eusapia Palladino organized by physiologists Alberto Aggazzotti, Carlo Foà and Amedeo Hertlizka. By looking at the material and performative components of the séance, it presents spiritualist cameraless photography as a productive tool for rethinking and reframing the photographic medium from a cross-disciplinary perspective questioning medium specific histories and dominant genealogies.

In technologically grounded organizations, culture is bound tightly to the material characteristics of the technology that the organization manufactures, distributes, or services. Technological grounding helps explain why high-technology organizations often experience cultural integration problems following a merger. Examining the recent merger of US West and Qwest, this article analyzes how powerful actors strategically used the process of technological grounding to enroll a core technology to situate postmerger integration in technological terms, creating a discourse of inevitability that then justified publicly Qwest's (...) cultural domination of US West. (shrink)

Skulsky examines how figurative language acts in seventeenth-century English poetry. Though a working knowledge of these poets would be helpful to the reader, particularly with respect to the work of John Donne, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan, it is not absolutely necessary. Furthermore, though Skulsky's book may be of primary interest to the student of poetry, much of what he says in respect to the way in which language operates will be of concern to the philosopher.