Starting with a review of research on love as an emotion, with an emphasis on romantic love, it is argued that despite strong emotional correlates evidence is lacking to conclude that love would meet the criteria of basic emotions. Theoretical developments are proposed where love is conceived of as a combination of an objectless drive, a desire for love, and a mythical and scripted representation that offers the possibility of labeling the current core affect. I argue that the basic motive (...) for love is not so much the partner’s personal attributes, but rather the benefits of the transformative power of being in love. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to provide a short overview of the research that gradually culminated in the concept of cognitive biology. To a certain extent it can be compared to a prelude: as the Merriam Webster dictionary defines it, “a musical section or movement introducing the theme or chief subject (as of a fugue or suite) or serving as an introduction to an opera or oratorio.” At first glance, this may seem to downplay the importance of the (...) pre-cognitive biology period, but the opposite is true. Some preludes (consider, for example, La Traviata or Carmen) are as rich and beautiful as the acts that follow. We believe this is the case with the story culminating in the birth of cognitive biology, and we present it here in the form of an annotated (and somewhat virtual) interview with its leading actor, Ladislav Kováč. (shrink)

Levinstein recently presented a challenge to accuracy-first epistemology. He claims that there is no strictly proper, truth-directed, additive, and differentiable scoring rule that recognises the contingency of varying importance, i.e., the fact that an agent might value the inaccuracy of her credences differently at different possible worlds. In my response, I will argue that accuracy-first epistemology can capture the contingency of varying importance while maintaining its commitment to additivity, propriety, truth-directedness, and differentiability. I will construct a scoring rule — a (...) weighted scoring rule — and a global inaccuracy measure that has all four required properties and recognises the contingency of varying importance. I will show that Levinstein’s and my results coexist without contradicting each other. (shrink)

The relationship intelligentsia-morality-politics is characterized by a number of important features. In the first place, it is not a question of an abstract logical structure, but of an objectively existing social phenomenon. In other words, it is a question of the attitude of real, living men, with their intimate personal feelings and experiences, their social and political convictions.

Social consciousness is the most comprehensive historically differentiated and dynamic relatively independent spiritual system. It performs its function both with regard to social being and to the life and consciousness of the individual members of society. As a many-sided, heterogeneous and complex system social consciousness should be analyzed from various points of view. Varied approaches and methods are employed in its study, heterogeneous criteria, close-ups and cross sections are used in investigating its content.

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The commentaries by Cacioppo and Cacioppo (2016), Jankowiak (2016), Marazziti (2016), and Aron and Aron (2016) admirably illustrate the multifaceted nature of love and the difficulty of bringing together such diverse perspectives. Rising love is still far from being the subject of true experimental study since the experimenter often only observes the consequences thereof, and attempts to reconstitute in hindsight the circumstances of its onset.

Previous research about love, in the social-psychological literature, has focused on the antecedents, or causes, of love. Moreover, within the field of Personal Relationships, love is often regarded as implicitly present, and thus, is not treated directly. Here, we address the possibility of a reversal of this perspective, where love is no longer treated as a dependent variable but as an independent variable. We show that this change is necessary to promote the status of love to that of a reliable (...) object of scientific enquiry. We discuss the differences between scientific and naïve conceptions of love, and the necessity of distinguishingbetween an alleged reality of love and the consequences of the mere idea of love. (shrink)

A foundational goal of cognitive linguistics is to explain linguistic phenomena in terms of general cognitive strategies rather than postulating an autonomous language module (Langacker 1987: 12–13). Metonymy is identified among the imaginative capacities of cognition (Langacker 1993: 30, 2009: 46–47). Whereas the majority of scholarship on metonymy has focused on lexical metonymy, this study explores the systematic presence of metonymy in word-formation. I argue that in many cases, the semantic relationships between stems, affixes, and the words they form can (...) be analyzed in terms of metonymy, and that this analysis yields a better, more insightful classification than traditional descriptions of word-formation. I present a metonymic classification of suffixal word-formation in three languages: Russian, Czech, and Norwegian. The system of classification is designed to maximize comparison between lexical and word-formational metonymy. This comparison supports another central claim of cognitive linguistics, namely that grammar (in this case word-formation) and lexicon form a continuum (Langacker 1987: 18–19), since I show that metonymic relationships in the two domains can be described in nearly identical terms. While many metonymic relationships are shared across the lexical and grammatical domains, some are specific to only one domain, and the two domains show different preferences for source and target concepts. Furthermore, I find that the range of metonymic relationships expressed in word-formation is more diverse than what has been found in lexical metonymy. There is remarkable similarity in word-formational metonymy across the three languages, despite their typological differences, though they all show some degree of language-specific behavior as well. Although this study is limited to three Indo-European languages, the goal is to create a classification system that could be implemented (perhaps with modifications) across a wider spectrum of languages. (shrink)

This paper deals with Care of the Self under globalization. The first part refers to Johann P. Arnason’s interpretation of Jan Patočka’s work on super-civilization and shows the contradictions facing people in the Modern Era. It suggests that the concept of moderateness is an adequate point of departure for handling the various contradictions of the current epoch. The second part looks at selected aspects of Confucian philosophy in which moderateness, that is, the permanent search for a “middle position” is an (...) integral part of that philosophical tradition. The critical actualisation of Confucianism as proposed for instance by Heiner Roetz is seen as an appropriate way of developing the dialogical characteristics of Confucian philosophy. In the last part it is stressed that critical theory is of relevance when identifying various forms of suffering and because of its ability to understand and critically evaluate diverse cultural and social contexts. (shrink)

The relationship between construal and redundancy has not been previously explored empirically. Russian aspect allows speakers to construe situations as either Perfective or Imperfective, but it is not clear to what extent aspect is determined by context and therefore redundant. We investigate the relationship between redundancy and open construal by surveying 501 native Russian speakers who rated the acceptability of both Perfective and Imperfective verb forms in complete extensive authentic contexts. We find that aspect is largely redundant in 81% of (...) uses, and in 17% of contexts aspect is relatively open to construal. We contend that anchoring in redundant contexts likely facilitates the independence of construal in contexts with less redundancy. However further research is needed to discover what makes contexts redundant since known cues for aspect are absent in the majority of such contexts. Native speakers are fairly consistent in giving the original aspect high ratings, but less consistent in rating the non-original aspect, indicating potential problems in testing the reactions of speakers to non-authentic data. (shrink)

I propose that human experience of matter provides the source domain for the metaphor that motivates the grammatical category of aspect in Russian. This model is a version of the universal TIME IS SPACE metaphor, according to which SITUATIONS ARE MATERIAL ENTITIES, and, more specifically, PERFECTIVE IS A DISCRETE SOLID OBJECT versus IMPERFECTIVE IS A FLUID SUBSTANCE. The contrast of discrete solid objects with fluid substances reveals a rich array of over a dozen properties; the isomorphism observed between those properties (...) and the complex uses of aspect in Russian is compelling. This model presents a more finely articulated account of Russian aspect than feature analysis can achieve. Although some of these properties overlap significantly with the count versus mass distinction often associated with aspect, the properties provide more detail and ground the metaphor to concrete experience. Properties of matter can be divided into three groups: inherent properties such as edges, shape, and integrity (which correspond to inherent situation aspect); interactional properties such as juxtaposition, dynamism, and salience (which correspond to discourse phenomena of aspect); and human interactional properties such as graspability and impact (which correspond to pragmatic phenomena of aspect). The interactional and human interactional properties can be used to motivate subjective construal, whereas the inherent properties serve as default motivators. The model will be demonstrated in detail using Russian data, followed by a survey comparing Russian with the other Slavic languages, which will show that deviations consist of either non-implementation of a given property, or the implementation of an inherent (default) property in place of an interactional or human interactional property. This model will be contrasted with a brief discussion of a selection of non-Slavic languages. The specific metaphor in this model does not apply beyond Slavic, but perhaps it will encourage investigation into the source domain of aspect in other languages. There appears to be a correlation between the relatively heavy morphological investment Slavic languages make in nominal individuation and the individuation of situations presented in this metaphorical model. (shrink)

Reflections on Justice under the Context of Globalization This paper deals with the need to change the way in which we consider justice in connection with globalisation. It analyses injustice in countries with developed capitalism, employing the work of Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser. The paper highlights the importance of using "critical theory" in relation to developing an acceptable understanding of the term justice, and using "critical theory" in conjunction with Hans Herbert Kögler's "philosophical hermeneutics". In order to adequately investigate (...) contemporary human civilization it is necessary to enrich our knowledge by investigating "civilisational analysis" (Johann P. Arnason). (shrink)

The submitted paper offers a philosophical analysis of contemporary society based on the ideas of Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy. Kant focused on the issue of society in terms of the a priori principles of freedom, equality, and independence and his ideas on social issues are analysed in the first part of the paper. The analysis then serves as a prerequisite for philosophical-critical assessment of contemporary society, especially in the region of Central Europe, presented by philosophers and authors of various fields (...) of study. In the second part of the paper the authors aim to analyse basic social problems of contemporary society and its situation from the point of view of philosophical criticism and referring to the topicality of Kant’s ideas in today’s philosophical thought. (shrink)

In order to understand today’s social and political situation in East-Central Europe, one should particularly examine the consequences of post-socialist transformation. The negative and often very painful effects of the social changes that affected Central and Eastern Europe over the past three decades have not been overcome until today. This makes it all the more important to be better prepared philosophically for future social changes. François Jullien offers a number of solutions. In the first part of my paper, taking Jullien’s (...) book The Silent Transformations as a point of departure, I show that many of the problems that still exist in East-Central Europe largely result from placing too much emphasis on the event of the revolution and too little on the transformation experienced by the region’s populations. In the second and third parts, I indicate, pace Jullien, a way towards a moderate, “sober”, but nevertheless creative and productive understanding of the active agent by appealing to the works of Hans-Herbert Kögler and Fabian Heubel. (shrink)

This paper deals with Care of the Self under globalization. The first part refers to Johann P. Arnason’s interpretation of Jan Patočka’s work on super-civilization and shows the contradictions facing people in the Modern Era. It suggests that the concept of moderateness is an adequate point of departure for handling the various contradictions of the current epoch. The second part looks at selected aspects of Confucian philosophy in which moderateness, that is, the permanent search for a “middle position” is an (...) integral part of that philosophical tradition. The critical actualisation of Confucianism as proposed for instance by Heiner Roetz is seen as an appropriate way of developing the dialogical characteristics of Confucian philosophy. In the last part it is stressed that critical theory is of relevance when identifying various forms of suffering and because of its ability to understand and critically evaluate diverse cultural and social contexts. (shrink)

Thirders sometimes feel compelled to give the same answer – a credence of 1/3 – to the original and the duplicating Sleeping Beauty problem, which leads to some unwanted consequences. I will argue that they do not have to feel compelled to give the same answer, because the original and the duplicating version of the Sleeping Beauty problem are different types of decision problems. If one accepts that it is rationally permissible to give different answers to different types of decision (...) problems, both versions do not require the same solution. (shrink)

Rédei and Gyenis recently displayed strong constraints of Bayesian learning. However, they also presented a positive result for Bayesianism. Despite the limited significance of this positive result, I find it useful to discuss its two possible strengthenings to present new results and open new questions about the limits of Bayesianism. First, I will show that one cannot strengthen the positive result by restricting the evidence to so-called “certain evidence”. Secondly, strengthening the result by restricting the partitions—as parts of one’s evidence—to (...) Jeffrey-independent partitions requires additional constraints on one’s evidence to preserve its commutativity. So, my results provide additional grounds for caution and support for the limitations of Bayesian learning. (shrink)

Les auteurs se penchent ici sur le droit comme « mode d’existence » des Modernes, tel que décrit par Bruno Latour dans son Enquête sur les modes d’existence. Ils complètent dans un premier temps la cartographie de ce mode [DRO] et retracent le rôle joué par celui-ci dans l’Enquête de Latour. Dans un deuxième temps, ils s'interrogent sur les croisements et les harmoniques que génère ce mode [DRO] avec d’autres modes d’existence, notamment celui que Latour appelle [ORG] – le mode (...) d’organisation éthique, sociale, commerciale. Ils articulent alors les difficultés posées par ces croisements et ces harmoniques, mais aussi ses aspects prometteurs pour l’avènement d’un nouveau droit de la Terre.The authors here reflect on the law as one of the modes of existence of the Moderns, as described in Bruno Latour’s An Inquiry into the Modes of Existence. They first seek to complete the cartography of this mode [LAW] and to retrace the role played by [LAW] in Latour’s Inquiry. Second, they reflect on the crossings and harmonics at play between [LAW] and other modes of existence, notably [ORG]—the mode of the ethical, social or commercial organization. They then articulate the difficulties posed by these crossings and harmonics, but also their promising aspects for the advent of a new law of the Earth. (shrink)

We propose the “grammatical profile” as a means of probing the aspectual behavior of verbs. A grammatical profile is the relative frequency distribution of the inflected forms of a word in a corpus. The grammatical profiles of Russian verbs provide data on two crucial issues: a) the overall relationship between perfective and imperfective verbs and b) the identification of verbs that characterize various intersections of aspect, tense and mood (TAM) with lexical classes. There is a long-standing debate over whether Russian (...) aspectual “pairs” are formed only via suffixation (the Isacenko hypothesis) or whether they are formed via both suffixation and prefixation (the traditional view). We test the Isacenko hypothesis using data on the corpus frequency of inflected forms of verbs. We find that the behavior of perfective and imperfective verbs is the same regardless of whether the aspectual relationship is marked by prefixes or suffixes; our finding thus supports the traditional view. Introspective descriptions of Russian aspect have often connected the use of particular inflectional forms with certain uses of aspect; for example, the use of imperative forms with the imperfective aspect to produce expressions that are very polite. Grammatical profiles make it possible to identify verbs that behave as outliers, presenting unusually large proportions of usage in parts of the paradigm. This analysis both gives substance to and extends previous introspective descriptions by identifying the verbs most involved in certain TAM-category interactions. On a methodological level, this study contributes to current discussions on the use of inflected forms vs. lemmas in corpus studies. Newman (Aiming low in linguistics: Low-level generalizations in corpus-based research: National Chiao Tung University, 2008) finds valuable information at the level of the inflectional form, and Gries (forthcoming) argues that inflectional forms do not necessarily provide a better basis for analysis than lemmas. We agree with them that the appropriate level of granularity is determined by both the language and the linguistic phenomenon under analysis. (shrink)

Cílem této práce je ukázat Fergusonovy základní teze týkající se pojetí lidské přirozenosti a zkoumat, jaké z nich plynou závěry a jestli mohou tyto závěry neproblematicky koexistovat. V první části práce se chci pokusit najít vnitřní jednotu ve Fergusonově teorii lidské přirozenosti a ukázat, že Fergusonovo pojetí člověka je konklusivní. Zkoumání přirozenosti člověka je pro Fergusona velmi těsně spjato se zkoumání vztahu jedince a společnosti. Právě v pojetí tohoto vztahu vzniká problémová situace, pokud budeme chtít podržet Fergusonovu verzi a přidat (...) k ní teorii morálního citu. Na rozbor této problematiky se zaměřím v poslední části práce. Práce se zabývá Fergusonovou teorií spadající pouze do období, kdy napsal "An Essay on the History of Civil Society". (shrink)

Práce si klade za cíl kriticky prozkoumat teorii J. S. Milla o rozlišení kvalitativní a kvantitativní charakteristice požitků (pleasure). Mill svoji teorii představil jako reakci na kritiku, že utilitární teorie vyhovuje jen zvířecí povaze lidské přirozenost a neuvažuje o vyšších schopnostech lidského ducha. Millova expozice teorie ale není v mnoha pasážích zcela jasná a průhledná. Práce se zaměřuje hlavně na prozkoumání problematického vztahu mezi kvantitativní stránkou a kvalitativní stránkou potěšení.

This article contributes to Construction Grammar, historical linguistics, and Russian linguistics through an in-depth corpus study of predicate agreement in constructions with quantified subjects. Statistical analysis of approximately 39,000 corpus examples indicates that these constructions constitute a network of constructions (“allostructions”) with various preferences for singular or plural agreement. Factors pull in different directions, and we observe a relatively stable situation in the face of variation. We present an analysis of a multidimensional network of allostructions in Russian, thus contributing to (...) our understanding of allostructional relationships in Construction Grammar. With regard to historical linguistics, language stability is an understudied field. We illustrate an interplay of divergent factors that apparently resists language change. The syntax of numerals and other quantifiers represents a notoriously complex phenomenon of the Russian language. Our study sheds new light on the contributions of factors that favor singular or plural agreement in sentences with quantified subjects. (shrink)

In the debate about the legal value of naked statistical evidence, Di Bello argues that (1) the likelihood ratio of such evidence is unknown, (2) the decision-theoretic considerations indicate that a conviction based on such evidence is unacceptable when expected utility maximization is combined with fairness constraints, and (3) the risk of mistaken conviction based on such evidence cannot be evaluated and is potentially too high. We argue that Di Bello’s argument for (1) works in a rather narrow context, and (...) that (1) is not exactly in line with the way expert witnesses are required to formulate their opinions. Consequently, Di Bello’s argument for (2), which assumes (1), does not apply uniformly to all convictions based on naked evidence. Moreover, if Di Bello’s analysis is correct, it applies also to eyewitness testimony, given empirical results about its quality, and so the distinctions drawn by DiBello cut across the distinction between naked statistical evidence and other types of evidence. Finally, if we weaken the rather strong requirement of precise measurability of the risk of mistaken conviction, to the availability of reasonable but imprecise and fallible estimates, many field and empirical studies show that often the risk of mistaken conviction based on naked statistical evidence can be estimated to a similar extent as the risk of mistaken conviction based on any other sort of evidence. (shrink)

We study positive bilinear forms on a Hilbert space which are not necessarily bounded nor induced by some positive operator. We show when different families of bilinear forms can be described as a generalized effect algebra. In addition, we present families which are or are not monotone downwards (Dedekind upwards) σ-complete generalized effect algebras.