In works of literary fiction, it is a part of the fiction that the words of the text are being recounted by some work-internal 'voice': the literary narrator. One can ask similarly whether the story in movies is told in sights and sounds by a work-internal subjectivity that orchestrates them: a cinematic narrator. George M. Wilson argues that movies do involve a fictional recounting (an audio-visual narration ) in terms of the movie's sound and image track. Viewers are usually (...) prompted to imagine seeing the items and events in the movie's fictional world and to imagine hearing the associated fictional sounds. However, it is much less clear that the cinematic narration must be imagined as the product of some kind of 'narrator' - of a work-internal agent of the narration. Wilson goes on to examine the further question whether viewers imagine seeing the fictional world face-to-face or whether they imagine seeing it through some kind of work-internal mediation . It is a key contention of this book that only the second of these alternatives allows one to give a coherent account of what we do and do not imagine about what we are seeing on the screen. Having provided a partial account of the foundations of film narration, the final chapters explore the ways in which certain complex strategies of cinematic narration are executed in three exemplary films: David Fincher's Fight Club , von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress , and the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There. (shrink)

If a person's head moves, she may or may not have moved her head, and, if she did move it, she may have actively performed the movement of her head or merely, by doing something else, caused a passive movement. And, if she performed the movement, she might have done so intentionally or not. This short array of contrasts (and others like them) has motivated questions about the nature, variety, and identity of action. Beyond the matter of her moving, when (...) the person moves her head, she may be indicating agreement or shaking an insect off her ear. Should we think of the consequences, conventional or causal, of physical behavior as constituents of an action distinct from but ‘generated by’ the movement? Or should we think that there is a single action describable in a host of ways? Also, actions, in even the most minimal sense, seem to be essentially ‘active’. But, how can we explain what this property amounts to and defend our wavering intuitions about which events fall in the category of the ‘active’ and which do not? (shrink)

This article argues, first, that the fundamental structure of the skeptical argument in Kripke's book on Wittgenstein has been seriously misunderstood by recent commentators. Although it focuses particularly on recent commentary by John McDowell, it emphasizes that the basic misunderstandings are widely shared by other commentators. In particular, it argues that, properly construed, Kripke offers a fully coherent reading of PI #201 and related passages. This is commonly denied, and given as a reason for rejecting Kripke's reading of Wittgenstein's text. (...) Second, it is pretty universally accepted that Kripke's Wittgenstein is a `non-factualist' about ascriptions of meaning. The article argues that, when Kripke's discussion is rightly understood and the content of `non-factualism' is clarified, there is an important sense in which the skeptical solution is not committed to non-factualism. (shrink)

This article argues, first, that the fundamental structure of the skeptical argument in Kripke’s book on Wittgenstein has been seriously misunderstood by recent commentators. Although it focuses particularly on recent commentary by John McDowell, it emphasizes that the basic misunderstandings are widely shared by other commentators. In particular, it argues that, properly construed, Kripke offers a fully coherent reading of PI #201 and related passages. This is commonly denied, and given as a reason for rejecting Kripke’s reading of Wittgenstein’s text. (...) Second, it is pretty universally accepted that Kripke’s Wittgenstein is a ‘non-factualist’ about ascriptions of meaning. The article argues that, when Kripke’s discussion is rightly understood and the content of ‘non-factualism’ is clarified, there is an important sense in which the skeptical solution is not committed to non-factualism. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Ebbs has given an elegant statement of a notable puzzle that has recurred in the literature since the original publication of Putnam’s “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” The puzzle can be formulated, for a certain characteristic case, along the following lines. There are very strong intuitions in support of a thesis that Putnam has explicitly endorsed, namely, the thesis: The extension of the word ‘gold’, as we use it now, is the same as the extension of ‘gold’, (...) as it was used in 1650 (before the rise of molecular chemistry). However, strong convictions about language use and truth conditions also incline us to the view that the extension of a term, as it is used at a time t, is determined by facts about the use of the term in the language at or before t, together with the facts about the various items to which the term prospectively applied. This paper looks at the various issues involved regarding these matters. (shrink)

It is widely held in theories of narrative that all works of literary narrative fiction include a narrator who fictionally tells the story. However, it is also granted that the personal qualities of a narrator may be more or less radically effaced. Recently, philosophers and film theorists have debated whether movies similarly involve implicit audio-visual narrators. Those who answer affirmatively allow that these cinematic narrators will be radically effaced. Their opponents deny that audio-visual narrators figure in the ontology of movies (...) at all, and many have argued that the ‘effaced’ literary narrator is an illusion as well. In this paper, I attempt to sort out the central issues that arise in these debates, defending the existence of effaced narrators in both literature and film. (shrink)

Toward the end of Chapter Four, Richard Moran provides a summary statement of some of his chief objectives in earlier portions of his book. He says.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:George M. Wilson EDWARD SAID ON CONTRAPUNTAL READING Edward Said's rich and powerful new book, Culture and Imperialism,1 offers, as one strand of its multifaceted discussion, methodological reflections on the reading and interpretation of works of narrative fiction. More specifically, Said delineates and defends what he calls a "contrapuntal" reading (or analysis) ofthe texts in question. I am sympathetic to much ofwhat Said aims to accomplish in tiiis (...) endeavor, but I am also puzzled about some key aspects of his proposal. I will begin by presenting a brief sketch of my understanding of what a contrapuntal reading involves, and I will tiien explain some of the doubts and puzzlement I feel. Unfortunately, there is much that Said says about even diis limited topic that I will have to by-pass, but I hope to say enough to initiate some helpful discussion of the issues. I should note that aldiough the topic of "contrapuntal reading" recurs with significant emphasis throughout his book, Said's direct explication of the enterprise is scattered across several chapters, and the relevant remarks tend to be, in each instance, fairly brief. Given this state of affairs, I have tried to extract a reasonably unified account from a wide range of passages, and I hope to have done so as sympadietically and accurately as possible. Nevertheless, die fact remains that what follows is my reconstruction of the view diat Said adumbrates. Contrapuntal readings are meant to interweave, mutually qualify, and above all, superimpose die legitimate claims ofinternal or intrinsic readings of a work, on the one hand, and the claims ofvarious forms of external critique, on the odier. Such readings rest upon the fact that any literary fiction refers to or depicts a complex of materials that have been drawn from the actual world, e.g., actual people, places, institutions, and practices. These items are taken up and variously deployed Philosophy and Literature, © 1994, 18: 265-273 266Philosophy and Literature within the wider imaginative project of the work. It is crucial to this deployment tiiat the intended audience can be expected to bring to the text a set of background "attitudes" concerning die relevant real world materials, and tiiat diese beliefs, concerns, ideological presuppositions, etc., are elaborated widiin die work's embedded patterns. Thus, die text is anchored in what Said calls "a structure of reference and attitude," and diis structure constitutes die base from which a contrapuntal reading chiefly proceeds. Reading contrapuntally, interpreters move back and forth between an internal and external standpoint on the work's imaginative project, with special attention to the structure of reference and attitudes it contains. From an internal standpoint, interpretation aims at explanation of the work's narrational, rhetorical, and linguistic strategies, an explanation that respects the strategies and die density of the textual elements tiiey implicate. It is important that the internal standpoint articulate die work's vision as compellingly as possible, not only because diis has an obvious interest of its own, but because the persuasiveness ofcommentary from an external standpoint depends upon giving full credit to the sophistication of the text. (We will return to diis point shortly.) An external standpoint examines the problematic seductiveness of die work's capacity to guide its audience's responses and seeks to define die limited degrees of freedom widiin whatever complexity it establishes. By reminding us of information about the structure of reference that die work ignores, distorts, or minimizes and by reminding us that the structure of invoked attitudes has plausible alternatives that the work has effectively excluded, die external standpoint situates the text critically within a wider field of imaginative possibilities. As Said formulates the point, we read from an external perspective "... with an effort to draw out, extend, give emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented" in die work" (CUfI, p. 66). In elaborating the account above, I have spoken of "intrinsic readings " of narrative fictions, and it will help to fill in my sketch if I specify the fairly standard conception I have in mind. Said does not address diis as a separate topic, but I believe that die following remarks are fully compatible with what he seems... (shrink)

A sentence of the formEither Jones or Smith entered the room, and he saw the Maltese Falcon,has some notable properties due largely to the sprightly behavior of the pronoun in its second conjunct. For instance, that pronoun can not be a pronoun of laziness for the disjunctive noun phrase, ‘Jones or Smith,’ since patently does not express the thought that Either Jones or Smith entered the room, and either Jones or Smith saw the Maltese Falcon., but not, would be true (...) if Jones entered the room but didn't see the Maltese Falcon, and Smith saw the Maltese Falcon but never entered the room. (shrink)

Toward the end of Chapter Four, Richard Moran provides a summary statement of some of his chief objectives in earlier portions of his book. He says.

Throughout its matrix of atoms, myoglobin has a network of cavities that are inhabited for short lengths of time by ligands released by photolysis from the myoglobin heme. The purpose or effect of this cavity network is not clear. A recently published kinetic scheme that fits data from many native and mutant myoglobin oxygen photolysis experiments can be modified easily into a kinetic scheme that includes kinetic proofreading. Proofreading would provide protection against contaminants and, specifically, might help protect the cell (...) from carbon monoxide poisoning. Here we present a two‐part model: (1) myoglobin represented by a kinetic description, which includes proofreading reactions associated with the cavities, and (2) a reaction–diffusion description of a myocyte model in which the part 1 myoglobin acts as a mobile buffer in simultaneous carbon monoxide and oxygen gradients. The non‐equilibrium nature of part 2 should promote the proofreading function of part 1. A simulation using the model demonstrates that the cavity system can in principle proofread, reducing mitochondrial enzyme contamination. BioEssays 26:422–433, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Talk of group minds has arisen in a number of distinct traditions, such as in sociological thinking about the “madness of crowds” in the 19th-century, and more recently in making sense of the collective intelligence of social insects, such as bees and ants. Here we provide an analytic framework for understanding a range of contemporary appeals to group minds and cognate notions, such as collective agency, shared intentionality, socially distributed cognition, transactive memory systems, and group-level cognitive adaptations.

This collection of essays on themes in the work of John Locke , George Berkeley , and David Hume , provides a deepened understanding of major issues raised in the Empiricist tradition. In exploring their shared belief in the experiential nature of mental constructs, The Empiricists illuminates the different methodologies of these great Enlightenment philosophers and introduces students to important metaphysical and epistemological issues including the theory of ideas, personal identity, and skepticism. It will be especially useful in courses (...) devoted to the history of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

This thesis is a constructive work in the tradition of morality. The thesis divides into three parts. Part One argues that morality is best considered as a tradition (in MacIntyre’s sense) in ethical thinking which begins with the Stoics, develops in Christian thought and reaches its apotheosis in Kant. This tradition structures ethical thinking around three basic concepts: cosmopolitanism, or universal applicability to human beings as such, the dignity of human beings and reciprocity. It is this tradition in ethical thinking (...) which Nietzsche sets out to destroy. Part One then critiques conceptions of morality which take it that universal and exceptionless rules form the core of morality: it criticises both the possibility of putting forward an adequate set of such rules and the proposed relationship between morality and human life that is implicit in these accounts. Part Two begins with Nietzsche’s challenge: that morality is a system of values rooted in nihilistic resentment at the vitality of other, stronger modes of living. It argues that this challenge must be taken seriously, and that the best way to do this is to make it clear that morality has as its fundamental basis a responsiveness to the value of human life; hence it is Nietzsche’s ethics that should be called nihilistic. The rest of Part Two examines the possibility of answering Nietzsche’s challenge by demonstrating a necessary connection between human selfhood and the acknowledgement of the dignity of human beings. Here I argue that neither Christine Korsgaard’s neo-Kantian arguments nor Charles Taylor’s phenomenologically based approach can provide a convincing reason for thinking that there is such a necessary connection. Part Three turns towards pragmatism, and in so doing gives up on the attempt to show that morality is somehow necessary for all human beings. Nietzsche’s challenge is answered more subtly: an empirically backed theory of human selfhood explains the point of morality in terms of our basic need for recognition. I complete the reconstruction of morality by reinterpreting the dignity of human beings in a naturalistic way and adopting a conception of moral rules that is informed by Jürgen Habermas’ discourse ethics. (shrink)

The unified treatment of the Dirac monopole, the Schwinger monopole, and the Aharonov-Bohm problem by Barut and Wilson is revisited via a path integral approach. The Kustaanheimo-Stiefel transformation of space and time is utilized to calculate the path integral for a charged particle in the singular vector potential. In the process of dimensional reduction, a topological charge quantization rule is derived, which contains Dirac's quantization condition as a special case. “Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made (...) for the eye of one who sees.” Jelaluddin Rumi,Mathnawi [I, 2383]. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “the good [that] men do separately is small compared with what they may do collectively” (Isaacson 2004). The ability to join with others in groups to accomplish goals collectively that would hopelessly overwhelm the time, energy, and resources of individuals is indeed one of the greatest assets of our species. In the history of humankind, groups have been among the greatest workers, builders, producers, protectors, entertainers, explorers, discoverers, planners, problem-solvers, and decision-makers. During the late 19th (...) and early 20th century, many social scientists employed the notorious “group mind” idiom to express the sensible idea that groups can function as the seats of cognition, intelligence, and agency in their own right (Allport 1968; Wilson 2004). In their quest to stress (rightly) that group phenomena are something “over and above” the sum of individual contributions, a fondness for vitalist metaphors led them to believe (wrongly) that genuine group cognition must be the result of tapping into individualistically inaccessible, “holistic” forces. Today, inspired in part by historically unparalleled forms of mass collaboration enabled by the internet, it has once again become popular to speak of collective intelligence, group agency, or even the emergence of a “global brain” (cf. the wiki-edited MIT Handbook of Collective Intelligence). -/- In this chapter, I review some contemporary developments of the idea of group cognition, defined broadly as the collaborative performance of cognitive tasks such as remembering, problem-solving, decision-making, or verbal creativity for the purpose of producing a group-level outcome. My discussion serves a two-fold purpose. First, by discussing how the idea of group cognition can be operationalized, I seek to show that we can retain some central theoretical insights of the “group mind” thesis without succumbing to its eccentric metaphysical overtones. Second, by providing a useful array of generalizable taxonomic resources, I hope to foster greater degrees of mutual awareness among insufficiently integrated areas of research on group performance. (shrink)

In this paper my aim is to approach the referential¿attributive distinction in the interpretation of definite descriptions, originally discussed by Donnellan (1966), from a cognitive perspective grounded in Sperber and Wilson¿s Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/95). In particular, I argue that definite descriptions encode a procedural semantics, in the sense of Blakemore (1987), which is neutral as between referential and attributive readings (among others). On this account, the distinction between referential and attributive readings arises as a result of the (...) differing links that exist between different types of mental representation and the world, rather than as a result of the differing links between language and mental representations. (shrink)

In this paper my aim is to approach the referential–attributive distinction in the interpretation of definite descriptions, originally discussed by Donnellan, from a cognitive perspective grounded in Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory. In particular, I argue that definite descriptions encode a procedural semantics, in the sense of Blakemore, which is neutral as between referential and attributive readings. On this account, the distinction between referential and attributive readings arises as a result of the differing links that exist between different types of (...) mental representation and the world, rather than as a result of the differing links between language and mental representations. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophical developments of the notion of distributed and/or scaffolded cognition have given rise to the “extended mind” thesis. Against the popular belief that the mind resides solely in the brain, advocates of the extended mind thesis defend the claim that a significant portion of human cognition literally extends beyond the brain into the body and a heterogeneous array of physical props, tools, and cultural techniques that are reliably present in the environment in which people grow, think, and (...) act (Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 1997, 2003, 2008; Wilson 2004; Rowlands 1999, 2012; Menary 2007; Theiner 2011). However, as commentators who are friendly to the idea of distributed cognition have pointed out, the philosophical debate over extended cognition has predominantly focused on the impact of tools on our thinking while somewhat neglecting the distinctively social and cultural dimensions of cognitive scaffolding (Sterelny 2004, 2010; Caporael 1997a, 1997b; Smith and Semin 2004; Wilson 2005; Barnier et al. 2008; Sutton et al. 2010; Theiner, Allen, and Goldstone 2010). -/- To reorient the reigning paradigm, Hutchins (2010, 445) has recently proposed the “hypothesis of enculturated cognition” (HEnC) as an alternative to Clark’s (2003, 2008) largely individualistic vision of the extended mind. According to the HEnC, the “ecological assemblies of human cognition make pervasive use of cultural products” and are typically “assembled … in ongoing cultural practices” (ibid.). Cultural practices, for Hutchins, are essentially “the things people do in interaction with one another” (ibid., 440). My goal in this chapter is to follow up on Hutchins’s call to “spur the program forward” (ibid., 445), by generalizing Kirsh and Maglio’s (1994) distinction between pragmatic and epistemic actions from the level of individuals to the level of groups. The concept of a collective epistemic action refers to the ways in which groups of people actively change the structure of their social organization, with the epistemic goal of reshaping and augmenting their cognitive performance as integrated collectivities. By placing a renewed emphasis on the interactions between people, rather than between people and their tools, I hope to reconnect the cognitive-scientifically-driven “extended mind” thesis with complementary areas of social-scientific research in which groups are analyzed as the seats of action and cognition in their own right. In particular, the literature to which I aim to build a bridge in this paper is, on the one hand, certain segments of social and organizational psychology (Larson and Christensen 1993; Hinsz et al. 1997; Mohammed and Dumville 2001), and, on the other hand, theories of collective and institutional action (Ostrom 1990; List and Pettit 2011). (shrink)

In my dissertation, I explore the remarkable talent of human beings to modify and co-opt resources of their material and socio-cultural environment, and integrate them with their biological capacities in order to enhance their cognitive prowess. In the first part, I clarify and defend the claim – known as the extended mind thesis – that a significant portion of human cognition literally extends beyond the head into the world, actively incorporating our bodies and an intricate web of material resources (Clark, (...) 2003, 2008; Wilson, 2004). Yet since much of distinctively human cognition occurs when we think in groups, I argue that the bias of this thesis to view cognition as an essentially solitary (albeit bodily or technologically extended) activity is misplaced. In the second part, I re-deploy the idea of cognitive extensions to establish a scientifically respectable version of the group mind thesis – i.e., the claim that groups can have emergent cognitive properties and capacities in their own right. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between eugenics, disability, and dehumanization, with a focus on forms of eugenics beyond Nazi eugenics.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This paper is a continuation of a debate between Noël Carroll, who defends intentionalism, and Kent Wilson and myself, who argue that the intentions of artists are not relevant to the interpretation of works of art.

In 120 exquisitely reproduced black-and-white images, Minnesota in Our Time: A Photographic Portrait showcases the work of twelve talented photographers who sought to capture the essence of the state and its people at the threshold of the new millennium. Like the Farm Security Administration photographers of the Depression era, these men and women document the details of life in this time and the transformations now taking place in this state. This work is a product of the MINNESOTA 2000 Photo Documentation (...) Project, a three-year effort that has also produced an archival collection of 360 images and a museum exhibition. The project's wealth of images provides a multifaceted look at lives and landscapes in Minnesota, focusing on common experiences and themes among a diverse population of individuals. Edited by photography historian George Slade, the book features a selection of the photographs, a lucid interpretive essay by Slade and art historian Robert Silberman, a preface by exhibition curator Bonnie G. Wilson, and brief introductions to and commentaries about each photographer's work. Minnesota in Our Time features photographs by Joe Allen, Tom Arndt, Stephen Dahl, Chris Faust, George Byron Griffiths, Terry Gydesen, David Heberlein, Wing Young Huie, Mark Jensen, Peter Latner, David Parker, and Keri Pickett. (shrink)

According to the “extended mind” thesis, a significant portion of human cog-nition does not occur solely inside the head, but literally extends beyond the brain into the body and the world around us (Clark & Chalmers 1998; Clark 2003, 2008; Wilson 1995, 2004; Rowlands 1999, 2010; Menary 2007, 2012; Sutton 2010; Theiner 2011). One way to understand this thesis is that as human beings, we are particularly adept at creating and recruiting environmental props and scaffolds (media, tools, artifacts, symbol systems) (...) for the purpose of solving problems that would otherwise lie beyond our cognitive reach. We manipulate, scaffold, and re-design our environments in ways that transform the nature of difficult tasks that would baffle our unaided biological brains (e.g., math, logic, sequential problem-solving) into simpler types of problems that we are naturally much better equipped to solve. A central tenet of the “extended mind” thesis, then, is that “much of what matters for human-level intelligence is hidden not in the brain, nor in the technology, but in the complex and iterated interactions and collaborations between the two” (Clark 2001: 154). Over the past fifteen years or so, the “extended mind” thesis has become a hot ticket in the philosophy of mind. As with all great ideas, the thesis was hardly conceived ex nihilo, but builds on, and re-articulates many earlier strands of thought. Unfortunately, many of those cognate strands have become marginalized in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychology, and do not receive the amount of attention they deserve. Part of what we hope to accomplish with this special issue is to reverse this trend, and to rekindle the dialogue between the “extended mind” thesis and its historical predecessors. (shrink)

Through a wide-ranging international collection of papers, this volume provides theoretical and historical insights into the development and application of phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology and offers detailed examples of research into social phenomena from these standpoints. All the articles in this volume join together to testify to the enormous efficacy and potential of both phenomenological sociology and ethnomethodology.