How do words mean? What is the nature of meaning? How can we grasp a word's meaning? The frame-semantic approach developed in this book offers some well-founded answers to such long-standing, but still controversial issues. Following Charles Fillmore's definition of frames as both organizers of experience and tools for understanding, the monograph attempts to examine one of the most important concepts of Cognitive Linguistics in more detail. The point of departure is Fillmore's conception of "frames of understanding" - (...) an approach to (cognitive) semantics that Fillmore developed from 1975 to 1985. The envisaged Understanding Semantics ("U-Semantics") is a semantic theory sui generis whose significance for linguistic research cannot be overestimated. In addition to its crucial role in the development of the theoretical foundations of U-semantics, corpus-based frame semantics can be applied fruitfully in the investigation of knowledge-building processes in text and discourse. (shrink)

How do words mean? What is the nature of meaning? How can we grasp a word's meaning? The frame-semantic approach developed in this book offers some well-founded answers to such long-standing, but still controversial issues. Following Charles Fillmore's definition of frames as both organizers of experience and tools for understanding, the monograph attempts to examine one of the most important concepts of Cognitive Linguistics in more detail. The point of departure is Fillmore's conception of "frames of understanding" - (...) an approach to (cognitive) semantics that Fillmore developed from 1975 to 1985. The envisaged Understanding Semantics ("U-Semantics") is a semantic theory sui generis whose significance for linguistic research cannot be overestimated. In addition to its crucial role in the development of the theoretical foundations of U-semantics, corpus-based frame semantics can be applied fruitfully in the investigation of knowledge-building processes in text and discourse. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The articles in this volume showcase the potential richness of frame representations. The presentation includes introductory articles on the application of frames to linguistics and philosophy of science, offering readers the tools to conduct the interdisciplinary investigation of concepts that frames allow. * Introductory articles on the application of frames to linguistics and philosophy of science * Frame analysis of changes in scientific concepts * Event frames and lexical decomposition * Properties, frame attributes and adjectives * (...) Frames in concept composition * Nominal concept types and determination "This volume deals with frame representations and their relations to concept types in linguistics and philosophy of science. It aims at reviving concepts and frames as a common model across disciplines for representing semantic and conceptual knowledge. Departing from the general assumption that frames are not just an arbitrary format of representation but essential to human cognition, a number of case studies apply frames as an analytical tool to a wide range of phenomena, from changes in scientific concepts to particular linguistic phenomena. This provides new insights into long-standing semantic issues, such as the lexical representation of verbs (as predicative frames specifying particular event descriptions or situation types and their participants), adjectives and nominals (as concept frames, which provide attributes and properties of an entity), as well as modification, complementation, possessive constructions, compounding, nominal concept types, determination, or definiteness marking." Bert Gehrke, Pompeu, Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. (shrink)

General frames are often used in classical modal logic. Since they are duals of modal algebras, completeness follows automatically as with algebras but the intuitiveness of Kripke frames is also retained. This paper develops basics of general frames for relevant modal logics by showing that they share many important properties with general frames for classical modal logic.

A framing effect occurs when an agent's choices are not invariant under changes in the way a decision problem is presented, e.g. changes in the way options are described (violation of description invariance) or preferences are elicited (violation of procedure invariance). Here we identify those rationality violations that underlie framing effects. We attribute to the agent a sequential decision process in which a “target” proposition and several “background” propositions are considered. We suggest that the agent exhibits a framing effect if (...) and only if two conditions are met. First, different presentations of the decision problem lead the agent to consider the propositions in a different order (the empirical condition). Second, different such “decision paths” lead to different decisions on the target proposition (the logical condition). The second condition holds when the agent's initial dispositions on the propositions are “implicitly inconsistent,” which may be caused by violations of “deductive closure.” Our account is consistent with some observations made by psychologists and provides a unified framework for explaining violations of description and procedure invariance. (shrink)

As many philosophers agree, the frame problem is concerned with how an agent may efficiently filter out irrelevant information in the process of problem-solving. Hence, how to solve this problem hinges on how to properly handle semantic relevance in cognitive modeling, which is an area of cognitive science that deals with simulating human's cognitive processes in a computerized model. By "semantic relevance", we mean certain inferential relations among acquired beliefs which may facilitate information retrieval and practical reasoning under certain epistemic (...) constraints, e. g., the insufficiency of knowledge, the limitation of time budget, etc. However, traditional approaches to relevance—as for example, relevance logic, the Bayesian approach, as well as Description Logic—have failed to do justice to the foregoing constraints, and in this sense, they are not proper tools for solving the frame problem/relevance problem. As we will argue in this paper, Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS) can handle the frame problem in a more proper manner, because the resulting solution seriously takes epistemic constraints on cognition as a fundamental theoretical principle. (shrink)

Framing effects occur when different descriptions of the same decision problem give rise to divergent decisions. They can be seen as a violation of the decisiontheoretic version of the principle of extensionality (PE). The PE in logic means that two logically equivalent sentences can be substituted salva veritate. We explore what this notion of extensionality becomes in decision contexts. Violations of extensionality may have rational grounds. Based on some ideas proposed by the psychologist Craig McKenzie and colleagues, we contend that (...) framing effects are justified when the selection of one particular frame conveys choice relevant information. We first discuss this idea from a philosophical point of view, and proceed next to formalize it first in the context of the Bolker–Jeffrey decision theory. Finally, we extend the previous analysis to non-expected utility theories using the Biseparable Preference model introduced by Ghirardato and Marinacci (2001) and therefore show that the analysis is independent of the assumptions of Bayesian decision theory. (shrink)

This paper presents a general computational treatment of how mammals are able to deal with visual objects and environments. The model tries to cover the entire range from behavior and phenomenological experience to detailed neural encodings in crude but computationally plausible reductive steps. The problems addressed include perceptual constancies, eye movements and the stable visual world, object descriptions, perceptual generalizations, and the representation of extrapersonal space.The entire development is based on an action-oriented notion of perception. The observer is assumed to (...) be continuously sampling the ambient light for information of current value. The central problem of vision is taken to be categorizing and locating objects in the environment. The critical step in this process is the linking of visual information to symbolic object descriptions; this is calledindexing, from the analogy of identifying a book from index terms. The system must also identifysituationsand use this knowledge to guide movement and other actions in the environment. The treatment focuses on the different representations of information used in the visual system.The four representational frames capture information in the following forms: retinotopic, head-based, symbolic, and allocentric. The functional roles of the four frames, the communication among them, and their suggested neurophysiological realization constitute the core of the paper. The model is perforce crude, but appears to be consistent with all relevant findings. (shrink)

Suppose that a patient is receiving treatment options from her doctor. In one case, the doctor says, “the surgery has a 90% survival rate.” Now, suppose the doctor instead said, “the procedure has a 10% mortality rate.” Predictably, the patient is more likely to consent on the first description and more likely to dissent on the second. This is an example of a framing effect. A framing effect occurs when “the description of [logically-equivalent] options in terms of gains (positive frame) (...) rather than losses (negative frame) elicits systematically different choices.” Framing effects are ubiquitous, but they are particularly troublesome in medicine. Many worry that there is tension between valuing informed consent and using framing effects in clinical settings. In this paper, I answer this question: if an individual is subject to a framing effect when she gives her consent, does this undermine the validity of her consent? I argue that framing effects do not undermine consent in general. (shrink)

A framing bias shows risk aversion in problems framed as “gains” and risk seeking in problems framed as “losses,” even when these are objectively equivalent and probabilities and outcomes values are explicitly provided. We test this framing bias in situations where decision makers rely on their own experience, sampling the problem's options and seeing the outcomes before making a choice. In Experiment 1, we replicate the framing bias in description-based decisions and find risk indifference in gains and losses in experience-based (...) decisions. Predictions of an Instance-Based Learning model suggest that objective probabilities as well as the number of samples taken are factors that contribute to the lack of framing effect. We test these two factors in Experiment 2 and find no framing effect when a few samples are taken but when large samples are taken, the framing effect appears regardless of the objective probability values. Implications of behavioral results and cognitive modeling are discussed. (shrink)

Framing effects are held to be irrational because preferences should remain stable across different descriptions of the same state of affairs. Bermúdez offers one reason why this may be false. I argue for another: If framing provides implicit testimony, then rational agents will alter their preferences accordingly. I show there is evidence that framing should be understood as testimonial.

Framing effects occur when people respond differently to the same information, just because it is conveyed in different words. For example, in the classic ‘Disease Problem’ introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, people’s choices between alternative interventions depend on whether these are described positively, in terms of the number of people who will be saved, or negatively in terms of the corresponding number who will die. In this paper, I discuss an account of framing effects based on ‘fuzzy-trace theory’. (...) The central claim of this account is that people represent the numbers in framing problems in a ‘gist-like’ way, as ‘some’; and that this creates a categorical contrast between ‘some’ people being saved (or dying) and ‘no’ people being saved (or dying). I argue that fuzzy-trace theory’s gist-like representation, ‘some’, must have the semantics of ‘some and possibly all’, not ‘some but not all’. I show how this commits fuzzy-trace theory to a modest version of a rival ‘lower bounding hypothesis’, according to which lower-bounded interpretations of quantities contribute to framing effects by rendering the alternative descriptions extensionally inequivalent. As a result, fuzzy-trace theory is incoherent as it stands. Making sense of it requires dropping, or refining, the claim that decision-makers perceive alternatively framed options as extensionally equivalent; and the related claim that framing effects are irrational. I end by suggesting that, whereas the modest lower bounding hypothesis is well supported, there is currently less evidence for the core element of the fuzzy trace account. (shrink)

We investigate empirically whether framing in general, and the use of Simplifying Models as a framing tool in particular, has an effect on the way topics are cognitively construed. Existing studies on framing in linguistics have either been theoretical or descriptive. Going beyond such methodologically simple approaches, we use a more rigid test design involving the use of a control group, the construction of test conditions in which different Simplifying Models constitute the major source of variation, the inclusion of (...) independent variables like age and prior knowledge of the subjects, and the use of linear and logistic regression analysis. Our results show that our more rigid methodological approach yields a more reliable image of the effect of Simplifying Models on the way in which people deal with information on a complex topic like sustainable food production. Fleshing out these effects further may in time lead to a better informed construction of communication on complex social topics. (shrink)

Davidsonian analyses of action reports like ‘Alvin chased Theodore around a tree’ are often viewed as supporting the hypothesis that sentences of a human language H have truth conditions that can be specified by a Tarski-style theory of truth for H. But in my view, simple cases of adverbial modification add to the reasons for rejecting this hypothesis, even though Davidson rightly diagnosed many implications involving adverbs as cases of conjunct-reduction in the scope of an existential quantifier. I think the (...) puzzles in this vicinity reflect “framing effects,” which reveal the implausibility of certain assumptions about how linguistic meaning is related to truth and logical form. We need to replace these assumptions with alternatives, instead of positing implausible values of event-variables or implausible relativizations of truth to linguistic descriptions of actual events. (shrink)

This article refines a foundational tenet of rational choice theory known as the principle of description invariance. Attempts to apply this principle to human agents with imperfect knowledge have paid insufficient attention to two aspects: first, agents’ epistemic situations, i.e. whether and when they recognize alternative descriptions of an object to be equivalent; and second, the individuation of objects of description, i.e. whether and when objects count as the same or different. An important consequence is that many apparent ‘framing effects’ (...) may not violate the principle of description invariance, and the subjects of these effects may not be irrational. (shrink)

Intersectionality is a term that arose within the black feminist intellectual tradition for the purposes of identifying interlocking systems of oppression. As a descriptive term, it refers to the ways human identity is shaped by multiple social vectors and overlapping identity categories (such as sex, race, class) that may not be readily visible in single-axis formulations of identity, but which are taken to be integral to robustly capture the multifaceted nature of human experience. As a diagnostic term, it captures (...) the confluence of power and domination on the social construction of identity in order to remedy concrete harms that result from this convergence. It is not a prescriptive methodology or closed system of analysis, but rather an open-ended hermeneutic lens through which interconnected systems of oppression can come into focus in the fight for social justice. (shrink)

This paper presents a “frame” representation for common sense knowledge and uses it to formalize our knowledge of “mundane” painting (walls; not portraits). These frames. while designed to aid a computer program to understand stories about the painting process, should be of use to programs which attempt to actually carry out the activity. The paper stresses a “deep” understanding of the activity so that the representation indicates not only what steps to carry out, but also how to do them, (...) and why they should be done. To accomplish this, while at the same time preserving modularity and nonredundancy, a system of interframe pointers is introduced (the COMES‐FROM and LEADS‐TO pointers) which explain how or why something is done in tens of knowledge given in other frames. The paper proceeds by steadily deepening an initial English‐like description of the activity, and a context free grammar for the representation is included. (shrink)

Australia's Coalition Against Duck Shooting sees duck-shooting as a social problem and as an injustice with moral, legal and environmental consequences. The small animal liberationist group has succeeded in dramatically reducing the numbers of duck shooters in Victoria, which is the home of duck-shooting in Australia. The Coalition's framing work with the public via the electronic media involves three parts: a diagnosis , a prognosis and a motivational frame , all of which construct hunting as a cruel, antisocial blood sport (...) that ought to be banned. In this article, television news bulletins and feature stories from the 1993 and 1994 campaigns are analyzed to show how CADS makes and sustains its claims. In addition to 90 pages of transcripts of news commentaries and descriptive accounts of the visuals, the data include tape-recorded interviews with some of the duck liberationists involved in the campaign. (shrink)

Davidsonian analyses of action reports like ‘Alvin chased Theodore around a tree’ are often viewed as supporting the hypothesis that sentences of a human language H have truth conditions that can be specified by a Tarski-style theory of truth for H. But in my view, simple cases of adverbial modification add to the reasons for rejecting this hypothesis, even though Davidson rightly diagnosed many implications involving adverbs as cases of conjunct-reduction in the scope of an existential quantifier. I think the (...) puzzles in this vicinity reflect “framing effects,” which reveal the implausibility of certain assumptions about how linguistic meaning is related to truth and logical form. We need to replace these assumptions with alternatives, instead of positing implausible values of event-variables or implausible relativizations of truth to linguistic descriptions of actual events. (shrink)

A “frame of reference” is a standard relative to which motion and rest may be measured; any set of points or objects that are at rest relative to one another enables us, in principle, to describe the relative motions of bodies. A frame of reference is therefore a purely kinematical device, for the geometrical description of motion without regard to the masses or forces involved. A dynamical account of motion leads to the idea of an “inertial frame,” or a reference (...) frame relative to which motions have distinguished dynamical properties. For that reason an inertial frame has to be understood as a spatial reference frame together with some means of measuring time, so that uniform motions can be distinguished from accelerated motions. The laws of Newtonian dynamics provide a simple definition: an inertial frame is a reference-frame with a time-scale, relative to which the motion of a body not subject to forces is always rectilinear and uniform, accelerations are always proportional to and in the direction of applied forces, and applied forces are always met with equal and opposite reactions. It follows that, in an inertial frame, the center of mass of a system of bodies is always at rest or in uniform motion. It also follows that any other frame of reference moving uniformly relative to an inertial frame is also an inertial frame. For example, in Newtonian celestial mechanics, taking the “fixed stars” as a frame of reference, we can determine an inertial frame whose center is the center of mass of the solar system; relative to this frame, every acceleration of every planet can be accounted for as a gravitational interaction with some other planet in accord with Newton 's laws of motion. (shrink)

The field of Artificial Intelligence has been around for over 60 years now. Soon after its inception, the founding fathers predicted that within a few years an intelligent machine would be built. That prediction failed miserably. Not only hasn’t an intelligent machine been built, but we are not much closer to building one than we were some 50 years ago. Many reasons have been given for this failure, but one theme has been dominant since its advent in 1969: The Frame (...) Problem. What looked initially like an innocuous problem in logic, turned out to be a much broader and harder problem of holism and relevance in commonsense reasoning. Despite an enormous literature on the topic, there is still disagreement not only on whether the problem has been solved, but even what exactly the problem is. In this paper we provide a formal description of the initial problem, the early attempts at a solution, and its ramification both in AI as well as philosophy. (shrink)

I propose an analysis of deception as the activity of intentionally misleading other agents’ hypothetical inferences. Understanding deception in this way has the advantages of clarifying the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception. Indeed, if deception can be framed as the intentional manipulation of others’ hypothetical inferences so that they will accept the false or disadvantageous hypotheses, then a better understanding of the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception will emerge by clarifying how abduction works. Tracing it back (...) to Peirce’s analysis, I will focus on recent perspectives on abduction, which stress the inherent strategic character of abductive cognition and offer a realistic description of the reasoners’ capabilities and their scant resources, both internal (computational power) and external (time and information available). To support and substantiate my thesis, I will examine psychological analyses of military deception. I will conclude by remarking the advantages of the thesis here presented to better understand the epistemological dynamics of deception and by highlighting the questions it leaves open for further investigations. (shrink)

Models of central control variables (CVs) that are expressed in positional reference frames and rely on proprioception as the dominant specifier of muscle activation patterns have not yet been shown to be adequate for the description of fast, voluntary movement, even of single joints. An alternative model with illustrative data is proposed.

John Cort explores the narratives by which the Jains have explained the presence of icons of Jinas that are worshiped and venerated in the hundreds of thousands of Jain temples throughout India. Most of these narratives portray icons favorably, and so justify their existence; but there are also narratives originating among iconoclastic Jain communities that see the existence of temple icons as a sign of decay and corruption. The veneration of Jina icons is one of the most widespread of all (...) Jain ritual practices. Nearly every Jain community in India has one or more elaborate temples, and as the Jains become a global community there are now dozens of temples in North America, Europe, Africa, and East Asia. The cult of temples and icons goes back at least two thousand years, and indeed the largest of the four main subdivisions of the Jains are called Murtipujakas, or "Icon Worshipers." A careful reading of narratives ranging over the past 15 centuries, says Cort, reveals a level of anxiety and defensiveness concerning icons, although overt criticism of the icons only became explicit in the last 500 years. He provides detailed studies of the most important pro- and anti-icon narratives. Some are in the form of histories of the origins and spread of icons. Others take the form of cosmological descriptions, depicting a vast universe filled with eternal Jain icons. Finally, Cort looks at more psychological explanations of the presence of icons, in which icons are defended as necessary spiritual corollaries to the very fact of human embodiedness. (shrink)

Assisted conception can be distinguished from assisted gestation.1 These processes have tended to be grouped together under the generic term assisted reproductive technology in the bioethical literature. According to Chloe Romanis, however, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation, and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies. This is because gestation carries unique ethico-legal implications as compared with conception. The proposed genus of assisted gestative technologies is a helpful first step in the (...) endeavour to distinguish between the different ethico-legal landscapes across various ‘assisted reproductive technologies.’ I am generally in favour of adopting AGT as a term which separates various forms of gestational services from other kinds of reproductive technologies. Yet, if assisted gestative technologies can be considered a genus of assisted reproductive technologies, we might consider surrogacy, UTx, and artificial placenta technology their individual species. Between these various species of AGTs, I would argue, there remains enough ethico-legal diversity to warrant independent discussion about the descriptive and normative functions of each AGT and the relationship between gestation, genetic relatedness and legal/moral parenthood. Chloe Romanis claims that legal and social issues about attribution of parenthood and the importance that might be placed on information about gestational origins affect all forms of AGTs.1 I take it ethical ambiguities arise because the relationship between who gestates, genetic relatedness to the prospective child, and claims to legal/moral parental responsibility can be disrupted or made ambivalent with the involvement of third-party support. For many of those who do not require reproductive assistance, the gestational labour, genetic relatedness and parental responsibility would traditionally …. (shrink)

According to Chloe Romanis, it is worth distinguishing interventions such as surrogacy, uterus transplantation (UTx), and potentially artificial placenta technology, as falling under the genus assisted gestative technologies (AGTs) rather than the more general term assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). The proposed genus of assisted gestative technologies is a helpful first step in the endeavour to distinguish between the different ethico-legal landscapes across various ‘assisted reproductive technologies.’ Yet, if assisted gestative technologies can be considered a genus of assisted reproductive technologies, we (...) might consider surrogacy, uterus transplantation (UTx), and artificial placenta technology their individual species. Between these various species of AGTs, I would argue, there remains enough ethico-legal diversity to warrant independent discussion about the descriptive and normative functions of each AGT and the relationship between gestation, genetic relatedness, and legal/moral parenthood. (shrink)

This article surveys the latest research on risky-choice framing effects, focusing on the implications for rational decision-making. An influential program of psychological research suggests that people's judgements and decisions depend on the way in which information is presented, or ‘framed’. In a central choice paradigm, decision-makers seem to adopt different preferences, and different attitudes to risk, depending on whether the options specify the number of people who will be saved or the corresponding number who will die. It is standardly assumed (...) that such responses violate a foundational tenet of rational decision-making, known as the principle of description invariance. We discuss recent theoretical and empirical research that challenges the dominant ‘irrationalist’ narrative. These approaches typically pay close attention to how decision-makers represent decision problems (including their interpretation of numerical quantifiers or predicate choice) and they highlight the need for a more robust characterization of the description invariance principle. We conclude by indicating avenues for future research that could bring us closer to a complete—and potentially rationalizing—explanation of framing effects. (shrink)

When Peter Strawson subtitled the most celebrated book in ordinary language philosophy, Individuals, ‘An essay in descriptive metaphysics’, he shocked mainly for having reintroduced ‘metaphysics’ into intellectually respectable English a quarter-century after A.J. Ayer had consigned it to the logical positivists' index of forbidden philosophical words . Few at the time appreciated the import of the modifiers ‘descriptive’ and its opposite, ‘revisionary’. Now, another half century on, philosophers have come around to Bertrand Russell's original view that both the (...) ordinary language philosophy Strawson championed and the ideal scientific language philosophy Ayer championed offer alternative metaphysical visions. The remaining question of philosophical interest is what hangs in the balance between a descriptive and revisionary approach to metaphysics – or, for that matter, any branch of philosophy. This paper critically examines the currently dominant descriptive approach from a revisionary standpoint, initially relying on the terms Strawson uses to frame the distinction, and then moving outward to consider its implications for our understanding of the history of modern philosophy, especially the ‘naturalist’ sensibility that has been especially influential in analytic social epistemology. (shrink)

The present study explores the Bianchi type I universe in the frame work of f theory of gravity by considering strange quark matter attached to string cloud and domain walls in the presence and absence of magnetism. Field equations are solved by choosing a constant curvature method. It is found that obtained cosmological models are relevant to the early era of evolution of the universe. The strange quark matter may be a source of string cloud and domain walls.

When defining science as a problem-solving activity, philosophers of science have mainly focussed on "the context of discovery," the process of finding creative solutions to problems; and "the context of justification," the process of evaluating new theories. This article takes a step backward and proposes ways to find problems with a creative potential: (1) Seek areas of theoretical controversy—respect all the facts and set out to find a new theory that can encompass the contradictions; (2) move beyond the realm of (...) research proper—take an interest in phenomena that do not fit into any established theory or frame of reference; (3) give a break to discovery by chance—be attentive and welcoming to unexpected results; (4) look for exceptions—treat them as first-class facts instead of ignoring them or trying to explain them away. (shrink)

When defining science as a problem-solving activity, philosophers of science have mainly focussed on "the context of discovery," the process of finding creative solutions to problems; and "the context of justification," the process of evaluating new theories. This article takes a step backward and proposes ways to find problems with a creative potential: Seek areas of theoretical controversy—respect all the facts and set out to find a new theory that can encompass the contradictions; move beyond the realm of research proper—take (...) an interest in phenomena that do not fit into any established theory or frame of reference; give a break to discovery by chance—be attentive and welcoming to unexpected results; look for exceptions—treat them as first-class facts instead of ignoring them or trying to explain them away. (shrink)

Semantic networks were developed in cognitive science and artificial intelligence studies as graphical knowledge representation and inference tools emulating human thought processes. Formal analysis of the representation and inference capabilities of the networks modeled them as subsets of standard first-order logic (FOL), restricted in the operations allowed in order to ensure the tractability that seemed to characterize human reasoning capabilities. The graphical network representations were modeled as providing a visual language for the logic. Sub-sets of FOL targeted on knowledge representation (...) came to be called description logics, and research on these logics has focused on issues of tractability of subsets with differing representation capabilities, and on the implementation of practical inference systems achieving the best possible performance. Semantic network research has kept pace with these developments, providing visual languages for knowledge entry, editing, and presenting the results of inference, that translate unambiguously to the underlying description logics. This paper discusses the design issues for such semantic network formalisms, and illustrates them through detailed examples of significant generic knowledge structures analyzed in the literature, including determinables, contrast sets, genus/differentiae, taxonomies, faceted taxonomies, cluster concepts, family resemblances, graded concepts, frames, definitions, rules, rules with exceptions, essence and state assertions, opposites and contraries, relevance, and so on. Such examples provide important test material for any visual language formalism for logic. (shrink)

The normative principle of description invariance presupposes that rational preferences must be complete. The completeness axiom is normatively dubious, however, and its rejection opens the door to rational framing effects. In this commentary, we suggest that Bermúdez's insightful challenge to the standard normative view of framing can be clarified and extended by situating it within a broader critique of completeness.

This edited volume brings together the latest research on fictive interaction, that is the use of the frame of ordinary conversation as a means to structure cognition (talking to oneself), discourse (monologues organized as dialogues), and grammar (“why me? attitude”). This follows prior work on the subject by Esther Pascual and other authors, most of whom are also contributors to this volume. The 17 chapters in the volume explore fictive interaction as a fundamental cognitive phenomenon, as a ubiquitous discourse-structuring device, (...) as a possibly universal linguistic construction, and as an effective communicative strategy in persuasion and language pathology. The data discussed involve a wide variety of unrelated languages (spoken and signed) and modes of communication (oral, written, visual), across cultural contexts and historical time. The research presented combines linguistics and cognitive science, while bridging the gap between core grammatical studies and modern conversation and discourse analysis. The volume further reaches across what may be the most basic divide in linguistics: that between descriptive, theoretical, and applied linguistics. (shrink)

Symbols can be used to mask or embellish firms’ exploitative labor practices. The present study defines exploitative firms’ abuse of symbolic management using legitimate symbolic terminologies to embellish their demanding working conditions as symbolic framing and examines it in the Japanese context. Because of strong social criticism for exploitative practices, firms are under pressure to avoid giving an exploitative impression to stakeholders, particularly job seekers in recruitment. This study argues that exploitative firms respond to these pressures by embellishing their descriptions (...) of the hard-working conditions at the firm, using certain symbolic expressions. To test this argument, this study examined recruitment advertising of 1238 Japanese firms between 2006 and 2017 and analyzed their ideal candidate profile (ICP) statement—a description of personal attributes that align with the firms’ working conditions—based on topic modeling. The results showed that exploitative firms tend to frame their working conditions in the ICP statement as ‘challenging work,’ which acknowledges the demanding work environment but frames it positively. This tendency was strengthened for firms with younger employees. The results provide the current literature with new insights regarding the dark side of symbolic management. (shrink)

The paper has two objectives: to introduce the fundamentals of a triplet model of a concept, and to show that the main concept models may be structurally treated as its partial cases. The triplet model considers a concept as a mental representation and characterizes it from three interrelated perspectives. The first deals with objects (and their attributes of various orders) subsumed under a concept. The second focuses on representing structures that depict objects and their attributes in some intelligent system. The (...) third concentrates on the ways of establishing correspondences between objects with their attributes and appropriate representing structures. (shrink)

A recently developed formalism which gives a unified picture of the linear transport of moving frames is extended to include a particular type of transport under the 10-parameter Poincaré group. The frame coordinates are expressed in a 5 × 5 matrix representation which includes the position four-vector plus orthonormal tetrads for the internal coordinates. This provides a general description of the kinematics of physical systems which can be represented by moving frames. Several examples are given, including systems moving (...) with spin and Zitterbewegung along both timelike and null paths. The concept of boost or Poincaré momentum is related to system kinematics. Lagrangians of these systems are also discussed. (shrink)

One of the main goals of contemporary media, along with the experts and professionals, who speak in them, has been to explain complex issues and provide the audience with clear descriptions of social reality. This is mostly achieved by the production of ideologically useful interpretative schemes that facilitate understanding of the issues present on the media agenda. An important strategy of shaping the public opinion in the way in which public affairs and the activity of social life participants is framed. (...) Analyses of such practices have been conducted for over thirty years within various research approaches collectively referred to as framing analysis. This research provides several arguments helping one to develop a more critical perspective on the representations of social phenomena dominant in the media and discourses of symbolic elites (e.g. opinion writers, academics, experts, journalists, politicians), along with the analyses of the origin of such phenomena, moral judgements and preferred "corrective policies". One of the phenomena defined by the media in Europe as the most important one for the past several years, is the so-called "New Right". The aim of the paper is to analyse the interpretative schemes used by the journalists of four Polish opinion-forming weeklies and to describe the activity of its German manifestation – the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (Pegida) social movement and the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). (shrink)

First the “frame problem” is sketched: The motion of an isolated particle obeys a simple law in Galilean frames, but how does the Galilean character of the frame manifest itself at the place of the particle? A description of vacuum as a system of virtual particles will help to answer this question. For future application to such a description, the notion of global particle is defined and studied. To this end, a systematic use of the Fourier transformation on the (...) Poincaré group is needed. The state of a system of n free particles is represented by a statistical operator W, which defines an operator-valued measure on ^Pn (^P is the dual of the Poincaré group). The inverse Fourier–Stieltjes transform of that measure is called the characteristic function of the system; it is a function on Pn. The main notion is that of global characteristic function: it is the restriction of the characteristic function to the diagonal subgroup of Pn; it represents the state of the system, considered as a single particle. The main properties of characteristic functions, and particularly of global characteristic functions, are studied. A mathematical Appendix defines two functional spaces involved. (shrink)

Our decision-making is often subject to framing effects: alternative but equally informative descriptions of the same options elicit different choices. When a decision-maker is vulnerable to framing, she may consent under one description of the act, which suggests that she has waived her right, yet be disposed to dissent under an equally informative description of the act, which suggests that she has not waived her right. I argue that in such a case the decision-maker’s consent is simply irrelevant to the (...) permissibility of proceeding. I then consider two alternative views. According to the first, people susceptible to framing are able to give valid consent so long as they are sufficiently informed. This suggestion, I argue, maintains an overly narrow focus on mere quantity of information to the exclusion of other choice-affecting factors. A second response, which appeals to hypothetical consent, is likewise of little use in resolving the moral problem posed by framing effects. I conclude that if susceptibility to framing undermines the validity of consent, we may have good reason to reconsider whether consent has the rights-waiving function commonly attributed to it. (shrink)

There are proposed two simple formal descriptions of the notion of God’s omnipotence which are inspired by formalizations of C. Christian and E. Nieznański. Our first proposal is expressed in a modal sentential language with quantifires. The second one is formulated in first order predicate language. In frame of the second aproach we admit using self-referential expressions. In effect we link our considerations with so called paradox of God’s omnipotence and reconstruct some argumentation against the possibility of reference God’s omnipotence (...) to a lack of itself. (shrink)

Most artworks—or at least most among those standardly subject to philosophical scrutiny—appear to be singular, stand-alone works. However, some artworks (indeed, perhaps a good many) are by contrast best viewed in terms of some larger grouping or ordering of artworks. i.e., as a series. The operative art-theoretic notion of series in which I am interested here is that of an individual and distinct artwork that is itself non-trivially composed of a non-trivial sequence of artworks (e.g., Walter de Maria’s Statement Series, (...) Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors)—as opposed to an art-historically informative or art critically productive thematically, stylistically, or formally unified ordering or grouping of individual and distinct artworks within an artist’s larger body of work (e.g., Kiki Smith’s Blue Print series, Dan Flavin’s Monuments to V. Tatlin series, Jeff Koons’ Made in Heaven series, Robert Rauschenberg’s Tribute 21 series). Given this, my aim is simply to sketch a minimal descriptive and classificatory framework for serial art within which certain informative distinctions may be made and further philosophical enquiry may productively take place. (shrink)

The category-theoretic nature of general frames for modal logic is explored. A new notion of "modal map" between frames is defined, generalizing the usual notion of bounded morphism/p-morphism. The category Fm of all frames and modal maps has reflective subcategories CHFm of compact Hausdorff frames, DFm of descriptive frames, and UEFm of ultrafilter enlargements of frames. All three subcategories are equivalent, and are dual to the category of modal algebras and their homomorphisms. An (...) important example of a modal map that is typically not a bounded morphism is the natural insertion of a frame A into its ultrafilter enlargement EA. This map is used to show that EA is the free compact Hausdorff frame generated by A relative to Fm. The monad E of the resulting adjunction is examined and its Eilenberg-Moore category is shown to be isomorphic to CHFm. A categorical equivalence between the Kleisli category of E and UEFm is defined from a construction that assigns to each frame A a frame A* that is "image-closed" in the sense that every point-image {b : aRb} in A is topologically closed. A* is the unique image-closed frame having the same ultrafilter enlargement as A. (shrink)

We describe vacuum as a system of virtual particles, some of which have negative energies. Any system of vacuum particles is a part of a keneme, i.e., of a system of n particles which can, without violating the conservation laws, annihilate in the strict sense of the word (transform into nothing). A keneme is a homogeneous system, i.e., its state is invariant by all transformations of the invariance group. But a homogeneous system is not necessarily a keneme. In the simple (...) case of a spin system, where the invariance group is SU(2), a homogeneous system is a system whose total spin is unpolarized; a keneme is a system whose total spin is zero. The state of a homogeneous system is described by a statistical operator with infinite trace (von Neumann), to which corresponds a characteristic distribution. The characteristic distributions of the homogeneous systems of vacuum are defined and studied. Finally it is shown how this description of vacuum can be used to solve the frame problem posed in paper (I). (shrink)

This is a revision of game theory which takes account of agents' own descriptions of their situations, and which allows people to reason as members of groups.

In spacetime physics any set C of events—a causal set—is taken to be partially ordered by the relation ≤ of possible causation: for p, q ∈ C, p ≤ q means that q is in p’s future light cone. In her groundbreaking paper The internal description of a causal set: What the universe looks like from the inside, Fotini Markopoulou proposes that the causal structure of spacetime itself be represented by “sets evolving over C” —that is, in essence, by the (...) topos SetC of presheaves on Cop. To enable what she has done to be the more easily expressed within the framework presented here, I will reverse the causal ordering, that is, C will be replaced by Cop, and the latter written as P—which will, moreover, be required to be no more than a preordered set. Specifically, then: P is a set of events preordered by the relation ≤, where p ≤ q is intended to mean that p is in q’s future light cone—that q could be the cause of p, or, equally, that p could be an effect of q. In that case, for each event p, the set p↓ = {q: q ≤ p} may be identified as the causal future of p, or the set of potential effects of p. In requiring that ≤ be no more than a preordering—in dropping, that is, the antisymmetry of ≤—I am, in physical terms, allowing for the possibility that the universe is of Gödelian type, containing closed timelike lines. (shrink)

To what extent is the choice of what to say driven by seemingly irrelevant cues in the visual world being described? Among such cues, how does prior description affect how we process spatial scenes? When people describe where objects are located their use of spatial language is often associated with a choice of reference frame. Two experiments employing between-participants designs (N = 490) examined the effects of visual cueing and previous description on reference frame choice as reflected in spatial prepositions (...) (in front of, to the left of, etc.) to describe pictures of object pairs. Experiment 1 examined the effects of visual and linguistic cues on spatial description choice through movement of object(s) in spatial scenes, showing sizeable effects of visual cueing on reference frame choice. Experiment 2 monitored eye movements of participants following a linguistic example description, revealing two findings: eye movement “signatures” associated with distinct reference frames as expressed in language, and transfer of these eye movement patterns just prior to spatial description for different (later) picture descriptions. Both verbal description and visual cueing similarly influence language production choice through manipulation of visual attention, suggesting a unified theory of constraints affecting spatial language choice. (shrink)

A visual imagery task is presented which is beyond the limits of normal human ability, and some of the factors contributing to its difficulty are isolated by comparing the difficulty of related tasks. It is argued that complex objects are assigned hierarchical structural descriptions by being parsed into parts, each of which has its own local system of significant directions. Two quite different schemas for a wire‐frame cube are used to illustrate this theory, and some striking perceptual differences to which (...) they give rise are described. The difficulty of certain mental imagery tasks is shown to depend on which of the alternative structural descriptions of an object is used, and this is interpreted as evidence that structural descriptions are an important component of mental images. Finally, it is argued that analog transformations like mental folding involve changing the values of continuous variables in a structural description. (shrink)