This paper investigates a well-known case of simultaneous discovery in twentieth-century chemistry, the origins of the concept of hybridisation, in the light of Kuhn's insights. There has been no ambiguity as to who discovered this concept, when it was "rst in print, and how important it was. The full-#edged form of the concept was published in 1931 independently by two American scientists John C. Slater (1900}1976) and Linus Pauling (1901}1994), although both of them had made their ideas public earlier: Slater (...) at the American Physical Society meetings in 1930, and Pauling in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1928. Slater and Pauling both argued for the necessity of using an s orbital as well as three p orbitals in the carbon atom in order to explain carbon's four valences and the tetrahedral structure of methane. The metaphor &hybridisation' for denoting this mix of s and p orbitals was "rst used by Robert S. Mulliken and J. H. Van Vleck before gaining currency with the scienti"c community around 1935.2 The concept of hybridisation was indeed indispensable for extending the quantum-mechanical interpretation of the chemical bond as an electron pairing from diatomic molecules to polyatomic ones. To be sure, the emergence of hybridisation attests to scientists' growing interest in exploring the borderland between physics and chemistry, a trend that led to the creation of physical chemistry in the late nineteenth century and of chemical physics and quantum chemistry in the 1920s and 30s. Slater and Pauling themselves experienced and on many occasions talked about the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research; and historians have legitimately illuminated their works by examining them in this broad context.3 Yet the careful analysis of their research notes and published papers reveals that Slater and Pauling were working in quite disparate disciplinary traditions, with di!erent approaches, for di!erent audiences, and towards di!erent goals. The aim of this paper is to explore their di!erent routes to a common destination*hybridisation*and thereby to explicate tensions existing between physics and chemistry amidst the institutional and conceptual overlapping of the two disciplines. (shrink)

We have identified an emerging tool being used by the UK government across a range of public bodies in the service of public policy - the online targeted advertising infrastructure and the practices, consultancy firms, and forms of expertise which have grown up around it. This reflects an intensification and adaptation of a broader ‘behavioural turn’ in the governmentality of the UK state and the increasing sophistication of everyday government communications. Contemporary UK public policy is fusing with the powerful tools (...) for behaviour change created by the platform economy. Operational data and associated systems of classification and profiling from public bodies are being hybridised with traditional consumer marketing profiles and then ‘projected’ onto the classification systems of the targeted advertising infrastructures. This is not simply a case of algorithms being used for sorting, surveilling, and scoring; rather this suggests that targeted interventions in the cultural and behavioural life of communities are now a core part of governmental power which is being algorithmically-driven, in combination with influencer networks, traditional forms of messaging, and frontline operational practices. We map these uses and practices of what we describe as the ‘Surveillance Influence Infrastructure’, identifying key ethical issues and implications which we believe have yet to be fully investigated or considered. What we find particularly striking is the coming-together of two separate structures of power - the governmental turn to behaviourism and prevention on one hand, and the infrastructures of targeting and influence on the other. We theorise this as a move beyond ‘nudge’ or ‘behavioural science’ approaches, towards a programme which we term ‘influence government’. (shrink)

Women and children have often been affected by conflicts taking place in India’s Northeast. Although human rights abuse by armed forces and militias has been addressed in academia time and again, the weaponisation of ‘rape’ has not declined in the region as evinced by the recent incident in Manipur. As such this essay argues that solidarity among women can not only prevent such heinous crimes but can also dismantle the patriarchal structures that breed rape cultures. Further, literature can work as (...) an agency through which such consciousness of protest and solidarity can be generated. By taking into account the political and cultural discourses of this region and its manifestation in literary works with reference to Arupa Patangia Kalita’s novel The Story of Felanee the essay argues that ethnic assertions diminish the rights of women due to the patriarchal nature of these societies. Since the inter-ethnic conflicts are engineered by the patriarchs of a community in which the women are hapless sufferers, Felanee’s resilience, like the grannies of Shaheen Bagh, exemplifies resistance against oppressive structures. The essay explores the literary representation of patriarchal conditioning of ethnic resurgence, its contestation with cultural hybridisation, and the subsequent dehumanisation of women. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many Buddhist teachers in North America teach forgiveness: an attitude of non-anger not conditional on wrongdoers repairing their wrongs. Classical Buddhist texts and premodern Buddhist cultures also taught forgiveness: the act of reconciling after wrongdoers repaired wrongs. This article describes traditional Buddhist forgiveness processes, analyses how new processes to forgive arose in North America, and outlines the current state of Buddhist forgiveness teachings there. It shows that the predominant way North American Buddhists now teach forgiveness is new. It developed (...) in the 1970–1990 period and incorporates non-Buddhist discourses. In addition to clarifying what forgiveness has long been in Buddhism and how, in North America, changes to that occurred, the article notes the frequent absence, among academic scholars and Buddhists alike, of awareness concerning (a) the replacement of longstanding Buddhist teachings on forgiveness by new teachings; (b) the predominantly non-Buddhist sources of the new teachings; and (c) the impact on victims, wrongdoers, relationships, and communities of the new teachings. The article contributes to scholarship on Buddhist ethics, forgiveness in Buddhism, and the development and hybridisation of Buddhism in North America. (shrink)

This paper starts from the point in the early 1970s at which educational theory and research was temporarily structured under the ‘foundation’ disciplines of psychology, sociology, philosophy and history of education. It observes the way the intellectual resources of educational research have become enlarged and enriched and these disciplines themselves fragmented and hybridised to a degree that prompts talk not just of interdisciplinarity but of ‘postdisciplinarity’. The paper argues, however, that without discipline, in the sense of a shared language, (...) a rule governed structure of enquiry—something ‘systematic’—we lose the conditions that make a community of arguers possible. Further, we lose the basis for the special claim which research might otherwise make on our attention and on our belief. (shrink)

This article examines the role of commemorative processes as a form of symbolic reparation and their potential use in deeply divided societies. After discussing definitions and contexts of symbolic reparation, it will then explore the tensions inherent in this process as it speedily encounters hybridisation, the construction of narratives of ethnic identity and the political contestation of memory in deeply divided societies. An overarching question will be how symbolic reparation might meaningfully allow for the seeding of human rights norms and (...) values in divided societies, and thus aid the recasting of both inter-communal relations and engagement between citizen and state. (shrink)

Numerous societal issues, from climate change to pandemics, require public engagement with scientific research. Such engagement reveals challenges that can arise when experts communicate with laypeople. One of the most common frameworks for framing these communicative interactions is the deficit model of science communication, which holds that laypeople lack scientific knowledge and/or positive attitudes towards science, and that imparting knowledge will fill knowledge gaps, lead to desirable attitude/behavior changes, and increase trust in science. §1 introduces the deficit model in (...) more detail and shows that adhering to this model often fails to achieve its aims, which motivates the main question of this chapter: how can Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thinking collectives address the persistent problem of deficit approaches in science communication? I suggest that it can do so by exposing the deficit model’s implicit assumption of an expert-lay divide. Accordingly, §2 lays out Fleck’s theory and §3 contrasts it with contemporary debates about science communication. Following this descriptive work, §4 draws on Fleck’s ideas to make four concrete suggestions for further questioning the expert-lay divide. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue in responsible innovation (RI) processes. The problem with most concepts of communication is that they rely on ideals of openness, alignment and harmony, even while these ideals are rarely realized in practice. Based on the work of Burke, Habermas, Deetz and Levinas, we develop a concept of stakeholder dialogue that is able to deal with fundamentally different interests and value frames of actors involved in RI processes. We distinguish four (...) main characteristics of stakeholder dialogue. Dialogical responsiveness (1) enhances self-criticism, (2) is characterized by the constitution and the destruction of the self or identity of the actors involved, (3) consists only in the actual enactment of the dialogue and (4) is primarily responsive to the grand challenges of our time. Based on our findings, we provide a novel conceptualization of the central notion of responsiveness in the RI literature. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that our use of vague language poses an intractable problem for any account of content and communication on which (i) the things we assert are propositions and (ii) understanding an assertion requires recognizing which proposition the speaker asserted. John MacFarlane has argued that this problem concerning vague language is itself a species of an even more general problem for such traditional accounts – the problem posed by “felicitous” underspecification. Repurposing certain ideas from Allan Gibbard, (...) MacFarlane offers a novel theory of vagueness, plan-expressivism, as an account that can handle both vagueness and such underspecification in communication. -/- In this paper, I argue that despite its many virtues, plan-expressivism fails as a general account of meaning and communication. In particular, I show that when it comes to the problem of felicitous underspecification, plan-expressivism fares no better than the more traditional accounts of content and communication it is intended to replace. Along the way, I argue that the problem of felicitous underspecification puts considerable pressure on an assumption that is at the core of both plan-expressivism and the accounts of its more traditionalist rivals - namely, that in cases of successful linguistic communication, we must always be able to find something -- whether a propositional content or a conversational update -- that the speaker is intending to share with her audience. (shrink)

Rédigées entre 1943 et 1953, ces notes inédites révèlent combien Michel Henry fut préoccupé par le problème de « l’expérience d’autrui » dès ses années de formation philosophique. Elles révèlent également l’utilisation précoce d’une jeune Henry des Ecritures comme source d’inspiration pour un certain nombre d’intuitions spécifiquement philosophiques qu’il développera dans sa trilogie de fin de vie sur la philosophie du christianisme.

During the Covid-19 pandemic we increasingly turned to technology to stay in touch with our family, friends, and colleagues. Even as lockdowns and restrictions ease many are encouraging us to embrace the replacement of face-to-face encounters with technologically mediated ones. Yet, as philosophers of technology have highlighted, technology can transform the situations we find ourselves in. Drawing insights from the phenomenology of sociality, we consider how digitally-enabled forms of communication and sociality impact our experience of one another. In particular, (...) we draw attention to the way in which our embodied experience of one another is altered when we meet in digital spaces, taking as our focus the themes of perceptual access, intercorporeality, shared space, transitional spaces, and self-presentation. In light of the way in which technological mediation alters various dimensions of our social encounters, we argue that digital encounters constitute their own forms of sociality requiring their own phenomenological analysis. We conclude our paper by raising some broader concerns about the very framework of thinking about digitally and non-digitally mediated social encounters simply in terms of replacement. (shrink)

Telepsychiatry has long been discussed as a supplement to or substitute for face-to-face therapeutic consultations. The current pandemic crisis has fueled the development in an unprecedented way. More and more psychiatric consultations are now carried out online as video-based consultations. Treatment results appear to be comparable with those of face-to-face care in terms of clinical outcome, acceptance, adherence and patient satisfaction. However, evidence on videoconferencing in a variety of different fields indicates that there are extensive changes in the communication (...) behaviour in online conversations. We hypothesise that this might impact ethically relevant aspects of the therapeutic relationship, which plays a prominent role in psychiatry. In this paper, we review effects of video-based consultations on communication between therapists and patients in psychiatry. Based on a common understanding of video-based consultations as changing the lived experience of communication, we categorise these effects according to sensory, spatial and technical aspects. Departing from a power-based model of therapeutic relationships, we then discuss the ethical significance of this changed communication situation, based on dimensions of respect for autonomy, lucidity, fidelity, justice and humanity. We conclude that there is evidence for ethically relevant changes of the therapeutic relationship in video-based telepsychiatric consultations. These changes need to be more carefully considered in psychiatric practice and future studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:176 BOOK REVIEWS tianity came into being. To take one example: God's involvement with and reaction to genuine novelties introduced into the world as a result of the initiatives of human freedom, rightly renders suspect the conception of God as immutable. But what immutability really claimed was not anything like inertia or unconcern, but only that God was not mutable in any of the ways characteristic of finite realities (...) striving to transcend their limitations. Immutability was predicated as a property of deity whose essence was Pure Actuality-the consummation of all mutation. What this meant to preclude from God was only change that amounted to some sort of further perfecting of his intrinsic being-leaving the way clear for the possibility at least of relational change vis-a-vis a world of creatures. There is no reason why contemporary experiences of God's saving activity in Christ must be articulated only in the conceptual and linguistic categories of the past. But seemingly there ought to be some means of showing that such newer articulations do not repudiate truths achieved in the past and handed on in authentic living tradition. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. WILLIAM J. HILL, 0.P. The Church: Communion, Sacrament, Communication. By ROBERT KRESS. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. Pp. iv + 217. $9.95. One of the results of the recent synod is certain to be more attention to deepening our understanding of the church as communion. Robert Kress's fine volume cannot help but be a useful contribution to that discussion. As he succinctly states, "the Church is the communion of believers who exist as the sacrament of Christ, who is the sacrament of God, who is the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (p. 59). For Kress any ecclesiology that does not root the church in the triune, perichoretic (a favored word) life of God is a radically truncated one. As a theandric (another favored word) reality, the Church must mirror its ground or source. If that ground is a dynamic, joyous unity-in-diversity, this should be reflected in the life and structures of the ecclesial community. Such is the context in which the author reflects on a variety of themes that are reflective of the post-Vatican II agenda: the relationship among local, regional, and universal churches; the understanding of the church as sacrament; the tension between holiness and office; the meaning of leadership in a community best understood as a perichoretic communion of gifted members. To each of these topics Kress brings a grasp of the BOOK REVIEWS 177 tradition, a wide acquaintance with the relevant theological literature, and a willingness to make provocative judgments ("yes" to the ordination of women; " no " to the new egalitarianism-a church conceived without administrative, pastoral authority.) Kress particularly cherishes the church as "the memory and tradition of Christ." His commitment to this tradition has both rooted him and freed him. He draws knowledgeably on Aquinas and Augustine, Rahner and Heidegger, von Balthasar and the Shepherd of Hermas. Lawrence Cunningham is correct: this book is radically conservative. There is one area where I felt that there was a certain lack. Kress's treatment of the church as sacrament and of the seven sacraments contained much that was valuable: his stress on the sacramentality of ecclesial life as such, his historical analysis of "sacrament", his phenomenolog·y of the nature of Christian worship. Yet all of this seemed strangely abstracted from the liturgical praxis of the Christian community. This lack is especially visible in his admittedly tentative salvation-historical correlation of the sacraments with our sharing in the religious experience of Jesus (pp. 147-148). To make that correlation, especially in the case of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist, without an exp1icit reference to the initiatory, communal dimension of these sacraments is certainly problematic. I would like to make a final comment, not on the substance of the book, but on its editing and proofing. There are a number of errors, the most obvious of which is the elimination of the umlaut from Heribert Miihlen's name. (There is a curious inconsistency, too, in the use of the umlaut. It is used in... (shrink)

In recent years, universities have been urged to restructure and re-evaluate their ability to trace and monitor their students as the “smart campus” is being built upon datafication, while networked apps and sensors serve as the means through which its constituents are connected and governed. This paper advances a dialectical and communication-centered approach to the Internet of Things campus ecosystem and provides an empirical investigation into the tensions experienced by students and the ways that these students envision alternative practices (...) that support their digital engagement. Drawing upon student focus group interviews in a large American research and innovation intensive university, dialectical tensions identified include convenience–annoyance, integration–independence, and safety–insecurity, brought upon by students’ ongoing and prospective negotiations with Internet of Things. Furthermore, in a bid to understand students’ alternative data imaginaries, this project examined students’ preferred Internet of Things-related communication practices with campus digital application platforms, analog and older forms of digital media, as well as in-person interactions with traditional authorities within classroom and group settings. Finally, this contribution presents a discussion of the findings for theory and praxis, particularly for smart campus innovation and social data governance, in terms of potential growing challenges involving complexifying student privacy concerns, data normalization and coercion, and tertiary digital divides and inequalities. (shrink)

Joint attention occurs when two (or more) individuals attend together to some object. It has been identified by psychologists as an early form of our joint engagement, and is thought to provide us with an understanding of other minds that is basic in that sophisticated conceptual resources are not involved. Accordingly, it has also attracted the interest of philosophers. Moreover, a very recent trend in the psychological and philosophical literature on joint attention consists of developing the suggestion that it holds (...) partially in virtue of communication: it is because we share our thoughts or feelings about an object that our individual attention becomes joint. This paper unpacks the communicative suggestion in a way that accounts for joint attention's basicness. (shrink)

The fundamental reason for this research study is to point out the challenges encountered by the teachers, students, schools, and parents in facing and handling the oral speech communication subjects during the pandemic. Given that, most of the medium of instruction used is distance learning. It poses issues and concerns on how our respondents dealt with the situation. A descriptive- survey research design was used to obtain themes and phenomena to the questions provided. The questionnaire includes questions that seek (...) to gather information on their basic profile, current experiences, and behavior towards the problem. It was found out that the different problems encountered by the teachers, students, school, and parents include the validity of the issue, the lack of motivation which was a very complicated problem because it deals with emotional readiness and stability, and the difficulty in comprehending the topics of the module because lessons are not explained personally by the teachers. Therefore, oral speech communication requires an in-depth shift of lesson delivery to cater to the needs for improvement. (shrink)

Prominent views about representation share a premise: that mathematical communication theory is blind to representational content. Here I challenge that premise by rejecting two common misconceptions: that Claude Shannon said that the meanings of signals are irrelevant for communication theory (he didn't and they aren't), and that since correlational measures can't distinguish representations from natural signs, communication theory can't distinguish them either (the premise is true but the conclusion is false; no valid argument can link them).

Today, the earth is an interconnected globe humming with electronic transmissions-a chattering planet nestled in the provident silence of space. The ethical question is whether this is contributing to authentic human development and helping individuals and peoples to be true to their transcendent destiny. The new media are powerful tools for education, cultural enrichment, commercial activity, political participation, intercultural dialogue and understanding. They also can serve the cause of religion. Yet the new information technology needs to be informed and guided (...) by solidarity in the service of the common good bridging the digital divide within and among nations. The value-laden message of Western secular culture to people and traditional societies in many cases ill-prepared to evaluate it leads to widespread crisis, for example, in regard to marriage and family life. This technology can be a means for solving human problems, promoting the integral development of persons, creating a world governed by justice, peace, and love. It also can help men and women in their age-old search for self-understanding. Like today's world itself, the world of media, including the Internet, has been brought by Christ, inchoately yet truly, within the boundaries of the kingdom of God and placed in service to the word of salvation. (shrink)

This volume provides a comprehensive account of Wilhelm Röpke as a liberal political economist and social philosopher. Wilhelm Röpke was a key protagonist of transatlantic neoliberalism, a prominent public intellectual and a gifted international networker. As an original thinker, he always positioned himself at the interface between political economy and social philosophy, as well as between liberalism and conservatism. Röpke’s endeavors to combine these elements into a coherent whole, as well as his embeddedness in European and American intellectual networks of (...) liberal and conservative thinkers, are a central theme throughout the book. The volume includes papers by international experts from a conference in Geneva on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Röpke’s passing. The first part focuses on new biographical insights into his exile years in Istanbul and Geneva, while the second part discusses his business cycle theory in the context of the Great Depression, and the third part elaborates on his multifaceted social philosophy. Wilhelm Röpke was among the most important thinkers within the classical liberal revival post-WWII, with intriguing tensions between liberalism and conservatism. A highly recommended volume. –– Peter J. Boettke, 2016-2018 President of the Mont Pèlerin Society and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, George Mason University This important collection of papers provides an in-depth assessment of Wilhelm Röpke’s contributions, placing him in the context of his time. A fine contribution. –– Bruce J. Caldwell, Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy and Research Professor of Economics, Duke University. (shrink)

The present study aims to explore the forms paternalistic communication can take in doctor–patient interactions and how they should be considered from a normative perspective. In contemporary philosophical debate, the problem with paternalism is often perceived as either undermining autonomy (the autonomy problem) or the paternalist viewing their judgment as superior (the superiority problem). In either case, paternalism is problematized mainly in a general, theoretical sense. In contrast, this paper investigates specific doctor–patient encounters, revealing distinct types of paternalistic (...) class='Hi'>communication. For this study, I reviewed videorecorded encounters from a Norwegian hospital to detect paternalism—specifically, doctors overriding patients' expressed preferences, presumably to benefit or protect the patients. I identified variations in paternalistic communication styles—termed paternalist modes—which I categorized into four types: the fighter, the advocate, the sympathizer, and the fisher. Drawing on these findings, I aim to nuance the debate on paternalism. Specifically, I argue that each paternalist mode carries its own normative implications and that the autonomy and the superiority problems manifest differently across the modes. Furthermore, by illustrating paternalism in communication through real‐life cases, I aim to reach a more comprehensive understanding of what we mean by paternalistic doctors. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an upsurge of interest in the second-person perspective, not only in philosophy of mind, language, law and ethics, but also in various empirical disciplines such as cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology. A distinctive and perhaps also slightly puzzling feature of this ongoing discussion is that whereas many contributors insist that a proper consideration of the second-person perspective will have an impact on our understanding of social cognition, joint action, communication, self-consciousness, morality, and so on, there (...) remains considerable disagreement about what exactly a second-person perspective amounts to (see Eilan 2014; Conant and Rödl 2014). What is the difference between adopting a second-person and a third-person perspective on another? How does one relate to another as a you and how does that differ from relating to another as a he, she or they? In the following, I will consider three different proposals and argue that a promising but somewhat overlooked account can be found in the work of Husserl. (shrink)

Risk and crisis communication (RCC) is a current ethical issue subject to controversy, mainly due to the tension between individual liberty (a core component of fairness) and effectiveness. In this paper we propose a consistent definition of the RCC process in public health emergencies (PHERCC), which comprises six key elements: evidence, initiator, channel, publics, message, and feedback. Based on these elements and on a detailed analysis of their role in PHERCC, we present an ethical framework to help design, govern (...) and evaluate PHERCC strategies. The framework aims to facilitate RCC, incorporating effectiveness, autonomy, and fairness. It comprises five operational ethical principles: openness, transparency, inclusivity, understandability, and privacy. The resulting matrix helps understanding the interplay between the PHERCC process and the principles of the framework. The paper includes suggestions and recommendations for the implementation of the PHERCC matrix. (shrink)

Together, the code and inferential models of communication are often thought to range over all cases of communication. However, their prevailing versions seem unable to fully explain what I call underdeterminacy without ostension. The latter is constituted by communication where stimuli that are not (nor appear to be) produced with communicative or informative intentions nevertheless communicate information underdetermined by the relevant codes. Though the prevailing accounts of communication cannot fully explain how communication works in such (...) cases, I suggest that some version of the inferential model can—if we allow it to extend to non‐ostensive, non‐intentional behaviors. (shrink)

A pervasive aspect of human communication and sociality is argumentation: the practice of making and criticizing reasons in the context of doubt and disagreement. Argumentation underpins and shapes the decision-making, problem-solving, and conflict management which are fundamental to human relationships. However, argumentation is predominantly conceptualized as two parties arguing pro and con positions with each other in one place. This dyadic bias undermines the capacity to engage argumentation in complex communication in contemporary, digital society. This book offers an (...) ambitious alternative course of inquiry for the analysis, evaluation, and design of argumentation as polylogue: various actors arguing over many positions across multiple places. Taking up key aspects of the twentieth-century revival of argumentation as a communicative, situated practice, the polylogue framework engages a wider range of discourses, messages, interactions, technologies, and institutions necessary for adequately engaging the contemporary entanglement of argumentation and complex communication in human activities. (shrink)

Misconceived Consent: Miguel has stage IV lung cancer. He has nearly exhausted his treatment options when his oncologist, Dr. Llewellyn, tells him about an experimental vaccine trial that may boost his immune response to kill cancer cells. Dr. Llewellyn provides Miguel with a consent form that explains why the study is being conducted, what procedures he will undergo, what the various risks and benefits are, alternative sources of treatment, and so forth. She even sits down with him, carefully talks through (...) the most important points, and gives him time to ask questions. Though it is a Phase 1 study and the chance that he will benefit is very low, Miguel happily agrees to take part. A week later, after the first experimental injection, she asks him if he is worried about the risks. “Risks?” he asks. “I’m sure this is safe—you’re a doctor, after all!”. (shrink)

In the rapidly evolving landscape of multimodal communication research, this paper explores the transformative role of machine learning (ML), particularly using multimodal large language models, in tracking, augmenting, annotating, and analyzing multimodal data. Building upon the foundations laid in our previous work, we explore the capabilities that have emerged over the past years. The integration of ML allows researchers to gain richer insights from multimodal data, enabling a deeper understanding of human (and non-human) communication across modalities. In particular, (...) augmentation methods have become indispensable because they facilitate the synthesis of multimodal data and further increase the diversity and richness of training datasets. In addition, ML-based tools have accelerated annotation processes, reducing human effort while improving accuracy. Continued advances in ML and the proliferation of more powerful models suggest even more sophisticated analyses of multimodal communication, e.g., through models like ChatGPT, which can now “understand” images. This makes it all the more important to assess what these models can achieve now or in the near future, and what will remain unattainable beyond that. We also acknowledge the ethical and practical challenges associated with these advancements, emphasizing the importance of responsible AI and data privacy. We must be careful to ensure that benefits are shared equitably and that technology respects individual rights. In this paper, we highlight advances in ML-based multimodal research and discuss what the near future holds. Our goal is to provide insights into this research stream for both the multimodal research community, especially in linguistics, and the broader ML community. In this way, we hope to foster collaboration in an area that is likely to shape the future of technologically mediated human communication. (shrink)

It seems plausible that successfully communicating with our peers requires entertaining the same thoughts as they do. We argue that this view is incompatible with other, independently plausible principles of thought individuation. Our argument is based on a puzzle inspired by the Kripkean story of Peter and Paderewski: having developed several variations of the original story, we conclude that understanding and communication cannot be modeled as a process of thought transfer between speaker and hearer. While we are not the (...) first to reach this conclusion, the significance of our argument lies in the fact that it only relies on widely accepted premises, without depending on any especially controversial theory of mental and linguistic content. We conclude by drawing out the implications of that conclusion: if communication and understanding do not require thought identity, then one important motivation for the postulation of inter-personally shared thoughts is undercut. (shrink)

Patient-centred communication is widely regarded as a best practice in contemporary medical care, both in terms of maximising health outcomes and respecting persons. However, not all patients communicate in ways that are easily understood by clinicians and other healthcare professionals. This is especially so for patients with non-speaking intellectual disabilities. We argue that assumptions about intellectual disability—including those in diagnostic criteria, providers’ implicit attitudes and master narratives of disability—negatively affect communicative approaches towards intellectually disabled patients.Non-speakingintellectually disabled patients may also (...) be taken to lack decision-making capacity and resultingly, may be given very little role in determining their care. But, given evidence of the heterogeneous communicative practices available to non-speaking patients, efforts should be made to extend patient-centred communication to them. We offer four suggestions for doing so: (1) treating those with non-speaking intellectual disabilities as potential communicators; (2) lengthening appointment times to develop relationships necessary for communication; (3) disentangling capacity from communication in concept and in practice; and (4) recognising the bidirectional connection between supported decision-making and patient-centred communication. (shrink)

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The (...) relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture. (shrink)

This book discusses key ethical and deontological problems concerning the use of the most common information and communication devices. It focuses on the challenges of the new environments we now find ourselves in thanks to these technologies, and the issues arising from the newly established relationship between the virtual sphere and the real world. Each aspect is analysed by starting from a very specific example or a case study presenting a dilemma that can only be resolved by making a (...) reasoned ethical choice. Rather than thematically addressing only one of the many aspects mentioned above, the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and a co-ordinated overview of, the various deontological and ethical issues regarding the spread of the most common information and communication technologies. (shrink)

This book marks an important evolution in Jean Baudrillard's thought as he leavesbehind his older and better-known concept of the "simulacrum" and tackles the new problem of digitaltechnology acquiring organicity. The resulting world of cold communication and its indifferentalterity, seduction, metamorphoses, metastases, and transparency requires a new form of response.Writing in the shadow of Marshall McLuhan, Baudrillard insists that the content of communication iscompletely without meaning: the only thing that is communicated is communication itself. He sees themasses (...) writhing in an orgiastic ecstasy of communications. Baudrillard navigates the Object'smaelstrom with the euphoria of the astronaut reentering Earth's atmosphere with no possibility ofassistance from Mission Control. (shrink)

This paper addresses the critiques based on trade-offs and normativity presented in response to our target article proposing the Public Health Emergency Risk and Crisis Communication (PHERCC) framework. These critiques highlight the ethical dilemmas in crisis communication, particularly the balance between promoting public autonomy through transparent information and the potential stigmatization of specific population groups, as illustrated by the discussion of the mpox outbreak among men who have sex with men. This critique underscores the inherent tension between (...) class='Hi'>communication effectiveness and autonomy versus fairness and equity. In response, our paper reiterates the adaptability of the PHERCC framework, emphasizing its capacity to tailor messages to diverse audiences, thereby reducing potential stigmatization and misinformation. Through community engagement and feedback integration, the PHERCC framework aims to optimize the effectiveness of communication strategies while addressing ethical concerns. Furthermore, by involving affected communities in the communication strategy from the onset, the framework seeks to minimize ethical trade-offs and enhance the acceptance and effectiveness of public health messages. (shrink)

This research explored the feasibility of using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis in novel combination with other techniques to study comprehension of epistemic adverbs expressing doubt and certainty (e.g., evidently, obviously, probably ) as they relate to health communication in clinical settings. In Study 1, Australian English speakers performed a dissimilarity-rating task with sentence pairs containing the target stimuli, presented as “doctors' opinions.” Ratings were analyzed using a combination of cultural consensus analysis (factor analysis across participants), weighted-data classical-MDS, and cluster (...) analysis. Analyses revealed strong within-community consistency for a 3-dimensional semantic space solution that took into account individual differences, strong statistical acceptability of the MDS results in terms of stress and explained variance, and semantic configurations that were interpretable in terms of linguistic analyses of the target adverbs. The results confirmed the feasibility of using MDS in this context. Study 2 replicated the results with Canadian English speakers on the same task. Semantic analyses and stress decomposition analysis were performed on the Australian and Canadian data sets, revealing similarities and differences between the two groups. Overall, the results support using MDS to study comprehension of words critical for health communication, including in future studies, for example, second language speaking patients and/or practitioners. More broadly, the results indicate that the techniques described should be promising for comprehension studies in many communicative domains, in both clinical settings and beyond, and including those targeting other aspects of language and focusing on comparisons across different speech communities. (shrink)

In recent years, the receipt and the perception of information has changed in ways which have fueled fears about the fates of our democracies. However, real information on these possibilities or the direction of these changes does not exist. Into this gap, Hahn and colleagues bring the power of Condorcet's (1785) Jury Theorem to show that changes in our information networks have affected voter inter‐dependence so that it is likely that voters are now collectively more ignorant even if individual voter (...) competence remains unchanged. (shrink)

The modern world space, which is affected by the post-pandemic consequences, is noted by the globalization of society, the increasing role of citizenship in making important state and international decisions has become possible in the context of the information revolution and has its own characteristics of communication in information and communication networks. The importance and need for a thorough study of the chosen topic is that the widespread use of various forms and methods of civil communication, free (...) access of citizens to information at all stages of decision-making and the functioning of central and local governments, the participation of civil society institutions in the work of expert, consultative, and advisory public councils on the expression and protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens, public control, direct electronic receipt of public services, etc. are important factors in the democratization of government in post-pandemic modern times. After all, we are talking about a deliberate orientation to new values - the person and the collective, their direct participation in the democratic organization of life of the state and society. The main thing in this context is that the rational consensus of civil society and the state is a factor in universal social discourse and a strategic resource for democratic development in the context of post-pandemic modernity. The aim of the article is to consider the epistemological and sociocultural aspects of the functioning of the communication capabilities of civil society institutions in the context of revealing the possibility and significance of their involvement in the processes of implementing state security policy. (shrink)

Inspired by Castañeda (1966, 1968), Perry (1979) and Lewis (1979) showed that a specific variety of singular thoughts, thoughts about oneself “as oneself” – de se thoughts, as Lewis called them – raise special issues, and they advanced rival accounts. Their suggestive examples raise the problem of de se thought – to wit, how to characterize it so as to give an accurate account of the data, tracing its relations to singular thoughts in general. After rehearsing the main tenets of (...) two contrasting accounts – a Lewisian one and a Perrian one – in the first section of this paper, in the second I will present a proposal of my own, which is a specific elaboration of the Perrian account. In the first section I will indicate some weaknesses of Perry’s presentation of his view; the proposal I will articulate in the second overcomes them. I will conclude with a brief discussion of reasons for preferring one or another account, in particular regarding the issue of the communication of de se thoughts. (shrink)

To the extent that language is conventional, non-verbal individuals, including human infants, must participate in conventions in order to learn to use even simple utterances of words. This raises the question of which varieties of learning could make this possible. In this paper I defend Tomasello’s (The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard UP, Cambridge, 1999, Origins of human communication. MIT, Cambridge, 2008) claim that knowledge of linguistic conventions could be learned through imitation. This is possible because Lewisian accounts (...) of convention have overstated what one must know to participate in conventions; and because the required knowledge could be learned imitatively. The imitation claim that I defend is consistent with what we know about both the proliferation of conventional behaviours in human children, who are skilful imitators, and the comparative absence of such behaviours in non-human great apes, who are poor at imitative learning. (shrink)

Social robots are gradually entering children’s lives in a period when children learn about social relationships and exercise prosocial behaviors with parents, peers, and teachers. Designed for long-term emotional engagement and to take the roles of friends, teachers, and babysitters, such robots have the potential to influence how children develop empathy. This article presents a review of the literature in the fields of human–robot interaction, psychology, neuropsychology, and roboethics, discussing the potential impact of communication with social robots on children’s (...) social and emotional development. The critical analysis of evidence behind these discussions shows that, although robots theoretically have high chances of influencing the development of empathy in children, depending on their design, intensity, and context of use, there is no certainty about the kind of effect they might have. Most of the analyzed studies, which showed the ability of robots to improve empathy levels in children, were not longitudinal, while the studies observing and arguing for the negative effect of robots on children’s empathy were either purely theoretical or dependent on the specific design of the robot and the situation. Therefore, there is a need for studies investigating the effects on children’s social and emotional development of long-term regular and consistent communication with robots of various designs and in different situations. (shrink)

It is a frequent assumption that—via superluminal information transfers—superluminal signals capable of enabling communication are necessarily exchanged in any quantum theory that posits hidden superluminal influences. However, does the presence of hidden superluminal influences automatically imply superluminal signalling and communication? The non-signalling theorem mediates the apparent conflict between quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity. However, as a ‘no-go’ theorem there exist two opposing interpretations of the non-signalling constraint: foundational and operational. Concerning Bell’s theorem, we argue that (...) Bell employed both interpretations, and that he finally adopted the operational position which is associated often with ontological quantum theory, e.g., de Broglie–Bohm theory. This position we refer to as “effective non-signalling”. By contrast, associated with orthodox quantum mechanics is the foundational position referred to here as “axiomatic non-signalling”. In search of a decisive communication-theoretic criterion for differentiating between “axiomatic” and “effective” non-signalling, we employ the operational framework offered by Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication, whereby we distinguish between Shannon signals and non-Shannon signals. We find that an effective non-signalling theorem represents two sub-theorems: Non-transfer-control theorem, and Non-signification-control theorem. Employing NTC and NSC theorems, we report that effective, instead of axiomatic, non-signalling is entirely sufficient for prohibiting nonlocal communication. Effective non-signalling prevents the instantaneous, i.e., superluminal, transfer of message-encoded information through the controlled use—by a sender-receiver pair —of informationally-correlated detection events, e.g., in EPR-type experiments. An effective non-signalling theorem allows for nonlocal quantum information transfer yet—at the same time—effectively denies superluminal signalling and communication. (shrink)