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

This volume collects new, previously unpublished articles on Kaplan, analyzing a broad spectrum of topics ranging from cutting edge linguistics and the ...

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

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

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

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

Cultural evolution studies are characterized by the notion that culture evolves accordingly to broadly Darwinian principles. Yet how far the analogy between cultural and genetic evolution should be pushed is open to debate. Here, we examine a recent disagreement that concerns the extent to which cultural transmission should be considered a preservative mechanism allowing selection among different variants, or a transformative process in which individuals recreate variants each time they are transmitted. The latter is associated with the notion of “cultural (...) attraction”. This issue has generated much misunderstanding and confusion. We first clarify the respective positions, noting that there is in fact no substantive incompatibility between cultural attraction and standard cultural evolution approaches, beyond a difference in focus. Whether cultural transmission should be considered a preservative or reconstructive process is ultimately an empirical question, and we examine how both preservative and reconstructive cultural transmission has been studied in recent experimental research in cultural evolution. Finally, we discuss how the relative importance of preservative and reconstructive processes may depend on the granularity of analysis and the domain being studied. (shrink)

The first half of this article follows Mario Bunge’s early realist moves, his efforts to articulate the achievements of theoretical physics as gains in the quest for objective truth and understanding, particularly in the context of the fights against the idealist and subjectivist interpretations of quantum mechanics that, at least until the mid-1970s, prevailed in physics. Bunge’s answers to the problems of quantum mechanics provide a good angle for understanding how his realist positions grew on the “battlefield.” The second half (...) discusses Bunge’s general conception of the scientific realist stance and confronts it with some current approaches to realism in the mainstream literature. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the concept of love —understood in the broad and Christian-inspired sense of love as agape-charis love— in relation to the animes Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I first comment on the character of Piccolo —and how his friendship with Son Gohan— leads to him losing all his original villainous traits. I argue that the evolution of the character of Piccolo through his friendship with Son Gohan illustrates the philosophical claim that a (...) loving and giving of oneself to the other —far from being a sign of weakness— is a courageous and self-affirming exercise. The result may move the individual to an inner transformative experience that leads to the enjoyment of a renewed and authentic life that is worth living. I then argue that Son Goku’s respectful attitude towards his opponents is ultimately a loving attitude. Last, I argue that it is the inspiring and loving example of Son Goku that ultimately explains why characters such as Vegeta —who are at first presented as villains— end up losing their villainous traits after fighting against Son Goku. (shrink)

In Ockhamist branching-time logic [Prior 67], formulas are meant to be evaluated on a specified branch, or history, passing through the moment at hand. The linguistic counterpart of the manifoldness of future is a possibility operator which is read as `at some branch, or history (passing through the moment at hand)'. Both the bundled-trees semantics [Burgess 79] and the $\langle moment, history\rangle$ semantics [Thomason 84] for the possibility operator involve a quantification over sets of moments. The Ockhamist frames are (3-modal) (...) Kripke structures in which this second-order quantification is represented by a first-order quantification. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the notions of modal definability, validity, and axiomatizability concerning 3-modal frames which can be viewed as generalizations of Ockhamist frames. (shrink)

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

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

We agree with Brette's assessment that the coding metaphor has become more problematic than helpful for theories of brain and cognitive functioning. In an effort to aid in constructing an alternative, we argue that joining the insights from the dynamical systems approach with the semiotic framework of C. S. Peirce can provide a fruitful perspective.

Introduction: Jai Mata Di (praise the mother goddess) -- Sutra 1: Samadhi, or yogic ecstasy -- Sutra 2: realization, or the practice of yoga -- Sutra 3: the Siddhis, or the magical powers -- Sutra 4: absolute freedom.

A completeness theorem is established for logics with congruence endowed with general semantics (in the style of general frames). As a corollary, completeness is shown to be preserved by fibring logics with congruence provided that congruence is retained in the resulting logic. The class of logics with equivalence is shown to be closed under fibring and to be included in the class of logics with congruence. Thus, completeness is shown to be preserved by fibring logics with equivalence and general semantics. (...) An example is provided showing that completeness is not always preserved by fibring ligics endowed with standard (non general) semantics. A categorial characterization of fibring is provided using coproducts and cocartesian liftings. (shrink)

This major publication is a history of the semantic tradition in philosophy from the early nineteenth century through its incarnation in the work of the Vienna Circle, the group of logical positivists that emerged in the years 1925-1935 in Vienna who were characterised by a strong commitment to empiricism, a high regard for science, and a conviction that modern logic is the primary tool of analytic philosophy. In the first part of the book, Alberto Coffa traces the roots of (...) logical positivism in a semantic tradition that arose in opposition to Kant's theory that a priori knowledge is based on pure intuition and the constitutive powers of the mind. In Part II, Coffa chronicles the development of this tradition by members and associates of the Vienna Circle. Much of Coffa's analysis draws on the unpublished notes and correspondence of many philosophers. The book, however, is not merely a history of the semantic tradition from Kant 'to the Vienna Station'. Coffa also critically reassesses the role of semantic notions in understanding the ground of a priori knowledge and its relation to empirical knowledge and questions the turn the tradition has taken since Vienna. (shrink)

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

People’s awareness of tactile stimuli has been investigated in far less detail than their awareness of stimuli in other sensory modalities. In an attempt to fill this gap, we provide an overview of studies that are pertinent to the topic of tactile consciousness. We discuss the results of research that has investigated phenomena such as “change blindness”, phantom limb sensations, and numerosity judgments in tactile perception, together with the results obtained from the study of patients affected by deficits that can (...) adversely affect tactile perception such as neglect, extinction, and numbsense. The similarities as well as some of the important differences that have emerged when visual and tactile conscious information processing have been compared using similar experimental procedures are highlighted. We suggest that conscious information processing in the tactile modality cannot be separated completely from the more general processing of spatial information in the brain. Finally, the importance of considering tactile consciousness within the larger framework of multisensory information processing is also discussed. (shrink)

In just the last decade, many conference proceedings have been published on Plato’s Timaeus and its influence on the history of philosophy. The present vo­lume, which is the result of a symposium held at Seoul National University in September 2011, testifies to the enduring and widespread interest the Platonic dia­logue is able to elicit. The nine studies here collected by Euree Song center on the figure of the demiurge as maker of the world and they all deal with authors who, (...) while having di... (shrink)

This open access book discusses individual, collective, and institutional responsibilities with regard to vaccination from the perspective of philosophy and public health ethics. It addresses the issue of what it means for a collective to be morally responsible for the realisation of herd immunity and what the implications of collective responsibility are for individual and institutional responsibilities. The first chapter introduces some key concepts in the vaccination debate, such as ‘herd immunity’, ‘public goods’, and ‘vaccine refusal’; and explains why failure (...) to vaccinate raises certain ethical issues. The second chapter analyses, from a philosophical perspective, the relationship between individual, collective, and institutional responsibilities with regard to the realisation of herd immunity. The third chapter is about the principle of least restrictive alternative in public health ethics and its implications for vaccination policies. Finally, the fourth chapter presents an ethical argument for unqualified compulsory vaccination, i.e. for compulsory vaccination that does not allow for any conscientious objection. The book will appeal to philosophers interested in public health ethics and the general public interested in the philosophical underpinning of different arguments about our moral obligations with regard to vaccination. (shrink)

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