Interactive Cinema explores cinematic practices that work to transform what is often seen as a receptive activity into a participatory, multimedia experience. Combining cutting-edge theory with updated conventional film studies methodologies, Marina Hassapopoulou presses at the conceptual limits of cinema and offers an essential road map to the rapidly evolving landscape of contemporary media.

This article presents a model and a case study of the narrative structures that are present in the interactive media design of multimedia applications in the mass media. As basic categories for the history and structure of media, we employ the model of the modes of the physical, analog, and digital presentation/representation. In this case study of the online edition of the New York Times, we have the case of a newspaper that in the digital edition employs multi-media (...) applications. Contrasting the traditional concept of “narrativity” with the current status quo of the digital media outlets, we will examine the specific conditions of the multimedia applications in the mass media with this sample case of the New York Times. As narrative structure of interactive design in multimedia for mass communication, we analyze the types of narrative media and general narrativity in the New York Times with the background of its processes of interactivity and media convergence. (shrink)

Multimedia technology offers instructional designers an unprecedented opportunity to create richly interactive learning environments. With greater design freedom comes complexity. The standard answer to the problems of too much choice, disorientation, and complex navigation is thought to lie in the way we design interactivity in a system. Unfortunately, the theory of interactivity is at an early state of development. After critiquing the decision cycle model of interaction—the received theory in human computer interaction—I present arguments and observational data to (...) show that humans have several ways of interacting with their environments, which resist accommodation in the decision cycle model. These additional ways of interacting include: preparing the environment, maintaining the environment, and reshaping the cognitive congeniality of the environment. Understanding how these actions simplify the computational complexity of our mental processes is the first step in designing the right sort of resources and scaffolding necessary for tractable learner controlled learning environments. (shrink)

Rom Harré has recently proposed that there is a difference between the driving force behind the early and the later Wittgenstein. According to Harré, in the early work, the major inspiration came from science, while, in the later, it came from religion. I show that only Harré’s first proposal is fully justified. In section one of my paper, I examine the picture theory, the theory of truth-functions, the meaning of propositions, and Tractatus §6.3. In section two, about the Philosophical Investigations, (...) I show that Harré is misleading. In a first step, I argue that science plays the same role in this later work as in the Tractatus, namely the role of source of inspiration. In a second step, I show that science plays also the role of a contrast against which the rich world of meaning can be discerned. I examine this contrastive role not only as regards religion, but also as regards psychology, and as regards the repercussions of Wittgenstein’s later work on science-studies. My final proposal is that the distinction between science as source of inspiration and science as a contrast goes beyond Wittgenstein: it characterises much twentieth century philosophical work in this area. (shrink)

This is one of the most important books on quantum mechanics to have appeared in recent years. It offers a dramatically new interpretation that resolves puzzles and paradoxes associated with the measurement problem and the behavior of coupled systems. A crucial feature of this interpretation is that a quantum mechanical measurement can be certain to have a particular outcome even when the observed system fails to have the property corresponding to that outcome just prior to the measurement interaction.

Aquinas accepts the harmony of faith and reason, but he does not think that such harmony is always easily arrived at. After making some background points about his views on faith, reason, philosophy, and theology, I explore two cases drawn from his Christology. In the first, philosophical thinking influences how we understand revelation; in the second, theological thinking influences how we understand a topic normally thought of as part of philosophy. In both cases, harmony is not pre-given but instead arrived (...) at only through a process of adjustment. (shrink)

Changescapes - an introduction -- Aqueous aesthetics -- The rise of multimedia systems -- Complex dynamics disciplines -- The known world -- Attunement and agility -- Camouflage and changefulness -- Narrative hunger - geographical information systems, google street view and the colonial prospectus -- Wayfaring strangers: artistic investigations of the mood of dark tourism in online mapping -- Ghosts of a better tomorrow: the volatile formalism of 1980s film workshop productions in Hong Kong -- Cast against type -- What (...) the eye can hear -- A forest. A clearing. -- Motility -- Deep water time. (shrink)

In What Is Philosophy? we find philosophy devised as that power of thinking and creating which, in a division of labour with science and art, creates the concept. This division of labour points to the free interplay of Reason, Understanding and Imagination in Kant's Critique of Judgement and enables us to affirm, without obliterating the differences in kind, the non-hierarchical relationship between the three forms of thought that is asserted by Deleuze and Guattari. However, as powers of thinking and creating, (...) philosophy, science and art do not inscribe themselves in a transcendental subject. Rather, Deleuze and Guattari conceive of them, following Spinoza's ‘creating nature’, as powers that express themselves in an attribute in which every thinking subject participates. (shrink)

The study analyzes modern reductivist and antireductivist approaches to understanding the interaction between philosophy and neuroscience. It analyzes the content and grounds for using the concepts of neuroscience and neurosciences, philosophy of neuroscience, and neurophilosophy. The milestones in the development of neuroreductivism, from Patricia Churchland’s arguments in support of intertheoretic reduction through Francis Crick’s eliminativism to John Bickle’s ruthless reductionism, are described. The ontological, methodological, and epistemic grounds for the reduction to neurosciences of other ways of representing mind and body (...) are analyzed. Drawing on the post-Wittgensteinian paradigm of the philosophy of neuroscience of Max Bennett, Peter Hacker, and Andrew Reynolds, the semantic problems that arise in the neurosciences when epistemic reduction is attempted are described and derive from the inability to eliminate the basic metaphorical level of meaning-making and transmission rooted in everyday language and its figures, among which metaphors are fundamental. The descriptivist approach to the language of neurosciences is contrasted with neurorevisionism, an attempt to “correct” established ways of conceptualizing consciousness and corporeality, akin to earlier revisionisms, particularly physicalism, and forced to deal with similar problems. Reduction - the operation of the “return,” itself understood metaphorically - and antireduction, which resists scientific revisionism and “returns” understanding to the level of everyday language and philosophy to descriptive work, is presented as a circular hermeneutical movement necessary for scientific and philosophical understanding, but not leading to disciplinary hegemony or the “victory” of either side. The study concludes with a sketch of the publications included in the rubric. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage tente de poser les bases philosophiques de la sociologie au moyen de l'interprétation des écrits de certains des penseurs les plus importants de notre tradition philosophique. Le noyau de cette étude porte sur les formes du vivre ensemble que les règles de la socialité dégagées dans l'analyse de ces écrits permettent de repérer : règles de lutte (Machiavel), de coopération compétitive (Hobbes), stratégique (Leibniz), égalitaire (Rousseau), enfin règles morales (Kant). À la suite d'un examen des conditions de la (...) socialité que sont le langage et l'économie, l'ouvrage propose une philosophie de la socialité fondée sur le pluralisme des règles de l'interaction. (shrink)

In this paper we present the syntax and semantics of a temporal action language named Alan, which was designed to model interactive multimedia presentations where the Markov property does not always hold. In general, Alan allows the specification of systems where the future state of the world depends not only on the current state, but also on the past states of the world. To the best of our knowledge, Alan is the first action language which incorporates causality with (...) temporal formulas. In the process of defining the effect of actions we define the closure with respect to a path rather than to a state, and show that the non-Markovian model is an extension of the traditional Markovian model. Finally, we establish relationship between theories of Alan and logic programs. (shrink)

Cassandra Pinnick and George Gale (Journal for General Phisophy of Science 31, 109–125) examined the post-Lakatos period of historical cum philosophical case studies and concluded that a new methodology is required. Lakatos' proposed ‘history2’ (the theory- and value-laden reconstruction of history1, the set of historical events) was criticised. Recently a group of scholars have been pursuing a methodology which could be described as history 3, a history1 account of the interaction between the significant scientific papers published during the time period (...) in question and their scientific audience. (shrink)

History and philosophy complement and overlap each other in subject matter, but the two disciplines exhibit conflict over methodology. Since Hempel's challenge to historians that they should adopt the covering law model of explanation, the methodological conflict has revolved around the respective roles of the general and the particular in each discipline. In recent years, the revival of narrativism in history, coupled with the trend in philosophy of science to rely upon case studies, joins the methodological conflict anew. So long (...) as contemporary philosophy of science relies upon history's methodology to construct its case studies, it subjects itself to a paradoxical situation: the better the history, the worse the philosophy. An example of the methodological conflict is presented in the case of Antoine Lavoisier. This example also serves our ultimateconclusion, which is that distinctively philosophical methods of case-study design promise enhanced prescriptive powers for philosophy of science. (shrink)

This article attempts to establish analogies between the recent introduction into architectural thought of notions such as the human body movement, events and scenarios, and the development of navigation and interaction principles and conventions in the computer world. The study of the human–computer interface contributes to an understanding of the major role of the computer screen as a point of convergence of different representational forms, and the emergence of new ones belonging to the digital culture. The compositional structure of (...) class='Hi'>interactive multimedia works is on the one hand a visual, spatial composition and on the other a narrative and navigational structure. (shrink)

_Reading Philosophy of Religion_ combines a diverse selection of classical and contemporary texts in philosophy of religion with insightful commentaries. Offers a unique presentation through a combination of text and interactive commentary Provides a mix of classic and contemporary texts, including some not anthologized elsewhere Includes writings from thinkers such as Aquinas, Boethius, Hume, Plantinga and Putnam Divided into sections which examine religious language, the existence of God, reason, argument and belief, divine properties, and religious pluralism.

In 2015 the first mass migration and the first geopolitical and transnational crisis of the digital age began. This brought along the awakening of a new phase in slavery trade and trafficking of human beings (THB) at the European borders. In this article I introduce an ongoing field study I began in January 2016, in collaboration with experts from Spanish and European institutions, that so far has taken me to hotspots and borders, and to the accumulation of a vast (...) class='Hi'>multimedia archive. This led to the creation of zonaautonomamilitarizada.eu, an immersive/360°, interactive and reactive audio-visual performative system conceptually rooted in military technologies, second-order cybernetics and mass media developments. (shrink)

Dynamic interaction is said to occur when two significanrly different fields A and B come into relation, and their interaction is dynamic in the sense that at first the flow of ideas is principally from A to B, but later ideas from B come to influence A. Two examples are given of dynamic interactions with the philosophy of mathematics. The first is with philosophy of scicnce, and thc sccond with computer science. Theanalysis cnables Lakatos to be charactcrised as thc first (...) to devclop the philosophy of mathematics using ideas taken from thc philosophy of science. (shrink)

The author considers the Digital Humanities as a tendency towards a constructive synthesis of computer technology and humanitarian science in the context of their claim to make a paradigm shift in the humanities. As part of this review, the author raises a question about the role of interactive multimedia tools in the humanities, and tried to evaluate the novelty and content that scientific and educational projects receive with their help. The author develops and justifies the principle of systematization (...) of Digital Humanities projects, based on the priority of distinguishing projects by the nature of the relationship between their humanitarian and computer (technological) components. Considering both the actual digital projects and the academic publications devoted to them in the context of their systematization, the author observes that many projects are largely experimental in nature due to the use of ever new multimedia tools, so it is premature to talk about a meaningful transformation of humanitarian science. Focusing on the issue of a successful synthesis of digital technologies and the humanities, the author notes that new technological tools (multimedia, AI or neural networks, etc) allow raising new questions, updating additional objects of research and creating new methods. However, new tools do not always set the completeness of the new content, only supplementing it, and the acquired interactivity does not always directly work for scientific character. In this case, we face with the reverse situation, when the claims of technologically determined disciplines to be scientific are intertwined with the claims of disciplinary science to manufacturability. As a result, the author concludes that the direction of Digital Humanities is significantly influenced by technoscience with its dissolution of the boundaries between fundamental and applied research and the desire for new technologies that transform the processes under study, which makes McLuhan’s concept especially relevant. (shrink)

How did humans respond to the eighteenth-century discovery of countless new species of animals? This book explores the gamut of human-animal interactions: from love to cultural identifications, moral reflections, philosophical debates, classification systems, mechanical copies, insults and literary creativity.

Designed for readers new to the subject,_ Reading Philosophy of Language_ presents key texts in the philosophy of language together with helpful editorial guidance. A concise collection of key texts in the philosophy of language Ideal for readers new to the subject. Features seminal texts by leading figures in the field, such as Austin, Chomsky, Davidson, Dummett and Searle. Presents three texts on each of five key topics: speech and performance; meaning and truth; knowledge of language; meaning and compositionality; and (...) non-literal meaning. A volume introduction from the editors outlines the subject’s principal concerns. Introductions to each chapter locate the pieces in context and explain relevant terminology and theories. Interactive commentaries help readers to engage with the texts. (shrink)

This article presents an overview of generally available applications for creating multimedia and interactive educational materials, such as presentations, instructional videos, self-tests and interactive repetitions. With the use of the presented tools, pilot materials were developed to support the teaching of biostatistics at a medical university. The authors conducted surveys among students of faculties of medicine in order to evaluate the materials used in terms of quality and usefulness. The article presents the analysis of the results obtained.

In this important collection, the editors argue that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive discussion between thinkers working on very much the same problems despite being often widely separated in time or place. Each section opens with at least one selection from a classical philosopher, and there are many points at which the readings chosen refer to other works that the reader will also find in this collection. There is a considerable amount of material from central figures (...) such as Augustine, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, as well as extensive texts from thinkers in the medieval Islamic world. Each selection is prefaced by a brief introduction by the editors, providing a philosophical and religious background to help make the material more accessible to the reader. This edition, updated throughout, contains a substantial new chapter on medieval psychology and philosophy of mind, with texts from authors not previously represented such as John Buridan and Peter John Olivi. (shrink)

This scholarly discussion on the inextricable links between Arabic and Western philosophy features six eminent experts in the field.

Doctor-patient interaction has gained increasing attention among sociologists and linguists during the last few decades. The problem with the studies performed so far, however, has been a lack of a theoretical framework which could bring together the various phenomena observed within medical consultations. Mikhail Bakhtin's philosophy of language offers us tools for studying medical practice as socio-cultural semiotic phenomenon. Applying Bakhtin's ideas of polyphonic, context-dependent and open-ended nature of human communication opens the possibilities to develop prevailing theoretical and empirical approaches (...) to the study of medical consultations. (shrink)

"This paper builds on John Dewey’s views on interactions to suggest pathways for enriching the study of philosophy. Along with the notions of body-mind and organism-environment transactions, interactions are part of a philosophical project with transformative implications for education as well. The first part of the paper will contextualize Dewey’s discussion of interactions with regard to his philosophy of experience and democratic theory. The second one will propose two criteria with regard to enriching philosophical training in ways that engage the (...) mind and the body - increasing sociocultural awareness and generating integrative learning experiences – and will add a few examples of how the study of philosophy could benefit from applying an interactionist perspective. Keywords: education, experience, interaction, philosophy, John Dewey. ". (shrink)

The notion of causal explanation is an essential element of the naturalistic world view. This view is typically interpreted to claim that we are only licensed to postulate entities that make a causal difference , or have causal power . The rest are epiphenomena and hence eliminable from the correct view of reality. The worry that some entities and phenomena that we take for granted mental properties in particular turn out to be epiphenomenal, can be seen as stemming from this (...) sort of naturalistic attitude. This thesis reviews the issue of causal explanation within the context of the naturalistic philosophy of mind. It is argued that there is no single monolithic, unanimously accepted notion of causation that the naturalist should be committed to. Views vary on what this notion amounts to exactly, and fields of science vary with respect to their causal commitments. However, the naturalist can still presume that a scientifically informed philosophical account of causation exists, an account that is fundamentally philosophical, but also sensitive to actual scientific practice and its view of reality. The central issue of the current naturalistic philosophy of mind is the so-called problem of causal exclusion. According to this, the assumption that mental states could have genuine and autonomous effects on the physical world is inconsistent with physical commitments, namely the idea that mental states are necessarily neurally based and the idea that the physical world is causally complete. The causal exclusion argument claims that mental causes must be reduced to physical causes, as there remains no role for independent mental causes. The thesis reviews some central responses to the causal exclusion argument. It is shown that within the context of the interventionist notion of causation, inter-level causation can be ruled out. The causal exclusion argument would thus find support, contrary to what the proponents of the interventionist view typically claim. However, the result is also shown to have the corollary that purely higher-level, mental-to-mental causation is possible. The thesis suggests that this offers a consistent view of mental causation for a naturalist to hold. (shrink)

Like so many sciences, linguistics originated from philosophy's rib. It reached maturity and attained full independence only in the twentieth century (for example, it is a well-known fact that the first linguistics department in the UK was founded in 1944); though research which we would now classify as linguistic (especially leading to generalizations from comparing different languages) was certainly carried out much earlier. The relationship between philosophy and linguistics is perhaps reminiscent of that between an old-fashioned mother and her emancipated (...) daughter, and is certainly asymmetric. And though from philosophy's rib, empirical investigation methods have ensured that linguistics has evolved (just as in the case of the more famous rib) into something far from resembling the original piece of bone. Another side of the same asymmetry is that while linguistics focuses exclusively on language (or languages), for philosophy language seems less pervasive - philosophy of language being merely one branch among many. However, during the twentieth century this asymmetry was substantially diminished by the so called linguistic turn1, undergone by numerous philosophers – this turn was due to the realization that as language is the universal medium for our grasping and coping with the world, its study may provide the very key for all other philosophical disciplines. As for the working methods, we could perhaps picture the difference between a philosopher of language and a linguist by means of the following simile. Imagine two researchers both asked to investigate an unknown landscape. One hires a helicopter, acquires a birds-eye view of the whole landscape and draws a rough, but comprehensive map. The other takes a camera, a writing pad and various instruments, and walks around, taking pictures and making notes of the kinds of rocks, plants and animals which he finds. Whose way is the more reasonable? Well, one wants to say, neither, for they seem to be complementary.. (shrink)

Reductionism has dominated science and philosophy for centuries. Complexity has recently shown that interactions—which reductionism neglects—are relevant for understanding phenomena. When interactions are considered, reductionism becomes limited in several aspects. In this paper, I argue that interactions imply nonreductionism, non-materialism, non-predictability, non-Platonism, and non-Nihilism. As alternatives to each of these, holism, informism, adaptation, contextuality, and meaningfulness are put forward, respectively. A worldview that includes interactions not only describes better our world, but can help to solve many open scientific, philosophical, and (...) social problems caused by implications of reductionism. (shrink)

The study of active matter systems demonstrates how interactions might co-constitute agential dynamics. Active matter systems are comprised of self-propelled independent entities which, en masse, take part in complex and interesting collective group behaviors at a far-from-equilibrium state (Menon, 2010 ; Takatori & Brady, 2015 ). These systems are modelled using very simple rules (Vicsek at al. 1995), which reveal the interactive nature of the collective behaviors seen from humble to highly complex entities. Here I show how the study (...) of active matter systems supports two related proposals regarding interaction and agency. First, I argue that the study of interactive dynamics in these systems evidences the utility of treating interaction as an ontological category (Longino, 2021 ) and challenges methodological individualism as the received explanatory primitive in the study of agency. Second, the methods used to research active matter systems demonstrate how a minimal approach to agency can scale up in studying interactive agential dynamics in more complex systems. The examples of coordination dynamics (Kelso, 2001 ) and participatory sense-making (De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007 ) are provided to show how understanding agency requires us to look beyond the individuals to the interactive agential dynamics that can guide, scaffold, or constrain their activity. (shrink)