This paper presents a Conceptual Graph (CG) framework to the Generation of Referring Expressions (GRE). Employing Conceptual Graphs as the underlying formalism allows a rigorous, semantically rich, approach to GRE. A number of advantages over existing work are discussed. The new framework is also used to revisit existing complexity results in a fully rigorous way, showing that the expressive power of CGs does not increase the theoretical complexity of GRE.

In this paper we present an interdisciplinary approach that concerns the problem of argument acceptance in an agronomy setting. We propose a computational cognitive model for argument acceptance based on the dual model system in cognitive psychology. We apply it in an agronomy setting within a French national project on durum wheat.

The volume represents a selection of the articles which were presented at a colloquium on new research topics in aesthetics at the Austrian Library in Pilsen in September 2010. Their authors, Czech and Austrian scholars, address various topics, ranging from the institutional history of aesthetics to the relationship between philosophical aesthetics and psychology, and from the philosophy of literature to the aesthetics of fine arts, dramatic arts, and architecture.

Higher levels of trust in credible sources of information in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic increase public compliance with official recommendations, minimizing health risks and helping authorities manage the crisis. Based on a national survey, this article explores actual levels of trust in various sources of information during the pandemic and a number of predictors of such trust. Results show that during the period studied government websites were the most trusted source of information. Trust in an (...) information source is correlated with consumption of COVID-19–related news from that specific source, media fact-checking, and self-perception about the incidence of COVID-19–related fake news. Only income and age are significant trust predictors, and only with respect to specific source types. (shrink)

The theme of the article relies to the particular contribution of Freemasonry in the initiation and development of modernity, focusing on science, religion and politics. We know that, during the late Middle Ages, the European society was obedient to the „Church-Tradition-Monarchy” trinity; this status-quo collapsed due to the rational way of thinking; also the establishment of the universal human rights belongs to the Enlightenment, whose theses were supported mainly by Freemasons. Many researchers have proposed to show the extent to which (...) Freemasonry helped to build the ideals of Enlightenment. The main conclusions that can be drawn, by analyzing their tracks, are: All famous leaders of the Enlightenment had connections to Freemasonry; The Enlightenment tenets overlap Freemasonry tenets, and, therefore they were supported and propagated by English, French, and American lodges; Freemasonry progressively turned into a transnational vehicle for liberal thinking, disseminating the concepts of property and freedom in Europe and across the Atlantic. (shrink)

Aletheia: The Truth of Philosophical Translation as a Translation of Thruth.An Encounter of Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricœur and Antoine BermanThe article analyzes the specificity of philosophical translations insofar as they generate a new meaning and present themselves as originals that must be retranslated. This goes against Ricœur’s conception of translation as a creation of comparable terms. We will show that philosophical translation consists in the creation of an incomparable term, which cannot be measured in terms of equivalence, adequacy or fidelity. (...) All these terms correspond to a notion of truth understood as adequacy, therefore we operate a deconstruction of aletheia, the Greek concept for “truth”, in order to show that what we hold today to be the truth of translation has been the result of a translation. Through Heidegger’s reading of aletheia and through Berman’s account of the terms that name translation in Europe, we reinterpret the Roman philosophical translations as examples of traductio and we show, in the end, that by retranslating aletheia, the rules for the practice of translation change, allowing the latter to be guided by an ethical approach towards the otherness rather than by righteous fidelity and adequacy. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is to offer a new interpretation of Heidegger’s account of the unfolding of language by analyzing the notion of Geläut der Stille, “sounding gathering of silence.” Taking as a starting point the experience of silence described by Stefan George in his poem “The Word,” the article presents the opposition between silence and the sounding words, showing that the latter coincide with the language we speak. The passage from silence to the spoken language belongs to (...) the unfolding of language itself, which presents itself as a translation of silence, redefining thus what translation originally is. The latter, understood as violence and harmony, gathers itself under the term of “rift,” overcoming thus the ontological difference and offering us a radically new perspective over the nature of “relation” within Heidegger’s thinking. (shrink)

People’s beliefs are influenced by interactions within their communities. The propagation of this influence through conversational social networks should impact the degree to which community members synchronize their beliefs. To investigate, we recruited a sample of 140 participants and constructed fourteen 10-member communities. Participants first rated the accuracy of a set of statements and were then provided with relevant evidence about them. Then, participants discussed the statements in a series of conversational interactions, following pre-determined network structures. Finally, they rated the (...) accuracy of the statements again. The results show that belief synchronization, measuring the increase in belief similarity among individuals within a community from pre-test to post-test, is influenced by the community’s conversational network structure. This synchronization is circumscribed by a degree of separation effect and is equivalent in the clustered and non-clustered networks. We also find that conversational content predicts belief change from pre-test to post-test. (shrink)

Our study focuses on the impact of American advertising on local consumers and industry and discusses the relationship between standardization and localization on the global market. Although America seems to be a hybridized, ‘McDonald-ized’ reality, it is in fact grounded on a multicultural and social mix that deems it highly recognizable. Consequently, we argue that reconstructing American identity means sharing similar values with other cultural spaces, whose history, religion, and social customs require a different approach to daily life and finding (...) new means of expression. Our main argument is that advertising disseminates its message in foreign markets and that American campaign models were implemented despite cultural differences. Therefore, we will study the way American heterogeneity becomes homogeneous in the advertising realm, and explain the relationship between standardization and localization in promoting brand values. Our analysis relies on examples of the post-1990 Romanian advertising revolution that showcase the global American influence on Romania’s local industry as reflected by celebrations (Valentine’s Day, Man’s Day) and other American symbols (the cowboy image, the impact of the English language) present in locally broadcast advertisements. Consequently, our paper asks a very controversial question: Does market globalization embed the American spirit in indigenous cultures through advertising, bypassing local culture, ideology and society? (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 3, Page 418-419, June 2012.

Thinking of the system of rational ideas as extensions of conceiving, Kant deemed as necessary to pay his respects to Plato, the first who mapped out the philosophical career of those instruments of rational investigation. From the view of his transcendental idealism, he appreciated two elements: the utilization of ideas as a cognitive instrument distinct from senses, as well as the involvement of the human reason in their operationalization. Kant does not attach himself to the supra-individual force represented by the (...) prototypes of things, because every source of knowledge excepting human faculties is deemed as devoid of any real ground. In consequence, the human faculty of reason is the one which gave Kant the opportunity to conceive the ideas of reason as investigations through systematic reflection, but also as an opening to three philosophical disciplines, which means three life options; among them especially the last one, aiming at the express orientation of life towards the moral faith, is a character modeler. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 134-145.

Cele două secole care au trecut de la moartea lui Immanuel Kant au creat în jurul operei sale instituţii concepute să o editeze, traducă şi interpreteze la un înalt nivel de profesionalism, care a impus anumite exigenţe de traducere şi intrpretare ce trebuie respectate spre a asigura valoarea ştiinţifică a acestei activităţi. Aşadar, în zilele noastre traducerea operei lui Kant nu se mai face după orice ediţie, ci numai după ediţia standard, a cărei paginaţie trebuie marcată în marginea exterioară a (...) paginii, spre a putea urmări conformarea sa cu originalul; aceasta este ediţia Academiei din Berlin, fostă prusacă: Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1902. (shrink)

To the faithful it is proper to draw the conclusion that in religion the appropriate way comes from the cultivation of virtue to the possibility of his endowment with grace; he should realize that the opposite way, from his endowment with grace with the view to make his way to virtue easier is not but an illusory way with a limited moral and religious meaning. From here follows that to God we cannot address but desires which passed the test of (...) virtue. This is the rational Kantian position on grace, with regard to the rational finite being that is man. The existence, as an exception, of the unconditional grace to some human beings thatrepresents the direct relation with the infinite being, do not entitle us to imagine that being unconditioned by the morality necessary to common beings, this kind of beings could ask for God any gift; since the grace as a divine gift becomes useless out of his relation with the divinity and his holiness, that represents for the finite being a moral model. (shrink)

MĂDĂLINA DIACONU, Tasten, Riechen, Schmecken. Eine Ästhetik der anästhesierten Sinne, 2005 ; SILVIA STOLLER, VERONICA VASTERLING,LINDA FISHER, Feministische Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik, 2005 ; KARL SCHUHMANN, Karl Schuhmann: Selected Papers on Phenomenology. Edited by CEES LEIJENHORST and PIET STEENBAKKERS, 2004 ; HIROSHI GOTO, Der Begriff der Person in der PhänomenologieHusserls. Ein Interpretationsversuch der Husserlschen Phänomenologie als Ethik im Hinblick auf den Begriff der Habitualität, 2004 ; GÜNTER FIGAL, Lebensverstricktheit und Abstandsnahme. „Verhalten zu sich“ im Anschluss an Heidegger, Kierkegaard und Hegel, 2001 (...) ; JACQUES DERRIDA, Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy, 2000. (shrink)

This paper analyses the cluster of aesthetic features involved in the common experience of the weather. Perceptual features (framelessness, chromatics, texture, synaesthesia, ephemerality, proteism) are accompanied by 'atmospheric' moods that are irreducible to physiological well-being. Representation and imagination reach their limits due to the more-than-human spatiotemporal scale of the atmosphere. Finally, some 'transaesthetic' aspects include the agency of an active matter and the longing for an elemental alterity. The aesthetics of the weather has to account for the interdependence between aesthetic (...) and ethical values, between bodily engagement and appropriate knowledge, individual contemplation and social commitment, in order to develop ecological responsibility. (shrink)

The ecological crisis has long since reached global proportions, so that environmental problems can no longer be tackled solely within national borders. This anthology opens intercultural perspectives on environmental ethics and hightlights the potential of non-European traditions of thought for exploring alternative paths.

Alongside the institutionally constructed European identity, research shows that insights into citizens’ sense of belonging are valuable as well in assessing questions of identity. The tendency to conflate European identity with EU identity has spurred debates about the components that underlie European identification. The online subsidiarity adopted by the EU through e-platforms has allowed for a new form of citizenship where e-citizens legitimate the issues under debate. This article examines the contents of European and national identities in the e-debaters’ comments (...) posted on the Debating Europe platform. Drawing on narrative and discursive approaches, we propose a framework to operationalize the legitimation and identification categories used by e-debaters within their discursive construction of European identity. The qualitative empirical research shows three main legitimation clusters: the “EU as a loss,” “inclusive gain,” and “exclusive gain.” We discuss these findings within the broader context of Europeanization, identity multiplicity, and the conditions of the EU enlargement policy. (shrink)

Any attempt to outline a meteorological aesthetics centered on so-called beautiful weather has to overcome several difficulties: In everyday life, the appreciation of the weather is mostly related to practical interests or reduced to the ideal of stereotypical fine weather that is conceived according to blue-sky thinking irrespective of climate diversity. Also, an aesthetics of fine weather seems, strictly speaking, to be impossible given that such weather conditions usually allow humans to focus on aspects other than weather, which contradicts the (...) autotelic character of beauty. The unreflective equation of beautiful weather with moderately sunny weather and a cloudless sky also collides with the psychological need for variation: even living in a “paradisal” climate would be condemned to end in monotony. Finally, whereas fine weather is related in modern realistic literature to cosmic harmony and a universal natural order, contemporary literary examples show that in the age of the climate change, fine weather may be deceitful and its passive contemplation, irresponsible. This implies the necessity of a reflective aesthetic attitude on weather, as influenced by art, literature, and science, which discovers the poetics of bad weather and the wonder that underlies average weather conditions. (shrink)

Mădălina Diaconus Beitrag zum Bild Europas in Rumänien zieht in Betracht hauptsächlich kulturphilosophische Interpretationen seit dem Beginn des Modernisierungsprozesses in Rumänien vor etwa 150 Jahren. Vor dem Krieg überwogen die Spekulationen über eine „rumänische Seele“ und die Forderung der Synchronisierung mit der Entwicklung der westlichen Institutionen und Werte. Diese Diskussionen wurden nach 1989 wieder aufgenommen und beweisen, dass das Selbstbewusstsein der Rumänen, ein integraler Teil Europas zu sein, weiterhin ungebrochen ist.

Der Aufsatz von Mâdâlina Diaconu thematisiert in grundsätzlicher Weise die Möglichkeiten und Dimensionen einer interkulturellen Ästhetik auch in methodischer Hinsicht. Sie verbindet ihre Überlegungen mit Reflexionen zum Begriff der Kultur und der Möglichkeit des »Inter« im Rahmen der Inter-kulturalität.

Die erste fachübergreifende Ideengeschichte Rumäniens vermittelt anhand von Denkströmungen, Persönlichkeiten und Kulturpublizistik ein besseres Verständnis auch aktueller gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen. Madalina Diaconu behandelt für den Zeitraum seit dem Beginn der Moderne bis in die Gegenwart die anhaltende Kontroverse zwischen prowestlicher Modernisierung und Traditionalismus, die Mythen der rumänischen Geschichte, Orthodoxie und Nationalismus, die Kulturpolitik während des Kommunismus, die Selbstsuche nach 1989 und dem EU-Beitritt von 2007. Auch andere in Rumänien lebende Ethnien sind berücksichtigt. Klar geschrieben, informativ und basierend auf Quellen aus (...) erster Hand ist der Band unverzichtbar für alle, die an Rumänien im europäischen Kontext interessiert sind. (shrink)

Contemporary smelly artworks, installations and “scent sculptures” endorse philosophical and anthropological theories about the construction of identity as a relation to oneself and the others through consciousness and memory, as a multi-staged process of social exchange, as a game of risk and trust in making one’s own identity, and as a dialectics of agency and passivity. It is well-known that topophilic emplacement contributes to identity; olfactory site-specific installations and practices “present” specific smellscapes and reflect on their changes. Also olfactory artists (...) who produce uncanny atmospheres recall that personal identity is built along the axes of trust and anxiety. Body odors in general are corporeal signatures that enable individual recognition, yet artists extract them in order to challenge taboos, question gender stereotypes and build open identities. The crucial role of odors for both self-acceptance and non-verbal communication makes artists use them as a means of fostering a new sense of solidarity on a local as well as on a global level. Finally, other artistic projects subvert the anthropological difference and rehabilitate other species’ olfactory sensitivity. With the aid of modern technology, they promise to fulfil old dreams about enlarging the spectrum of our nose and controlling incoming odors and body emissions. Thus, in a paradoxical way, they both advocate to return to the prehuman and urge to become posthuman. (shrink)