(1989). Evolutionary naturalist realism: Can this blend be coherent? 1 . International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 136-156.

Through this paper, we convey a comparative analysis of how Google Inc. and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) discursively construct and contest Android, a dominant mobile operating system. Methodologically, we use political discourse theory to engage in the textual analysis; identify and compare key signifiers and nodal points across the exemplary texts from the two actors, and interpret their meaning vis à vis contextual insights about the political economy of Android’s production. Albeit being marketed as ‘the first truly open (...) platform’ for mobiles, through our analysis we find Google’s definition of open source practices strictly conditional. We argue that Google’s usage of compatibility rhetorically as well as techno-legally justifies the conglomerate’s control over the platform. By contrast, the discursive moment by free software activists, through a campaign ‘Free Your Android’ deconstructs the discourse on open source and attempts to politicize the access to code in the mobile domain. This is done by extending from the well-known developer’s four freedoms onto users’ privacy, due to personal character of mobile devices. Such articulation of free software in relation to privacy of user data is a new development and arguably has a potential to contribute to widening support to the movement. (shrink)

The theoretical notion of ‘construal’ captures the idea that the way in which we describe a scene reflects our conceptualization of it. Relying on the concept of ception – which conjoins conception and perception – we operationalized construal and employed a Visual World Paradigm to establish which aspects of linguistic scene description modulate visual scene perception, thereby affecting event conception. By analysing viewing behaviour after alternating ways of describing location (prepositions), agentivity (active/passive voice) and transfer (NP/pp datives), we found that (...) the linguistic construal of a scene affects its spontaneous visual perception in two ways: either by determining the order in which the components of a scene are accessed or by modulating the distribution of attention over the components, making them more or less salient than they naturally are. We also found evidence for the existence of a cline in the construal effect with stronger expressive differences, such as the prepositional manipulation, inducing more prominent changes in visual perception than the dative manipulation. We discuss the claims language can lay to affecting visual information uptake and hence conceptualization of a static scene in the light of these results. (shrink)

It is usually believed that science goes with things like theoria, ‘knowing that’, ontology and representing, and that techne, know-how, technology and intervening are only instrumental to science or its beneficial but nonetheless accidental side effect. In this context to be instrumental means also to be eliminable, or at least transparent, something that leaves no trace. Following the historical development of experimentation, from simple observation to modern microscopic experiments. I try to show how that view loses its ground. To produce (...) an artefact, scientific or other, is to be engaged in a complex dynamics, both ontological and epistemological in which at least two component processes, that of bringing forth and that of bringing into, are intertwined. The old dictum: ‘Science discovers, technology invents’, should be replaced by: science discovers because it invents. As a consequence scientific theory becomes an instrument of design. (shrink)

Determining how we use our body to support cognition represents an important part of understanding the embodied and embedded nature of cognition. In the present investigation, we pursue this question in the context of a common perceptual task. Specifically, we report a series of experiments investigating head tilt (i.e., external normalization) as a strategy in letter naming and reading stimuli that are upright or rotated. We demonstrate that the frequency of this natural behavior is modulated by the cost of stimulus (...) rotation on performance. In addition, we demonstrate that external normalization can benefit performance. All of the results are consistent with the notion that external normalization represents a form of cognitive offloading and that effort is an important factor in the decision to adopt an internal or external strategy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of dianoia (discursive mode of thinking) as soul’s activity, and related issues, in the twelfth century work by Ioane Petritsi : his Georgian translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology and his Commentary on this text, including his prologue to it. The themes related to the discursive mode of cognition are also discussed in the 129th proposition of the Georgian version of the Elements (which is absent in the Greek manuscripts) and (...) in Petritsi’s commentary on it. While analyzing the issues related to dianoia in Petritsi’s work, we focus our attention on the inter‑relationship of ontological, epistemological, linguistic and also existential aspects of this concept as they were interpreted by Petritsi in his Commentary. (shrink)

Beginning from Plato, there exists a philosophical tradition, which interprets philosophy as preparation for death. However, for Plato the death of a philosopher does not necessarily imply death in its ordinary meaning, but rather a spiritual way of life maximally free from corporeal affections. This kind of relationship between philosophy and death was intensively discussed in late antique philosophy, Patristics, medieval Byzantine philosophy, and also in medieval Georgian literature. Based on Plato’s and Plotinus’ philosophy, Porphyry presented definitions of three kinds (...) of death in his Sententiae : ‘death’ of a philosopher, natural death, ‘death’ of a soul. The aim of this paper is to provide a philosophical analysis of three concepts of death in the post-Porphyrian tradition, mainly in Byzantine and Georgian texts. The paper is based on the analysis of the above mentioned issues in the texts of Porphyry, Macrobius, Michael Psellos, as well as in the old Georgian versions of the works of Ammonios Hermiae, John of Damascus and John Sinaites. We also take into consideration the views on the relation between philosophy and death in the thought of the philosophers of Humanism and Renaissance, such as Georgios Gemistos Plethon, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Michel de Montaigne, whether or not and to what extent their views on the relation between philosophy and death are different from the theories of ancient and medieval Platonists. (shrink)

In the prologue to his Commentary on Proclus’ Elements of theology Ioane Petritsi, Georgian Neoplatonist of the twelfth century, argues that the main subject of Proclus’ Elements is the theory of the supreme One. In Petritsi’s opinion, Proclus’ merit was to elaborate the philosophy of the ‘pure’, absolutely transcendent One which is unperceivable even for the Intellect. On the other hand, the supreme One is, in Petritsi’s interpretation, the cause of everything, including matter, and It has some positive characteristics which (...) cannot be separated from Its hyper-essence. These are, mainly, Its causality and productivity, Its will and providential activity. The aim of this article is to analyse, what the supreme One is in Petritsi’s Commentary and to answer the following question: Do the absolute transcendence of the supreme One and Its positive characteristics contradict each other or are they in a certain way compatible with each other? I argue that for making the transition from the first aspect of the supreme One to another one more coherent, Petritsi made an attempt to introduce in the ontological hierarchy one more one after the supreme One and before the Henads. In my opinion, this ‘second one’, which is almost inseparable from the supreme transcendent One, is Its another aspect, representing Its productive activity. For the same purpose, as I think, Petritsi identified the creative aspect of the One with the Logos/the Son of God and, in certain cases, also with Plato’s Demiurge. (shrink)

V. A. Lektorsky: Subject, Object, Cognition, Moscow, Progress Publishers 1984, 280 pp.

Although there is a broad consensus that both the procedural and declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language learning, use, and knowledge, the mapping between linguistic types and memory structures remains underspecified: by default, a dual-route mapping of language systems to memory systems is assumed, with declarative memory handling idiosyncratic lexical knowledge and procedural memory handling rule-governed knowledge of grammar.We experimentally contrast the processing of morphology (case and aspect), syntax (subordination), and lexical semantics (collocations) in a healthy L1 (...) population of Polish, a language rich in form distinctions. We study the processing of these four types under two conditions: a single task condition in which the grammaticality of stimuli was judged and a concurrent task condition in which grammaticality judgments were combined with a digit span task. Dividing attention impedes access to declarative memory while leaving procedural memory unaffected and hence constitutes a test that dissociates which types of linguistic information each long-term memory construct subserves.Our findings confirm the existence of a distinction between lexicon and grammar as a generative, dual-route model would predict, but the distinction is graded, as usage-based models assume: the hypothesized grammar–lexicon opposition appears as a continuum on which grammatical phenomena can be placed as being more or less “ruly” or “idiosyncratic.” However, usage-based models, too, need adjusting as not all types of linguistic knowledge are proceduralized to the same extent. This move away from a simple dichotomy fundamentally changes how we think about memory for language, and hence how we design and interpret behavioral and neuroimaging studies that probe into the nature of language cognition. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage directement tiré de sa thèse intitulée « Female Public Nudity in Belle Époque Paris » et soutenue en 2006 à l’université de Floride, Lela F. Kerley retrace et interroge le processus conflictuel qui a accompagné la normalisation de l’exhibition publique de la nudité féminine à Paris entre 1889 et 1914 sous l’effet d’expérimentations artistiques et de la prolifération du nu féminin dans le répertoire des music-halls. L’enquête s’intéresse aussi bien aux pratiques et motivations...

Bošković’s distinction between two kinds of velocities – velocity in the first act, or potential velocity, and velocity in the second act, or actual velocity – is considered in respect to the concept of instantaneous velocity as defined by calculus differentialis. Contrary to the seeming inconsistency of Bošković’s duality of velocities and the concept of instantaneous velocity, due to a critical examination of logical and methodological foundations of the calculus, the article shows that the duality of velocities is consistent with (...) the interpretations of instantaneous velocity given by Oresme, Euler and Maclaurin, as with the definition of instantaneous velocity according to the rigorous Cauchyan founding of the calculus. Bošković’s duality of velocities is also shown to be consistent with Aristotelian-scholastic doctrine of potentiality and actuality, especially in its domain related to the nature of continuous motion. (shrink)