Shepard's analysis of how shape, motion, and color are perceptually represented can be generalized. Apparent motion and shape may be associated with a group of spatial transformations, accounting for rigid and plastic motion, and perceived object color may be associated with a group of illuminant transformations, accounting for the discriminability of surface-reflectance changes and illuminant changes beyond daylight. The phenomenological and mathematical parallels between these perceptual domains may indicate common organizational rules, rather than specific ecological adaptations. [Barlow; (...) Hecht; Kubovy & Epstein; Schwartz; Shepard; Todorovic]. (shrink)

Resumen: El siguiente ensayo realiza un análisis crítico de los discursos/prácticas de la modernidad desde la biopolítica en torno a la anormalidad, la ciencia (como tecnociencia) y las posibilidades de comunidad que existen en las relaciones de las/los marginados/as. Tomando como referentes las películas Freaks y La Forma del Agua. Mostrando cómo el cine juega y propone elementos críticos de estas prácticas/discursos de la modernidad. Dentro de esta anormalidad se considerará a la monstruosidad como metáfora y como realidad corpórea, y (...) las mujeres como cuerpos limítrofes y marginales del reparto (en términos de Rancière). Un análisis que juega con la contingencia de la crisis social que atravesamos a nivel mundial, así como de los fragmentos sociales y corporales, pero que, sin embargo, en sus entrañas posibilitan otras formas de relaciones, otros tejidos y posibilidades de comunidad. Abstract: The following essay makes a critical analysis of the discourses/practices of modernity from the perspective of biopolitics around abnormality, science (as technoscience) and the possibilities of community that exist in the relationships of the marginalized. Taking as referents the films Freaks and The Shape of Water. Showing how cinema plays and proposes critical elements of these practices/discourses of modernity. Within this abnormality, we will consider monstrosity as metaphor and corporeal reality, and women as borderline and marginal bodies of the cast (in Rancière's terms). An analysis that plays with the contingency of the social crisis we are going through worldwide, as well as the social and corporal fragments, but which, nevertheless, in their entrails make possible other forms of relationships, other fabrics and possibilities of community. (shrink)

The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at these various levels feature in (...) the content of perceptual experience, governing patterns of apparent shape similarity. I propose that the varieties of shape constancy are subserved by the syntactic complexity of perceptual shape representations. By assigning discrete constituents to various abstract shape parameters, these representations attune us to the preservation of certain abstract shape properties through changes in more determinate shape properties. Finally, I draw broader lessons concerning the nature and function of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews,Shapes oS Philosophical History. By Frank E. Manuel. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965.Pp. 166.$1.95.) Based upon his seven Camp Lectures of 1962 at Stanford, Professor Manuel has issued this taut and recondite volume describing the forms philosophical history has taken in the West. He has performed a difficult task well, giving much scholarly substance to his theme that two archetypal shapes of speculative history-writing have dominated Western thought, (...) one an Augustinian teleological.unitary-procursus view, the other a Polybian, cyclical, Ixionlike, Stoic model. The first is broadly defined as "movement either to a fixed end, or to an indefinite end that defines itself in the course of the progression, history as novelty-creating and always variant"; the second as "circularity, eternal recurrence, return to the beginning of things, sheer reiteration or similar recapitulation." Comte and modem progressists are at the end of the first line, Nietzsehe and Spengler and other cylicists at the end of the second. However, broadly again, amalgamations of the two types are possible, syncretistic variants have often taken shape, and, Protean-hke, both lend themselves to almost infinite interpretive patterns. These typologies are psychological more than logical polarities, both emotional and intellectual alternatives, so they often stand for and serve contradictory purposes. Yet historians tend to betray their preference for one of these opposed conceptions, according to Manuel, as they "select an identity for historic man." Deliberately refraining from taking sides on the issue (thus implicitly casting some doubt on his contention that historians and others "inevitably betray their preference for one of these opposing conceptions"), Manuel addresses himself to the task of illuminating the polarity, exhibiting the multiplicity of its forms through time and focusing upon crucial moments of the debate in the West. Of these exhibits--early Christians vs. pagans, Augustine vs. Joachim, the virtual triumph of cyclicism in the Renaissance (albeit with a split developed between negative and positive, pessimist and optimist cyclicists), the ambivalence of the eighteenth-century Germans on the issue (particularly Kant and Herder), the triumphant optimism of the French perfectibilists, the vacillation of the German academists--Manuel's examination of the French and German writers stands out, although the range of his knowledge and first-hand inspection of archival sources from Augustine's time to Toynbee's demonstrates an admirable scholarship. Of the eighteenth-century Germans, Manuel well illustrates their ambivalent and paradoxical side. Herder, for example, nominally an opponent, debating against "abderite" cyclical theory and apparently concluding in favor of it; Goethe wondering whether the world "will become one great hospital in which we behave toward one another like benign male nurses" if Herder's more optimistic notions triumph; old Kant in his special language rejecting all then current models of world history (moral terrorism, abderitism and eudaemonism ) and opting for what Manuel calls a "mechanism... akin to the cunning of reason" to institute a just civil constitution and estabhsh perpetual peace, yet not really persuaded that his sanguine view of moral progress would prevail. As for the later Germans in and out of the Academy (particularly Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, HSlderlin and Hamann) while youthful enthusiasts of progress (everyone knows the story of the young Hegel and his friends planting the tree of liberty saluting the French revolution), their conceptions of history became more and more Platonic, more and more nostalgic and parochial. On the other hand Manuel's account of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century French relates their boundless energy and dedication to progressist conceptions, a development he holds as quite isolated and isolable from the German movement. Without doubt the French had the most imagination and the most confidence in developing philosophical history to an almost dizzying optimistic pitch. Manuel demonstrates a line from Voltaire through Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier and the Saint-Simonians to Auguste Comte, each building on the others in time, each theorizing "man's steady conquest of the external world, beginning in a period when he was still the member of a feeble and isolated band, and culminating in his present high estate." "The Golden Age of the human species is not behind us, it is before [171] 172 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY us," Saint-Simon... (shrink)

Recently, there is a renewed debate concerning the role of perspective in vision. Morales et al. (2020) present evidence that, in the case of viewing a rotated coin, the visual system is sensitive to what has often been called “perspectival shapes.” It has generated vigorous discussions, including an online symposium by Morales and Cohen, an exchange between Linton (2021) and Morales et al. (2021), and most recently, a fierce critique by Burge and Burge (2022), in which they launch various conceptual (...) and empirical objections. Although Morales and Firestone (2022) have responded to them recently, and we are in agreement with Morales and Firestone in general, there are further problems in Burge and Burge (2022) that are worth highlighting. The main point of this comment is that what the Burge–Burge team call “viewpoint-dependent relational properties” are simply instances of what the Morales–Firestone team call “perspectival shapes”; the confusion arises from Burge and Burge’s misconstrual of Morales et al.’s claims. This shows that conceptually, the two teams are in large agreement, as Morales and Firestone (2022) also point out, and the focus should be put on the empirical disagreements, which has been covered by Morales and Firestone (2022). Relatedly, we argue that Burge and Burge (2022) misinterpret Morales et al. (2020) as supporting a new entity in perception science, and that this misinterpretation is a primary source of their apparent disagreement. This is worth pointing out because such misunderstanding generates many unnecessary quarrels that hinder progress. (shrink)

</b>This commentary focuses on shape constancy in vision and its relation to sensorimotor knowledge. I contrast “Protean” and “Constancian” views about how to describe perspectival changes in the appearance of an object’s shape. For the Protean, these amount to changes in apparent shape; for Constance, things are not merely judged, but literally appear constant in shape. I give reasons in favor of the latter view, and argue that Noë’s attempt to combine aspects of both views (...) in a “dual aspect” account does not manage to avoid an unacceptable attribution of contradictory content to visual appearance. I argue also that my position here actually fits better with Noë’s critique of a “snapshot” conception of visual appearance than his own interpretation of visual constancy, and better supports his claim that experiential content is constituted by the exercise of sensorimotor understanding. (shrink)

This article develops a view of shape representation both in visual experience and in subpersonal visual processing. The view is that, in both cases, shape is represented in a ‘layered’ manner: an object is represented as having multiple shape properties, and these properties have varying degrees of abstraction. I argue that this view is supported both by the facts about visual phenomenology and by a large collection of evidence in perceptual psychology. Such evidence is provided by studies (...) of shape discriminability, apparent motion, multiple-object tracking, and structure-from-motion. Recent neuroscientific work has also corroborated this psychophysical evidence. Finally, I draw out implications of the layered view for processes of concept acquisition. 1 Introduction2 Metric Properties andShape Properties3 Metric Views4 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Experience5 The Visual System Uses Abstract Shape Properties6 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Representation7 Neural Underpinnings of Abstract Shape Perception8 Implications. (shrink)

According to the fox koan, the second case in the Wu-men kuan koan collection, Zen master Pai-chang encounters a fox who claims to be a former abbot punished through endless reincarnations for denying the efficacy of karmic causality. In the end he is liberated by Pai-chang's turning word, which asserts the inexorability of cause-and-effect. Most traditional interpretations of the koan focus on the philosophical issue of causality in relation to earlier Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent origination and emptiness. Dogen, the (...) founder of the Japanese Soto school, devoted two fascicles of the Shobogenzo exclusively to the fox koan. One fascicle supports a paradoxical view of causality and non-causality, the two being "two sides of the same coin"; the second strongly attacks this interpretation and defends a literal reading that asserts causality and denies non-causality. Dogen's apparent change of heart on this topic has inspired scholars of the recent Critical Buddhist methodology to evaluate the merits and weaknesses in Zen's attitude toward ethical issues and social affairs. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan. Steven Heine integrates his own philological analysis of the koan, textual analysis of koan collections and related literary genres in T'ang and Sung China, folklore studies, recent discourse theory, Dogen studies, and research on monastic codes and institutional history to craft an original and compelling work. More specifically, he illuminates a fascinating dimension of the entire Ch'an/Zen tradition as he carefully lays out the philosophical issues in the koan concerning causality/karma and enlightenment, the ethical issues contained therein, the bearing that certain interpretations of causality had on the creation of monastic codes and institutional security in China, the relation between Zen and folk religion as revealed by the koan, and the issue of possible antinomianism in Zen, especially as grappled with by later thinkers such as Dogen and contemporary representatives of Critical Buddhism. Finally he applies theories of "high" and "low" religion and contemporary discourse and in the process rethinks the theories and their applicability across cultures. Far-reaching yet rigorous, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text will not only attract the interest of Ch'an/Zen specialists, but also those studying folklore, popular religion, and issues concerning the nature of discourse and the relation between "high" and "low" religions. (shrink)

Peter C. Hodgson explores Hegel's bold vision of history as the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Following an introductory chapter on the textual sources, the key categories, and the modes of writing history that Hegel distinguishes, Hodgson presents a new interpretation of Hegel's conception of freedom. Freedom is not simply a human production, but takes shape through the interweaving of the divine idea and human passions, and such freedom defines the purpose of historical events in the midst of (...) apparent chaos. Freedom is also a process that unfolds through stages of historical/cultural development and is oriented to an end that occurs within history (the 'kingdom of freedom'). The purpose and the process of history are tragic, however, because history is also a 'slaughterhouse' that shatters even the finest human creations and requires a constant rebuilding. Hegel's God is not a supreme being or 'large entity' but the 'true infinite' that encompasses the finite. History manifests the rule of God ('providence'), and it functions as the justification of God ('theodicy'). But the God who rules in and is justified by history is a crucified God who takes the suffering, anguish, and evil of the world into and upon godself, accomplishing reconciliation in the midst of ongoing estrangement and inescapable death. Shapes of Freedom addresses these themes in the context of present-day questions about what they mean and whether they still have validity. (shrink)

According to the fox koan, the second case in the Wu-men kuan koan collection, Zen master Pai-chang encounters a fox who claims to be a former abbot punished through endless reincarnations for denying the efficacy of karmic causality. In the end he is liberated by Pai-chang's turning word, which asserts the inexorability of cause-and-effect. Most traditional interpretations of the koan focus on the philosophical issue of causality in relation to earlier Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent origination and emptiness. Dogen, the (...) founder of the Japanese Soto school, devoted two fascicles of the Shobogenzo exclusively to the fox koan. One fascicle supports a paradoxical view of causality and non-causality, the two being "two sides of the same coin"; the second strongly attacks this interpretation and defends a literal reading that asserts causality and denies non-causality. Dogen's apparent change of heart on this topic has inspired scholars of the recent Critical Buddhist methodology to evaluate the merits and weaknesses in Zen's attitude toward ethical issues and social affairs. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan. Steven Heine integrates his own philological analysis of the koan, textual analysis of koan collections and related literary genres in T'ang and Sung China, folklore studies, recent discourse theory, Dogen studies, and research on monastic codes and institutional history to craft an original and compelling work. More specifically, he illuminates a fascinating dimension of the entire Ch'an/Zen tradition as he carefully lays out the philosophical issues in the koan concerning causality/karma and enlightenment, the ethical issues contained therein, the bearing that certain interpretations of causality had on the creation of monastic codes and institutional security in China, the relation between Zen and folk religion as revealed by the koan, and the issue of possible antinomianism in Zen, especially as grappled with by later thinkers such as Dogen and contemporary representatives of Critical Buddhism. Finally he applies theories of "high" and "low" religion and contemporary discourse and in the process rethinks the theories and their applicability across cultures. Far-reaching yet rigorous, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text will not only attract the interest of Ch'an/Zen specialists, but also those studying folklore, popular religion, and issues concerning the nature of discourse and the relation between "high" and "low" religions. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that human learning and the structure of human languages are intimately related. This relationship is frequently suggested to derive from a language-specific biological endowment, which encodes universal, but communicatively arbitrary, principles of language structure (a Universal Grammar or UG). How might such a UG have evolved? We argue that UG could not have arisen either by biological adaptation or non-adaptationist genetic processes, resulting in a logical problem of language evolution. Specifically, as the processes of language change (...) are much more rapid than processes of genetic change, language constitutes a both over time and across different human populations, and, hence, cannot provide a stable environment to which language genes could have adapted. We conclude that a biologically determined UG is not evolutionarily viable. Instead, the original motivation for UG arises because language has been shaped to fit the human brain, rather than vice versa. Following Darwin, we view language itself as a complex and interdependent which evolves under selectional pressures from human learning and processing mechanisms. That is, languages themselves are shaped by severe selectional pressure from each generation of language users and learners. This suggests that apparently arbitrary aspects of linguistic structure may result from general learning and processing biases deriving from the structure of thought processes, perceptuo-motor factors, cognitive limitations, and pragmatics. (shrink)

We show that true colors as defined by Chevreul (1839) produce unsuspected simultaneous brightness induction effects on their immediate grey backgrounds when these are placed on a darker (black) general background surrounding two spatially separated configurations. Assimilation and apparent contrast may occur in one and the same stimulus display. We examined the possible link between these effects and the perceived depth of the color patterns which induce them as a function of their luminance contrast. Patterns of square-shaped inducers of (...) a single color (red, green, blue, yellow, or grey) were placed on background fields of a lighter and a darker grey, presented on a darker screen. Inducers were always darker on one side of the display and brighter on the other in a given trial. The intensity of the grey backgrounds varied between trials only. This permitted generating four inducer luminance contrasts, presented in random order, for each color. Background fields were either spatially separated or consisted of a single grey field on the black screen. Experiments were run under three environmental conditions: dark-adaptation, daylight, and rod-saturation after exposure to bright light. In a first task, we measured probabilities of contrast, assimilation, and no effect in a three-alternative forced-choice procedure (background appears brighter on the ‘left’, on the ‘right’ or the ‘same’). Visual adaptation and inducer contrast had no significant influence on the induction effects produced by colored inducers. Achromatic inducers produced significantly stronger contrast effects after dark-adaptation, and significantly stronger assimilation in daylight conditions. Grouping two backgrounds into a single one was found to significantly decrease probabilities of apparent contrast. Under the same conditions, we measured probabilities of the inducers to be perceived as nearer to the observer inducers. These, as predicted by Chevreul’s law of contrast, were determined by the luminance contrast of the inducers only, with significantly higher probabilities of brighter inducers to be seen as nearer, and a marked asymmetry between effects produced by inducers of opposite sign. Implications of these findings for theories which attempt to link simultaneous induction effects to the relative depth of object surfaces in the visual field are discussed. (shrink)

To avoid difficulties that arise when we appeal to speaker intentions or multiple rules to determine the meaning of indexicals, Cohen (2013) recently defends a conventionalist account of these terms that focuses on their context of tokening. Apart from some tricky cases already discussed in the literature, however, such an account faces a serious difficulty: in many speech acts, multiple apparent tokens are produced – for example when a speaker speaks on a telephone, and her utterance is heard both (...) where she speaks, and at the location of the receiver of the call. The ‘token-contextual’ account seems to imply that in such cases a speaker will simultaneously produce multiple contradictory utterances. Here I argue that to resolve such problems we cannot help but to invoke speaker intentions. However, by appealing to intentions at the level of the metaphysics of semantic tokens, rather than to decide their meaning, the token-contextualist can make this appeal without reintroducing the difficulties associated with intentionalist accounts that she hopes to avoid. The resulting metaphysics of semantic tokens is, interestingly, more complex than we might have expected. -/- . (shrink)

When the use of CRIsPR-Cas9 to edit DNA was first reported in 2012, it was quickly heralded by scientists, policymakers, and journalists as a transformative technology. CRISPR-Cas9 provides the means to change DNA in ways that either were not generally possible using previous genetic technologies or that were orders of magnitude more laborious or inefficient to undertake. CRISPR's possible applications were readily apparent and seemingly endless, from supercharging laboratory research to modifying insects that transmit disease to eliminating genetic conditions. (...) By 2015, Wired magazine was calling the discovery "The Genesis Engine."Against a backdrop of disappointing results from gene transfer... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews,Shapes oS Philosophical History. By Frank E. Manuel. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965.Pp. 166.$1.95.) Based upon his seven Camp Lectures of 1962 at Stanford, Professor Manuel has issued this taut and recondite volume describing the forms philosophical history has taken in the West. He has performed a difficult task well, giving much scholarly substance to his theme that two archetypal shapes of speculative history-writing have dominated Western thought, (...) one an Augustinian teleological.unitary-procursus view, the other a Polybian, cyclical, Ixionlike, Stoic model. The first is broadly defined as "movement either to a fixed end, or to an indefinite end that defines itself in the course of the progression, history as novelty-creating and always variant"; the second as "circularity, eternal recurrence, return to the beginning of things, sheer reiteration or similar recapitulation." Comte and modem progressists are at the end of the first line, Nietzsehe and Spengler and other cylicists at the end of the second. However, broadly again, amalgamations of the two types are possible, syncretistic variants have often taken shape, and, Protean-hke, both lend themselves to almost infinite interpretive patterns. These typologies are psychological more than logical polarities, both emotional and intellectual alternatives, so they often stand for and serve contradictory purposes. Yet historians tend to betray their preference for one of these opposed conceptions, according to Manuel, as they "select an identity for historic man." Deliberately refraining from taking sides on the issue (thus implicitly casting some doubt on his contention that historians and others "inevitably betray their preference for one of these opposing conceptions"), Manuel addresses himself to the task of illuminating the polarity, exhibiting the multiplicity of its forms through time and focusing upon crucial moments of the debate in the West. Of these exhibits--early Christians vs. pagans, Augustine vs. Joachim, the virtual triumph of cyclicism in the Renaissance (albeit with a split developed between negative and positive, pessimist and optimist cyclicists), the ambivalence of the eighteenth-century Germans on the issue (particularly Kant and Herder), the triumphant optimism of the French perfectibilists, the vacillation of the German academists--Manuel's examination of the French and German writers stands out, although the range of his knowledge and first-hand inspection of archival sources from Augustine's time to Toynbee's demonstrates an admirable scholarship. Of the eighteenth-century Germans, Manuel well illustrates their ambivalent and paradoxical side. Herder, for example, nominally an opponent, debating against "abderite" cyclical theory and apparently concluding in favor of it; Goethe wondering whether the world "will become one great hospital in which we behave toward one another like benign male nurses" if Herder's more optimistic notions triumph; old Kant in his special language rejecting all then current models of world history (moral terrorism, abderitism and eudaemonism ) and opting for what Manuel calls a "mechanism... akin to the cunning of reason" to institute a just civil constitution and estabhsh perpetual peace, yet not really persuaded that his sanguine view of moral progress would prevail. As for the later Germans in and out of the Academy (particularly Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, HSlderlin and Hamann) while youthful enthusiasts of progress (everyone knows the story of the young Hegel and his friends planting the tree of liberty saluting the French revolution), their conceptions of history became more and more Platonic, more and more nostalgic and parochial. On the other hand Manuel's account of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century French relates their boundless energy and dedication to progressist conceptions, a development he holds as quite isolated and isolable from the German movement. Without doubt the French had the most imagination and the most confidence in developing philosophical history to an almost dizzying optimistic pitch. Manuel demonstrates a line from Voltaire through Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier and the Saint-Simonians to Auguste Comte, each building on the others in time, each theorizing "man's steady conquest of the external world, beginning in a period when he was still the member of a feeble and isolated band, and culminating in his present high estate." "The Golden Age of the human species is not behind us, it is before [171] 172 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY us," Saint-Simon... (shrink)

Research in the philosophy of addiction commonly explores how agency is impacted in addiction by focusing on moments of apparent loss of control over addictive behavior and seeking to explain how such moments result from the effects of psychoactive substance use on cognition and volition. Recently, Glackin et al. (2021) have suggested that agency in addiction can be helpfully analyzed using the concept of affordances. They argue that addicted agents experience addiction-related affordances, such as action possibilities relating to drugs, (...) drug paraphernalia, and drug-related activities, as aberrantly salient motivations for action. Building on this approach, we present a novel two-tiered affordance model of addiction. In doing so, we suggest that what is significant about the addicted person’s world is not simply what affordances are experienced as salient, but also the way in which the addicted person’s world is shaped by a dominant concern. It is not only that addiction-related affordances become more prominent as addiction progresses but that one’s plurality of concerns become monopolized by and funneled through addiction. Our model endorses Glackin et al.’s idea that addiction-related affordances become aberrantly salient, while proposing why they become and remain so. This way of viewing agency in addiction also brings to light important implications for recovery and treatment. For, if an addicted person adopts a new, even “socially approved”, dominant concern, there is a risk that the shape of addiction is preserved, even though the content changes, leaving an individual at the risk of addiction substitution or relapse. (shrink)

A U-shaped curve in a cognitive-developmental trajectory refers to a three-step process: good performance followed by bad performance followed by good performance once again. U-shaped curves have been observed in a wide variety of cognitive-developmental and learning contexts. U-shaped learning seems to contradict the idea that learning is a monotonic, cumulative process and thus constitutes a challenge for competing theories of cognitive development and learning. U-shaped behavior in language learning (in particular in learning English past tense) has become a central (...) topic in the Cognitive Science debate about learning models. Antagonist models (e.g., connectionism versus nativism) are often judged on their ability of modeling or accounting for U-shaped behavior. The prior literature is mostly occupied with explaining how U-shaped behavior occurs. Instead, we are interested in the necessity of this kind of apparently inefficient strategy. We present and discuss a body of results in the abstract mathematical setting of (extensions of) Gold-style computational learning theory addressing a mathematically precise version of the following question: Are there learning tasks that require U-shaped behavior? All notions considered are learning in the limit from positive data. We present results about the necessity of U-shaped learning in classical models of learning as well as in models with bounds on the memory of the learner. The pattern emerges that, for parameterized, cognitively relevant learning criteria, beyond very few initial parameter values, U-shapes are necessary for full learning power! We discuss the possible relevance of the above results for the Cognitive Science debate about learning models as well as directions for future research. (shrink)

We have been studying Middle English alliterative verse for over a century, but so far we lack an authoritative description of the rhythmic constraints that governed the poets who wrote alliterative verse. Though some scholars have tried to show the survival of Sievers's five types, few editors have dared, in the absence of a comprehensive and authoritative account of the meter, to emend or choose between the variants in the manuscripts on metrical grounds. Two factors largely account for this state (...) of affairs: the apparent variety of the verse form itself and the failure of students of the meter to distinguish the practices of poets from those of the scribes. (shrink)

This chapter discusses some of the causal forces that enable young children to acquire language. It demonstrates that these causal forces are not readily apparent in the input that children experience. This discussion of the causal forces of language and the poverty of the stimulus focuses on just a fragment of human language. The chapter discusses four kinds of expressions. In English, these expressions are the words some, any, and or, and question words such as who and what. Although (...) these expressions appear to be unrelated, the chapter shows that they are all cut from the same cloth – they are governed by the same linguistic principles, which determine both their distributional properties and their meanings. Like any and or, linguists have proposed principles that amalgamate information‐seeking questions and their statement counterparts. The chapter describes the important role played by cross‐linguistic facts as a source of information about the deep forces that shape language. (shrink)

I consider a quantum system that possesses key features of quantum shape dynamics and show that the evolution of wave-packets will become increasingly classical at late times and tend to evolve more and more like an expanding classical system. At early times however, semiclassical effects become large and lead to an exponential mismatch of the apparent scale as compared to the expected classical evolution of the scale degree of freedom. This quantum inflation of an emergent and effectively classical (...) system, occurs naturally in the quantum shape dynamics description of the system, while it is unclear whether and how it might arise in a constrained Hamiltonian quantization. (shrink)

Shape and locomotion of tissue cells depend on the interaction of elements of the cytoskeleton, adhesion to the substrate and an intracellular hydrostatic pressure. The existence of this pressure becomes obvious from increase in cell volume on cessation of contractile forces and from observations with ultrasound acoustic microscopy. Wherever such an internal pressure is established, it is involved in generation of shape and driving force of cell locomotion. Therefore each hypothesis on cell shape and locomotion must consider (...) this property of a living cell. Apparently different types of locomotion depend on differences in substrate adhesion and/or cytoskeleton organisation. (shrink)

The puzzle of cross-modal shape experience is the puzzle of reconciling the apparent differences between our visual and haptic experiences of shape with their apparent similarities. This paper proposes that we can resolve the cross-modal puzzle by reflecting on another puzzle. The puzzle of perspectival character challenges us to reconcile the variability of shape experience through shifts in perspective with its constancy. An attractive approach to the latter puzzle holds that shape experience is complex, (...) involving both perspectival aspects and constant aspects. I argue here that parallel distinctions between perspectival and constant aspects of shape experience arise in sight and touch, and that perspectival aspects are modality-specific while at least some constant aspects are constitutively multisensory. I then address a powerful challenge to the idea that aspects of spatial phenomenology are shared cross-modally. (shrink)

Up to now, there is a big debate, about what self-consciousness is, what inhibits it, and how this is related to work. By referring to classical theories of mind by Hegel this paper advances the thesis of an apparent congruence of self-consciousness and work as a developmental process in social relationships. This paper aims to open up a wider philosophical horizon for the criticism of current digitalization and the increasing variety of new flexible forms of work design. For example, (...) the working conditions on large digital platforms for taxi drivers tend to inhibit the development of worker`s self-consciousness for two reasons: Firstly, workers on digital platforms are not able to further develop digital tools through their work and this inhibits their intellectual creativity and secondly, the developmental process of the self-consciousness remains restricted because of the asymmetrical recognition, which only obtains by virtue of a process of recognizing and being recognized by others. Creative work and recognition are important for the development of consciousness as self-reflection in digital business, in which organizations operate and people work. (shrink)

Herbert, Dilinie As part of the Inquiry into End of Life Choices, commissioned by the Victorian State Government on 7 May 2015, members of the community were invited to share their attitudes towards assisted dying by written submissions. The Inquiry also hosted a panel discussion with a few selected respondents. The final report prepared by the Inquiry is a comprehensive document that identified common themes relating to the benefits and concerns about a possible assisted dying framework. Some respondents used the (...) opportunity to advocate in favour of palliative care services and advance care planning. There were other respondents that were apprehensive about possible changes to the law and wary that it could incite permissible practices of assisted death in Victoria which are in contradiction to existing ethical beliefs, values and norms. Their anxiety was in relation to a potential slippery slope effect of these laws in the future. In this article I will explore how the slippery slope effect has been used to criticise euthanasia legislation, using data from the Netherlands. Although there are indications that the slippery slope is apparent in the Netherlands, there are also contrary indications that are otherwise open for interpretation. I propose that the Inquiry was a valuable opportunity to reflect on community attitudes towards assisted death and that the recommendations to better resource palliative care services, is a positive outcome. (shrink)

To avoid difficulties facing intention-based accounts of indexicals, Cohen () recently defends a conventionalist account that focuses on the context of tokening. On this view, a token of ‘here’ or ‘now’ refers to the place or time at which it tokens. However, although promising, such an account faces a serious problem: in many speech acts, multiple apparent tokens are produced. If I call Alaska from Paris and say ‘I'm here now’, an apparent token of my utterance will be (...) produced in both Paris and Alaska. The token-contextual account seems to imply that in such cases I will refer to both places and contradict myself. Here I argue that to resolve this and similar puzzles we must realize that not all apparent semantic tokens really are semantic tokens, and that to decide which ones count we must appeal to speaker intentions. However, because this appeal is made at the level of the metaphysics of semantic tokens rather than to determine their meaning, it does not raise the problems associated with intentionalism that the conventionalist hopes to avoid. The metaphysics of semantic tokens uncovered is surprisingly complex, showing that shapes and sounds can transition in and out of being utterances. (shrink)

There has been relatively little discussion, in contemporary philosophy of mind, of the active aspects of perceptual processes. This essay presents and offers some preliminary development of a view about what it is for an agent to watch a particular material object throughout a period of time. On this view, watching is a kind of perceptual activity distinguished by a distinctive epistemic role. The essay presents a puzzle about watching an object that arises through elementary reflection on the consequences of (...) two apparent truths about watching an object throughout a period of time. It proposes that the puzzle can be resolved by a view according to which for an agent to watch an object throughout a period of time is for that agent to maintain visual awareness of that object with the aim of perceptually knowing what that object is doing. The essay goes on to make some further suggestions about how the apparatus developed in connection with the notion of watching may enable us to offer related explanations of other kinds of perceptual activity. It proposes that a useful distinction can be drawn between perceptual activities like watching which have as their aim knowledge of what an object is doing and activities like looking or visually scrutinizing which have as their aims knowledge of the states or conditions of the objects of perceptual awareness. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of professionalization in the life sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century through a survey of British entomological periodicals. It is generally accepted that this period saw the rise of professional practitioners and the emergence of biology. However, recent scholarship has increasingly shown that this narrative elides the more complex processes at work in shaping scientific communities from the 1850s to the turn of the century. This article adds to such scholarship by examining (...) the ways in which the editors of four entomological periodicals from across this time frame attempted to shape the communities of their readership, and in particular focuses upon the apparent divide between ‘mere collectors’ and ‘entomologists’ as expressed within these journals. Crucially, the article argues that non-professional practitioners were active in defining their own distinct identities and thereby claiming scientific authority. Alongside the periodicals, the article makes use of the correspondence archive of the entomologist and periodical editor Henry Tibbats Stainton, which has hitherto not been subject to sustained analysis by historians. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) describes the evolution of treatment‐resistant pathogens, with potentially catastrophic consequences for human medicine. AMR is driven by the over‐prescription of antibiotics, and could be reduced through consideration of the ethical dimensions of the dilemma faced by doctors. This dilemma involves balancing apparently opposed interests of current and future patients, and unique contextual factors in different countries, which may modify the core dilemma. We describe three example countries with different economic backgrounds and cultures—South Africa, Sri Lanka and the (...) United Kingdom. Then we discuss how country‐specific factors impact on the prominence of various ethical dimensions of the dilemma (visibility and moral equality of future generations; Rule of Rescue; prescribing autonomy and conflicts of interest; consensus on collective action). We conclude that a nuanced understanding of national prescribing dilemmas is critical to inform the design of effective stewardship approaches. (shrink)

After a sustained period of relative calm, initial teacher education and training (ITET) in Wales has seen much change in recent times since devolution and all the indications are that this change agenda is likely to escalate in both the short and long term. In order to understand what has been happening in the ITET field in Wales, our paper sets out to achieve three things: first, it has contextualised the changing ITET, political, social and economic climate within Wales. Second, (...) it has presented ITET data for Wales from the onset of devolution to the present time. Thereafter, these data have been compared and contrasted. Third, we have attempted to project our findings forward, albeit in an era which is increasingly difficult to predict given both the financial climate and ?cuts? agenda. These latter aspects may result in the longer term, at best, to ITET in Wales becoming even further fragmented or reduced in numbers to, at worst, being decimated or changed forever from the more traditional scene which was apparent in both Wales and the rest of the UK since the Robbins Report aftermath in the late 1960s. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess the enactive account of visual perception recently defended by Alva Noë (2004). I argue inter alia that the enactive account falsely identifies an object’s apparent shape with its 2D perspectival shape; that it mistakenly assimilates visual shape perception and volumetric object recognition; and that it seriously misrepresents the constitutive role of bodily action in visual awareness. I argue further that noticing an object’s perspectival shape involves a hybrid experience combining (...) both perceptual and imaginative elements—an act of what I call ‘make‐perceive’. (shrink)

In the "Doxographi Graeci" the preferred short heading of Aët. 2.31 (Greek text below, p. 28) is 'On Distances', though ps.Plutarch has a long heading. This chapter is about the distances of the sun and moon from each other and from the earth (lemmas 1 to 3, in both ps.Plutarch and Stobaeus), and of the real or apparent shape of the heaven relative to its distance from the earth (lemmas 4 and 5, Stobaeus only). Parallels from Ioann. Lydus (...) and Theodoret for what is in ps.Plutarch are given by Diels in apparatu. To the best of my knowledge it has not been noticed that a version of ps.Plutarch's text is preserved in a scholium on the "Almagest", which constitutes our earliest evidence for the text. The correctness of Diels' reconstruction is questionable. Though certainty, naturally, is beyond our reach it is quite possible that these two sets of lemmas represent two distinct Aëtian (or proto-Aëtian) chapters. These may have been coalesced by Stobaeus (or Aëtius), while ps.Plutarch abridged the second (or the two final lemmas) away. These considerations necessitate an inquiry into the parallels that are available, including material from an introduction to Aratus. The vexing question of short versus long(er) chapter headings is also relevant in this context. Furthermore, the contrasting views regarding cosmic distances are not only a feature of the Placita literature with a distant origin in Aristotle, but also, apparently, of the commentary literature on Plato's "Timaeus". Arguably in a passage in Plutarch's "De facie" these two traditions intersect. Finally, a case can be made out for Eudemus not Theophrastus as an intermediary source of Presocratic astronomical data in the Placita. (shrink)

Kleinschmidt's definition of the “Weltformenkreis” as the smallest systematical unit of affinity removes any danger of obliterating the type and at the same time opens a way for judging the superior taxonomic groups on principle differently from the subspecies of a “Formenkreis”.It is demonstrated that the characters of geographical subspecies are characters of apparent shaping, those of the species however are characters of construction and qualitative and autonomic ones. It is the type differentiating in quality that justifies the definition (...) of species. As the characters of type do not necessarily appear gradual and quantitative, but are qualitative, the types cannot be derived from one another, unless they are conceived by the common superordinate idea of the superior systematical category next in order.The distinct division of species is opposed to the hypothetical continuity of the pedigree, which cannot be explained by a consanguinity nor by an affinity based on reproduction. The pedigree, however, is an expression of the spiritual order of nature, in which the types appear as units hierarchically graduated and determined by entelechy, not by dead matter.Within the systematical units there is a creative evolution, steadily pursuing its aim and leading from the primitive stage to the differentiated one, beginning with a juvenile phase, which is followed by orthogenetic maturity and, finally, by the aged stage with its “detypification”. The adaptation to the environment may be also proved for the primitive forms and is an organic part of the whole design of the world for them as well as for the specialized and differentiated forms. — The formation of new types cannot be explained in a merely mechanical way; everywhere, even in the gens and genoms, we state ingenious modifications, which do not only bring about a reaction of a single modification to the whole, but operate from the whole. Since the origin of man, since the tertiary formation, the creation of species has completely ceased. There are only alterations of subspecific character.After a digressive treatise on the fundamental difference of man and animal in order to explain the type the superior systematical categories are characterized as spiritual realities. It is especially for the “genus” that a revision is necessary. The reality of the common origin of certain species within the genus is not based on reproduction , but on the superior totality comprising the species. Individuals can be conceived by the character of the species, species by the character of genus only. This is an evidence for the methodicalness of creative nature. It excludes any evolution of the genus “from bottom to top”, which is irregular, accidental or immediately formed by environment. From this we derive the comprehensive right of a natural system which now is more than mere classification.Kleinschmidt qui donne une définition du „Weltformenkreis” comme la plus petite unité d'affinité systématique, déjoue le danger d'oblitérer le type et offre, en même temps, la possibilité de juger les groupes taxonomiques supérieurs par principe différemment de la souspèce d'un „Formenkreis”.Nous démontrons que les caractères des souspèces géographiques sont des caractères du façonnement extérieur, tandis que ceux de l'espèce sont des caractères de la construction d'une manière qualitative et autonome. Le type différent en qualité justifie seulement la définition de l'espèce. Comme les caractères du type n'apparaissent pas nécessairement graduels et quantitatifs, mais sont au contraire, qualitatifs, les types ne se dérivent pas l'un de l'autre, à moins qu'ils ne soient compris par la commune idée supérieure du plus sublime groupe systématique.La division distincte des espèces s'oppose à la continuité hypothétique de la généalogie, qui ne s'explique pas par une consanguinité ni par une affinité se fondant sur la reproduction, mais qui est plutôt une expression du régime spirituel de la nature, dans lequel les types se présentent comme des unités rangées hiérarchiquement et réglées par l'entéléchie et non par la matière.Dans les unités systématiques il y a une évolution créatrice qui tend continuellement à son but et mène de la phase primitive à la phase différentiée commençant par un état juvénile, qui est succédé par la maturité orthogénétique et enfin par l'âge avec sa „détypification”. L'adaptation au milieu est démontrée pour les formes primitives et représente un élément organique du grand projet mondial pour elles aussi bien que pour les formes spécialisées et différentiées. — La formation de types nouveaux ne s'explique pas seulement d'une manière mécanique; partout, même dans les „genes” et les „genomes”, nous observons des transformations ingénieuses, qui ne sont pas seulement une réaction d'une modification particulière à l'ensemble, mais un effet de l'ensemble. Depuis l'origine de l'homme, depuis la période tertiaire la formation d'espèces est complètement finie. À présent il n'y a plus que des variations d'un caractère souspécifique. Après un traité digressif sur la différence essentielle de l'homme et de l'animal pour expliquer le type les groupes systématiques supérieurs sont caractérisés comme des réalités spirituelles. C'est surtout pour le genre qu'une révision est nécessaire. La réalité de la racine commune de certaines espèces dans le genre ne se fonde pas sur la reproduction , mais sur la totalité supérieure qui implique toutes les espèces. Des individus sont compris par le caractère d'espèce, des espèces seulement par le caractère de genre. C'est une preuve de la méthode de la nature créatrice. Elle exclut une évolution de genre „du bas en haut”, qui est irrégulière, faite par hasard ou formée directement par le milieu. De là nous dérivons le droit compréhensible d'un système naturel, qui est désormais plus qu'une simple classification. (shrink)

John Campbell proposed a so-called simple view of colours according to which colours are categorical properties of the surfaces of objects just as they normally appear to be. I raised an invertion problem for Campbell's view according to which the senses of colour terms fail to match their references, thus rendering those terms meaningless—or so I claimed. Gabriele de Anna defended Campbell's view against my example by contesting two points in particular. Firstly, de Anna claimed that there is no special (...) problem here for the simple view of colours, a similar invertion story could apply to primary qualities terms for shapes. Secondly, de Anna purported to give an account of the senses and references of colour terms in my invertion story which renders the senses and references of those terms mutually consistent. In this paper I contested both of de Anna's claims. Regarding the first, I argue that his imagined invertion of apparent shapes is not epistemically stable, in contrast to the invertion of apparent shapes is not epistemically stable, in contrast to the invertion of apparent colours. Hence the victims of apparently inverted shapes would be able to discover the mismatch of senses and refences of their shape terms, in contrast to the victims of apparent invertions of colours. Regarding the second, I argue that de Anna's account of the victim's colour terms itself uses and not merely mentions so-called colours terms. Hence de Anna' account of them is itself meaningless due to a mismatch of sense and reference. So I conclude that my objection to Campbell's simple view of colours stands. (shrink)

John Campbell proposed a so-called simple view of colours according to which colours are categorical properties of the surfaces of objects just as they normally appear to be. I raised an invertion problem for Campbell's view according to which the senses of colour terms fail to match their references, thus rendering those terms meaningless—or so I claimed. Gabriele de Anna defended Campbell's view against my example by contesting two points in particular. Firstly, de Anna claimed that there is no special (...) problem here for the simple view of colours, a similar invertion story could apply to primary qualities terms for shapes. Secondly, de Anna purported to give an account of the senses and references of colour terms in my invertion story which renders the senses and references of those terms mutually consistent.In this paper I contested both of de Anna's claims. Regarding the first, I argue that his imagined invertion of apparent shapes is not epistemically stable, in contrast to the invertion of apparent shapes is not epistemically stable, in contrast to the invertion of apparent colours. Hence the victims of apparently inverted shapes would be able to discover the mismatch of senses and refences of their shape terms, in contrast to the victims of apparent invertions of colours. Regarding the second, I argue that de Anna's account of the victim's colour terms itself uses and not merely mentions so-called colours terms. Hence de Anna' account of them is itself meaningless due to a mismatch of sense and reference. So I conclude that my objection to Campbell's simple view of colours stands. (shrink)

The universality, invariance, and elegance of principles governing the universe may be reflected in principles of the minds that have evolved in that universe – provided that the mental principles are formulated with respect to the abstract spaces appropriate for the representation of biologically significant objects and their properties. (1) Positions and motions of objects conserve their shapes in the geometrically fullest and simplest way when represented as points and connecting geodesic paths in the six-dimensional manifold jointly determined by the (...) Euclidean group of three-dimensional space and the symmetry group of each object. (2) Colors of objects attain constancy when represented as points in a three-dimensional vector space in which each variation in natural illumination is canceled by application of its inverse from the three-dimensional linear group of terrestrial transformations of the invariant solar source. (3) Kinds of objects support optimal generalization and categorization when represented, in an evolutionarily-shaped space of possible objects, as connected regions with associated weights determined by Bayesian revision of maximum-entropy priors. Key Words: apparent motion; Bayesian inference; cognition; color constancy; generalization; mental rotation; perception; psychological laws; psychological space; universal laws. (shrink)

Shepard has supposed that the mind is stocked with innate knowledge of the world and that this knowledge figures prominently in the way we see the world. According to him, this internal knowledge is the legacy of a process of internalization; a process of natural selection over the evolutionary history of the species. Shepard has developed his proposal most fully in his analysis of the relation between kinematic geometry and the shape of the motion path in apparent motion (...) displays. We argue that Shepard has made a case for applying the principles of kinematic geometry to the perception of motion, but that he has not made the case for injecting these principles into the mind of the percipient. We offer a more modest interpretation of his important findings: that kinematic geometry may be a model of apparent motion. Inasmuch as our recommended interpretation does not lodge geometry in the mind of the percipient, the motivation of positing internalization, a process that moves kinematic geometry into the mind, is obviated. In our conclusion, we suggest that cognitive psychologists, in their embrace of internal mental universals and internalization may have been seduced by the siren call of metaphor. Key Words: apparent motion; imagery; internalization; inverse projection problem; kinematic geometry; measurement; metaphors of mind. (shrink)