This article deals with voice and bodily deixis as manifestations of performativity in written texts. A speech act of origin presents as both vocal and performative events. Ritual matrixes of culture contain performative complexes, as suggested by Austin. Such performative nuclei are neither true nor false, that is, their negation cannot be logically inferred from true premises. The term deixis describes the performative moment of the utterance, its active and transformative force. The first embodied deictic utterance in (...) Western history would be the biblical phrase “And the word made flesh.” It is the first mythopoetical performative denoting the bodily incarnation of logos. In the article, the term bodily deixis is considered against the background of experimental poetry of E.E. Cummings. (shrink)

What are the ethics of child genital cutting? In a recent issue of the journal, Duivenbode and Padela (2019) called for a renewed discussion of this question. Noting that modern health care systems...

A defence of the 'pragmatic' theory of anaphora (which stresses the analogy between anaphora and deixis) against an argument put forward by Gareth Evans.

The article raises the issue of the relationship between Hilary Putnam’s externalist semantics, with a focus on the concepts of deixis and deictic (ostensive) definition, and Robert B. Brandom’s semantic inferentialism, with a focus on the concepts of observational, noninferential reports and of anaphoric reference and their roles in a broader inferential practice. The analysis of the two respective conceptions shows that despite the differences in philosophical background and terminology, Putnam’s and Brandom’s considerations largely overlap as to their views (...) on reference and ostensive definition, especially in the context of introducing a novel term into a language by a scientist. Either philosopher agrees, first, that the bare act of indicating does not play any semantically constitutive role unless it has some conceptual load and it is used in a sentence, at least such as “This is X”; second, in their accepting semantic holism; third, in their admitting the social aspect of meaning-formation, along with their approving that the constituting of meaning of perceptual, observational terms proceeds in close contact of the language with reality. (shrink)

A defence of the 'pragmatic' theory of anaphora (which stresses the analogy between anaphora and deixis) against an argument put forward by Gareth Evans.

This is a theoretical and methodological statement of what isn’t and what is Cognitive poetics. It is focused on Peter Stockwell’s discussion of deixis; but, I claim, much of what I have to say on Stockwell’s work would apply to some degree to the work of many other critics. I argue that Stockwell translates traditional critical terms into a “cognitive” language, but does not rely on cognitive processes to account for issues related to the texts discussed; and that he (...) uses these terms to label or classify poetic expressions rather than point out their interaction in generating poetic effects. The present paper does not presume to tell what is the “correct” way to handle those terms, but attempts to give examples of how the same terms could be used with reference to cognitive processes, so as to account for poetic effects. (shrink)

Pointing by apes is near-ubiquitous in captivity, yet rare in their natural habitats. This has implications for understanding both the ontogeny and heritability of pointing, conceived as a behavioral phenotype. The data suggest that the cognitive capacity for manual deixis was possessed by the last common ancestor of humans and the great apes. In this review, nonverbal reference is distinguished from symbolic reference. An operational definition of intentional communication is delineated, citing published or forthcoming examples for each of the (...) defining criteria from studies of manual gestures in apes. Claims that chimpanzees do not point amongst themselves or do not gesture declaratively are refuted with published examples. Links between pointing and cognitive milestones in other domains relating means to ends are discussed. Finally, an evolutionary scenario of pointing as an adaptation to changes in hominid development is briefly sketched. (shrink)

Definite articles and demonstratives share many features in common including a related etymology and a number of parallel communicative functions. The following paper is concerned with developing a novel proposal on how to distinguish the two types of expression. First, crosslinguistic evidence is presented to argue that demonstratives contain locational markers that are employed in deictic uses to force contrastive focus and accentuate an intended referent against a contextual background. Conversely, definite articles lack such markers. Demonstratives are thus more likely (...) to force referential interpretations, whereas definite descriptions are more open to attributive ones. Second, an analysis of determiner phrases is provided to illustrate that certain syntactic projections capture deictic differences between the two expressions. Semantic correlates of the proposal are then considered before it is situated with respect to contemporary work distinguishing the two categories on the basis of a non‐redundancy condition (that the overt noun phrase complement of a demonstrative may not denote a singleton set), which I suggest is derivative on the presence of contrastive deictic markers in demonstratives. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo aborda uno de los modos de localización de entidades en situaciones espaciales estáticas: la deíxis espacial. Nuestro objetivo principal es describir la estructura y uso del sistema demostrativo en espacio de escala menor en la lengua hablada por los gitanos de Chile: el rromané jorajané. Para la obtención de los datos se utilizó The 1999 Demonstrative Questionnaire: ‘THIS’ and ‘THAT’ in comparative perspective. Los resultados del análisis destacan que los demostrativos espaciales del rromané jorajané constituyen un grupo (...) altamente simétrico, que combina un componente semántico deíctico, junto con contenidos gramaticales. Se trata de un sistema demostrativo binario en cuanto a la categoría de distancia respecto del centro deíctico. Se concluye también que la selección del demostrativo apropiado obedece al siguiente patrón: el demostrativo proximal tiene su área focal en la zona próxima al hablante, mientras que el demostrativo distal incluye en su campo de aplicación tanto la zona próxima al oyente como la zona distante al hablante.: This paper addresses one way of locating entities in static spatial situations: the spatial deixis. Our main purpose is to describe the structure and use of the demonstrative system in small-scale space in the language spoken by Gypsies in Chile: the rromané jorajané. Data collection was performed with “The 1999 Demonstrative Questionnaire: ‘THIS’ and ‘THAT’ in comparative perspective”. The analysis results highlight that spatial demonstratives in rromané jorajané are a highly symmetrical group combining a deictic semantic component with grammatical contents. It is a binary demonstrative system in terms of the category of distance from the deictic center. Additionally, it is concluded that choice of the suitable demonstrative proceeds according to the following pattern: the proximal demonstrative has its focal area in the speaker’s zone of proximity, while the distal demonstrative includes both the addressee’s zone of proximity and the speaker’s distal zone within its application field. (shrink)

The philosophical underpinnings of this article are the Peircian notion of the triadic nature of the sign as iconic, linguistic and indexical, and the use of the sign as a ‘Zeug’ or thing as a means of pointing to or deixis in the context of creative activity in the classroom. This involves Lyotard's conception of desire as the generation of a space where the pupil can be affected by what the world donates. Both deixis and desire take on (...) added value in relation to the psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott in terms of the role of transitional object use in the generation of ‘potential space’, and Nussbaum's notion of tyche or being on the lookout for what the world has to offer. In terms of education, the central section of the article looks at the way these notions can be applied to teaching and learning in the secondary art classroom. This involves the use of what I have termed transitional notation, combining all three Peircian sign modes on a surface of inscription that is ‘ready-to-hand and that operates as what the anthropologist Alfred Gell termed an ‘index of agency’. (shrink)

This is a theoretical and methodological statement of what isn't and what is Cognitive poetics. It is focused on Peter Stockwell's discussion of deixis; but, I claim, much of what I have to say on Stockwell's work would apply to some degree to the work of many other critics. I argue that Stockwell translates traditional critical terms into a "cognitive" language, but does not rely on cognitive processes to account for issues related to the texts discussed; and that he (...) uses these terms to label or classify poetic expressions rather than point out their interaction in generating poetic effects. The present paper does not presume to tell what is the "correct" way to handle those terms, but attempts to give examples of how the same terms could be used with reference to cognitive processes, so as to account for poetic effects. (shrink)

The aim of our paper is to show that there is a sense of body that is enactive in nature and that enables to capture the most primitive sense of self. We will argue that the body is primarily given to us as source or power for action, i.e., as the variety of motor potentialities that define the horizon of the world in which we live, by populating it with things at hand to which we can be directed and with (...) other bodies we can interact with. We will show that this sense of body as bodily self is, on the one hand, antecedent the distinction between sense of agency and sense of ownership, and, on the other, it enables and refines such distinction, providing a conceptual framework for the coherent interpretation of a variety of behavioral and neuropsychological data. We will conclude by positing that the basic experiences we entertain of our selves as bodily selves are from the very beginning driven by our interactions with other bodies as they are underpinned by the mirror mechanism. (shrink)

Cet article vise à comprendre la théorie stoïcienne de la deixis afin d’expliquer l’importance accordée par les stoïciens aux pronoms démonstratifs et aux énoncés qu’ils composent, c’est-à-dire les propositions dites définitives. Nous montrons que ces propositions sont privilégiées pour des raisons à la fois ontologiques et épistémologiques en raison des propriétés sémantiques de leur sujet. Elles sont privilégiées d’un point de vue ontologique parce que la deixis grâce à laquelle leur sujet fait référence au réel crée une relation (...) privilégiée à la matière, la catégorie ontologique stoïcienne fondamentale. De plus, ces sujets requièrent que leur référent existe et soit présent et saisissable. Ces énoncés sont d’autre part privilégiés d’un point de vue épistémologique parce qu’ils sont fondamentaux dans l’acquisition de la connaissance. Nous suggérons enfin que tous les énoncés apparemment définis ne le sont pas en effet, et considérons quand et sous quelles conditions une référence déictique est réussie. (shrink)

This paper is a comparative study based on the linguistic evidence in Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric Greek, aimed at reconstructing the space-time cognitive models used in the Proto-Indo-European language in a diachronic perspective. While it has been widely recognized that ancient Indo-European languages construed earlier events as in front of later ones, as predicted in the Time-Reference-Point mapping, it is less clear how in the same languages the passage took place from this ‘archaic’ Time-RP model or non-deictic sequence, in which (...) future events are behind or follow the past ones in a temporal sequence, to the more recent ‘post-archaic’ Ego-RP model that is found only from the classical period onwards, in which the future is located in front and the past in back of a deictic observer. Data from the Rigveda and the Homeric poems show that an Ego-RP mapping with an ego-perspective frame of reference could not have existed yet at an early Indo-European stage. In particular, spatial terms of front and behind turn out to be used with reference not only to temporal events, but also to east and west respectively, thus presupposing the existence of an absolute field-based FoR which the temporal sequence is metaphorically related to. Specifically, sequence is relative position on a path appears to be motivated by what has been called day orientation frame, in which the different positions of the sun during the day motivate the mapping of front onto ‘earlier’ and behind onto ‘later’, without involving ego’s ‘now’. These findings suggest that early Indo-European still had not made use of spatio-temporal deixis based on the tense-related ego-perspective FoR found in modern languages. (shrink)

The right to bodily integrity (RBI) may seem inapt for inclusion in this volume, which is supposed to address new human rights, for as A. M. Viens notes, the RBI is a long-standing fixture in the philosophical and legal discussion of rights. However, Viens does, I think, make a good case for the right’s inclusion here. Not only does he note the increasing recognition of a new right to genital integrity derived from the more general RBI, he also argues (...) for a new conceptualisation of the RBI itself: he argues that we ought to decompose the RBI into several constituent rights, delineated according to the different values from which they derive – rights to bodily autonomy, bodily dignity, bodily ownership, well-being, and so on. (shrink)

Bodily movement has become an interesting topic in recent philosophy, both in analytic and phenomenological versions. Philosophy from Descartes to Kant defined the human being as a mental subject in a material body. This mechanistic attitude toward the body still lingers on in many studies of motor learning and control. The article shows how alternative philosophical views can give a better understanding of bodily movement. The article starts with Heidegger's contribution to overcoming the subject-object dichotomy and his new (...) understanding of the primacy of the practical involvement with the surrounding world. Heidegger, however, in many ways neglected the role of the human body. Merleau-Ponty took a huge step forward when he focused on the bodily intentionality of our interaction with the world. The next step was taken by Samuel Todes who presented a better understanding of how we are bodily oriented in space. After having seen how the body is oriented outward towards the environment it is proper that the final part of this article goes inward toward the role of bodily awareness and the role of proprioception in human movement. The goal of the presentation is to contribute to a better understanding of what goes on in sport. The article therefore uses examples from sport, especially football, to show the relevance of the new insights for sport studies. (shrink)

Gallagher, S. 2003. Bodily self-awareness and object perception. _Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: International Journal for Interdisciplinary_ _Studies_, 7 (1) - in press.

Este trabajo se propone estudiar las características de los paralogismos de composición y división (Retórica II 24.II, 1401a), de la consecuencia (Retórica II 24.VI, 1401b20-30) y de la causa aparente (Retórica II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), de modo de analizar si Eurípides los utiliza en el agón de Andrómaca de los versos 577 a 746 This paper intends to study the characteristics of paralogisms due to composition and division (Rhetoric II 24.II, 1401a), due to consequent (Rhetoric II 24.VI, 1401b20-30), and due to (...) false cause (Rhetoric II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), in order to analyze if Euripides uses them in the agon in Andromache (577-746). (shrink)

Although we usually identify our abilities to reason, to adapt to situations, and to solve problems with the mind, recent research has shown that we should not, in fact, detach these abilities from the body. This work provides an integrative framework for understanding how these abilities are affected by visceral reactions. Schulkin presents provocative neuroscientific research demonstrating that thought is not on one side and bodily sensibility on the other; from a biological point of view, they are integrated. Schulkin (...) further argues that this integration has important implications for judgements about art and music, moral sensibilities, attraction and revulsion, and our perpetual inclination to explain ourselves and our surroundings. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to advance the enactive discourse on perception by highlighting the role of bodily affects as prenoetic constraints on perceptual experience. Enactivists argue for an essential connection between perception and action, where action primarily means skillful bodily intervention in one’s surroundings. Analyses of sensory-motor contingencies (as in Noë 2004) are important contributions to the enactive account. Yet this is an incomplete story since sensory-motor contingencies are of no avail to the perceiving agent without motivational (...) pull in one direction or another or a sense of the pertinent affective contingencies. Before directly addressing the issue of affect in perception, we explain our peculiar, low-level conception of affect as a form of world-involving intentionality that modulates (minimally) bodily behavior without necessarily possessing informational value of any kind. We then address the deficiency concerning affect in enactive accounts of perception by examining some exemplary forms of bodily affect that constrain perception. We show that bodily affect significantly contributes to (either limiting or enabling) our contact with the world in our perceptually operative attentive outlook, in a kind of perceptual interest or investment, and in social perception. (shrink)

Bodily awareness seems to present the body as a topologically connected whole, composed of many parts. In consequence, the source of topological and mereological content of bodily awareness comes into question. In particular, it may be asked whether (a) such content is provided by the bodily sense, i.e., sensory mechanisms which, like proprioception, presents the body “from the inside,” or (b) it is a product of “exteroceptive” elements of bodily awareness, which represents the body “from the (...) outside” in a similar way to that of other physical objects. This paper argues that while passive touch and proprioception are unlikely to present the body as a topological and a mereological whole, such content is likely to be provided by kinesthesis. In consequence, it is plausible that holistic topological and mereological bodily content is present in virtue of certain mechanisms of bodily sense. (shrink)

This is a theoretical and methodological statement of what isn't and what is Cognitive poetics. It is focused on Peter Stockwell's discussion of deixis; but, I claim, much of what I have to say on Stockwell's work would apply to some degree to the work of many other critics. I argue that Stockwell translates traditional critical terms into a “cognitive“ language, but does not rely on cognitive processes to account for issues related to the texts discussed; and that he (...) uses these terms to label or classify poetic expressions rather than point out their interaction in generating poetic effects. The present paper does not presume to tell what is the “correct“ way to handle those terms, but attempts to give examples of how the same terms could be used with reference to cognitive processes, so as to account for poetic effects. (shrink)

This study examines the linguistic construal and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in the genre of news narratives. We present a model of mental spaces that involves a News Space in which the deictic center is construed of the news actors at the time the newsworthy events took place, and a Reality Space in which the deictic here-and-now center of journalist and reader is construed. This model explains how the dynamic representation of narrative news discourse, characterized by shifts in (...) time and viewpoint, is steered by linguistic devices. An analysis of Dutch news narratives shows that temporal adverbs such as yesterdayand shifts from present tense to past tense may signal a moveforwardin narrative time, to a viewpoint in the future relative to the narrative now-point, rather thanbackward. These atypical time shifts can be accounted for by presupposing an Intermediate Space located at a point in time between the News Space and the Reality Space where the progression of narrative time comes to a halt and experiences are rather relived than reported. The salience of the Intermediate Space may be signaled by quotative conditionals reflecting the viewpoints of implicitly quoted sources. These results clarify how tense and temporal deixis steer the linguistic construal of time and viewpoint in news narratives, demonstrating that time and viewpoint are closely linked in the cognitive representation of these narratives. (shrink)

Individuals suffering from depression consistently report experiencing a lack of connectedness with others. David Karp (2017, 73), in his memoir and study of depression, has gone so far to describe depression as “an illness of isolation, a disease of disconnectedness”. It has become common, in phenomenological circles, to attribute this social impairment to the depressed individual experiencing their body as corporealized, acting as a barrier between them and the world around them (Fuchs 2005, 2016). In this paper, I offer an (...) alternative view of the experience of social disconnectedness in depression, suggesting that rather than necessarily experiencing their body as object-like, the depressed individual’s bodily is saturated with experiences of lethargy, tiredness, heaviness, sadness, hopelessness and so on, to the exclusion of being able to bodily connect to others. I suggest that depression does not involve a complete social impairment but a specific impairment of affective forms of interpersonal experience. (shrink)

ResumenLa investigación social cualitativa ha prescindido de la utilización de referentes empíricos accesibles y compartidos a partir de los cuales acordar la producción y el análisis del habla. A partir de este criticable déficit, lo que hace este trabajo es analizar el problema del habla utilizada como material empírico para observación desde el punto de vista de la labor científica. Con esta finalidad se argumenta la importancia de la comunicabilidad de las observaciones producidas y de su análisis a partir de (...) los problemas que plantea la función deíctica del habla observada en la investigación. La conclusión del trabajo plantea la necesidad acordar e introducir un referente objetual en la situación de observación experimental con el fin de garantizar la comunicabilidad de las acciones investigadoras, así como la recepción y circulación del habla observada entre las distintas comunidades de hablantes y sistemas discursivos.Palabras clave: discurso social; validez; investigación cualitativa; función deíctica; comunicación. (shrink)

The concept of bodily alienation is promising for critical phenomenologies of race because it marries description and evaluation. With this concept, we can go beyond mere descriptions of lived experience and provide arguments for challenging the status quo. In fact, we can steer clear of another danger: an overly “objective” form of theorizing about race that is unresponsive to the lived experiences of the subjects whose lives it aims to reimagine. By contrast, phenomenologies founded on the concept of (...) class='Hi'>bodily alienation teach us which social interactions and spaces alienate people of color. In turn, this knowledge can help us envision a more hospitable world for all. (shrink)

We argue that the main objections against two central tenets of a Jamesian account of the emotions, i.e. that (1) different types of emotions are associated with specific types of bodily feelings (Specificity), and that (2) emotions are constituted by patterns of bodily feeling (Constitution), do not succeed. In the first part, we argue that several reasons adduced against Specifity, including one inspired by Schachter and Singer’s work, are unconvincing. In the second part, we argue that Constitution, too, (...) can withstand most of the objections raised against it, including the objection that bodily feelings cannot account for the outward-looking and evaluative nature of emotions. In both sections, we argue that the kinds of felt bodily changes posited by a Jamesian account of emotions are best understood in terms of felt states of action-readiness. (shrink)

In this paper I address the question of whether bodily awareness is a form of perceptual awareness or not. I discuss José Luis Bermúdez’s and Shaun Gallagher’s proposals about this issue and find them unsatisfactory. Then I suggest an alternative view and offer some reasons for it.

This study examines the linguistic construal and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in the genre of news narratives. We present a model of mental spaces that involves a News Space in which the deictic center is construed of the news actors at the time the newsworthy events took place, and a Reality Space in which the deictic here-and-now center of journalist and reader is construed. This model explains how the dynamic representation of narrative news discourse, characterized by shifts in (...) time and viewpoint, is steered by linguistic devices. An analysis of Dutch news narratives shows that temporal adverbs such as yesterdayand shifts from present tense to past tense may signal a moveforwardin narrative time, to a viewpoint in the future relative to the narrative now-point, rather thanbackward. These atypical time shifts can be accounted for by presupposing an Intermediate Space located at a point in time between the News Space and the Reality Space where the progression of narrative time comes to a halt and experiences are rather relived than reported. The salience of the Intermediate Space may be signaled by quotative conditionals reflecting the viewpoints of implicitly quoted sources. These results clarify how tense and temporal deixis steer the linguistic construal of time and viewpoint in news narratives, demonstrating that time and viewpoint are closely linked in the cognitive representation of these narratives. (shrink)

As a consequence of recent changes, health research policies in the United States mandate the inclusion of women and members of racial and ethnic minority groups as experimental subjects in biomedical research. This article analyzes debates that underlie these policies and that concern the medical management of bodies, groups, identities and differences. Much of the uncertainty surrounding these new policies reflects the fact that researchers, physicians, policy makers and health advocates have adopted competing, and often murky, understandings of the nature (...) of sex, gender, racial and ethnic differences, and of the relation of the biological to the social in the manifestation of bodily illness. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue in favor of a direct perception account of social cognition, focusing on the idea that we can directly grasp at least some mental states of others through their bodily expressions. I will investigate the way we should consider expressions and their relations to mental phenomena in order to defend DP. In order to do so, I will present Krueger and Overgaard’s idea of expressions as constitutive proper parts of the mental phenomena expressed and (...) I will show how this position can support DP. Then, I will present the way in which the authors seem to construe the relation of parthood between expressions and mental states – that is in terms of components of integral wholes, and I will introduce the possible issues that derive from this strategy. I will propose a different way to understand this parthood relation, referring to Husserl’s notion of moments as distinct from that of pieces. I will narrow my analysis to expressions of feelings, and I will try to argue that they can be described more aptly as moments of the feelings expressed. Finally, I will show how this account can support DP. (shrink)

I examine the ordinary-language use of deictic terms, notably the personal, spatial and temporal markers 'I' and 'you', 'here' and 'now', in order to make manifest that their meaning is inextricably embedded within a pragmatic, perceptual and interpersonal situation. This inextricable embeddedness of deixis within the shared natural and social world suggests, I contend, an I-you connectedness at the heart of meaning and experience. The thesis of I-you connectedness extends to the larger claim about the situatedness of embodied perceivers (...) within a shared perspectivally configured milieu. This claim can be cast in terms of a polycentric orientation to the natural and social world, which provides a robust alternative to an egocentric conception of experience. I develop this claim via a renewed phenomenological reflection on speech, assisted by ordinary-language philosophy, as well as relevant contributions from empirical sociolinguistic studies and developmental psychology. These reflective and empirical perspectives help make a case for the primacy of socially and spatially situated experience, which departs from the received notion of an asocial and uprooted mind. (shrink)

How do we understand the agency and significance of material forces and their interface with human bodies? What does it mean to be human in these times, with bodies that are inextricably interconnected with our physical world? Bodily Natures considers these questions by grappling with powerful and pervasive material forces and their increasingly harmful effects on the human body. Drawing on feminist theory, environmental studies, and the sciences, Stacy Alaimo focuses on trans-corporeality, or movement across bodies and nature, which (...) has profoundly altered our sense of self. By looking at a broad range of creative and philosophical writings, Alaimo illuminates how science, politics, and culture collide, while considering the closeness of the human body to the environment. (shrink)