The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework of lexical meaning, broadly along the lines of Cognitive Semantics (Langacker 1987a). Within the proposed model, all aspects of meaning are to be explained in terms of properties of ontologies in conceptual space, i.e. properties of content ontologies and schematic ontologies and construals which are imposed on the conceptual structures on the occasion of use. It is through the operations of construals on ontological structures that different readings of lexical expressions (...) arise. Lexical meanings are dynamic and sensitive to contextual demands, rather than fixed and stable. In a dynamic, usage-based model like this, polysemy and multiple readings emerge as a natural consequence of the human ability to think flexibly. Another more specific purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the usefulness of ontologies in linguistic research in general and semantic modelling in particular. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to shed light on how experiences of sensory perceptions in the domains of vision, smell, taste, and touch are recast into text and discourse in the genre of wine reviews. Because of the alleged paucity of sensory vocabularies, in particular in the olfactory domain, it is of particular interest to investigate what resources language has to offer in order to describe those experiences. We show that the main resources are, on the one hand, words (...) evoking properties that are applicable cross-modally and properties of objects that range over more than one domain, and on the other, vivid imagery that compares the characteristics of the wine with people, buildings, animals, and the hustle and bustle of market places and other events. The second goal is to account for the construals of the meanings of the expressions used in the recontextualization into written discourse in the light of their apparent flexibility across the descriptions of the sensory experiences. In contrast to a large body of the literature on sensory meanings in language, we argue that the descriptors of properties such as sharp, soft, lemon, and cherry used to describe a wine's qualities across the sensory domains are not polysemous synesthetic metaphors, but monosemous synesthetic metonymizations, more precisely zone activations. With regard to the imagery used, the construals represented cover both similes, metaphorizations and metonymizations proper. (shrink)

This article is concerned with how we make decisions based on how problems are presented to us and the effect that the framing of the problem might have on our choices. Current philosophical and psychological accounts of the framing effect in experiments such as the Asian Disease Problem concern reference points and domains. We question the importance of reference points and domains. Instead, we adopt a linguistic perspective focussing on the role of the evaluative polarity evoked by the words - (...) negativeand positive - used to describe the options in the decision problem. We show that the evaluative polarity of the different wordings in the ADP better explain participants’ behaviour than reference points and domains. We propose two models in which the values given to evaluative polarity words directly influence the strength of framing. The results indicate that linguistic considerations regarding evaluative polarity have to be considered in relation to the ADP. The account resembles Fuzzy-Trace-Theory but allows for thestrength of evaluative polarity to directly affect behaviour. In the discussion, we also assess how evaluative polarity relates to negation, antonyms and the communicative frame within which the choices are presented. (shrink)

The focus of much sensory language research has been on vocabulary and codability, not how language is used in communication of sensory perceptions. We make a case for discourse-oriented research about sensory language as an alternative to the prevailing vocabulary orientation. To consider the language of sound in authentic textual data, we presented participants with 20 everyday sounds of unknown sources and asked them to describe the sounds in as much detail as possible, as if describing them to someone who (...) could not hear them. We explored how the participants use language to describe these sounds. Do they describe their listening experiences (stressful), sound properties (intermittent beeping), and/or the events that caused the sounds (eating an apple)? The results show that out of these three soundscape elements, events are the most frequent and most indispensable element. We let the results from the study illustrate the need for more discursive data in studies of sensory language and argue that there is no designated language of sound. Our study highlights that in order to account for sensory language use, we need an analytical framework that accommodates discursive language in a non-trivial way beyond stable couplings between individual words and meanings. (shrink)

ABSTRACTUsing authentic textual data from written personal narratives, we investigate how individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Tourette Syndrome mediate their emotive and sensory experiences through language. Our study reveals that experiential comparisons of different kinds feature prominently as means of conveying such experiences. We identify a number of meaning domains that are recruited in correspondences between sources and targets, including motion and force, and detail how sensory modalities, bodily sensations, and emotions are exploited to evoke (...) emotive/sensory responses in readers. We conclude that comparative construal is a significant communicative strategy precisely because it elicits familiar situational meanings capable of evoking vicarious experiences in readers. By considering texts from actual uses of language in natural situations, our research sheds new light on how emotive/sensory... (shrink)

In this ethnography of Full Contact, a San Francisco Bay Area boxing gym, I use Bourdieu’s theory of practice to illustrate how ‘rules of the game’ shape people’s perceptions, interactions and positions (capital). First, I show how the unwritten, unspoken rules of boxing as a field (its doxa) impact readings of bodies and bodily capital, readings that then have an impact on micro-level interactions and hierarchies at Full Contact. Second, I show the micro-level consequences of hysteresis – delays in the (...) realignment of habitus and field that result from change at the field level – on social interactions and hierarchies. Gender is at the core of my analysis, for it is both a fundamental part of my and others’ habitus, and a symbolic trait of significance in the hypermasculine doxa of boxing as a field. (shrink)

This paper discusses the ethical implications of racism and some of the various costs associated with racism occurring at the institutional level. We argue that, in many ways, the laws, social structures, and institutions in Western society have operated to perpetuate the continuation of historical legacies of racial inequities with or without the intention of individuals and groups in society. By merely maintaining existing structures, laws, and social norms, society can impose social, economic, and health costs on racial minorities that (...) impinge on their well-being and human dignity. Based on a review of multidisciplinary research on racism, particularly focusing on healthcare, we demonstrate how institutional racism leads to social and economic inequalities in society. By positing institutional racism as the inherent cause of avoidable disparities in healthcare, this paper draws attention to the ethical significance of racism, which remains a relatively neglected issue in bioethics research. (shrink)

Study objectives The emergency department (ED) provides an arena for patient enrolment into a variety of research studies even for non-critically ill patients. Given the types of illness, time constraints and sense of urgency that exists in the ED environment, concern exists about whether research subjects in the ED can provide full consent for participation. We sought to identify enrolled research subjects' perspectives on the informed consent process for research conducted in the ED. Methods This was a prospective, observational study (...) of ED subjects, 18 years or older, who had been approached to participate in research in the ED and who were judged to have decision-making capacity. Exclusions were critical illness and refusal to participate. Subjective were followed up within 1 week after enrolling using structured phone interviews by trained interviewers. Results During the study period, 229 eligible patients were approached to participate in both a target study and this study. Of these, 66% (150/229) agreed to participate in this study, at least to the extent of allowing us access to their demographic data. The study participant group was similar in terms of gender to this particular ED's patient population but had significantly more African-Americans and persons older than 45. Conclusion Despite rigorous time constraints and rapid throughput times, the majority of subjects who consented to research participation in the ED felt that they were sufficiently informed and had adequate time to decide to participate. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage consacré à l'histoire conceptuelle de la linguistique s'intéresse plus particulièrement à une période émergente de la discipline : entre 1864, lorsque la grammaire comparée arrive en France, et 1916, date à laquelle paraît le Cours de linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure. L'introduction de la grammaire comparée constitue en effet un tournant dans la pensée linguistique d'expression française dans la mesure où l'on commence à s'interroger aussi bien sur la nature de l'objet de la linguistique que sur la (...) nature de la science linguistique. S'agit-il d'une science naturelle, ou d'une science historique? S'il s'agit d'une science historique, peut-on lui appliquer les méthodes des sciences naturelles? En mal d'objet précis, la linguistique s'appuie sur des disciplines contiguës qui l'alimentent non seulement en idées et en méthodes, mais aussi en problèmes. Les éléments de réponse, trouvés dans les ouvrages linguistiques de l'époque, convergent autour d'une métaphore récurrente, celle de « la vie du langage », qui s'origine dans l'idée naturaliste selon laquelle la langue, soumise aux lois naturelles, naît, croît et meurt. Cette métaphore mène l'interrogation des linguistes et aboutit à la construction et à l'autonomisation de la linguistique dite générale. Même si la postérité, en quête d'un fondateur mythique, a voulu désigner Saussure comme le père de cette discipline, l'ouvrage montre que cet objet glissant de la langue ne cessa pas de tourmenter les esprits de ses prédécesseurs et contemporains qui ainsi contribuèrent à la naissance de la linguistique moderne. (shrink)

La Barbarie à visage humain de Bernard-Henri Lévy traduit le désenchantement d'une génération de jeunes intellectuels français aussi bien face au marxisme, à son enseignement théorique, à ses crédos politiques, à ses prétentions de révolutionner les rapports sociaux que face au capitalisme, fut-il répressivement tentaculaire et « rationnel » ou tout simplement énergumène. En rupture de ban avec ses « doctes maîtres », Althusser, Poulantzas, Deleuze ou Lyotard, Lévy pose que toute action politique militante, de gauche ou de droite, conduit (...) irrémédiablement, par delà ses mots d'ordre de libération et de progrès, à la reproduction du Prince, du Pouvoir, tout pouvoir par essence tendant à l'absolu et au totalitarisme. La Maîtrise est la loi de ce monde et toute théorie socio-politique, tout projet de société ne peuvent être que des masques truculents de promesses dont il faut bien s'affubler pour que s'opère dans l'espoir la circularité répétitive de cette Maîtrise. L'histoire à cet égard ne fait que tourner en rond et notre siècle n'est que l'ultime achèvement en extension, mais à « visage » humain cette fois, d'une barbarie plusieurs fois millénaire. Que reste-t-il au nouveau philosophe sinon de proclamer à tout jamais le divorce de l'Éthique et de la Politique, de la candeur et de l'imposture, du fond de sa retraite solipsiste et libertaire? (shrink)

This paper discusses the ethical implications of racism and some of the various costs associated with racism occurring at the institutional level. We argue that, in many ways, the laws, social structures, and institutions in Western society have operated to perpetuate the continuation of historical legacies of racial inequities with or without the intention of individuals and groups in society. By merely maintaining existing structures, laws, and social norms, society can impose social, economic, and health costs on racial minorities that (...) impinge on their well-being and human dignity. Based on a review of multidisciplinary research on racism, particularly focusing on healthcare, we demonstrate how institutional racism leads to social and economic inequalities in society. By positing institutional racism as the inherent cause of avoidable disparities in healthcare, this paper draws attention to the ethical significance of racism, which remains a relatively neglected issue in bioethics research. (shrink)

T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) was not only an active protagonist in the religious and scientific upheaval that followed the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution but also a harbinger of the sociobiological debates about the implications of evolution that are now going on. His seminal lecture Evolution and Ethics, reprinted here with its introductory Prolegomena, argues that the human psyche is at war with itself, that humans are alienated in a cosmos that has no special reference to their needs, and (...) that moral societies are of necessity in conflict with the natural conditions of their existence. Seen in the light of current understanding of the mechanisms of evolution, these claims remain as controversial today as they were when Huxley proposed them. In this volume George Williams, one of the best-known evolutionary biologists of our time, asserts that recent biological ideas and data justify a more extreme condemnation of the "cosmic process" than Huxley advocated and more extreme denial that the forces that got us here are capable of maintaining a viable world. James Paradis, an expert in Victorian studies, has written an introduction that sets the celebrated lecture in the context of cultural history, revealing it to be an impressive synthesis of Victorian thinking, as well as a challenge to eighteenth-century assumptions about the harmony of of nature. With Huxley's lecture as a focal point, the three parts of this book unite philosophy and science in a shared quest that recalls their common origins as systems of knowledge. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to explore the views and experiences of adult cancer patients about patient participation in care and decision making and the preconditions for this participation. The data were collected by means of focused interviews; in addition the patients completed depression and problem-solving instruments. The sample comprised 34 cancer patients from the haematological and oncological wards of one university hospital in Finland. The results revealed considerable variation in the patients’ views on their participation in care and (...) decision making. Some of the patients understood participation either in terms of contributing to the decision making or in terms of expressing their views on treatment options. Some considered that their participation in care was impossible. Patient participation in care and decision making was promoted by good health, access to information, assertiveness, good interactive relationships with nurses and physicians, and encouragement by nurses and physicians to participate. Factors restricting such patient participation were poor health, ignorance, anxiety, age, time pressures of staff, lack of time, high staff turnover and poor interactive relationships. With regard to participation in medical decision making, the patients were divided into three groups: active participants, patients giving active consent, and patients giving passive consent to medical decisions. (shrink)

Since the era of deinstitutionalisation, many clinical approaches have emerged to enable the care and treatment of people suffering from mental illness. In recent years, the use of coercive approaches in the community (e.g., outpatient commitment or community treatment orders) has also increased internationally. Although nurses' role regarding these coercive approaches is central and significant, few empirical and theoretical writings have tackled this controversial nursing practice. The purpose of this paper is to analyse coercive nursing care through the lens of (...) French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's concept of ‘societies of control’. Taking up Michel Foucault's work on disciplinary power, Deleuze explores how the move from the striated spaces of closed institutions to the smooth spaces of societies of control took place since the middle of the 20th century. According to Deleuze, the overall objective of ‘societies of control’ is no longer simply to govern deviant behaviour in closed environments (e.g., psychiatric hospitals and prisons) but to ensure a regime of unrelentless surveillance in the open spaces of our communities. (shrink)

What is the function of pain? A popular view in contemporary philosophy is that the pain system is a bodily disturbance detector: pain states track/detect and represent bodily disturbances and the phenomenal character of the (sensory dimension of) pain supervenes on this representational content. The view can accommodate paradigmatic pain cases, e.g., when pain follows from stepping on a nail. Once we consider more complex pain phenomena, however, it has seemingly little to offer. In this paper, I discuss dissociation between (...) pains and bodily disturbances, variation in pain thresholds, the effects of repeated stimulation on experienced pain intensity, and the modulation of pain experience by cognitive and emotional states. I argue that these phenomena suggest that the pain system is not a bodily disturbance detector, but a sophisticated security system. (shrink)

Loïc Wacquant’s article ‘Homines in Extremis’ outlines five propositions about habitus that support a broader and richer use of Bourdieu’s famous concept. His article was a response to a new edited volume by Sanchez and Spencer under the title Fighting Scholars. In this article, I support Wacquant’s argument, but suggest that he undersells habitus as a topic of and tool for inquiry. I point to previous conversations about habitus and suggest that we may learn more about social phenomena by engaging (...) the relational aspects of habitus and the social aspects of the incorporation of habitus. (shrink)

Most things we see look colored to us. But what is color? Where, if anywhere, is it? Why do we see it? When do we see it correctly? And how should we go about answering these surprisingly difficult questions? This essay surveys philosophical work on color and color perception.

L'oeuvre de Pinel a donné lieu à des évaluations tout à fait contradictoires : certains, comme Pierre Pichot, Kavka, Zilboorg et Gladys Swain ont estimé, en effet, que Pinel n’avait pas été sensible à l'influence de la psychologie « sensualiste » et « associationniste »; Pichot et Zilboorg pour en conclure que ce que souhaitait Pinel, c'était en fait une psychiatrie sans psychologie ; Kavka et Swain pour en déduire l’opposé. Mon intention est de montrer brièvement : l) que dans (...) l’esprit de l'Idéologie il n’y a pas fondamentalement de contradiction entre le physiologisme organiciste et la psychologie associationniste , ce qui explique la coexistence du traitement médical et du traitement moral chez Pinel dans le traitement des maladies mentales, y compris la folie raisonnante ; 2) que l’influence de Condillac sur Pinel est beaucoup plus grande qu’on ne le croit généralement ; et 3) que Pinel a décidément bien peu à voir avec la psychanalyse.Pinel's works have been evaluated in completely contradictory ways : some, like Pierre Pichot, Kavka, Zilboorg and Gladys Swain have indeed considered that Pinel was not sensitive to the influence of "sensualist" and "associationist" psychology. Pichot and Zilboorg conclude from this that what Pinel was hoping for was in fact psychiatry without psychology. Kavka and Swain deduce the opposite. 1) intended to show, briefly : I) that in the minds of the ideologists there is fundamentally no contradiction between organicist physiologism and association nist psychology , which explains the coexistence of medical treatment and moral treatment of mental illness, including mania without delirium, in Pinel's work ; 2) that Condillac's influence on Pinel is much greater than is generally believed ; and 3) that Pinel has really very little to do with psychoanalysis. (shrink)

What is the function of color vision? In this paper, I focus on perceptual phenomena studied in psychophysics and argue that the best explanation for these phenomena is that the color visual system is a perceptual enhancement system. I first introduce two rival conceptions of the function of color vision: that color vision aims to detect or track the fine-grained colors of distal objects and scenes (Seeing Color) and that it aims to help organisms discriminate, detect, track and/or recognize ecologically (...) important objects, properties, and relations more directly (Seeing with Color). I then discuss two kinds of systematic perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists: approximate color constancy and color induction. I argue from the premise that Seeing with Color better accommodates and explains these phenomena to the conclusion that it is the conception that an empirically-guided philosopher of color ought to adopt. (shrink)

La voix féminine dans l’œuvre lyrique mozartienne chante sur un unique registre, le registre aigu. Tous les personnages féminins possèdent une voix unique : celle du soprano ; par contre, la voix masculine, elle, chante sur deux registres : aigu et grave. Cette séparation sexuée des voix qui apparaît pour la première fois dans l’histoire de l’opéra avec Mozart délimite nettement, côté masculin, des rôles bien séparés : ceux des fils - ténor, registre aigu - et ceux des pères - (...) basse, registre grave -. Par contre, côté féminin, les rôles sont confondus ; jeunes filles, épouses, sœurs, mères, duègnes, non seulement possèdent une commune tessiture mais s’expriment musicalement, très souvent, de la même manière : la grande aria virtuose. C’est à travers le personnage de la mère et en particulier celui de la Reine de la Nuit dans La Flûte enchantée, que nous avons tenté de comprendre le pourquoi de cette voix unique de la féminité selon Mozart. Le fil de cette voix féminine est noué avec le fil d’une autre voix qui résonne dans la correspondance mozartienne, celle de la mère de Mozart, Anna-Maria. La mise en relation de l’œuvre et de la biographie détient, peut-être, la clé - musicale - de l’énigme. (shrink)

Entre le XIIIe et le XVIIIe siècle, les allégories picturales de la musique mettent en scène de manière récurrente un couple énigmatique : une jeune femme à l’orgue et un forgeron frappant sur son enclume. Il s’agira, à travers un parcours en quelques images, de questionner les termes, a priori antagonistes, de cet appariement et, ce faisant, de poser les jalons d’une réflexion sur ces représentations qui, sur la longue durée historique, semblent bien former – ou forger – un système.

According to the literature, the family is now considered to be the most important resource for the care and support of a sick family member. Families are being increasingly invited and trained to play a utilitarian role, not just as family caregivers, but as healthcare agents. Healthcare institutions, based on neoliberal health policies, are encouraging them to perform increasingly complex and professionalized tasks. The burden associated with this expanded healthcare function, however, is significant (fatigue, emotional distress and exhaustion). The aim (...) of this article was to present French sociologist Jacques Donzelot's theoretical perspective on governing through the family. According to Donzelot, such a government is exercised through various power techniques, including the instrumentalization of the family role and the transfer to families of the responsibility for health care. This author describes how healthcare institutions call on the family to perform hospital and biomedical practices within the home. A spin‐off of neoliberalism, the practices of governing through families specifically target women, who are considered to be the pillar of the family. Donzelot's perspective is very relevant to nursing, but is still rarely mobilized in the discipline. His critical perspective allows for a re‐reading of relations of power and mechanisms of surveillance and control of families, issues that are often overlooked in nursing research. (shrink)

On peut distinguer, dans l'histoire du marxisme contemporain, deux tendances qui n'ont cessé de se confronter sous des formes plus ou moins radicales et qui tiennent à deux lectures apparemment inconciliables de l'oeuvre de Marx. La première, selon laquelle le marxisme se résorbe essentiellement en une théorie scientifique , en une sociologie . Cette tendance trouve son expression culminante dans l'althussérisme, dans le primat des relations constitutives de la structure sociale sur les individus-sujets. La seconde, qui veut que le marxisme (...) soit d'abord et avant tout un humanisme et/ou une philosophie de la praxis, tout travail théorique se trouvant subordonné à sa visée historico-pratique : celle de l'instauration de rapports sociaux dans lesquels seraient abolis les rapports d'exploitation de l'homme par l'homme. Poser la question de l'existence d'une éthique marxiste, c'est tenter de résoudre théoriquement cette épineuse dichotomie entre l'objectivisme des « déterminations » sociales des représentations de conscience morales et la capacité des individus-sujets de produire un ordre social, d'orienter le développement historique conformément à ces représentations . Pour un matérialiste, n'y a-t-il pas là une contradiction interne au marxisme? L'auteur de l'article a tenté de faire voir, à travers quelques propositions sommaires, comment une telle contradiction peut être dépassée.In the history of contemporary Marxism one can distinguish two conflicting tendencies which continue to confront each other in a more or less radical manner, and which give rise to two apparently irreconcilable readings of Marx's work. The first is that by which Marxism is essentially absorbed into a scientific theory , into a sociology. This tendency finds its ultimate expression in 'althussérisme', in the primacy of the constituent relations of the social structure involving individual subjects. In the second, which sees Marxism as essentially humanist and/or a philosophy of praxis, all theoretical work is subordinated to the practical-historical aim, that of establishing social relations in which the exploitation of persons by persons will be done away with. To ask whether a Marxist ethic exists is an attempt to resolve theoretically this thorny dichotomy between the objectivism of the social determinants of the prescriptions of moral conscience, and the capacity of individual subjects to produce a social order to orient historical development in accordance with these prescriptions. For a materialist, is there not here an apparent contradiction within Marxism? The author has attempted to clarify, by means of a few succinct propositions, how such a contradiction may be resolved. (shrink)

Passant par les voies non pavées de l'interdisciplinarité, on entend ici montrer, au moyen d'une réflexion sur la triple articulation du corps, du signe et du pouvoir, en quoi l'alternative classique et binaire du matérialisme et de l'idéalisme peut être dépassée. Par l'approche utilisée, on ambitionne de contribuer conjointement à la théorie de la pensée et des représentations socio-culturelles et à une critique du concept de pouvoir revu à la lumière de la socio-psychanalyse. Les notions d'émancipation et de création, parallèlement (...) à celles de soumission et d'aliénation, sont reprises dans la perspective des conditions socio-culturelles de l'accès à la parole et à l'identité aussi bien personnelle que groupale et collective.Borrowing the unpaved ways of interdisciplinary we will here try to show, relying upon reflections on the relations between the body, signs and power, how the traditional and binary opposition of materialism and idealism can be overcome. It is hoped that the approach will jointly be a contribution to a theory of thought and of socio-cultural representations and a critique of the concept of power, restated with the assistance of socio-psychoanalysis. The notions of liberation and of creation, with those of submission and alienation, are here recaptured in connection with the socio-cultural conditions of access to language {parole) and to individual as well as group and collective identity. (shrink)

Robert Castel is an eminent figure in the social sciences because of his innovative contributions to various social and health fields. The seminal work of this poststructuralist author and social activist has influenced several research disciplines, but has not yet had a significant impact on nursing. In this article, we will present the thinking of this man, who considered himself a sociologist, philosopher and “historian of the present.” We will examine the most important issues he explored during his career, including (...) the psychiatric apparatus, the management of risk and the social vulnerability. We believe that this thinker's perspective on diverse social issues is very relevant to nursing practice and research and to the health sciences in general. The concepts he developed and utilized with finesse provide us with a critical reading of many contemporary health issues, particularly in mental health and psychiatric nursing. Castel's critical and engaged approach incites mobilization for social justice and greater protections for marginalized and vulnerable persons. These principles of advocacy and social justice are also at the heart of the nursing profession. (shrink)