_An exploration of philosophical and religious ideas about humor in modern philosophy and their secular implications._.

Part 2 of Volume 3 addresses in detail the conflicts between humor and cruelty, i.e., how cruelty can be unleashed against humor and, conversely, humor can be utilized against cruelty. Potent enmities to mirth and jollity are retrieved from a variety of socio-historical contexts, ranging from Europe’s medieval monasteries to the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre. Special attention is paid to the cruel humor and humorous cruelty arising thereof, insofar as such phenomena can reveal critical aspects of today’s neoliberal socio-economic order. (...) In parallel, settings where humor has been used as an instrument to cope with suffered cruelty, whether natural or human in origin, are also retrieved and discussed. These also vary greatly and encompass domains such as hospital wards, 20th-century Jewish ghettoes, and contemporary funeral homes. A set of concluding reflections is then offered on the psychological, theological, ethical, and metaphysical roots of humor—and its cruel rejection. (shrink)

The present book addresses the background, rationale, general structure, and particular aims and arguments characterizing our third and last volume about "humor" and "cruelty". A guiding foray is provided into the vast expert literature that can be retrieved in the Western humanities and social sciences on these two terms. Pivotal thinkers and crucial notions are duly identified, highlighted, and examined. Apposite subsidiary references are also included, especially with regard to psychodynamics and clinical psychology, existentialism, feminism, liberalism, Marxism, and representative recent (...) studies in the philosophy of humor and its cognates. The stage is thus set for the exploration and assessment of the conflicts between humor and cruelty unfolding in Part 2 of Volume 3. Being the philosophical terminus of our entire research project, Volume 3 counterbalances, complements, and, occasionally, complexifies the numerous forms of mutual cooperation between humor and cruelty that the preceding Volume 2 had unearthed and discussed. (shrink)

The book is addressed to all readers interested in cognitive science, and especially in research combining a logical analysis with psychological, linguistic and neurobiological approaches. The publication is the result of a collaboration between the Department of Cognitive Science at University of Lodz and the Department of Cognitive Science at Lund University. It is intended to provide a comprehensive presentation of the key research issues undertaken in both Departments, including considerations on meaning, natural language and reasoning, linguistic as well as (...) numerical competence, the theory of decision making, modelling of conceptual representations, cognitive and game theoretic approach to social interactions. (shrink)

This paper surveys historical and recent philosophical discussions of the relations between imagination and creativity. In the first two sections, it covers two insufficiently studied analyses of the creative imagination, that of Kant and Sartre, respectively. The next section discusses imagination and its role in scientific discovery, with particular emphasis on the writings of Michael Polanyi, and on thought experiments and experimental design. The final section offers a brief discussion of some very recent work done on conceptual relations between imagination (...) and creativity. (shrink)

Este trabajo examina algunos de los valores epistémicos que la metáfora adquiere en el discurso científico, así como la importancia que esta estrategia cognitiva asume dentro de cualquier programa de investigación que defienda el privilegio epistemológico de la ciencia moderna.

Humanist thought has long considered the nature of creativity in workers but the dominant framework for conceptualising creativity, rooted in psychological theory, has provided inadvertent limits on who might be considered creative at work. This is because creativity is commonly defined through the recognition of produced and valued novelty. This definition obscures all that is unrecognised, unrealised, unexercised, and currently in potential from being considered as creativity. Given that creativity can sometimes exist in potential, and that some workers have their (...) creativity actively prevented from being recognised, researching and understanding the unrecognised creative person can be seen as an important goal for humanist scholars. The goal of this paper then is to unpick the contradiction between unrecognised creativity and dominant definitions of creativity in order to enable a deeper understanding of creativity at work. The paper proceeds with an immanent critique of the dominant framework and its definition of creativity, before proposing a critical realist inspired ontology of creativity, including an augmented definition of creativity. The consequences of this research for understanding creativity in organisations are briefly reflected upon. (shrink)

Csikszentmihalyi (1999: 314) argues that 'creativity is a process that can be observed only at the intersection where individuals, domains, and fields intersect'. This article discusses the relationship between creativity and interdisciplinarity in science. It is specifically concerned with interdisciplinary collaboration, interrogating the processes that contribute to the collaborative creation of original ideas and the practices that enable creative integration of diverse domains. It draws on results from a novel real-world experiment in which small interdisciplinary groups of graduate students were (...) tasked with producing an innovative scientific research problem and an integrative research proposal. Results show that while bisociative thinking assists in the creation of original research problems, both disciplinary skills and an interdisciplinary disposition are core to the integration of creative research proposals. Extrapolating from the results of this experiment, the article discusses the feasibility of preparing students for such work and the implications for universities and other intellectual centers. (shrink)

Abstract‘Serendipity’ is a category used to describe discoveries in science that occur at the intersection of chance and wisdom. In this paper, I argue for understanding serendipity in science as an emergent property of scientific discovery, describing an oblique relationship between the outcome of a discovery process and the intentions that drove it forward. The recognition of serendipity is correlated with an acknowledgment of the limits of expectations about potential sources of knowledge. I provide an analysis of serendipity in science (...) as a defense of this definition and its implications, drawing from theoretical and empirical research on experiences of serendipity as they occur in science and elsewhere. I focus on three interrelated features of serendipity in science. First, there are variations of serendipity. The process of serendipitous discovery can be complex. Second, a valuable outcome must be obtained before reflection upon the significance of the unexpected observation or event in respect to that outcome can take place. Therefore, serendipity is retrospectively categorized. Third, the primacy of epistemic expectations is elucidated. Finally, I place this analysis within discussions in philosophy of science regarding the impact of interpersonal competition upon the number and significance of scientific discoveries. Thus, the analysis of serendipity offered in this paper contributes to discussions about the social-epistemological aspects of scientific discovery and has normative implications for the structure of epistemically effective scientific communities. (shrink)

According to David Chalmers, the hard problem of consciousness consists of explaining how and why qualitative experience arises from physical states. Moreover, Chalmers argues that materialist and reductive explanations of mentality are incapable of addressing the hard problem. In this chapter, I suggest that Chalmers’ hard problem can be usefully distinguished into a ‘how question’ and ‘why question,’ and I argue that evolutionary biology has the resources to address the question of why qualitative experience arises from brain states. From this (...) perspective, I discuss the different kinds of evolutionary explanations (e.g., adaptationist, exaptationist, spandrel) that can explain the origins of the qualitative aspects of various conscious states. This argument is intended to clarify which parts of Chalmers’ hard problem are amenable to scientific analysis. (shrink)

Speakers of jokes are aware of the human cognitively rooted relevance-seeking inferential procedure and predict the interlocutor’s steps leading to a valid interpretation of the utterance in the joke. Specifically, speakers can predict the accessibility to certain information which builds up a proper scenario for understanding the joke, the inferential steps taken to turn the words uttered into contextualized meaningful propositions, and the awareness of cultural stereotypes regarding professions, nationalities, connoted places, sex roles, etc.. This inferred information is exploited to (...) generate humorous effects. In previous research, the Intersecting Circles Model was proposed. It comprises seven types of jokes depending on whether the joke only relies on one of or on combinations of them, which entails analyzing the extent to which play or do not play a role in the generation of humorous effects. In this paper, 1000 jokes are analyzed and fitted into a type or combinations of. Several interesting humor-generating patterns are also isolated inside the seven preliminary joke types covered by the Model. (shrink)

This paper is an analysis of the concept of creativity. Tradition is followed in distinguishing three related but increasing complex concepts. The first concerns mere making or bringing into existence. It is not examined at length. The second builds on the first but includes the notion of novelty. The third incorporates the second but adds the notion of value. The latter two concepts of creativity are explored in great detail.

In this paper, we show that God is portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and in the Rabbinic literature—some of the very Hebrew texts that have influenced the three major world religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—as One who can be argued with and even changes his mind. Contrary to fundamentalist positions, in the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish texts God is omniscient but enjoys good, playful argumentation, broadening the possibilities for reasoning and reasonability. Arguing with God has also had a (...) profound influence upon Jewish humor, demonstrating that humans can joke with God. More specifically, we find in Jewish literature that humor’s capacity to bisociate between different domains of human experience can share a symbiotic relationship with argumentation’s emphasis on producing multiple, contested perspectives. Overall, once mortals realize that figures such as God can accept many perspectives through humor, teasing, arguing, criticism, and in at least one case, even lawsuits, a critical point emerges: citizens should learn to live, laugh, and reason with others with whom they disagree. (shrink)

Until now, adult crying has received relatively little interest from investigators, whereas in the popular media there are many strong claims about crying of which the scientific basis is not clear. In this review, we provide an overview of the current state of the scientific literature with respect to crying. We identify gaps in knowledge and propose questions for future research. The following topics receive special attention: Ontogenetic development, antecedents, individual and gender differences, and the intra- and interindividual effects of (...) crying. We conclude that the study of crying may help us obtain better insight into human nature, that is, not only our emotional, but also social, and moral functioning. (shrink)

Investigations of the function of consciousness in human information processing have focused mainly on two questions: (1) where does consciousness enter into the information processing sequence and (2) how does conscious processing differ from preconscious and unconscious processing. Input analysis is thought to be initially "preconscious," "pre-attentive," fast, involuntary, and automatic. This is followed by "conscious," "focal-attentive" analysis which is relatively slow, voluntary, and flexible. It is thought that simple, familiar stimuli can be identified preconsciously, but conscious processing is needed (...) to identify complex, novel stimuli. Conscious processing has also been thought to be necessary for choice, learning and memory, and the organization of complex, novel responses, particularly those requiring planning, reflection, or creativity. (shrink)

This paper replies to the first 36 commentaries on my target article on “Is human information processing conscious?” (Behavioral and Brain Sciences,1991, pp.651-669). The target article focused largely on experimental studies of how consciousness relates to human information processing, tracing their relation from input through to output, while discussion of the implications of the findings both for cognitive psychology and philosophy of mind was relatively brief. The commentaries reversed this emphasis, and so, correspondingly, did the reply. The sequence of topics (...) in the reply roughly follows that of the target article. The discussion begins with a reconsideration of the details of the empirical findings, whether they can be extrapolated to non-laboratory settings, and the extent to which one can rely on their use of subjective reports. This is followed by an in-depth discussion of what is meant by “conscious processing” and of how phenomenal consciousness relates to attentional processing. We then turn to broader philosophical and theoretical issues. I point out some of the reasons why I do not support epiphenomenalism, dualist-interactionism, or reductionism, and elaborate on how first- and third-person views of the mind can be regarded as complementary and mutually irreducible. I suggest how the relation of conscious experiences to their neural correlates can be understood in terms of a dual-aspect theory of information,and how this might be used to resolve some of the paradoxes surrounding the causal interactions of consciousness and brain. I also suggest that, viewed from a first-person perspective, consciousness gives purpose to existence, which allows a different way of viewing its role in evolution. (shrink)

I define serendipity as the art of making an unsought finding. And I propose an overview of my collection of serendipities, the largest yet assembled, chiefly in science and technology, but also in art, by giving a list of ‘serendipity patterns’. Although my list of ‘patterns’ is just a list and not a classification, it serves to introduce a new and possibly stimulating perspective on the old subject of serendipity. Knowledge of these ‘serendipity patterns’ might help in expecting also the (...) unexpected and in finding also the unsought. * I acknowledge A. D. de Groot, R. C. M. Noordam, B. P. van Heusden, T. Pinkster, C. J. van den Berg, T. A. F. Kuipers, A. Wegener Sleeswijk and my referee for their suggestions and I dedicate this article to T. A. van Kooten. Cases and studies of serendipidy are welcome. À propos: a travelling serendipity exhibition is available, also for ‘new democracies’: ‘Freedom of opportunity as developed by democracy is the best human reaction to divergent phenomena. We may, in fact, define ‘freedom’ as ‘the opportunity to profit from the unexpected.’ (Langmuir [1956]). (shrink)

Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi‐pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the “traditional” symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recentsituated (...) cognition and active visionapproaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non‐discursiveness, creativity, and seeing as) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non‐discursive and relates it closely to seeing as. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought. (shrink)

Many kinds of creativity result from combination of mental representations. This paper provides a computational account of how creative thinking can arise from combining neural patterns into ones that are potentially novel and useful. We defend the hypothesis that such combinations arise from mechanisms that bind together neural activity by a process of convolution, a mathematical operation that interweaves structures. We describe computer simulations that show the feasibility of using convolution to produce emergent patterns of neural activity that can support (...) cognitive and emotional processes underlying human creativity. (shrink)

The discussion begins with a familiar and defensible characterization of the eureka moment, according to which it is the unexpected product of separate and often seemingly incompatible perspectives. The principal aim of the discussion is to explain how, so characterized, vision-related eureka moments can occur. To fulfill this aim, the discussion employs a notion of crosstalk, in which cognitive interference slightly increases as a result of the creative thinker's considerable, albeit only partly successful, pre-eureka cognitive effort. Such crosstalk, it is (...) suggested, is likely to occur when top-down visual imaging repeatedly stimulates pyramidal cells closely apposed to others that, although simultaneously active, are part of bottom-up visual perception that is initially cognitively unrelated to such imaging. It is further suggested that local circuitry, in the form of inhibitory interneurons, can synchronize cells associated with these initially separate processes, thus causing subsequent perceptual patterns to be subtly modified by pre-eureka problem-solving imagery. This modification, it is claimed, may help explain the unexpected shift in visual perception that accompanies the creative thinker's eureka moment, a shift that can improve the thinker's subsequent understanding of the relevance of information to a problem's solution. (shrink)

Micro-sociological theory has traditionally stressed interactional pressures towards alignment: actors’ attempts to co-construct a shared definition of the situation. We argue that this model provides an insufficient account of the coordination of action and of the emergence of intersubjectivity among actors. To complement the focus on alignment, we develop a theory of disruption—a perceived misalignment of the dramaturgical structure of interaction in coordinating expected lines of action. We develop a theory of the interaction order that takes the interplay between interactional (...) alignment and disruption as a foundational challenge both for sociology and for actors in their everyday lives. We focus on the practical ways in which actors negotiate both interactional breaches and wider relational ruptures, and how they differentiate between disruptions-of relations and disruptions-for them. By doing so, we connect the interaction order to a wider relational order, providing a bridge between micro-level interactionism and the sociology of culture. (shrink)

Disgust, the emotion of rotting carcasses and slimy animalitos, finds itself at the center of several critical questions about human culture and cognition. This article summarizes recent developments, identify active points of debate, and provide an account of where the field is heading next.

Experiences of art involve exercise of ordinary cognitive and perceptual capacities but in unique ways. These two features of experiences of art imply the mutual importance of aesthetics and cognitive science. Cognitive science provides empirical and theoretical analysis of the relevant cognitive capacities. Aesthetics thus does well to incorporate cognitive scientific research. Aesthetics also offers philosophical analysis of the uniqueness of the experience of art. Thus, cognitive science does well to incorporate the explanations of aesthetics. This paper explores this general (...) framework of expansionism : a research strategy that suggests that the explanatory goals and resources of both aesthetics and cognitive science should expand to include those of the other. Two relations are considered. First, what is the relation between aesthetics and more traditional cognitive science? Second, what is the relation between aesthetics and new developments in cognitive science that de-emphasize mental representation and emphasize body and action? (shrink)

In this article, I explore the music-in-becoming as a dialogue. The thesis of my inquiry is that during musical composition, the composer’s listening is marked by both activeness and receptiveness; actively structuring the sounding work, and receptively letting the work express itself as it takes its form. Composer and work merge in sudden moments of attunement, the sensation of coherence between the so-fare completed and the anticipation of the as-of-yet unformed work. Composition is all about balancing writing as a handicraft (...) with those rare, unexpected moments of attunement. I discuss the emerging work’s invitational character and the fact that during composition, the piece seems to request the composer’s attention. The audibility of the work’s voice depends on the composer’s ability to listen. Finally, the methodological considerations concerning sonic-artistic research show that researching sonic experiences requires competencies of being attentive, responsive, and reflective. Attentiveness is related to thorough listening experiences of the emerging music, responsiveness appears as a vital skill in a composer’s dialoguing with the music-in-becoming, and reflectiveness is associated with empirically documenting the processes. At the heart of this sonic research project, I place my lived experience of composing and the intimate relation between sound and listening. (shrink)

Recent trends in the understanding of culture contact, with concepts such as hybridization, cosmopolitanism, and cultural innovation, open up the possibility of a new understanding of human interaction. While the social imaginary is rich with images of conflict resulting from culture contact, images of creativity are far rarer. We propose the creation of an extensive research project to document cultural creativity, starting with obvious examples in the arts, and expanding into all areas of life in order to counteract the present (...) conflictual images and develop a social imaginary with positive “attractor” images that can guide to greater creativity. (shrink)

The concept of creativity is a central one in folk psychological explanation and has long been prominent in philosophical debates about the nature of art, genius, and the imagination. The scientific investigation of creativity in humans is also well established, and there has been increasing interest in the question of whether the concept can be rigorously applied to non-human animals. In this paper, I argue that such applications face serious challenges of both a conceptual and methodological character, reflecting deep controversies (...) within both philosophy and psychology concerning how to define and apply the concept of creativity. After providing a brief review of some of the leading theories of creativity and discussing some of the strongest putative cases of creative intelligence in non-human animals, I examine some of the more worrisome difficulties faced by attempts to use these theories to answer the question of whether animals are truly creative. I conclude by examining how we might overcome them, and suggest that one approach worth taking seriously is to adopt what I term a Strong Rejectionist view of creativity, eschewing use of the term entirely in the scientific study of comparative cognition. (shrink)