This article reveals an overlooked way of interpreting sentences like “The Internet is crack [cocaine]” or “Libraries are supermarkets.” Many existing theories of metaphor could apply here. However, they can instead be interpreted in a likeness-exaggerating way, under which “Libraries are supermarkets” is simply an exaggerated way of saying that libraries are like supermarkets to a very high degree. This interpretation option follows from simple, general considerations about exaggeration and likeness scales. In this way it is preferable to the abbreviated- (...) class='Hi'>simile view of metaphor, and in any case it can be added to any existing metaphor account. It has broad significance for the theory of metaphor and simile, but also provides a new, straightforward explanation of the special, likeness-strengthening effect in utterances such as “Libraries aren’t merely like supermarkets, they are supermarkets.” This effect exists despite evidence that X-is-Y metaphors do not generally convey more likeness than correspondin. (shrink)

Irony is an effective but challenging mode of communication that allows a speaker to express viewpoints rich in sentiment with concision, sharpness and humour. Creative irony is especially common in online documents that express subjective and deeply-felt opinions, and thus represents a significant obstacle to the accurate analysis of sentiment in web texts. In this paper we look at one commonly used framing device for linguistic irony—the simile—to show how even the most creative uses of irony are often marked (...) in ways that make them computationally feasible to detect. We conduct a very large corpus analysis of web-harvested similes to identify the most interesting characteristics of ironic comparisons, and provide an empirical evaluation of a new algorithm for separating ironic from non-ironic similes. (shrink)

Metaphor abounds in both sign and spoken languages. However, in sign languages, languages in the visual-manual modality, metaphors work a bit differently than they do in spoken languages. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which metaphors in sign languages differ from metaphors in spoken languages. We address three differences: (a) Some metaphors are very common in spoken languages yet are infelicitous in sign languages; (b) Body-part terms are possible in very specific types of metaphors in sign (...) languages, but are not so restricted in spoken languages; (c) Similes in some sign languages are dispreferred in predicative positions in which metaphors are fine, in contrast to spoken languages where both can appear in these environments. We argue that these differences can be explained by two seemingly unrelated principles: the Double Mapping Constraint (Meir 2010), which accounts for the interaction between metaphor and iconicity in languages, and Croft's (2003) constraint regarding the autonomy and dependency of elements in metaphorical constructions. We further argue that the study of metaphor in the signed modality offers novel insights concerning the nature of metaphor in general, and the role of figurative speech in language. (shrink)

This paper offers a new reading of Heraclitus fragment B90 (Diels-Kranz). It argues that we can enrich our understanding of the fragment by reading it, not as a primitive analogy, but as a skillful simile grounded both in the poetic tradition and in the cultural context that would have conditioned its significance for Heraclitus and his audience. Read in this way, B90’s evocation of a cosmos whose common measure parallels the common measure of the polis’ marketplace is not simply (...) a source of cosmological doctrine. It is also an epistemic challenge that threatens to undermine the very possibility of cosmology. (shrink)

French theorists have recently proposed a theory which describes all literature in terms of the probable, the vraisemblable.6 This poetics of the probable commences with a purely relativistic claim. What is probable not only changes in accordance with the audience’s concept of reality but also changes in accordance with the needs of the story and with the narrative possibilities open to various genres. It includes all of the norms and models making a given text understandable to the reader, however outlandish (...) and eccentric it may be. Various levels of the vraisemblable are distinguished from each other, and the vraisemblable based upon models of the world or the world view prevalent in a given culture is scrupulously separated from types of the vraisemblable that are based upon literary, generic models. However, as Tzvetan Todorov gladly admits, “the two notions tend to melt into each other.”7 He and other theorists see the literary genre itself as one of the models “probabilizing” a given text, at times in direct contradiction with “natural” models of the world. Still others see the world, or the prevalent world view, as the universal text which probabilizes other texts.[…]Rather than how this new concept of the vraisemblable, of probability, fares in relation to farce in films, theater, and literature, I prefer to ask how farce fares in relation to it. I think that it doesn’t do well. Farce shows that it is a mistake to unify the possibilities for understanding a text and the possibilities for understanding its fictional world within a single integrated concept. It is a further mistake to term such a concept “probability.” When dealing with the fantastic or the marvelous, for instance, probabilizing the text and probabilizing the work’s fictional world may legitimately be unified under a single principle or concept. If we agree to change or suspend a fundamental belief about the world, we will be able to perceive as logical and probable not only the texts but also the fictional worlds of such works. Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” excellently fits works that are written in these genres. Such works require that we temporarily forget a certain general belief about the world. After we’ve agreed, as a result of this suspension, to include certain elements in the world , we may then rebuild the fictional world while using the rest of our beliefs along with this new assumption. Farce’s incredibility creates a different situation. Before we have even begun to recover from an attack upon one probability principle, another is undermined. In farce the rules of probability are not neutralized in one specific realm of reality; their inversion operates constantly on all of reality’s realms. The image of a seemingly real world, reminding us of our own world and of our own set of probabilities, is all we need to be constantly astonished by farce’s persistently novel deviations from predictable probability. Here, in direct opposition to the marvelous, the new deviations must keep on coming from unexpected directions, because farce won’t allow its incredibilities to consolidate and become new rules of probability. The fictional world of overt farce lacks a specific factor, the one that would have probabilized all of the other factors of this world. Such an Archimedean center might seem to be located in the genre’s definition—this genre, however, does not probabilize the incredible. Farce’s definition does not make farce’s world more intelligible in any sense of that word. At the very most, farce allows us to forgo such intelligibility without transgressing the established boundaries of art.6. For an excellent presentation of their views, see Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature , pp. 131-60.7. Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose, trans. Richard Howard , p. 83. See also his introduction to Communications 11 : 2. (shrink)

There are many moral values that the Arab writers have written about either in prose or poetry. This emphasis on morality in classical Arabic literature has also been the subject of many academic studies. The abundance of the literary material in this field has attracted the attention of researchers. One of these is the emphasis on "naturalness" which we have seen in classical Arabic literature. In the Arab society which social ties are very strong the moral values have been summarized (...) with the concept of al-murūah/chivalry over time. In these sources that is including poems, parables and anecdotes about morality allthings on the moral values are brought together. Hereunder the main thing in the moral maturity is the naturality. Criticism of ostensible behaviors has taken place in an important part of these works. For example, ancient perception of morality is a predestination that comes from creation has found its response in Arabic poetry. Many Arab poets have stated that one's innate character will beat and the reason will be defeated. On the other hand, some poets tried to establish a balance between character and wisdom. Accordingly, it has been stated that people are innately inclined to falses but they also have the potential to restrain their innate evil tendencies with the ability of mind given to them. These poets liked to explain this balance through the simile stating he ambitious horse that wants to run at full speed is restrained with a bit. According to this simile the man is like a person on the back of a raging horse with the evil inclinations cultivated in his nature. The soul he carries wants to take him wherever it wishes. However, he has a mind that is like a bridle in return for the soul inside him. On the other hand, when we look at the encyclopedic sources of Arabic proverbs we see that there are proverbs comparing many moral attributes with animals. In Turkish proverbs, cunning is identified with the fox and industriousness with the ant, and in Arabic proverbs a very rich human character-animal pairings stand out. These proverbs are based on the idea that people's character is the product of nature. Because each animal species has appreciated characteristics and these features occur without learning and education. In addition, the issue of the naturalness of morality was also used for the purpose of praise and satire in the classical Arabic poets. The poet makes his reproach or anger towards someone through his character. When describing his lover he states that the beauties that adorn him come from creation. Therefore, it can be said that the emphasises of character/nature/temperament in the poems in which these and similar emotions are aroused, are the motifs that serve the purpose of the poet. Finally Arab writers have offered many recommendations in literary form on issues such as brotherhood, solidarity and cooperation for the healthy continuity of social relations in the Muslim society, and they have included anecdotes and poems within the framework of the subject. The study is mainly based on the descriptive method, however, the way the authors handled the subject is analysed when it is deemed to be appropriate. Considering that there is no specific study in Turkish and Arabic literature within the framework of the present study, it is aimed to investigate the literary material in the subject in question. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s experiments on rhythm, conducted in Charles Myers’s laboratory in Cambridge during the years 1912–13, are his earliest recorded engagement in thinking about music, not just appreciating it, and philosophizing by means of musical thinking. In this essay, I set these experiments within their appropriate intellectual, scientific, and philosophical context in order to show that, its minor scientific importance notwithstanding, this onetime excursion into empirical research provided an early onset for Wittgenstein’s career-long exploration of the philosophically pervasive implications of aspects. (...) Dramatically moving beyond the conceptual limitations, which were inscribed by Charles Myers’s scientific program, Wittgenstein got a glimpse of a philosophical angle, which was bound to become very important to him not only in aesthetics, but also for his overarching philosophical development. He became interested in what we actually do when we re-phrase, compare, come up with good similes in order to illuminate something definite within the space of possibility, so a new aspect may come to life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Ovidian Tails PAUL BAROLSKY Kneeling at the edge of a pond in push-up position, a beautiful nude boy crowned with flowers gazes down at the water in which he beholds his reflection. In love, he is enthralled. Thus, the image of Narcissus rendered by the Florentine painter Alessandro Allori in a work that has been largely overlooked until recently. Datable to the second half of the sixteenth century, (...) it now hangs in the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC. In the distant background of the picture we behold Echo, who extends an arm upward seemingly in a gesture of despair, since she is rejected by Narcissus. She stands before a mass of rock, her left leg beginning to turn to stone, the very stone into which she vanishes as only her voice remains when she echoes her beloved. The painting abounds in Alessandro Allori, Narcissus. Photograph © Patricia Rubin. arion 26.3 winter 2019 closely observed passages such as the little fish in the pond, one of which has captured a worm. There are other notable details such as the crab on a rock in the foreground, or the clusters of pendulous, ripe grapes, fruit of Bacchus, to whom androgynous Narcissus is likened in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Allori also employs poetic simile in his picture, since the fingers of the youth’s left hand rhyme with the finger-like roots that emerge from the water. These roots are magnified in turn by their reflected image on the water’s surface. 136 three ovidian tails Abraham Janssens, Nymph and Pan Among the Reeds. AKG / Museen Böttcherstra ße. The apex of the picture, we might say, is baby Cupid who, hovering above, aims his dart at Narcissus and thus arouses the boy’s desire. The shape of Cupid’s bow echoes that of Narcissus ’s prominent buttocks which are framed by the attractive, bright golden drapery fluttering prominently around the youth’s posterior. One might well say that Allori features the buttocks of Narcissus’s body most provocatively in a kind of butt which recalls that of Cupid in the famous Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time painted by the artist’s teacher, Bronzino. What Allori pictures is not exactly what Ovid writes. It is, however, how Allori imagines the Narcissus of Ovid’s tale. Allori is not alone among Ovidian artists in focusing on the backside of the human body. The posterior is especially prominent in another mythological picture, this one from the early seventeenth century, executed by a disciple of Rubens, Abraham Janssens. This work has found its way to Bremen, where it is now housed in the Ludwig Roselius Museum. It illustrates Pan’s pursuit of Syrinx, who is metamorphosed into reeds in a story told by Mercury in order to put Argus asleep. Ovid is Janssens’s point of departure. The artist depicts the moment when a muscular Pan with a ruddy, almost leathery face embraces Syrinx in her new form as a bunch of reeds. Janssens departs from Ovid with a most novel invention. He depicts a woman, seen from behind, who dominates the composition. With sharp contrasts of lights and darks, vestiges of Caravaggio, the painter emphasizes the female’s imposingly broad backside, which is framed by a billowing, bright, attention-grabbing red drapery that she seems to hold across the front of her body. Could it be that Janssens here alludes to the backside of Syrinx as Pan would have seen it when he chased her? It would seem that we are given not only a view of Pan embracing reeds, we are simultaneously given a Pan’s-eye view of Syrinx’s prominent and provocative backside before her metamorphosis. I wish to consider one final example of the derrière in Ovidian art, this one prominent in a picture painted well Paul Barolsky 137 over a hundred years after Janssens worked: Louis-JeanFran çois Lagrenée’s Abduction of Deianira by the Centaur Nessus, a work which is now in the Louvre. In Ovid’s story, Hercules arrives with his bride Deianira at the shore of the river Evenus where she is abducted by Nessus, who flees only to have Hercules shoot him with... (shrink)

he true relation between these scenes and historic fact is more mysterious and less simple. The metamorphosis takes place on a higher plane. Historic events and the poet's inner experience are stripped of everything accidental and actual. They are removed from time and transported into the large and distant land of Myth. There, on a higher plane of life, they are developed in symbolic and poetic shapes having a right to an existence of their own. The fact, therefore, that the (...) subjection of the storm is described in a simile for a moment highlighting a very important sphere of the poem is more decisive than a possible allusion to the younger Cato. (shrink)

A dilemma has stymied interpretations of the Stranger’s method of dividing kinds into subkinds in Plato’sSophistandStatesman. The dilemma assumes that the kinds are either extensions or intensions. Now kinds divide like extensions, not intensions. But extensions cannot explain the distinct identities of kinds that possess the very same members. We propose understanding a kind as like an animal body—the Stranger’s simile for division—possessing both an extension and an intension. We find textual support in the Stranger’s paradigmatic four steps for (...) collecting a subkind. (shrink)

he true relation between these scenes and historic fact is more mysterious and less simple. The metamorphosis takes place on a higher plane. Historic events and the poet's inner experience are stripped of everything accidental and actual. They are removed from time and transported into the large and distant land of Myth. There, on a higher plane of life, they are developed in symbolic and poetic shapes having a right to an existence of their own. The fact, therefore, that the (...) subjection of the storm is described in a simile for a moment highlighting a very important sphere of the poem is more decisive than a possible allusion to the younger Cato. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s experiments on rhythm (1912-13) were based on Charles Myers’s 1911 written protocols for laboratory exercises. The experiments provided an early onset for Wittgenstein’s career-long exploration of the philosophically pervasive implications of aspects. Years before the Tractatus, Wittgenstein already got a glimpse of a philosophical angle, which was bound to become very important to him not only in aesthetics, but also for his overarching philosophical development. He became interested in the possibilities of aesthetic conversation, in what we actually do when (...) we re-phrase, compare, come up with good similes in order to illuminate something definite within the space of possibility. These initial insights were bound to recede into the background for a while by the mounting demands of the Tractatus framework, only to fully bloom in Wittgenstein’s later work. (shrink)

The prevalent theories of metaphor in the literature, with very few exceptions, involve a conversion of either meaning or reference from the literal meaning or reference of the metaphor to either a corresponding simile or to a metaphorical meaning or reference. In this essay an altemative to the conversion view - i.e., a constancy theory - is offered that requires no such conversions. H.R Grice's notions of conversational maximes and implicatures provide a conceptual framework within which to account for (...) metaphors in a totally literal context. A selection procedure is suggested as the mechanism by which one can interpret metaphors and distinguish them from other figures of speech. (shrink)

The prevalent theories of metaphor in the literature, with very few exceptions, involve a conversion of either meaning or reference from the literal meaning or reference of the metaphor to either a corresponding simile or to a metaphorical meaning or reference. In this essay an altemative to the conversion view - i.e., a constancy theory - is offered that requires no such conversions. H.R Grice's notions of conversational maximes and implicatures provide a conceptual framework within which to account for (...) metaphors in a totally literal context. A selection procedure is suggested as the mechanism by which one can interpret metaphors and distinguish them from other figures of speech. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bernard Harrison THE TRUTH ABOUT METAPHOR GOTTLOB frece introduced into philosophy two doctrines whose subsequent influence, on analytic philosophers at least, has been momentous. One is the doctrine that to understand a sentence is to know how to set about establishing die trudi-value of an assertion couched in those words. The other is the doctrine that a word has meaning only in the context of a sentence. These doctrines (...) make it hard to understand metaphor. They create difficulties, especially, for any theory of metaphor which assumes the intelligibility of talk about two kinds of meaning, literal and metaphorical. Frege's doctrines allow only one kind of meaning: one connected essentially with the issue of truth and falsity. But it is only when we take them literally that metaphorical sentences acquire a truth value: usually false. Two obvious suggestions offer ways of getting around this. The first is the suggestion diat metaphors are condensed or disguised similes: true or (sometimes) false statements about similarity. The second is the suggestion that a term used in a metaphorical context just has a different literal meaning from the one it has in a sentence intended to be taken literally. Neither is very plausible. The first reduces a metaphorical comparison, "Man is a wolf," to a literal statement of similarity, "Men are like wolves." But what similarity, exactly, is the statement supposed to be asserting? Perhaps that men prey upon one anodier, as wolves are supposed to do. But dien "prey" can only be meant metaphorically, at which point die puzzle revives. As Goodman says of die attempt to find a simile in the metaphorical assertion diat a picture is sad, "What die simile says in effect is that person and picture are alike in being sad, die one literally and the odier metaphorically. Instead of metaphor reducing to simile, simile reduces to metaphor; or radier, the difference between simile and metaphor is negligible." ' 38 Bernard Harrison39 An equally fatal objection to the second suggestion is diat it is only ifwe take die terms which compose a metaphor in their plain everyday senses that they compose a metaphor. As R. M. J. Dammann puts it, "IfGod is a rock in a different sense from that in which Gibraltar is one, then both are really, literally, rocks, just as what one buys in a sweetshop is rock, though a dissatisfied customer might call it such metaphorically."2 It cannot, in odier words, be literally true diat die process of understanding a metaphor involves changing the sense ofits constituent expressions, odierwise metaphor would evaporate in die reader's grasp into literality. What this suggests is diat what makes a sentence metaphorical is not any change in the meaning of its constituent expressions, but the way in which those expressions, with dieir plain everyday meanings, are combined in the sentence. What we need, perhaps, ifwe are to begin to understand metaphor, is not a dieory ofmetaphorical meaning, but an account of what it is to assert metaphorically: an account, diat is, which would operate at the level of die sentence rather than at diat of die word. But this returns us to Frege's two doctrines. If the meaning of a word is to be wholly identified with die contribution it makes to die determination of a truth value for each sentence in which it occurs, dien it is difficult to see how the constituents of a sentence could determine anything odier than a plain, literal meaning for the sentence as a whole. What I shall try to show in this essay is that this difficulty can be overcome : that we can give a satisfactory account of the semantic mechanisms of metaphor without giving up either of Frege's doctrines. As Frege thought, understanding a sentence is knowing how to set about establishing the truth or falsity ofassertions couched in diose words. But to say what, exacdy, someone knows in knowing diat demands, I shall argue, a more complicated story than Fregeans have supposed. First, diough, I want to consider a more radical strategy dian mine for squaring Frege's doctrines with our experience of metaphor, proposed by Donald Davidson.3 Davidson holds widi Frege that the... (shrink)

Tibetan Buddhist writings frequently state that many of the things we perceive in the world are in fact illusory, as illusory as echoes or mirages. In Twelve Examples of Illusion , Jan Westerhoff offers an engaging look at a dozen illusions--including magic tricks, dreams, rainbows, and reflections in a mirror--showing how these phenomena can give us insight into reality. For instance, he offers a fascinating discussion of optical illusions, such as the wheel of fire (the "wheel" seen when a torch (...) is swung rapidly in a circle), discussing Tibetan explanations of this phenomenon as well as the findings of modern psychology, and significantly clarifying the idea that most phenomena--from chairs to trees--are similar illusions. The book uses a variety of crystal-clear examples drawn from a wide variety of fields, including contemporary philosophy and cognitive science, as well as the history of science, optics, artificial intelligence, geometry, economics, and literary theory. Throughout, Westerhoff makes both Buddhist philosophical ideas and the latest theories of mind and brain come alive for the general reader. -/- "This delightful book offers a rich and satisfying philosophical feast to anyone interested in the phenomenon of illusion itself or in the Buddhist analysis of the human condition. Westerhoff draws together classical Buddhist scholarship, contemporary cognitive science and his own judicious philosophical reflection in a serious but refreshingly accessible engagement with the Buddhist tradition in the exploration of the role of illusion in our cognitive and emotional lives." Jay L. Garfield, author of Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika -/- "Jan Westerhoff creatively juxtaposes an important Buddhist study of illusion with fascinating modern researches on illusory experiences, using the latter to illuminate the former. The result is a revealing account of the pervasiveness of illusion in our cognitive experience and the very structure of our cognitive apparatus. It brings to life the Buddhist discussion of illusion, making it relevant to our everyday experience instead of being high-minded intellectual exercises only." -/- Tao Jiang, author of Contexts and Dialogue: Yogacara Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind -/- "The twelve similes for the illusory nature of this world are very profound, and Westerhoff does them wonderful justice in this excellent book." -/- Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University. (shrink)

Relying on evidence from fifteen epigraphic collections and sixty-odd ancient sources as well as discussing a literature of over five hundred titles, the essay’s highly unorthodox conclusions are a case in point of the micrological ideal of achieving novelty on any given subject by way of transcribing and studying first-hand all relevant materials – edited and unedited alike. The paper’s ambition was to shed new light on one of the most intriguing analogies of the whole Aristotelian corpus, namely the comparison (...) between words and pebbles. A review of all material evidence and virtually all extant sources made short work of two related, albeit mutually exclusive, misconception about ancient reckoning boards and their workings: (1) the idea that – for all practical purposes – the abacus’ arrangement mirrored the decimal system, its columns and rows conveniently matching units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. (2) the idea that the inscriptions on several surviving counting boards were a nuisance to the extent that, being inconsistent to a fault with the decimal system itself, they made actual calculations harder than they already were (as opposed to making them easier, as one would expect). The paper demonstrated that the first assumption – the « decimal » bias – is simply mistaken and betrays little or no awareness of the epigraphic and archaeological evidence. The paper also demonstrated that the second assumption – the « abacus riddled with complications » bias – simply defeats the purpose of resorting to the abacus in the first place and betrays a poor understanding of its practical vocation which, most assuredly, was not to add to the very problem it was meant to solve. After bulldozing its way through both misunderstandings, the essay focused on the abacus most distinctive features, that is positionality (i.e. the abacus being a positional system through and through) and hybridity (i.e. the abacus’ place value system being monetary in nature and purpose, as opposed to it being abstract and homogeneous). The final result is an interpretation that moves away from the received views by showing that the prologue of the Sophistici elenchi offers no support to the notion that, when Aristotle referred to counters, he was leaning on a kinship of sorts – or any kinship, for that matter – between abstract calculation and speech. Once we turns the pebble’s simile on its head and set it back upon its feet (Aristotle’s pebble analogy is about pebbles, what else?), it becomes clear that it presupposed numeracy all right, but it was not about numeracy itself. Moreover its goal was not to explain why computational and linguistic symbolisms succeed, but to explain how they fail – failure being the whole point; in this particular instance, failure to detect and prevent abusive value shifts affecting words and counters alike. (shrink)

In this paper, I will attempt to interpret Plato's concept of knowledge as he presents it in the very end of Book V of the Republic. An adequate interpretation of Plato's concept of knowledge must be able to account coherently for the following, According to Plato, knowledge is not a state of mind, but an ability or power of the mind and is therefore, formally analogous to sight. This analogy is presented explicitly and in great detail in the famous ‘similes (...) of light,’ the Sun, Divided Line, and Cave passages of Books VI and VII. Cognition, for Plato, comes in degrees from clearer to less clear. Finally, knowledge is related in a special way to being. (shrink)

The Qurʾān is certainly the last of the divine teachings and the most perfect. While this holy book has a perfect miraculous feature, especially since its rules are valid until the Day of Judgment, it also contains many unique features in terms of style and content. The Qurʾān firstly asks people to understand it thoroughly and live it in their lives. In order for them to live, they must first correctly understand the messages that the Qurʾān gave to people. In (...) order to understand it well, they must either know the language it uses or try to understand it through translations. It is obvious that it is not practically possible for all people to know Arabic. Because people have different languages, cultures, and races due to the wisdom of Allah. Therefore, nations who speak different languages in the world have translated the Qurʾān into their own languages in order to understand what the Qurʾān means and to apply its rules to their lives. It is a fact that the Qurʾān was partially translated into different languages during the reign of Prophet Muḥammad (pbuh). As a matter of fact, Salmān al-Fārisī's (d. 36/656 [?]) (r.a.) translation of Surah Fatiha into Persian and the translation of the verses in the letters that our Prophet (pbuh) had written in order to invite communities speaking different languages to Islam can be given as an example to this situation. The Qurʾān has been many times interpreted, mealed, and translated into different languages of the world since the time it was revealed to the present day. There is no doubt that the translation of the Qurʾān will continue as long as people speak different languages until the end of the worldly life. It is mentioned in the sources that the first translation of the Qurʾān into Kazakh was made by Mūsā Jārullāh (d. 1368/1949) at the beginning of the 20th century. However, this translated work was not published and remained only as a manuscript. Another important issue is the scholars' thoughts on the language of the translation in question. As a matter of fact, according to them, the language of the translation is Tatar, not Kazakh. In this study named as ‘TheTranslation Issue of Mutashābih Expressions in the Example of Kazakh Translations Prepared in the 20th Century’ five important Kazakh translation works were examined prepared in the 20th century, named as Qurʾān Shareef Kazakhsha Magina Jane Tusinigi of Khalifa Altay (d. 1424/2003), Qurʾān Kareem Kazakhsha Avdarmasi of Azīz Akituli (d. 1434/2013) and Makash Akituli (d. 1424/2003), Qurʾān Kareem Jane Onin Kazakhsha Maginasi of Nurali Oserov (d. 1435/2014) and Jumabay Istaeev (d. 1422/2001), Qurʾān Kareem of Ratbek Nisanbayuli and Vahap Kidirhanuli and Qurʾān Kareem Kazakhsha Magina Jane Tusinigi of Vahap Kidirhanuli. First, the lives of the authors, the general evaluations of those works, the language of the published works, the problematic aspects, and technical features in terms of method and content were discussed. In the next step, how the translators translated the khabarī attributes, which are among the mutashâbih expressions in the Holy Qurʾān, into Kazakh and the problems that these translations cause are addressed. One of the most important subjects and issues of the science of tafsīr, which has an important place in the scientific tradition of the Islamic religion, is undoubtedly the issue of mutashabihs in the Qurʾān, and the subject has been discussed by especially theologians in many scientific traditions in the historical process. Allah almighty, the Creator of all realms, informs people of some of his qualities in the Qurʾān so that we can know himi and have knowledge of what kind of being Allah is. Through revelation, Allah introduced himself to his believers via an understandable language framework which includes appropriate comparisons and metaphors. This presentation has also been realized through the ḥadīths of Prophet Muḥammad (pbuh). Therefore, these two sources inform us Allah's qualities Khabarī qualities refer to those that are reported in verses and ḥadīths and that are fixed by revelation. In this article, the eleven verses in which the mutashābih adjectives that are attributed to Allah, such as yad, vach, ayn, istiwa, kabza, macī', and etā, are considered as examples. Understanding the qualities of Allah correctly is very important in terms of having a affirmative and corrective faith. This study aims to reveal what kind of kalamī view Kazakh translators use when interpreting mutashābih expressions into Kazakh. In addition, in the study, mutashābih expressions should be interpreted within the boundaries determined by the Qur'ān and the Science of Ḥadīth, with expressions that can be accepted by the human mind, without falling into simile and embody. To our knowledge this is the first study focusing on on the issue of translating mutashābih expressions in Kazakh translations made in Kazakhstan in the 20th century. (shrink)

Rather than isolate Achilles' prayer to Zeus in Book 16 of the "Iliad" from its immediate context, this paper analyzes the passage as an integrated whole. Recent work on the Homeric simile shows that Homer links images by an "associative technique," sometimes in the service of characterization. Additionally, Phillip Stambovsky's study of literary imagery suggests that such imagery often contributes to characterization insofar as it "presentationally depicts" important themes of the literary work. I argue that indeed the imagery in (...) the passage of Achilles' prayer dramatizes a great theme connected with his characterization: his indecision between desire for warfare and desire for safety. The elements of the passage repeatedly refigure Achilles' dissonant state of mind. The wolf simile, for example, opposes pure and defiled, to point proleptically to the combat that destroys Patroclus after Achilles dispatches him, the very outcome Achilles wishes to avert through ritual and prayer. The Myrmidon catalogue juxtaposes its first two entries, those of Menesthios and Eudoros, to highlight Eudoros' lack of a human father and alienation from his mother, a scenario which recalls Achilles' experience. Thus the catalogue reconstitutes in a separate fiction Achilles' own personal history in order to expose the sources of conflict there. Finally, the wasp simile, when contextualized according to the characterization of Achilles, also figures oppositions like those Achilles enacts when he urges on the war while at the same time seeking to mitigate its violence. The passage's imagery is itself a vivid narrative depicting Achilles' strenuous attempt to resist the violence of heroic combat as well as his own imminent death within it. (shrink)

K. K. Baczyński is usually perceived as a poet of the Columbus Generation (especially in case of teenagers and Polish language students). His poetry is not really known to the Polish reader. Its knowledge is usually restricted to some standard poems, for example With the head on the gun (Z głową na karabinie) or The Generation (Pokolenie). Having kept track of Baczyński’s creative activity ever since the juvenile period up till the poems written a few months ahead of his death, (...) it can easily be observed that his poetry is very fabulous, full of such characters as the king’s daughter, the mermaid, the aquarius, the knight and the glass mountain. The Dragon appears in 11 poems. It can be observed in the pre-war poems (e.g. Come, my good dragon - Przyjdi mój dobry smoku) as well as in the ones written during the occupation, for example The crystal Idyll (Idylla kryształowa). The dragon’s figure is perceived as the main character of the poem, the simile or the metaphor. All kinds of Baczyński’s “dragons’ presence” has been discussed or signalled in the article. The author seems to be intrigued by the two questions she is trying to give answers to: what is the function of dragons in Baczyński’s poems, any why is it a different dragon every time? A good example seems to be the poem Fault (Wina) where the author presents his own version оf the legend of St. George. The dragon is not a beast to be killed in order to save the imprisoned “blue-haired girl”. She felt safe. The dragon could be her protector or a friend. She is mourning for its death. It is the knight to be blamed not the dragon. All Baczyński’s dragons are good. (shrink)

Like so many sciences, linguistics originated from philosophy's rib. It reached maturity and attained full independence only in the twentieth century (for example, it is a well-known fact that the first linguistics department in the UK was founded in 1944); though research which we would now classify as linguistic (especially leading to generalizations from comparing different languages) was certainly carried out much earlier. The relationship between philosophy and linguistics is perhaps reminiscent of that between an old-fashioned mother and her emancipated (...) daughter, and is certainly asymmetric. And though from philosophy's rib, empirical investigation methods have ensured that linguistics has evolved (just as in the case of the more famous rib) into something far from resembling the original piece of bone. Another side of the same asymmetry is that while linguistics focuses exclusively on language (or languages), for philosophy language seems less pervasive - philosophy of language being merely one branch among many. However, during the twentieth century this asymmetry was substantially diminished by the so called linguistic turn1, undergone by numerous philosophers – this turn was due to the realization that as language is the universal medium for our grasping and coping with the world, its study may provide the very key for all other philosophical disciplines. As for the working methods, we could perhaps picture the difference between a philosopher of language and a linguist by means of the following simile. Imagine two researchers both asked to investigate an unknown landscape. One hires a helicopter, acquires a birds-eye view of the whole landscape and draws a rough, but comprehensive map. The other takes a camera, a writing pad and various instruments, and walks around, taking pictures and making notes of the kinds of rocks, plants and animals which he finds. Whose way is the more reasonable? Well, one wants to say, neither, for they seem to be complementary.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Poems Ancient and Contemporary HELAINE L. SMITH On the cover of Like: Poems by A. E. Stallings is a double photograph of a double image: two ancient carved heads, in profile and facing each other, of the pole horses of a quadriga, a four-horse chariot, dated about 570 BC, and currently in the collection of The Acropolis Museum. The marble horse in profile on the right side of the (...) cover, looking to the left, has a longer neck and face, and is undamaged except for a hairline crack at the neck. Its counterpart has a broader cheek, with light chipping above the nostril and an ear broken off. But they so mirror each other, they are so “like,” that at first glance one might suppose the photographs to be the right and left sides of the same horse. The bottom half of the cover of Like is an exact replica of the top, but the tinting is different, the heads in the top band cream-colored, in the arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Like: Poems by A. E. Stallings was published in 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. Stallings’s earlier books of poetry include Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012), and a verse translation of Lucretius’ The Nature of Things (2007). bottom a delicate ochre or sand. There is, then, on the very cover of Like a promise of complex correspondence and subtle variation within the volume itself. Stallings’s title suggests poetry as the art of locating and articulating likeness or as the act of finding one thing in another. And in Stallings’s delicate, robust, witty, and humane use of the past, “like” also and most significantly means that they—the figures of ancient myth—and we are alike in our shared experience and shared humanity. Stallings sometimes presents classical and mythological references glancingly, and that is part of the delight—catching the joke in Hermes’ epithet, “lord of florists,”1 finding in “The Rosehead Nail” that the local blacksmith in Monteagle, Tennessee, “was a god / Before... the tasks / That had been craft were jobbed out to machine.” Likeness is, of course, the mode of Homeric simile, and in “Selvage” Stallings turns the simile of Odyssey 22.468–73, in which Homer compares the hanged maids to thrushes caught in a net, into a different but contextually relevant parallel: “they hang... From the warp like a dozen ancient loom weights,” a likeness that evolves from Stallings’s double entendre in line seven describing the maids as “spinsters of their own doom,” an allusion both to the task, properly theirs, of weaving and to their disclosure to their lovers of Penelope’s secret unravelling. Stallings can expand as well as adapt Homeric similes. At Iliad 2.87–2.90 Homer likens the Achaians’ assembly at Agamemnon’s command to arm and attack Troy to bees leaving the hive: Like the swarm of clustering bees that issue forever in fresh bursts from the hollow in the stone, and hang like bunched grapes as they hover beneath the flowers in springtime fluttering in swarms together this way and that way so the many nations of men from the ships and the shelters along the front of the deep sea beach marched in order by companies to the assembly2 178 poems ancient and contemporary Homer finds likeness in the orderly setting forth—of bees, of men—to do what is required. This, on the other hand, is what Stallings does: Colony Collapse Disorder (Iliad, 2.87–2.90) Just as a swarm pours from a hollow rock In one long beeline for the wild thyme, Alighting in clusters on this purple and that, But is stricken with a mass amnesia That disorients the compass of the sun, And they forget the steps to traditional dances, And each helicopters into a different dimness Taking their saddlebags of sweetness with them, And the hive goes dark, the queen is left to starve, And the drones humbug the whimper of the world, And the palace falls to ruins, broken into By vandals who would loot the golden stores Left in the brittle wax hexameters, Just so... And “so” her... (shrink)

In Professor Ferguson's renewed study of these similes he has introduced a very detailed and careful analysis of Plato's analogies in order to explain and support his interpretation. He has also attacked the view which I put forward in 1932, and I should like to say something in defence of that view, not in any polemical spirit, but from a perhaps too obstinate belief that my reading of the passage does rest on solid foundations. I will not attempt any comprehensive (...) discussion of Professor Ferguson's theories, either in their earlier or their present form, but merely try to indicate what seems to me the real issue between us. (shrink)

Plato's use of illustrative material, in the widest sense, is very varied. Parts of the field have had some study—his use of metaphor and simile and his use of proverbs, at least as regards subject-matter and sources. The object of the present article is to consider in general what may already have been catalogued somewhere—his quotations from other writers and his references to myths and to other stories.

In lieu of hand-waving, let us begin our treatment of psychological research on metaphor by considering some common interests shared by psychologists, on the one hand, and by philosophically oriented humanists, on the other. At least four areas have proved sufficiently central to both groups to merit extensive discussion in the respective literatures. At first issue centers on the specificity of the processes involved in metaphor: Is metaphoric skill a capacity especially intertwined with linguistic skills, or is it a much (...) broader human capacity, one identified with general perceptual and conceptual processes? A related question has arisen within the area of language: Is metaphor a special kind of trope, with its own rules, properties, and applications, or should it be closely allied with such other tropes as similes, analogies, or hyperbole? The third issue moves yet further within the circle of metaphor to treat the question of whether all metaphors are of a piece, or whether various types of metaphor each require their own analysis. And a final issue of concern to both groups is the question of whether metaphoric usage or by considering its pragmatic aspects—the various speech acts employed within a community.1 One could go on to state other issues, but this tetrad should suffice to indicate the common body of concern addressed by experimental and humanistic researchers. · 1. Cf. Cohen, "The Semantics of Metaphor" and John Searle, "Presentation on Metaphor and Pragmatics" . Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist, is codirector of Harvard Project Zero and a clinical investigator at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital. His books include The Quest for Mind, The Arts and Human Development, and, most recently, Developmental Psychology: An Introduction. Ellen Winner teaches in the psychology department of Boston College and is a research associate at Harvard Project Zero. A developmental psychologist, she has conducted research on the development and breakdown of metaphoric language capacities and has examined the emergence of metaphoric capacities in very young children. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Timaeus as Cultural IconGerard NaddafGretchen J. Reydams-Schils, editor. Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon. Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Pp. xiv + 334. Cloth, $59.95. Paper, $29.95.This volume emanates from an international conference entitled "Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon" held at the University of Notre Dame in 2000. In the introduction, the editor and organizer, Gretchen Reydams-Schils (GRS), contends that the title is meant (...) to communicate the considerable influence of Plato's Timaeus on so many different intellectual traditions and asks "What could account for this philosophical and cultural status?" (1).There are thirteen essays by distinguished specialists in the field. For some reason, a number of the essays do not focus on the general theme of the volume and the question GRS raises, "what could account for this philosophical and cultural status?" is never directly, or even indirectly, addressed. In this short review, I will examine the essays in their order of appearance and make some general comments at the end.Mitchell Miller, in the opening essay, argues that the Timaeus must be understood as addressed to a nonphilosophical audience, although he endeavors to show how the philosophically minded could interpret the Timaeus in light of the god-given method, the longer way, of the Philebus (16c-17a). With this in mind, Miller shows that the constitution of the elements and animals in the Timaeus was in fact determined in light of this method. From this perspective, the Timaeus is addressed not only to a nonphilosophical audience—albeit chiefly to these—but also to a philosophical audience.Kenneth Sayre discusses a number of inconsistencies and incoherences in Plato's description/analysis of the Receptacle and concludes that it is nothing short of a "failed experiment." Personally, I find Plato's analysis rather helpful in a manner analogous to the famous similes he employs in the Republic to help us grasp the Form of the Good. Meanwhile, there is nothing in the essay, as with Miller's essay, to indicate why the Timaeus would constitute a cultural icon (unless as a paradigm for opacity and thus as a catalyst for allegorical interpretation, but again this is not Sayre's intent). [End Page 335]John Dillon, with whom the notion of the Timaeus as a cultural icon begins to emerge, emphasizes that most of the members of the Old Academy, including Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Cantor, maintained (contra Aristotle) that Plato did not hold that the universe was created. While it is true, as he notes, that they were in a better position to interpret the master, the fact remains that they all had different interpretations. There is thus a sense in which Dillon's analysis confirms Miller's position that Plato meant the Timaeus for two very different audiences.Carlos Lévy focuses on the difficulty that Cicero had in translating the Timaeus without reverting to Stoic concepts. He argues that a Latin reader, unfamiliar with the Greek, would assume that transcendence is nonexistent and that mind and matter, as with the Stoics, are one. However, Lévy remains silent on why Cicero would not allow Plato to speak for himself, given that this appears to be the norm with many of his other interlocutors. Moreover, it is difficult again to see why the Timaeus would constitute a "cultural icon."Luc Brisson presents the Timaeus in a radical new light. He shows the extent to which the Timaeus, or more precisely the highly exegetical Middle Platonist interpretation of the work, was the primary reference text for the influential Chaldean Oracles. This is an excellent example of the iconic status of the Timaeus, but it is worth noting that the Chaldean Oracles themselves and their doctrine of salvation may have been historically more influential than the Timaeus itself.David Runia's essay is also an excellent example of the iconic influence of Plato's Timaeus, but unlike Brisson, he focuses on a particular feature of the cosmogonical account rather than the entire treatise: how the Timaeus influenced the debate, including with regard to the opening verses of Genesis, on first principles and the doctrine of creation. Runia... (shrink)

The dissertation seeks answers to several foundational questions whose resolution is a necessary prerequisite to the development of a computational theory of metaphor processing. Working within a naturalistic framework, I address three main issues. Does metaphor fall within the domain of semantic theory or pragmatic theory? Is the concept of metaphor embedded in a 'folk' understanding of language and thought, and, if so, will the notion of metaphor-processing figure in any mature scientific psychology? Does the distinction between the metaphorical and (...) the literal inherently involve claims about truth and reference, and, if so, how can this distinction be addressed by a psychology that presupposes methodological solipsism? ;I defend the traditional, Aristotelean view which seeks to analyze both metaphors and similes in terms of underlying statements of comparison. This view implies that metaphors have semantic content, that they can, like literal claims, but true or false. I argue that Donald Davidson's analysis of meaning can, contrary to Davidson's own position, support this Aristotelean comparativist thesis. ;I then conclude that a semantic theory of metaphor must quantify over extra-psychological facts about the world. This raises the problems mentioned above concerning the psychological status of metaphor in a very pressing way. I reject both of the standard responses to these problems, eliminativism and sentential realism, and argue that explanations involving an extra-psychologically individuated type--such as metaphor--can constrain explanations involving a solipsistically individuated type. This offers some hope that an extensional theory of metaphor may be psychologically relevant. ;In Chapter Five I develop such an extensional theory. Through philosophical interpretation of work by some psychologists--principally A. Tversky and A. Ortony--I arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the metaphoricity of an utterance. This definition constitutes the principal positive accomplishment of the dissertation. ;Chapter Six reviews some unsolved foundational problems for future attention, sets my project in the context of other philosophical work on metaphor, and then looks forward to a computational theory of metaphor processing. (shrink)

Zeugma (“The storm sank my boat and my dreams”) is a well-recognized figure of speech whose mechanism of operation is less well understood. We suggest treating zeugma as a breach of syntactic iconicity: the syntactic form of the coordinative construction statement implies an equivalence or semantic proximity between the two objects of the verb (boat and dreams), while the objects supplied are semantically very distant. Unlike nominal metaphors and similes, in zeugmas two metaphorically-related, nonsymmetrical objects are put in syntactically symmetrical (...) positions. This feature, the breach of iconicity, registers as a surprise, an effect wholly different from that of metaphors and similes. Seeing zeugma in these terms makes it possible not just to explain its functioning beyond broad pronouncements about yoking together different items, but to tease apart syntactic and semantic factors that contribute to the level of the breach of iconicity and subsequently to the zeugma’s strength. Moreover, understanding zeugmas as a surprising breach of iconicity leads to the question of how this breach may be accommodated or made sense of. In the second part of the essay, we introduce three types of accommodation strategies, each with a distinct focus: the language, the objects, and the speaker. (shrink)

At 195B 9 it is pointed out that the Wax Block theory does not cover that large class of judgments in which no sense-objects are concerned, e.g. judgments about numbers. How can we make the mistake of judging that 7 + 5 = 11?The simile of the Aviary, now introduced, is very simple. It illustrates the difference between potential knowledge and actual knowledge, i.e. between knowledge at our disposal, because it has been learnt and stored away in the mind, (...) and knowledge present and ‘alive’ at the moment. The theory is that when we make a mistake about the sum of 7 and 5 we are ‘hunting for’ the knowledge of 12, which we ‘possess’ as we might possess a bird in a cage, but which we have not ‘got about us’ ; but we mis-take, wrongly take our knowledge of 11, i.e. we call up before our mind a different piece of knowledge. (shrink)

In Professor Ferguson's renewed study of these similes he has introduced a very detailed and careful analysis of Plato's analogies in order to explain and support his interpretation. He has also attacked the view which I put forward in 1932, and I should like to say something in defence of that view, not in any polemical spirit, but from a perhaps too obstinate belief that my reading of the passage does rest on solid foundations. I will not attempt any comprehensive (...) discussion of Professor Ferguson's theories, either in their earlier or their present form, but merely try to indicate what seems to me the real issue between us. (shrink)

In the Rules the young Descartes likens his method to the thread that guided Theseus. The simile is born of a confidence that he has seen through the art of the followers of Daedalus and this has given him a model of how to unriddle the labyrinth of the world. From the very beginning Descartes had an interest not only in optics, perspective, and painting, but in using his knowledge of them to duplicate some of the effects said to (...) have been created by the thaumaturgic magicians. Anamorphoses and automata not only provided Descartes with examples of deceptive appearance, but also pointed the way to the solution of the riddle they posed. Yet it is precisely the attempt to take this exit from the labyrinth of the world that threatens to lead back into it, as the search for truth is threatened by the infinity of space. To claim absolute truth, the natural philosopher would have to show that the mechanical model he has proposed is the only one that could account for the phenomena in question. This, as Descartes himself is forced to recognize, he is unable to do. Are we back in the labyrinth? Instead of seeing in Descartes's method an Ariadne's thread, Father Bourdin likens that method to Icarus. Annoyed, Descartes ridicules the good Father. But Bourdin's too often empty rhetoric raises a serious question: is Descartes Theseus, Daedalus, or Icarus? At stake is our understanding of the world we live in. (shrink)

A non-expert who struggles to make good decisions and who turns to decision theory for help, might be more than a little surprised by what they find. If they read a standard treatment of the subject, they will find that they are assumed to be logically omniscient: they know all the logical facts about the propositions whose truth they have considered. Their beliefs are also assumed to be logically closed: if they believe each of a set of propositions S, then (...) they believe everything that can be deduced from S. Finally, they are assumed to be maximally opinionated—they have assigned precise probabilities and cardinal utilities to each possible state of the world that can be formulated via S. The normative core of standard decision theory consists of some very weak axioms for these probabilities and car-dinal utilities, plus the advice to maximize their expected utility, which is a function of the probabil-ities and cardinal utilities for each possible state of the world given each possible choice that they can make. The non-expert might understandably react by saying that this theory is too idealized to be useful for human beings. It is this criticism that Richard Bradley addresses with patience, rigour, and ardour in this book. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cultural Transactions: Nature, Self, SocietyRoger SeamonCultural Transactions: Nature, Self, Society, by Paul Hernadi; ix & 156 pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995, $27.50 paper.Thinkers have often found the world rather Gaulish—or, if you prefer, have carved it up to make it so. In Cultural Transactions Paul Hernadi starts from the premise that “We typically experience ourselves as objectively existing organisms, players of intersubjectively assigned and evaluated roles, or (...) as subjective selves” (p. 3), which correspond to the nature, society, and self of his subtitle. He then collects and creates triads which are meant to be homologous with the foundational trio. Some of these are traditional (truth, justice, beauty), others are cobbled out of folk psychology (desire with, desire that, desire for), some are taken from other thinkers (Martin Buber’s It, Thou, and I), but most are based on linguistic concepts. Thus, Hernadi sums up at one point by saying, “In the preceding sections I suggest that all discourse involves action, production, and signification, and that doing, making, and meaning tend respectively to predominate in speaking, writing, and thinking—the prime vehicles of communication, expression, and representation in our culture” (p. 28). The process culminates in the postulation of three triangles (discourse, awareness, and value) whose apices and sides constitute two triads. Each side is itself then divided into three, which makes for a total of five triads per triangle (pp. 111, 120, 130), to which we should add about twenty or so spelled out earlier. This is an argument by accumulation for a triadic human universe.Hernadi sees life (and Cultural Transactions is about nothing less) as a complex dance both within and between these cooperative triads: “Yet the natural domain of Its (to be individuated as such by one of Buber’s two Is) and the social domain of Buber’s I-Thou relations would not be what they are without self-conscious individuals who are able to pick out themselves as [George Herbert] Meadian Mes and other particulars as Its or Thous from what [End Page 535] thereby becomes someone’s natural and social environment” (p. 88). Again: “Consensus, coherence, and correspondence have sometimes been invoked as rival criteria of truth. From the present book, they should emerge rather as mutually supportive goals in our lifelong pursuit of interactive doing, self-expressive making, and world-oriented meaning” (p. 109). Sometimes the triads run parallel to each other, and at other times they are nested. Thus, the triad within beauty consists of Dionysian “world-absorbed engulfment” (nature), “ludic” imitation (the social dimension of art), and Apollonian “self-controlled detachment” (self) (pp. 130–31). In the next triad up, Beauty is parallel to self, goodness is the value analogous to society, and truth corresponds to the world.Some of the triads are indeed “quite clever” (p. 142) (Hernadi’s own phrase from a self-reflexive “Epilogue”), as when he writes, “Natural must gives way to social should only to make room, eventually, for personal may as well” (p. 99). This nicely captures our sense that freedom has degrees, but more often there are dubious appropriations and stretched similes. For example, Hernadi uses a mere pronoun to make his case for the possibility of a seamless blending of the three realms—“the ecumenical ‘we’ recombines the first-, second-, and third person perspectives of communication”—and he continues with a very unpersuasive simile—“just as a rapidly spinning top turns the three cardinal colors painted on it into the whitish hue of unrefracted light” (p. 75). This is not an argument, but the expression of a wish.Although each triad is meant to be homologous with the foundational trio, there are quite a few uncomfortable fits. For example, I don’t see how “being with” is the apex formed by truth and beauty, while “being of” comes between justice and beauty, and “being toward” belongs between beauty and truth (p. 130). There are also odd omissions. Hernadi rejects Freud’s id, ego, and superego as insufficiently fine-grained to capture our complex subjectivity (p. 90) (which they were never meant to do), but the parallel to his major triad of nature, self and society seems... (shrink)

Richard Jeffrey, Michael Hendrickson; XIV*—Probabilizing Pathology, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 211–226, htt.

Richard Jeffrey, Michael Hendrickson; XIV*—Probabilizing Pathology, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 211–226, htt.

Reasons transmit. If one has a reason to attain an end, then one has a reason to effect means for that end: reasons are transmitted from end to means. I argue that the likelihood ratio (LR) is a compelling measure of reason transmission from ends to means. The LR measure is superior to other measures, can be used to construct a condition specifying precisely when reasons transmit, and satisfies intuitions regarding end-means reason transmission in a broad array of cases.

The probabilization of a logic system consists of enriching the language (the formulas) and the semantics (the models) with probabilistic features. Such an operation is said to be exogenous if the enrichment is done on top, without internal changes to the structure, and is called endogenous otherwise. These two different enrichments can be applied simultaneously to the language and semantics of a same logic. We address the problem of studying the transference of metaproperties, such as completeness and decidability, to the (...) exogenous probabilization of an abstract logic system. First, we setup the necessary framework to handle the probabilization of a satisfaction system by proving transference results within a more general context. In this setup, we define a combination mechanism of logics through morphisms and prove sufficient condition to guarantee completeness and decidability. Then, we demonstrate that probabilization is a special case of this exogenous combination method, and that it fulfills the general conditions to obtain transference of completeness and decidability. Finally, we motivate the applicability of our technique by analyzing the probabilization of the linear temporal logic over Markov chains, which constitutes an endogenous probabilization. The results are obtained first by studying the exogenous semantics, and then by establishing an equivalence with the original probabilization given by Markov chains. (shrink)

We establish a probabilized version of modus tollens, deriving from p(E|H)=a and p()=b the best possible bounds on p(). In particular, we show that p() 1 as a, b 1, and also as a, b 0. Introduction Probabilities of conditionals Conditional probabilities 3.1 Adams' thesis 3.2 Modus ponens for conditional probabilities 3.3 Modus tollens for conditional probabilities.

Medical diagnosis has been traditionally recognized as a privileged field of application for so called probabilistic induction. Consequently, the Bayesian theorem, which mathematically formalizes this form of inference, has been seen as the most adequate tool for quantifying the uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis by providing probabilities of different diagnostic hypotheses, given symptomatic or laboratory data. On the other side, it has also been remarked that differential diagnosis rather works by exclusion, e.g. by modus tollens, i.e. deductively. By drawing on a (...) case history, this paper aims at clarifying some points on the issue. Namely: 1) Medical diagnosis does not represent, strictly speaking, a form of induction, but a type, of what in Peircean terms should be called ‘abduction’ (identifying a case as the token of a specific type); 2) in performing the single diagnostic steps, however, different inferential methods are used for both inductive and deductive nature: modus tollens, hypothetical-deductive method, abduction; 3) Bayes’ theorem is a probabilized form of abduction which uses mathematics in order to justify the degree of confidence which can be entertained on a hypothesis given the available evidence; 4) although theoretically irreconcilable, in practice, both the hypothetical- deductive method and the Bayesian one, are used in the same diagnosis with no serious compromise for its correctness; 5) Medical diagnosis, especially differential diagnosis, also uses a kind of “probabilistic modus tollens”, in that, signs (symptoms or laboratory data) are taken as strong evidence for a given hypothesis not to be true: the focus is not on hypothesis confirmation, but instead on its refutation [Pr (¬ H/E1, E2, …, En)]. Especially at the beginning of a complicated case, odds are between the hypothesis that is potentially being excluded and a vague “other”. This procedure has the advantage of providing a clue of what evidence to look for and to eventually reduce the set of candidate hypotheses if conclusive negative evidence is found. 6) Bayes’ theorem in the hypothesis-confirmation form can more faithfully, although idealistically, represent the medical diagnosis when the diagnostic itinerary has come to a reduced set of plausible hypotheses after a process of progressive elimination of candidate hypotheses; 7) Bayes’ theorem is however indispensable in the case of litigation in order to assess doctor’s responsibility for medical error by taking into account the weight of the evidence at his disposal. (shrink)

Researchers have identified 2 distinctive types of pictorial displays, namely, pictorial metaphor and pictorial simile, and offered theoretical explanations of them. Regarding the distinction between pictorial metaphor and pictorial simile, we argue that symmetric image alignment of pictorial components depicting things at the object level is the principal design factor that sets pictorial simile apart from pictorial metaphor and links pictorial simile to pictorial grouping. Based on the idea of symmetric image alignment, an attempt is made (...) to identify and explain a further type of pictorial display, namely, pictorial oxymoron. We propose a hypothesis, called the "image grouping hypothesis," to provide an integrated account of pictorial grouping, pictorial simile, and pictorial oxymoron. The hypothesis can be summed up as follows: Symmetric image alignment of pictorial components depicting things of the same kind is apt for expressing pictorial grouping; symmetric image alignment of pictorial components depicting things of different kinds is apt for expressing pictorial simile; and symmetric image alignment of pictorial components depicting things that can be seen as incompatible with each other is apt for expressing pictorial oxymoron. (shrink)

Two principal questions are addressed: In De Finibus 3.54 what position does Cicero imagine the talus to fall and lie? How does this talus simile shed light on the problematic relationship between the Stoics’ doctrine of ‘preferred indifferents’ and their definition of the Good as virtue?