. . . Unlike Dewey, he has provided detailed incisive argumentation, and has shown just where the dogmas and dualisms break down." -- Richard Rorty, The Yale Review.

In Exploring Robotic Minds: Actions, Symbols, and Consciousness as Self-Organizing Dynamic Phenomena, Jun Tani sets out to answer an essential and tantalizing question: How do our minds work? By providing an overview of his "synthetic neurorobotics" project, Tani reveals how symbols and concepts that represent the world can emerge in a neurodynamic structure--iterative interactions between the top-down subjective view, which proactively acts on the world, and the bottom-up recognition of the resultant perceptual reality. He argues that nontrivial problems (...) of consciousness and free will could be addressed through structural understanding of such iterative, conflicting interactions between the top-down and the bottom-up pathways. A wide range of readers will enjoy this wonderful journey of the mind and will follow the author on interdisciplinary discussions that span neuroscience, dynamical systems theories, robotics, and phenomenology. The book also includes many figures, as well as a link to videos of Tani's exciting robotic experiments. (shrink)

I modify and generalize Carnap’s notion of frameworks as a way of unpacking Goodman’s metaphor of “making worlds with symbols”. My frameworks provide, metaphorically, a way of making worlds out of symbols in as much as all our framework-bound access to the world is through frameworks that always stand to be improved in accuracy, precision, and usually both. Such improvement is characterized in pragmatist terms.

Various defenses of amodal symbol systems are addressed, including amodal symbols in sensory-motor areas, the causal theory of concepts, supramodal concepts, latent semantic analysis, and abstracted amodal symbols. Various aspects of perceptual symbol systems are clarified and developed, including perception, features, simulators, category structure, frames, analogy, introspection, situated action, and development. Particular attention is given to abstract concepts, language, and computational mechanisms.

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We (...) propose neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space. (shrink)

Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several general arguments supporting the centrality of perceptual representations to concepts. In this article, I identify a number of weaknesses in these arguments and defend a multiple semantic code approach that posits both perceptual and non-perceptual representations.

An encyclopedic study on the role that fear and anxiety have played as the organizing motives of human existence and social life. Hankiss explains how human beings have surrounded themselves with protective symbols: myths and religions, values and belief systems, ideas and scientific theories, moral and practical rules of behaviour, and a wide range of everyday rituals and trivialities.

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion from its nonhuman ritual roots. We consider the critical element differentiating religious from non-human ritual to be the conditioned association of emotion and abstract symbols. We (...) propose neurophysiological mechanisms underlying such associations and argue that the brain plasticity of human adolescence constitutes an “experience expectant” developmental period for ritual conditioning of sacred symbols. We suggest that such symbols evolved to solve an ecological problem by extending communication and coordination of social relations across time and space. (shrink)

An important function of emoji as communicative symbols is to convey emotional content from sender to receiver in computer-mediated communication, e. g., WhatsApp. However, compared with real faces, pictures or words, many emoji are ambiguous because they do not symbolize a discrete emotion or feeling state. Thus, their meaning relies on the context of the message in which they are embedded. Previous studies investigated affective judgments of pictures, faces, and words suggesting that these stimuli show a typical distribution along (...) the big two emotion dimensions of valence and arousal. Also, emoji and emoticons have been investigated recently for their affective significance. The present study extends previous research by investigating affective ratings of emoji, emoticons and human faces and by direct comparison between them. In total, 60 stimuli have been rated by 83 participants, using the non-verbal Self-Assessment Manikin Scales for valence and arousal. The emotionality of the stimuli was measured on a 9-point Likert scale. The results show significant main effects of the factors “stimulus category” and “discrete emotion” including emotionality, valence and arousal. Also, the interaction between these two main factors was significant. Emoji elicited highest arousal, whereas stimuli related to happiness were rated highest in valence across stimulus categories. Angry emoji were rated highest in emotionality. Also, the discrete emotion was best recognized in emoji, followed by human face stimuli and lastly emoticons. (shrink)

There is some limited contemporary scholarship on the theory of metaphor Kant appears to provide in his Critique of Judgment. The dominant interpretations that have emerged of Kant’s somewhat nascent account of metaphors are what I refer to as the symbolist view, which states that Kantian symbols should be viewed as Kantian metaphors, and the aesthetic idea view, which holds that Kant defi ned metaphors as aesthetic ideas . In this essay, I claim that the symbolist view of Kantian (...) metaphors is not plausible and that we should accept the aesthetic idea view in its stead. The jumping off points for my discussion are two fairly recent essays on the subject: A. T. Nuyen’s “The Kantian Theory of Metaphor” and Kirk Pillow’s “Jupiter’s Eagle and the Despot’s Hand Mill: Two Views of Metaphor in Kant.” Nuyen defends the symbolist view of Kantian metaphor and Pillow defends a split view, i.e., Pillow thinks Kant has a dual-aspect view of metaphor that can bear both the symbolist and the aesthetic idea interpretations. Although I make use of some of Pillow’s objections against the symbolist view, I conclude that both he and Nuyen are wrong in thinking that Kantian symbols have any relationship to Kantian metaphors at all. Lastly, I will provide my own positive account of Kant’s theory of metaphors as well as show how this debate affects Kant’s overallaesthetic theory. (shrink)

For Murray Edelman, political realities are largely inaccessible to the public, save by the mediation of symbols generated by elites. Such symbols often create the illusion of political solutions to complex problems—solutions devised by experts, implemented by effective leaders, and undemonstrably successful in their results.

The goal of this paper is a reassessment of Peirce’s doctrine of symbol. The paper discusses a common reading of Peirce’s doctrine, according to which all and only symbols are conventional signs. Against this reading, it is argued that neither are all Peircean symbols conventional, nor are all conventional signs Peircean symbols. Rather, a Peircean symbol is a general sign, i. e., a sign that represents a general object.

This article will discuss the epistemology of symbols employed by African traditional medical practitioners in treating their patients and the essence of such symbols among traditional communities across the continent. Relying on diverse studies by other researchers and my own investigation conducted among the Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria, this paper will explore relevant aspects of African traditional medicine as they relate to symbols employed by the practitioners in their effort to offer health care and general wellbeing to (...) their clients. (shrink)

In this article, we scrutinize several arguments that are frequently used to legitimize a ban on religious symbols for civil servants. Most arguments, however, do not stand up to the test of Rawlsian political liberalism. One argument stands out as underpinning such a general ban: state neutrality. While this argument has the most potential, we argue why it is still not decisive for a ban on all religious symbols for all civil servants. We conclude that from a political (...) liberal point of view the discussion is inconclusive, and therefore advocate a context-sensitive and balanced approach to the matter of civil servants’ dress code with respect to religious symbols. By arguing that political liberalism is indecisive, our position is different from both ‘exclusive neutrality’ and ‘inclusive neutrality’. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The human brain appears to be the most complex structure for its size in the known universe. Consequently, studies of the brain have required many models and theories at many levels that involve disciplines from basic physics, to neurosciences, psychology and philosophy. For over 2000 years the two most controversial and unresolved models of brain phenomena involve what we call _free will_ and _consciousness_. I argue that adequate models at all levels (...) require epistemic _complementarity_ – distinct necessary models that are not derivable or reducible to each other. The primitive irreducible complementarity at all levels is the _subject-object_ distinction required by an _epistemic cut_. This complementarity first arises with self-replication where a _self_, the _subject_, must be distinguished from the _non-self_, the _object_. (shrink)

One of the central debates among British chemists during the 1830s concerned the use of symbols to represent elements and compounds. Chemists such as Edward Turner, who desired to use symbolic notation mainly for practical reasons, eventually succeeded in fending off metaphysical objections to their approach. These objections were voiced both by the philosopher William Whewell, who wished to subordinate the chemists' practical aims to the rigid standard of algebra, and by John Dalton, whose hidebound opposition to abbreviated notation (...) symbolized the suspicion with which older British chemists perceived continental innovations. It is argued that the success of chemists like Turner in this debate reflects their larger success in the 1830s in achieving disciplinary autonomy and in beginning to align themselves more closely with prevailing chemical practice across the Channel. (shrink)

With the use symbols by political subjects arises the problem of their understanding. Groups of symbols can be created in such a way to contain a message. The state coat of arms is a political symbol, in which is concentrated a number of meanings and significance. The coat of arms — it is a symbol garnished with colossal endless meaning and potential withing its power. Besides this, the state coat of arms appears in numbers like mandalas: it is (...) like this archaic symbol, that combines various geometric shapes expressing the idea of order. The state coat of arms perceptively unites people of different genders, ages, social status andfaith into a united orderly community. A person contemplating the state coat of arms understands it as the center of the universe. The coat of arms is transformed into endlessness, attaining the result of uniting the macrocosm — society and state — and with the macrocosm — man. The function of political symbols exists so as to represent the “body” of a concrete political subject or society as a whole, at the same time in every part of a text “is highlighted” yet another part of the endless semantical richness of the symbol. Political symbols have important significance for the support or destruction of socio-political order. But the chief essence ofpolitical symbols — is the ability to give meaning to all political activities, and the regular “exposition” of state symbols guarantees the stability of the existing socio-political system. (shrink)

In this most recent book in an evolving series of foundational works in philosophy, semiotics, and theology, Neville probes into the nature and function of that class of signs that have an astonishing power to transform selves and communities. In unfolding what, for him, are the essential ingredients in religious symbols, he uses some of the categories and phenomenological descriptions that have done service in his other works. Particularly, he brings to bear on symbols his analysis of the (...) creator/creation relationship, his privileging of value over form, and the nature of determinateness and its boundary. At the same time, he puts pressure on any semiotic theory that would engulf the uniqueness of religious symbols under a pseudogeneric understanding of codes. (shrink)

: The European Court of Human Rights, established in 1959 as the unit of the Council of Europe, is the judicial authority that resolves individual, legal personality and international problems within the scope of fundamental rights defined in the 'European Convention on Human Rights' and other protocols. Historically, the European Court of Human Rights has taken various decisions that are considered within the scope of freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Court defines in its decision, and in particular, what (...) it can be judged within the context of the religious symbol, from a secular point of view. The court recognized the right to freedom of belief and religion, on the other hand, described this right as a declaration of belief in public. The study was designed with a 'conceptual screening model' approaching religious symbols on the basis of freedom of religion and belief. Although this study seems to be in essence a literature review, conceptual screening differs from the literature review method in that it examines the different aspects of a concept within the scope of different science and disciplines. The purpose of this study is to determine the attitude of the European Court of Human Rights to the religious symbols of schools. As a consequence of this work, the nature and scope of local and forbidden legal initiatives against the growing religious symbolism in European schools over the last years have been determined. However, the place of religion in European educational systems and the "church-state relationship" within the social system is another consequence of this study. This study also specifies that the decisions of the courts should be shaped to express religious beliefs and traditions freely in the public sphere. (shrink)