Three speakers engaged with theatre in different ways got inspired by the dialogical structure of Brecht’s Buying Brass and staged a similarly structured conversation. This conversation imitated the way how thespians and intellectual met in Brecht’s original text, but it was thematically focused on the current socio-cultural context. The research question was: How can we today make use of Brecht´s dialectic methodology in order to re-think the institutional situation of theatre as a starting point of social transformation? Which contemporary philosophies (...) can help in this re-thinking? Is theatre interested in them and is there any transformational potential in the opposite direction: from the theatre practice to the philosophical accounts of the contemporary world? The fragment collection under the title Buying Brass, unfinished and unedited by Brecht himself, anyhow belongs among the most extensive and sophisticated of Brecht’s treatises on theatre. It questions theatre in its very being, in its social and cultural function and in its epistemological potential. Staging a conversation of agents with different interests, attitudes, desires and functions in the theatrical apparatus, Brecht succeeds to provide a plastic methodology that tackles theatre dilemmas without reducing them to a one-dimensional view. The very format of a dialogue is congenial with theatrical practice and has a history among philosophers since Plato. Philosopher Denis Diderot as well as theatre practitioners Konstantin Stanislavsky and Richard Boleslavsky have presented their ideas for a rejuvenation of theatre in the format of written dialogues. Contradictions and objections are made manifest and also shown as anchored in a specific working role or institutional function. Moreover, the dialogue format allows and recognizes the imperfections, fallacies and misunderstandings of human conversations, as relevant aspects of contingency. And this contingency is of importance when we consider systemic, institutional or networked social situations. Thus, concerning the different background of the three presenters, we found the dialogue between us a relevant format, because it allows the realism of misunderstanding of each other as well as misrepresenting our selves. The three speakers choose different entries to the dialogue format, depending on their respective professional roles. This momentum of role-taking, reductively labeling oneself and each other as representatives of institutional functions, would also add a non-all dimension to the event of performing our dialogue: what was not said was somehow still inferred by suspicion or imagination. This approach has also an ambition to renew the customary way of paper presentations at research conferences and symposiums. (shrink)

Une des grandes figures de la philosophie russe du XXe siècle, qui s'est voulu le Job de la philosophie, en lutte avec la raison et ses évidences, avec les représentations de Dieu et avec Dieu lui-même.

The revival of recognition theory has brought new energy to critical theory. In general terms, recognition theory aims to critically evaluate social structures against a standard of social freedom identified with norms of interaction which are freely recognized by all parties. Until now, attention has primarily focused on the categories and forms of recognition theory. However, the influence of contemporary French theory upon the development of theories of recognition has not yet received the consideration it merits. The book takes up (...) this task. With chapters by internationally recognized authors, the collection outlines the current state of recognition theory, studies the impact of French theory, and uses French thought to identity aspects of the recognitive process which are often overlooked. Exploring French accounts of agonistic identity construction, vulnerability, power, ethical obligation, and reflexive theory construction, this book supports the intentions of critical theory with heightened attentiveness to oppression in all of its forms. (shrink)

This study analyzes Portuguese seniors’ Internet activity and determine their reasons, benefits, and motivations for web use as well as the obstacles faced by non-users. Results were derived from a questionnaire completed by 189 seniors enrolled in universities for seniors. 68.1% defined themselves as Internet users. The seniors asked principally go online to check e-mail and gather information. They state that the Internet is useful, helps them to stay up-to-date, and to preserve relationships. Non-user status is not attributed to old (...) age or health reasons. According to the technology acceptance model, ease of use and perception of utility were related to both Internet use and its intensity of use. Family influence also played a key role. Gender differences were not found in Internet use, intensity of use, or in use motivations. (shrink)

The UK Government's Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill is currently progressing through Parliament. The bill is designed to strengthen free speech and academic freedom in higher education, in response to what former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson describes as ‘the rise of intolerance and cancel culture upon our campuses’. But is there really a crisis of academic freedom in British universities?To see that there is, say Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan, we need only look at the contemporary reality of (...) suppression of debate on sex and gender. The evidence they catalogue of suppression of research, of blacklisting, harassment and smear campaigns, of no-platforming, disinvitations and shutting down of events, is incontrovertible. The recent experience of scholars and students wishing to discuss the material reality and political salience of sex makes complacency about academic freedom a luxury we cannot afford.Suissa and Sullivan set out a powerful argument for the role of academic freedom in pursuing truth within the academy and developing democracy beyond it. They effectively counter attempts to narrow the scope of academic freedom so as to render it compatible with no-platforming. And they lay out a series of practical steps administrators can take to ensure that universities are places where an expansive and pluralistic intellectual climate prevails.This is a timely and compelling intervention in a vexed but urgent public debate. For their clear-sighted diagnosis of where and how academic freedom has been eroded in our universities, and for their judicious account of what must be done to rebuild it, Suissa and Sullivan deserve a wide and attentive hearing. (shrink)

Logically, weighting is transitive, but similarity is not, so clustering cannot be either. Entailments must help a child to review attribute lists more efficiently. Children's understanding of exceptions to generic claims precedes their ability to articulate explanations. So agency, as enabling constraint, may show coherent covariation with attributes, as mere extensional, observable effect of intensional entailments.

Modelling human reasoning characterizes the fundamental human cognitive capacity to describe our past experience and use it to form expectations as well as plan and direct our future actions. Natural language semantics analyzes dynamic forms of reasoning in which the real-time order determines the temporal relations between the described events, when reported with telic simple past-tense clauses. It provides models of human reasoning that could supplement ACT-R models.

In designing stratified models of human language, understanding notions of logical consequence and validity of inference require separating the aspects of meaning that vary between models from logical constants. Modelling meaning requires choices regarding the primitives, where the Fregean program is still offering us the fundamental insights on the role of truth, judgement, and grasping or sharing of thoughts.

Semantic realism fits Millikan's account of kind terms in its focus on information-theoretic abilities and strategic ways of gathering information in human communication. Instead of the traditional logical necessity, we should interpret rigid designation in a dynamic semantics as a legislative act to constrain possible ways in which our belief may change.

Logicians have always found inspiration for new research in the ordinary language that is used on a daily basis and acquired naturally in childhood. Whereas the logical issues in the foundations of mathematics motivated the development of mathematical logic with its emphasis on notions of proof, validity, axiomatization, decidability, consistency, and completeness, the logical analysis of natural language motivated the development of philosophical logic with its emphasis on semantic notions of presupposition, entailment, modality, conditionals, and intensionality. The relation between research (...) programs in both mathematical and philosophical logic and natural language syntax and semantics as branches of theoretical linguistics has increased in importance throughout the last fifty years. This chapter reviews the development of one particularly interesting and lively area of interaction between formal logic and linguistics—the semantics of natural language. Research in this emergent field has proved fruitful for the development of empirically, cognitively adequate models of reasoning with partial information, sharing or exchanging information, dynamic interpretation in context, belief revision and other cognitive processes. (shrink)

Meaning is made out of the world by our actions in certain situations. But there are so many different things we can do, few of which actually create meaning. Not only do we utter linguistic expressions, but we move, gesture, point; we plan our actions to satisfy particular goals, we form beliefs, presumptions and prejudices, as well as ascribe intentions to other actors. In this paper three ways of acting are singled out for their function in making meaning out of (...) the world: demonstrations, indications and experiments. The paper develops some Wittgensteinean themes, such as the priority of demonstration, the nature of pictorial representations and the relation between interpretation and calculation, in the terms and concepts of Situation Theory. It attempts to weave some important elements of Wittgenstein’s thought in with an account of situated meaning and interpretation, without embarking on any archeological adventure. The paper is intended as a contribution to the philosophical foundations of Situation Theory and a critical commentary to some of its published accounts. Although Situation Theory has been developed with a sharp awareness of its antecedents in Bertrand Russell’s work, as well as its immediate heritage of central aspects of David Kaplan’s account of demonstrative reference, to my knowledge its Wittgensteinean roots have not been traced. The account of demonstrations, indications and experiments advocated here shows not only that important philosophical concerns of Situation Theory have their precursors in Wittgenstein’s work, but also that some of his insights could profitably be absorbed into its new foundations for a theory of meaning. (shrink)

Building on research demonstrating relationships between well being and perceptions of aspects of life as sacred, this study describes the rationale for and development of a scale measuring perceiving sacredness in life. It then explores associations between perceptions of sacredness in life and these four domains: religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational. Participants responded to a mailing to a national random sample within the United States, completing 16 scales pertaining to the religious/spiritual, personal, social, and situational domains. While many variables were (...) correlated with perceiving sacredness in life, there were three overall predictors: intrinsic religiosity, mysticism, and community service attitude. (shrink)

Research on evaluative conditioning (EC) shows that attitudes can emerge from co-occurrences of stimuli, and accumulating evidence suggests that EC usually depends on memory for these stimulus contingencies. Therefore, processes known to aid memory retention may be relevant for the development of stable attitudes. One such process may be memory consolidation, assumed to be promoted by waking rest and sleep. In two pre-registered experiments, we investigated whether waking rest (vs. cognitive activity, Experiment 1) and sleep (vs. wakefulness, Experiment 2) in (...) between conditioning and measurement of EC, consolidate contingency memory and EC. Contrary to our predictions, waking rest (vs. cognitive activity) promoted neither contingency memory nor EC effects. Sleep (vs. wakefulness) decreased forgetting of contingency memory but crucially, it did not attenuate the impact of counterconditioning on contingency memory. Sleep also did not influence EC effects, nor the reduction of EC by counterconditioning. EC effects in both experiments were predicted by contingency memory. Yet, unexpectedly, EC effects occurred in the absence of contingency memory after waking rest, but neither after sleep nor in the active control conditions. Our findings emphasise a role of contingency memory in EC, but it remains unclear whether this role changes during waking rest. (shrink)

Anti-Academy examines the ideas, processes, workshops and legacies of three radical educational models in 1960s Japan, the USA and Denmark. Comprised of three sections, each relating to one of these school's programmes, Anti-Academy explores life at Bigakko, Tokyo, The Intermedia Programme at the University of Iowa, and Ex-School, Copenhagen. Anti-Academy is a comprehensive interpretation of how these three academies situated themselves on the peripheries of the art world, existing in opposition to the mainstream, and responding to the political and social (...) climate, location and cultural context of the day.Published alongside an exhibition of the same name, 21 November 2013 - 18 February 2014. (shrink)

Meaning is made out of the world by our actions in certain situations. But there are so many different things we can do, few of which actually create meaning. Not only do we utter linguistic expressions, but we move, gesture, point; we plan our actions to satisfy particular goals, we form beliefs, presumptions and prejudices, as well as ascribe intentions to other actors. In this paper three ways of acting are singled out for their function in making meaning out of (...) the world: demonstrations, indications and experiments. The paper develops some Wittgensteinean themes, such as the priority of demonstration, the nature of pictorial representations and the relation between interpretation and calculation, in the terms and concepts of Situation Theory. It attempts to weave some important elements of Wittgenstein’s thought in with an account of situated meaning and interpretation, without embarking on any archeological adventure. The paper is intended as a contribution to the philosophical foundations of Situation Theory and a critical commentary to some of its published accounts. Although Situation Theory has been developed with a sharp awareness of its antecedents in Bertrand Russell’s work, as well as its immediate heritage of central aspects of David Kaplan’s account of demonstrative reference, to my knowledge its Wittgensteinean roots have not been traced. The account of demonstrations, indications and experiments advocated here shows not only that important philosophical concerns of Situation Theory have their precursors in Wittgenstein’s work, but also that some of his insights could profitably be absorbed into its new foundations for a theory of meaning. (shrink)

A recuperação da memória histórica em escritos biográficos e autobiográficos já não está mais restrita a um campo de pesquisa exclusivo. Autores como Georges Bataille, John Hersey e Beatriz Sarlo perscrutaram as correlações entre História e memória na literatura, avaliando questões éticas e de natureza social. A partir de tais estudos, este artigo comenta alguns excertos de Assombrações do Recife Velho, do sociólogo Gilberto Freyre e Baú de ossos, do memorialista Pedro Nava. O objetivo é expor como elementos ficcionais e (...) históricos se articulam nessas duas obras. Palavras-chave: literatura, ficção, memória, história. (shrink)