One major fault line in foundational theories of cognition is between the so-called “representational” and “non-representational” theories. Is it possible to formulate an intermediate approach for a foundational theory of cognition by defining a conception of representation that may bridge the fault line? Such an account of representation, as well as an account of correspondence semantics, is offered here. The account extends previously developed agent-based pragmatic theories of semantic information, where meaning of an information state is defined by its interface (...) role, to a theory that accommodates a notion of representation and correspondence semantics. It is argued that the account can be used to develop an intermediate approach to cognition, by showing that the major sources of tension between “representational” and “non-representational” theories may be eased. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In the book Remarks on Colors, Wittgenstein has claimed that transparent white objects do not and cannot exist, and that they cannot even be imagined. He had also claimed that luminous gray does not exist and cannot even be conceived. However, his arguments which aim to identify contradictory features of hypothetical transparent white media rely on incorrect assumptions about their properties and effects. Furthermore, some real objects and atmospheric phenomena can have features of transparent white media. As concrete examples of (...) Wittgenstein's 'impossible' colors, this paper contains two simple computer-generated graphical displays, one depicting a scene that includes a transparent white sheet, and another which conveys the impression of luminous gray. (shrink)

This article provides an answer to the question: What is the function of cognition? By answering this question it becomes possible to investigate what are the simplest cognitive systems. It addresses the question by treating cognition as a solution to a design problem. It defines a nested sequence of design problems: (1) How can a system persist? (2) How can a system affect its environment to improve its persistence? (3) How can a system utilize better information from the environment to (...) select better actions? And, (4) How can a system reduce its inherent informational limitations to achieve more successful behavior? This provides a corresponding nested sequence of system classes: (1) autonomous systems, (2) (re)active autonomous systems, (3) informationally controlled autonomous systems (autonomous agents), and (4) cognitive systems. -/- This article provides the following characterization of cognition: The cognitive system is the set of mechanisms of an autonomous agent that (1) allow increase of the correlation and integration between the environment and the information system of the agent, so that (2) the agent can improve the selection of actions and thereby produce more successful behavior. -/- Finally, it shows that common cognitive capacities satisfy the characterization: learning, memory, representation, decision making, reasoning, attention, and communication. (shrink)

This paper addresses one of the fundamental problems of the philosophy of information: How does semantic information emerge within the underlying dynamics of the world?—the dynamical semantic information problem. It suggests that the canonical approach to semantic information that defines data before meaning and meaning before use is inadequate for pre-cognitive information media. Instead, we should follow a pragmatic approach to information where one defines the notion of information system as a special kind of purposeful system emerging within the underlying (...) dynamics of the world and define semantic information as the currency of the system. In this way, systems operating with semantic information can be viewed as patterns in the dynamics—semantic information is a dynamical system phenomenon of highly organized systems. In the simplest information systems, the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of the information medium are co-defined. It proposes a new more general theory of information semantics that focuses on the interface role of the information states in the information system—the interface theory of meaning. Finally, with the new framework, it addresses the debate between weakly semantic and strongly semantic accounts of information, siding with the strongly semantic view because the pragmatic account developed here is a better generalization of it. (shrink)

Democratic governments might be required by law to disseminate information to the people. This is called governmental transparency. What is the burden of transparency? We propose a “pragmatic information theory of communication” that places information accessibility as a foundation of transparency. Using a game model—the Transparency Game—we show that the pragmatic theory is the only one that makes it difficult for governments to appear transparent while not actually being transparent. There are two important consequences of understanding transparency through the theory: (...) Accessible information must be actionable, and cognitive science plays a vital role in assessing the accessibility of information. These consequences can have implications for public policies that promote transparency. (shrink)

One major fault line in foundational theories of cognition is between the so-called “representational” and “non-representational” theories. Is it possible to formulate an intermediate approach for a foundational theory of cognition by defining a conception of representation that may bridge the fault line? Such an account of representation, as well as an account of correspondence semantics, is offered here. The account extends previously developed agent-based pragmatic theories of semantic information, where meaning of an information state is defined by its interface (...) role, to a theory that accommodates a notion of representation and correspondence semantics. It is argued that the account can be used to develop an intermediate approach to cognition, by showing that the major sources of tension between “representational” and “non-representational” theories may be eased. (shrink)

The paper offers the foundations of the theory of information media. Information media are dynamical systems with additional macrostructure of information-carrying states and information-preserving transformations. The paper also defines the notion of information media network as a system of information media connected by information transformations. It is demonstrated that many standard examples of information-containing and processing systems are captured by the general notion of information medium. The paper uses the theory (and informal discussion) of information media to motivate a structural (...) approach to the information in media. The idea is that the notion of information transformation should be regarded as more primitive than the notion of informational state. Thus in information systems, especially in the context of information technology, information is secondary while information transformation is primary. (shrink)

Available in English for the first time, Imperfect Garden is both an approachable intellectual history and a bracing treatise on how we should understand and experience our lives. In it, one of France's most prominent intellectuals explores the foundations, limits, and possibilities of humanist thinking. Through his critical but sympathetic excavation of humanism, Tzvetan Todorov seeks an answer to modernity's fundamental challenge: how to maintain our hard-won liberty without paying too dearly in social ties, common values, and a coherent (...) and responsible sense of self.Todorov reads afresh the works of major humanists--primarily Montaigne, Rousseau, and Constant, but also Descartes, Montesquieu, and Toqueville. Each chapter considers humanism's approach to one major theme of human existence: liberty, social life, love, self, morality, and expression. Discussing humanism in dialogue with other systems, Todorov finds a response to the predicament of modernity that is far more instructive than any offered by conservatism, scientific determinism, existential individualism, or humanism's other contemporary competitors. Humanism suggests that we are members of an intelligent and sociable species who can act according to our will while connecting the well-being of other members with our own. It is through this understanding of free will, Todorov argues, that we can use humanism to rescue universality and reconcile human liberty with solidarity and personal integrity.Placing the history of ideas at the service of a quest for moral and political wisdom, Todorov's compelling and no doubt controversial rethinking of humanist ideas testifies to the enduring capacity of those ideas to meditate on--and, if we are fortunate, cultivate--the imperfect garden in which we live. (shrink)

The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the history of democracy’s struggle against its external enemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today is democracy itself. Its enemies (...) are within: what the ancient Greeks called 'hubris'. Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’, the United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this mission to ‘help’ others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals. Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress. When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies of democracy. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of the moral status of non-human animals, or the question whether sentient animals are morally considerable. The arguments for and against the moral status of animals are discussed, above all the argument from marginal cases. It is argued that sentient animals have moral status based on their having interests in their experiential well-being, but that there are degrees of moral status. Two interest-based approaches are presented and discussed: DeGrazia’s view that sentient animals have interests in (...) continuing to live, and that their interests should be granted moral weight; and McMahan’s TRIA which similarly postulates that animals have interests and that in a given situation we should compare the human and animal interests at stake. Finally, the paper concludes that the anthropocentric approach to animal ethics should be abandoned in favour of the biocentric ethics. (shrink)

Can humanity be divided into good and evil? And if so, is it possible for the good to vanquish the evil, eradicating it from the face of the Earth by declaring war on evildoers and bringing them to justice? Can we overcome evil by the power of memory? In Memory as a Remedy for Evil, Tzvetan Todorov answers these questions in the negative, arguing that despite all our efforts to the contrary, we cannot be delivered from evil. In this (...) work on evil, memory and justice, Todorov examines the uses of memory and the spate of memorial laws in France in order to show how memory has failed as a remedy against evil and how efforts to come to grips with past evil through trials and punitive justice have failed as well. Todorov locates the fatal flaw of all these approaches in our erroneous relationship with evil as alterity, the distinction that we draw between ourselves and others that allows us to imagine ourselves in the appealing role of hero and victim and confine others to the role of villain and criminal. Similarly, in his analysis of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Todorov argues in favor of restorative justice, which "seeks not to punish but to restore relations that should never have been interrupted" between former perpetrators and former victims. Memory as a Remedy for Evil is a powerful and timely work that asks that we recognize the good and evil within each of us--and reminds us that it is only by coming to terms with evil and trying to understand it that we can hope to tame it. (shrink)

Artists and designers working in the fields of generative and bio art frequently focus on designing speculative visions of how nature can be reimagined with the use of computational media and synthetic biology. Centered on the unique artistic strategies of reimagining life forms, this paper analyzes and compares a selection of generative software-based projects, in which artists are mimicking different natural phenomena and have the tendency to beautify nature and life, with bio art projects, where ethical considerations are prioritized over (...) other aspects of the work. Experimenting with software and producing code-based generative art can be a relatively accessible creative endeavor while working with synthetic biology requires more demanding and controlled workplace conditions and specialized equipment. Despite the differences in accessibility and usability, both fields of generative and bio art challenge the boundaries of contemporary artistic practice and research by mapping, provoking and contemplating the dramatic changes of life forms, in the era when living matter can be re-engineered into a new material capable of computing. (shrink)

The political history of the twentieth century can be viewed as the history of democracy’s struggle against its external enemies: fascism and communism. This struggle ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet regime. Some people think that democracy now faces new enemies: Islamic fundamentalism, religious extremism and international terrorism and that this is the struggle that will define our times. Todorov disagrees: the biggest threat to democracy today is democracy itself. Its enemies (...) are within: what the ancient Greeks called 'hubris'. Todorov argues that certain democratic values have been distorted and pushed to an extreme that serves the interests of dominant states and powerful individuals. In the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’, the United States and some European countries have embarked on a crusade to enlighten some foreign populations through the use of force. Yet this mission to ‘help’ others has led to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, to large-scale destruction and loss of life and to a moral crisis of growing proportions. The defence of freedom, if unlimited, can lead to the tyranny of individuals. Drawing on recent history as well as his own experience of growing up in a totalitarian regime, Todorov returns to examples borrowed from the Western canon: from a dispute between Augustine and Pelagius to the fierce debates among Enlightenment thinkers to explore the origin of these perversions of democracy. He argues compellingly that the real democratic ideal is to be found in the delicate, ever-changing balance between competing principles, popular sovereignty, freedom and progress. When one of these elements breaks free and turns into an over-riding principle, it becomes dangerous: populism, ultra-liberalism and messianism, the inner enemies of democracy. (shrink)

The question of selfhood is a very old question; however, only in contemporary philosophy on the foundations of the philosophy of life, philosophy of existence and phenomenology, it is possible to find an adequate method that could enable us to approach the understanding of selfhood. To accomplish this task, the advantages and disadvantages of Husserl's phenomenology must be demonstrated. Here, the research of the structures of subjectivity and inter-subjectivity performs an important role in the interpretation of selfhood. Nevertheless, it has (...) been shown that it is necessary to reverse Husserl’s method from pure subjectivity to fragmented subjectivity in which the anticipatory role of consciousness is being re-discovered. This is important for the interpretation of selfhood not just in a theoretical way, but also in showing that selfhood could be understood only in relation to others. Actions of the self can never be understood from the position of pure subjectivity because the question of motives is a question of personality that is always a concrete historical subject. The crucial point in understanding the selfhood is showing the way in which it understands itself in the chain of intersubjective relations. From this point, it is possible to distinguish “ideal” from sinful man, the difference which has been emphasized in Nietzsche's philosophy. The only method by which we can approach the question of selfhood is the hermeneutical method. It can’t be understood by description or in the attempts to deduce it on formalism and norms. Our relationship towards others and towards ourselves should be again and again re-constructed, not only because the experience itself dictates new patterns of life, but also because only the selfhood has the ability to change the way in which the situation is interpreted and thereby it can authentically determine itself in the world. (shrink)

“Racism” is the name given to a type of behavior which consists in the display of contempt or aggressiveness toward other people on account of physical differences between them and oneself. It should be noted that this definition does not contain the word “race,” and this observation leads us to the first surprise in this area which contains many: whereas racism is a well-attested social phenomenon, “race” itself does not exist! Or, to put it more clearly: there are a great (...) number of physical differences among human groups, but these differences cannot be superimposed; we obtain completely divergent subdivisions of the human species according to whether we base our description of the “races” on an analysis of their epidermis or their blood types, their genetic heritages or their bone structures. For contemporary biology, the concept of “race” is therefore useless. This fact has no influence, however, on racist behavior: to justify their contempt or aggressiveness, racists invoke not scientific analyses but the most superficial and striking of physical characteristics —namely, differences in skin color, pilosity, and body structure.Thus, it is with good cause that the word “race” was placed in quotes in the title of this issue: “races” do not exist. I am less sure, however, that all the contributors managed to avoid postulating the existence, behind this word as behind most words, of a thing. In his introduction Gates remarks that “race, in these usages, pretends to be an objective term of classification, when in fact it is a dangerous trope,” and he goes on to describe as follows the goal of the special issue: “to deconstruct, if you will, the ideas of difference inscribed in the trope of race, to explicate discourse itself in order to reveal the hidden relations of power and knowledge inherent in popular and academic usages of ‘race’ ” . Up to a point, I agree with him, even if I cannot help pointing out the insistent allusions to certain contemporary critical theories —allusions which furnish proof that the author of these lines possesses a particular knowledge and thereby sets up a particular power relationship between himself and the reader. This, however, is not the problem. The problem arises on page 15, when the same author declares, “We must, I believe, analyze the ways in which writing relates to race, how attitudes toward racial differences generate and structure literary texts by us and about us.” What bothers me about this sentence is not so much that “generate” and “structure” allude to yet another critical theory as that its author seems to be reinstating what he himself referred to as the “dangerous trope” of “race”: if “racial differences” do not exist, how can they possibly influence literary texts? Tzvetan Todorov works at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. His most recent book in translation is The Conquest of America . Criticism of Criticism is forthcoming. Loulou Mack is a free-lance writer and translator living in Paris. (shrink)

It was his mother's death which allowed [Roland] Barthes to write: "I looked through…" "To write on something is to forfeit it," Barthes used to say, reciprocally, it is licit to write on what is already dead, it was Barthes himself in one of his acceptations. His mother was for Barthes the internal order, who permitted both the external other and the I to exist. Once she was dead, his life was over and could therefore become the object of writing. (...) Barthes no doubt had other books to write; but he no longer had any life to live. I find it emblematic that his last book should have been "on photography" . Eloquent or discreet, a photograph never says anything but: I was there; it leads to a gesture of monstration, to a silent deixis, and symbolizes a pre- or post-discursive world; it makes me an object, that is, a dead man. What Barthes himself calls "my last investigation" also concerned death. Tzvetan Todorov, of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, has numerous books on literary theory, including Théories du symbole and Symbolisme et interprétation, which has been published in English. His previous contribution to Crtitical Inquiry, "The Verbal Age," appeared in the Winter 1977 issue. Richard Howard, a poet and critic, has translated many works by Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

What is The Awkward Age about? It is not easy to answer that apparently simple question. But the reader can take consolation from the fact that the characters themselves seem to have just as much trouble understanding as he does. Actually, a large proportion of the words exchanged in this novel—a novel made up, moreover, almost exclusively of conversations—consists of requests for explanation. These questions may touch upon different aspects of discourse and reveal various reasons for obscurity. The first, the (...) simplest and the rarest, is an uncertainty about the very meaning of words; it is like the uncertainty a foreigner would naturally feel whose knowledge of the language was imperfect: the questions here are matters of vocabulary. In The Awkward Age there are no foreigners who speak bad English, but one of the characters, Mr. Longdon, has for a long time lived far from London; now that he has come back, he has the feeling that he no longer understands the meaning of words, and, in the course of his first conversations at least, he often asks questions like: "What do you mean by early?" "What do you mean by the strain?"1 These questions, innocent as they appear, nevertheless require those to whom they are addressed both to explain and to take full responsibility for the meaning of the words—that is why the questions sometimes provoke lively refusals. "What do you mean by fast?" Mr. Longdon asks again, but the response of the Duchess is cutting: "What should I mean but what I say?" . We shall see, however, that the Duchess' own niece is a victim of the same disorder—not understanding the meaning of words. · 1. P. 43. References are to the Penguin Modern Classics edition . All further references will appear in the text. Tzvetan Todorov has written numerous books on literary theory, the last of which is Théories du symbole , and has translated the works of the Russian Formalists into French. Two of his books have been translated into English, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre and Poetics of Prose. He is editor of the journal Poétique and works as Maître de recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. "The Last Barthes" appeared in the Spring 1981 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

"Both a political history and a moral critique of the twentieth century, this is a personal and impassioned book from one of Europe's most outstanding intellectuals.

Tzvetan Todorov, one of Europe’s leading intellectuals, explores the complex relations between art, politics, and ethics in the essays that make up _The Limits of Art_. In one essay, “Artists and Dictators,” Todorov traces the intimate relationship between avant-garde art and radical politics in pre-revolutionary Russia, pre-fascist Italy, and pre-Nazi Germany. Todorov sets forth the radical idea that the project of totalitarian dictators and avant-garde artists actually “emerged from the same womb”: both artists and dictators set out (...) to make it new—be it art or society. Further troubling the role of art in the world at large, in “Art and Ethics” Todorov re-examines the age-old question of what can be expected from art and whether it should be emancipated from ethics. Must art be morally instructive, or should it be self-sufficient and concept-free? The answer is not an either/or to Todorov, who believes, like Baudelaire, that art has both cognitive and ethical aspects to it—even if it is presented as art for art’s sake. Throughout the essays in _The Limits of Art_, Todorov insists on the essential need for artists to recognize, understand, and even love the world outside. “Todorov harbors no illusions about the mix of good and bad that enters into the fabric of all that is human.... He speaks throughout in his own voice, with rare breadth of sympathy and with a fine eye for the complexities of human experience.”—_New Republic_ “Like the authors he focuses on, Todorov is tolerant, understanding and wise.”—_Observer_. (shrink)

This concise book from internationally renowned historian Tzvetan Todorov establishes the Enlightenment as the philosophical cornerstone of the modern world and argues that the wisdom of those times is just as relevant today.

Le projet -- Rejets et détournements -- Autonomie -- Laïcité -- Vérité -- Humanité -- Universalité -- Les Lumières et l'Europe.

In this paper, the authors first emphasise the connection that exists between bioethics and law. However, special attention is given to the link between bioethics and human rights, which share the idea of protecting similar values, especially the protection of life and human dignity. Identifying the interdependence and interrelation of these concepts is a prerequisite for further exploration of how and in what context the European Court of Human Rights decides on bioethical issues it encounters when ruling on classical human (...) rights guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Once the important features that determine the relationship between bioethics and human rights are identified, these features will be practically examined through the group of cases in which the Court has addressed the issue of mandatory vaccination, which has been in the public spotlight in recent years. (shrink)

Although all have commendable features, it is the third way, that of the moral individual - the path laid out in Rousseau's novel, Emile - that the philosopher recommends without reservation."--Jacket.

Eu me proponho resumir aqui, para o uso daqueles que estudam a linguagem, algumas observações de Freud, dispersas em diversos escritos, e consagradas aos problemas da enunciação (termo do qual Freud não se serve).

The Higher School Certificate is a certificate that recognises the successful completion of secondary education in New South Wales, Australia. The most recent enrolment information available suggests that at least 13,472 students undertaking the NSW Higher School Certificate in 2019 conducted research projects that involved human participants. During the course of their high school education current HSC students are taught research design principles and statistics so that they are equipped to plan a research project and determine the meaning of the (...) outcome; however, the students are not systematically taught the application of research ethics during their high school years. This article contends that the NSW HSC curriculum be expanded to include instruction in and application of the fundamentals of research ethics to these high school projects to ensure that all participants involved in these projects are accorded respect and protection as intended by the Australian National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. (shrink)

Every linear perspective image has a center of the perspective construction. Only when observed from that location does a 2D image provide the same stimulus as the original 3D scene. Geometric analyses indicate that observing the image from other vantage points should affect the perceived spatial structure of the scene conveyed by the image, involving transformations such as shear, compression, and dilation. Based on previous research, this paper presents a detailed account of these transformations. The analyses are presented in a (...) uniform manner, illustrated with special 3D diagrams, and embedded in a wider framework of related perspective paradigms. Such analyses provide the potential theoretical basis for empirical work on the effects of changes of observer vantage points on the perception of spatial structure in perspective images. (shrink)