We present an empirical case study that connects psycholinguistics with the field of cultural evolution, in order to test for the existence of cultural attractors in the evolution of quotations. Such attractors have been proposed as a useful concept for understanding cultural evolution in relation with individual cognition, but their existence has been hard to test. We focus on the transformation of quotations when they are copied from blog to blog or media website: by coding words with a number of (...) well-studied lexical features, we show that the way words are substituted in quotations is consistent with the hypothesis of cultural attractors and with known effects of the word features. In particular, words known to be harder to recall in lists have a higher tendency to be substituted, and words easier to recall are produced instead. Our results support the hypothesis that cultural attractors can result from the combination of individual cognitive biases in the interpretation and reproduction of representations. (shrink)

The liability of the meaning of words has been a longstanding topic in ethnomethodology, and this review provides many specific details while analyzing the drift of the sense of words over the course of naturally occurring conversations. Ethnomethodologists do not see equivocality in the meaning of words merely as a problem for members, but they recognize that it is a resource for parties in their organizing the local interaction. Through the use of many concrete illustrations, an account of this (...) pervasive phenomenon makes clear just-how sense develops, evolves over the course of an interaction, and is used to organize the local orderliness. Some ethnomethods used by parties to tame the developing sense for practical purposes are described and analyzed. Especially, the reflexive properties of sense-establishment are identified and described, along with their material details, and the opportunism of parties in taking advantage of the semiotic play of their talk is summarized. Finally, the components of a model for analyzing communication intersubjectively are presented. (shrink)

Several recent arguments by philosophers of biology have challenged the traditional view that evolutionary factors, such as drift and selection, are genuine causes of evolutionary outcomes. In the case of drift, advocates of the statistical theory argue that drift is merely the sampling error inherent in the other stochastic processes of evolution and thus denotes a mathematical, rather than causal, feature of populations. This debate has largely centered around one particular model of drift, the Wright–Fisher model, (...) and this has contributed to the plausibility of the statisticalists’ arguments. However, an examination of alternative, predictively inequivalent models shows that drift is a genuine cause that can be manipulated to change population outcomes. This case study illustrates the influence of methodological assumptions on ontological judgments, particularly the pernicious effect of focusing on a particular model at the expense of others and confusing its assumptions and idealizations for true claims about the phenomena being modeled. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the semantic relation between continental drift and plate tectonics. The numerous attempts to account for this case in either Kuhnian or Lakatosian terms have been convincingly dismissed by Rachel Laudan, who nevertheless acknowledged that there was not yet a plausible alternative to explain the so called “geological revolution”. Several decades later, the epistemological side of this revolution has received much attention, while the semantic relation between drift theory and (...) plate tectonics has remained mainly unexplored. In studying this case under a new light, the notion of embedding, as distinguished from other sorts of intertheoretical relations :11–27, 2011), will have a particular significance. After formally analyzing the relationship between continental drift and plate tectonics, it will become evident that the models of drift theory are part of the models of plate tectonics, thereby fulfilling the conditions for embedding. All theoretical concepts from drift theory are presupposed in some theoretical concepts from plate tectonics, and all empirical concepts of the former are shared by the latter. Furthermore, all the successful paradigmatic applications of continental drift are also successful applications of plate tectonics. As a consequence, under the label “geological revolution”, we actually find a salient historical case of cumulative progress across theory change. (shrink)

Use of divine names is strictly regulated in the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Unlike most ordinary names, “God,” “Jesus,” and “Allah,” have a particular moral significance for the faithful. Misuse of the names constitutes a form of blasphemy—a sin. Tomes have been written about the origin of holy names in these traditions and the role that they play in devotional practices. I have no such grand theological ambitions here. Instead, in this short essay I will raise a (...) few more narrow questions about the sin of blasphemy from the standpoint of contemporary philosophy of language. Until we have good reason to think otherwise, we should assume that the best semantic theory for ordinary proper names like “Obama” and “Aristotle” extends to names for God. In particular, I think we have reason to assume some causal theory of reference is true of divine names, since some version of it seems true of most every other name. From this assumption I will argue (i) that there are some puzzles for the sin of blasphemy as it is traditionally conceived, and (ii) that we can make progress toward answering the puzzles by acknowledging that divine names are vulnerable to a special kind of reference drift. (shrink)

Episodic and semantic memory are often taken to be fundamentally different mental systems, and contemporary philosophers often pursue research questions about episodic memory, in particular, in isolation from semantic memory. This paper challenges that assumption, and puts pressure on philosophical approaches to memory that break off episodic memory as its own standalone topic. I present and systematize psychological and neuroscientific theories of semanticization, the thesis that memory content tends to drift from episodic to semantic in structure (...) over time and exposure to an environment. Semanticization, I argue, is a long-term interconnection between episodic and semantic systems that requires approaching both the content and function of these two memory systems as a whole. Thus we have a reason to reject projects by Michael Martin, which aims to carve out a uniquely episodic memory content, and Kourken Michaelian, which pairs episodic memory to its own unique function. Instead, seeing declarative memory as a single system with two facets or even a continuum of features allows for deeper insight into both content and function. (shrink)

A new direction in philosophy Between 1920 and 1940 logical empiricism reset the direction of philosophy of science and much of the rest of Anglo-American philosophy. It began as a relatively organized movement centered on the Vienna Circle, and like-minded philosophers elsewhere, especially in Berlin. As Europe drifted into the Nazi era, several important figures, especially Carnap and Neurath, also found common ground in their liberal politics and radical social agenda. Together, the logical empiricists set out to reform traditional philosophy (...) with a new set of doctrines more firmly grounded in logic and science. Criticism and decline Because of Nazi persecution, most of the European adherents of logical empiricism moved to the United States in the late 1930s. During the 1940s, many of their most cherished tenets became targets of criticism from outsiders as well as from within their own ranks. Philosophers of science in the late 1950s and 1960s rejected logical empiricism and, starting in the 1970s, presented such alternative programs such as scientific realism with evolutionary epistemology. A resurgence of interest During the early 1980s, philosophers and historians of philosophy began to study logical empiricism as an important movement. Unlike their predecessors in the 1960s-for whom the debate over logical empiricism now seems to have been largely motivated by professional politics-these philosopher no longer have to take positions for or against logical empiricism. The result has been a more balanced view of that movement, its achievements, its failures, and its influence. Hard-to-find core writings now available This collection makes available a selection of the most influential and representative writings of the logical empiricists, important contemporary criticisms of their doctrines, their responses, as well as the recent reappraisals. Introductions to each volume examine the articles in historical context and provide importantbackground information that is vital to a full understanding of the issues discussed. They outline prevalent trends, identifying leading figures and summarize their positions and reasoning, as well as those of opposing thinkers. (shrink)

Individuals with high anxiety show bias for threatening information, but it is unclear whether this bias affects memory. Recognition memory studies have shown biases for recognising and rejecting threatening items in anxiety, prompting the need to identify moderating factors of this effect. This study focuses on the role of semantic similarity: the use of many semantically related threatening words could increase familiarity for those items and obscure anxiety-related differences in memory. To test this, two recognition memory experiments varied the (...) proportion of threatening words in lists to manipulate the semantic-similarity effects. When similarity effects were reduced, participants with high trait anxiety were biased to respond “new” to threatening words, whereas when similarity effects were strong there was no effect of anxiety on memory bias. Analysis of the data with the drift diffusion model showed that the bias was due to differences in processing of the threatening stimuli rather than a simple response bias. These data suggest that the semantic similarity of the threatening words significantly affects the presence or absence of anxiety-related threat bias in recognition memory. The results indicate that trait anxiety is associated with a bias to decide that threatening stimuli were not previously studied, but only when semantic-similarity effects are controlled. Implications for theories of anxiety and future studies in this domain are discussed. (shrink)

Sylvia Wynter discusses Eurocentric thought as a closed cognitive order. In this article, Mijke van der Drift interrogates this cognitive closure as a style of thought that is intertwined with institutions. By inverting the attention Foucault gives to the subjects under scrutiny, van der Drift shows that the focus on those that maintain the institution, the managerial class, reveals how power and knowledge configure this contraction of perception. Van der Drift argues that institutions are central to this (...) process because it offers alignment of purpose and understanding by means of rights and discipline. Consequently, this alignment leads to an indifference to other ways of worlding that Philomena Essed and Isabel Hoving describe as “smug ignorance.” Van der Drift argues that this finds root in the institution, rather than being a harmful side effect that needs to be addressed. To contrast institutional alignment, the author sketches a pluralist ethics that offers an alternative mode of relationality and collective organization. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to compile a selection of the various formalisms found in conversation theory to introduce readers to Pask's discursive algebra. In this way, the text demonstrates how concept sharing and concept formation by means of the interaction of two participants may be formalized. The approach taken in this study is to examine the formal notation system used by Pask and demonstrate how such formalisms may be used to represent concept sharing and concept formation through conversation. (...) The compilation of the discursive algebra using the framework provided by conversation theory could potentially be used as an auxiliary framework to study conversational interactions in multi-agent systems theory. (shrink)

This paper considers the nature of schizophrenic autism and urges its importance for understanding the phenomenological core of schizophrenia. Different clinical manifestations of schizophrenic autism are demonstrated, and it is asked whether these might reflect different aspects of one underlying phenomenologically intelligible phenomenon. Four phenomenological hypotheses are put forward: that autism is a function of semantic drifting, emotional drifting, ontological incompleteness, or a particular ethic rejecting common sense. By way of conclusion an integrative hypothesis is considered: that autism is (...) intelligible in terms of the experience of disembodiment. (shrink)

This paper provides an externalist account of talk and thought that clearly distinguishes the two. It is argued that linguistic meanings and concepts track different phenomena and have different explanatory roles. The distinction, understood along the lines proposed, brings theoretical gains in a cluster of related areas. It provides an account of meaning change which accommodates the phenomenon of contested meanings and the possibility of substantive disagreement across theoretical divides, and it explains the nature and value of conceptual engineering in (...) a way that addresses recent prominent concerns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Aesthetics of Cultural StudiesPaul DuncumThe Aesthetics of Cultural Studies, edited by Michael Bérube. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, 208 pp., $26.95 paper, $67.95 cloth.This new anthology of ten chapters and a chapter-length introduction by the editor is primarily intended to act as a corrective to the view that cultural studies is uninterested in aesthetics. Contributors argue that while some cultural studies scholars have given this impression, either abandoning (...) the term "aesthetics" or explicitly rejecting the tradition of philosophical aesthetics, cultural studies has been, from its origins in England in the early 1960s, deeply concerned with aesthetic issues. Cultural studies is properly understood, contributors argue, as being born out of a desire to extend aesthetic considerations to a wider range of artifacts and experiences than had hitherto been allowable within the modernist philosophical tradition of aesthetics derived from Kant. Contributors deal with many debates within the field of cultural studies—unsurprisingly mostly to do with turf wars within universities—but I will focus here specifically on what they have to say about aesthetics, though I cannot do justice to the multiplicity of views developed by different authors.Since contributors are primarily from North America, where cultural studies has mainly taken root in the English departments of universities, the cultural form most commonly discussed is literature. Exceptions include David Sanjek's chapter, which focuses on popular music, and Steven Rubio's chapter, which deals playfully with phenomenological intertextuality between classical music and popular cartoons. Most of the issues addressed by contributors also apply to other traditional arts, though not, I will argue below, to many contemporary forms of popular cultural experience.Contributors are especially concerned to defend themselves against charges that, in Rorty's view, cultural studies equates to "expressions of political resentment clothed in jargon," or in George Levine's characterization of this position, as "seeing the text as a kind of enemy to be arrested," where the text is reduced to context and the truth of art is denied in favor of the truth of politics (as cited in Rita Felski's chapter). For such critics, cultural studies equates with ideology critique and represents the death of aesthetics. Not so, according to each of these authors. John Frow, for example, argues that from its inception it was not aesthetics per se that cultural studies objected to but the then normative discourse of aesthetics that was positioned above politics.Several authors are concerned to establish the credentials of cultural studies as a unique way of approaching culture and not just any running together of culture and politics. Felski complains of a "semantic drift," which sees cultural studies mischaracterized and condemned for sins that rightly belong to other fields.Complicating a search for the uniqueness of cultural studies, however, is Jonathan Sterne's contribution in what seems a significantly revisionist position. He claims that in cultural studies culture has had to carry too heavy a burden. Culture has been a conduit to politics, he argues; studying culture has been a way of studying politics by other means, and he suggests that sometimes culture can simply be enjoyed for its own sake and not subject to analysis. David Shumway, too, at times just wants to enjoy culture. In the everyday course of living this is surely right, though it is hardly at the center of the scholarly cultural studies' enterprise. As other contributors argue, cultural studies has always seen the need for striking a balance between aesthetics and [End Page 113] ideology. Sterne's unease with cultural studies for seeing aesthetics primarily in instrumental terms—a way of getting at politics—nevertheless serves as a corrective to the idea that cultural studies scholars have a hard time understanding pleasure.Most contributors acknowledge the influence of Raymond Williams—as well they might—and several cite, even at length, from the chapter "Aesthetic and Other Situations" from his 1977 book Marxism and Literature.1 Here Williams succinctly laid out the theoretical framework for many of the authors of this anthology. It is worth considering some of the key threads of Bérube's book through the prism of this chapter.Williams begins by making aesthetics problematic... (shrink)

Empirical inquiry involves the coevolution of predictive theory and descriptive language. Here we consider how one might model this coevolution using the tools of evolutionary game theory. We will see how subsequently evolved languages might exhibit semantic drift, invention, and discard. These evolutionary models also illustrate how subsequently evolved languages might be incommensurable yet nevertheless provide faithful descriptions of nature. Finally, we will consider how a model for the coevolution of predictive theory and descriptive language accounts for endogenous (...) epistemic norms. (shrink)

In four major parts, this study investigates the phenomenon of scrolling. Its first task is to argue in favor of a specific quality of the experience of scrolling, distinguishing it from other forms of distraction, notably from the flow experience. Scrolling takes the shape of aimless drifting. Secondly, it investigates the phenomenon of scrolling against its relevant historical, economic, social, and cultural backdrop, with the intention of understanding scrolling as a typical phenomenon of today, rather than subscribing to a biased (...) and superficial critique of its wastefulness or outright pathological character. The third part presents a comprehensive analysis of the temporal makeup of scrolling. Its temporality is expressed in the specific impatience of scrolling. Furthermore, scrolling amounts to a temporal reduction in the sense of favoring the present moment (and suppressing the temporal dimensions of the past and the future). The reductiveness of scrolling pertains to the semantic content as well. I argue that scrolling does not allow for certain experiences (such as, e.g., profound sadness). The temporality of scrolling is one of experiencing lived time as the permanence of passing. In the last section, I connect scrolling to boredom, and argue that scrolling accomplishes the task of allowing for an existential distractedness. In conclusion, I propose a nuanced evaluation of scrolling: in a Pascalian sense, scrolling responds to a profoundly human need of distraction. Yet I find scrolling dangerous in how easily available such distraction becomes, and in how it accustoms the users to a reductive existential experience. Scrolling, unlike art (but also, in principle, photography, movies, books), shields the user from challenging and enriching experiences. (shrink)

Assuming an essential difference between scientific data and phenomena, this paper argues for the view that we have to understand how empirical findings get transformed into scientific phenomena. The work of scientists is seen as largely consisting in constructing these phenomena which are then utilized in more abstract theories. It is claimed that these matters are of importance for discussions of theory choice and progress in science. A case study is presented as a starting point: paleomagnetism and the use of (...) paleomagnetic data in early discussions of continental drift. Some general features of this study are presented in formalized language. It is suggested that the presentation given is particularly suited for a semantic conception of theories. Even though the construction of scientific phenomena is the main topic of this paper, the view presented here is more adapted to realism than social constructivism. (shrink)

Unconscious processes, by whatever name they may be known , are invariably operationalized by the dissociation paradigm, any situation involving the dissociation between two indicators , one of availability and the other, of accessibility , such that, ε>α. Subliminal perception has been traditionally defined by a special case of the dissociation paradigm in which availability exceeds accessibility when accessibility is null . Construct validity issues bedevil all dissociation paradigms since it is not clear what might constitute appropriate indicators that, moreover, (...) are pure and exhaustive. Semantic and theoretic drifts in the recent literature—e.g., the confusion of different versions of the dissociation paradigm, the equation of conscious–unconscious with direct–indirect tests, and the foisting of the criterion of qualitative differences—have tended to undermine emerging theoretic parsimony. On the other hand, a crucial factor has been left out of theory development: time. Both ε and α can rise and fall over time, often asynchronously, and so dissociations may wax and wane and, even, reverse over time. Some laboratory evidence suggests that accessibility measures , as they approach chance, may actually dip below chance . If so, d′=0 , could be an averaging artifact of positive and negative d′s. Conscious accessibility is not either–or but more or less, and variable over time. (shrink)

The Claims of Common Sense investigates the importance of ideas developed by Cambridge philosophers between the World Wars for the social sciences concerning common sense, vague concepts and ordinary language. John Coates examines the thought of Moore, Ramsey, Wittgenstein and Keynes, and traces their common drift away from early beliefs about the need for precise concepts and a canonical notation in analysis. He argues that Keynes borrowed from Wittgenstein and Ramsey their reappraisal of vague concepts, and developed the novel (...) argument that when analysing something as complex as social reality, theory might be simplified by using concepts which lack sharp boundaries. Coates then contrasts this conclusion with the view shared by two contemporary philosophical paradigms - formal semantics and Continental post-structuralism - that the vagueness of ordinary language inevitably leads to interpretive indeterminacy. Developing a link between Cambridge philosophy and work on complexity, vague predicates and fuzzy logic, he argues that Wittgenstein's and Keynes's ideas on the economy of ordinary language present a mediating route for the social sciences between these philosophical paradigms. (shrink)