The aim of this paper is to explore the interaction between aesthetic properties and cognitive value in serial television. This study is based on a survey focused specifically on one television series: the second season of My Brilliant Friend, created by Saverio Costanzo. The survey was designed with the aim of getting respondents to express their perceptions of the relationship between the aesthetic qualities of the series and their assessment of it in cognitive terms. The responses obtained in the survey (...) offer a clear answer to the key question of concern for this article. The vast majority of respondents (more than 90% in almost all cases) believe that aesthetic and cognitive qualities mutually influence one another. Additionally the qualitative results invite us to further explore interactionism conceptually: the cognitive content is taken as a criterion for evaluating the season’s aesthetic value overall, suggesting a link between meaning and narrative form. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim has developed an argument that interactionist dualists cannot account for the causal relations between minds and brains. This paper develops a closely related argument that focuses instead on the causal relations between minds and neurons. While there are several promising responses to Kim’s argument, their plausibility relies on a relatively simple understanding of mind–brain relations. Once we shift our focus to neurons, these responses lose their appeal. The problem is that even if mind–brain causal pairing can be explained (...) at no great theoretical cost, the complex interactions non-physical minds would need to have with neurons cannot. (shrink)

Interactionists hold that non-spatial objects causally interact with physical objects. Interactionists have traditionally grappled with the puzzle of how such interaction is possible. More recently, Jaegwon Kim has presented interactionists with a more daunting threat: the pairing argument, which purports to refute interactionism by showing that non-spatial objects cannot stand in causal relations. After reviewing that argument, I develop a challenge to it on behalf of the interactionist. The challenge poses a dilemma: roughly, either haecceities exist or they do (...) not. I argue that the pairing argument fails in either case. While the challenge does not explain exactly how the pairing argument goes wrong, it shows that the argument fails. The challenge also explains the difficulty in pinpointing the pairing argument’s failure: exactly how the pairing argument fails depends on difficult issues concerning the nature of objects. (shrink)

This paper examines three programmatic responses to the problem of cognitive bias: virtue epistemology, epistemic paternalism, and epistemic collectivism. Each of these programmes focuses on asinglelevel of epistemic analysis: virtue theorists on individuals, paternalists on environments, and collectivists on groups. I argue that this is a mistake in light of the fact that cognitive biases arise frominteractionsbetween these three domains. Consequently, epistemologists should spend less time defending these programmes, and more timecoordinatingthem. This paper offers empirically based arguments for the interactionist (...) approach, and contends that its adoption is an essential step for minimizing bias in empirical science. (shrink)

Stemming from a study of social aesthetics, in which public reaction to human physical appearance is addressed, the present analysis considers the practice of humans associating themselves with nonhuman animals on the basis of the latter's appearance. The study found these nonhuman animals are intended to serve as a positive reflection on the humans who deliberately choose them for their “special” traits, which the humans then utilize to enhance their own social standing. The study compares this to the same practice (...) used by humans to associate themselves with attractive humans and serves the similar purpose of amassing social status by virtue of the association. This paper explains the phenomenon in theoretical terms; namely, symbolic interactionism, paying special attention to impression-management and dramaturgy, along with other interactionist features of attribution and social exchange. Where available, the paper uses scholarly, empirical work on the topic, supplemented by popular media observations and news articles. Viewed from an interactionist perspective, these empirical and non-empirical examples provide a novel picture of human-and-animal society as a unidirectional, status-seeking interaction intended to benefit human actors. (shrink)

Substance‐dualist interactionism faces two sorts of challenge. One is empirical, involving the alleged incompatibility between interactionism and the supposed closure of the physical world. Although widely considered successful, this challenge gives no reason for preferring materialism to dualism. The other sort of challenge holds that interactionism is conceptually impossible. The historically influential version of the conceptual challenge is now discredited, but recent discussions by Chomsky and by Crane and Mellor suggest a new version. In brief, the argument (...) is that anything that interacts causally with physical things would have to be sanctioned by physics,and anything sanctioned by physics is ipso facto physical. I focus on the second premise. I show that plausible arguments for it are in fact fallacious and that counterexamples undermine it. Thus the argument fails: substance‐dualist interactionism cannot be ruled out on conceptual grounds alone. (shrink)

George Herbert Mead argues that human society is comprised of six basic institutions—language, family, economics, religion, polity, and science. I do not believe that he can be criticized for making institutions the cornerstones of a society, but he can definitely be criticized for his explanation of how our basic institutions originate, how these institutions operate in society after their inception, and how they later change, modifying society in the process. The problem with Mead's explanation of these three critical matters is (...) that he based them on his principle of “sociality” rather than on the principle of “domination.” If Mead's principle of sociality is replaced by the principle of domination and his notion of the “generalized other” is replaced by the notion of the “phantom community,” then most of these problems can be largely solved. Thus, in this paper, I will not only point out the key problems in Mead's theory of society, but I will also offer solutions to them based on the notions of domination and the “phantom community.” The end product is a “radical interactionism” that surpasses Mead's original interactionism in identifying the part that both domination and the composite “other” play in every known human society—big and small, and past and present. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of theorists have developed approaches to social cognition that highlight the centrality of social interaction as opposed to mindreading (e.g. Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ; Gallagher 2001 , 2007 , 2008 ; Hobson 2002 ; Reddy 2008 ; Hutto 2004 ; De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007 ; Fuchs and De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher et al. 2010 ). There are important differences among these approaches, as I will discuss, but (...) they are united by their commitment to the claim that various embodied and extended processes sustain social understanding and interaction in the absence of mindreading and thus make mindreading superfluous. In this paper, I consider various ways of articulating and defending this claim. I will argue that the options that have been offered either fail to present an alternative to mindreading or commit one to a radical enactivist position that I will give reasons for being skeptical about. I will then present an alternative and moderate version of interactionism, according to which the embodied and extended processes that interactionists emphasize actually complement mindreading and may even contribute as an input to mindreading. (shrink)

One of the most popular arguments in favor of dualism is the zombie-conceivability argument. It is often argued that the possibility of zombies would entail that mental properties are epiphenomenal. This paper attempts to defuse the argument, offering a model of dualist mental causation which can serve as a basis for a modified, interactionist-friendly zombie argument.

In biology and philosophy of biology, discussing the notion of interaction leads to an examination of interactionism, which is, broadly speaking, the view that rejects gene-centrism and gene determinism and instead emphasizes the fact that traits of organisms are always the result of genes and environments. It has long been asserted that the nature-nurture problem requires an interactionist solution of sorts, the so-called interactionist consensus. This consensus, however, has been deemed insufficient and challenged by several authors triggering an extension (...) of the debate among contestants and defenders. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the views on causation that would ground claims about interactionism are not always made explicit in this debate, which renders those views somewhat complicated to assess. Moreover, it seems to be assumed that causal complexity excludes the possibility of characterizing, distinguishing, or comparing among causal contributions. By turning to a detailed survey of the origin of the debate and to some developments in the philosophy of causation, we will contend that this view is unwarranted, and that much of the debate around interactionism is based on the drawing of this conclusion. We also examine implications of this analysis for the project to develop a framework based on the notion of inter-identities. (shrink)

Throughout their history, symbolic interactionism and critical perspective have been viewed as divergent theoretical perspectives with different philosophical underpinnings. A review of their historical and philosophical origins reveals both points of divergence and areas of convergence. Their underlying philosophies of science and views of human freedom are different as is their level of focus with symbolic interactionism having a micro perspective and critical perspective using a macro perspective. This micro/macro difference is reflected in the divergence of their major (...) concepts, goals and basic tenets. While their underlying philosophies are different, however, they are not necessarily contradictory and areas of convergence may include the concepts of reference groups and looking glass self within symbolic interactionism and ideological hegemony within critical perspective. By using a pragmatic approach and combining symbolic interactionism and critical perspectives, both micro and macro levels come into focus and strategies for change across individual and societal levels can be developed and applied. Application of both symbolic interactionism and critical perspective to nursing research and scholarship offers exciting new opportunities for theory development and research methodologies. In nursing education, these two perspectives can give students added insight into patients' and families' problems at the micro level while, at the same time, giving them a lens to see and tools to apply to problems at the macro level in health care. In nursing practice, a combined symbolic interactionism/critical perspective approach assists nurses to give high-quality care at the individual level while also working at the macro level to address the manufacturers of illness. New research questions emerge from this combination of perspectives with new possibilities for theory development, a transformation in nursing education, and the potential for new practice strategies that can address individual client and larger system problems through empowerment of clients and nurses. (shrink)

This article argues that there is a marked ambivalence in Habermas’ concept of intersubjectivity in that he wavers between an interactionist and a discursive understanding. This ambivalence is demonstrated with reference to his recent critique of Robert Brandom's normative pragmatic theory of discursive practice. Although Habermas is a leading theorist of discourse as an epistemically steered process, he allows his interpretation of Brandom's theory as suffering from objective idealism to compel him to recoil from discourse and to defend a purely (...) interactionist or dialogical position. It is argued that the ambivalence in question is related to Habermas’ incomplete theorization of communication as a process of structure formation that unfolds sequentially through time on different levels. His architectonic of communicative intersubjectivity is marred by a missing concept. His characteristic concept of coordination is insufficient and must be complemented by a concept of synthesis at the discursive level. Key Words: Brandom • communication • coordination • discursive • synthesis • Habermas • Luhmann • objectivism • process • sequentiality • structure formation • time. (shrink)

While most researchers who use evolutionary theory to investigatehuman nature especially human sexuality describe themselves as ``interactionists'', there is no clear consensus on the meaning of thisterm in this context. By interactionism most people in the fieldmean something like, both nature and nurture ``count'' in thedevelopment of human psychology and behavior. Nevertheless, themultidisciplinary nature of evolutionary psychology results in a widevariety of interpretations of this general claim. Today, mostdebates within evolutionary psychology about the innateness of agiven behavioral characteristic or (...) over its development turn as muchon which conception of ``innateness'' and ``interactionism'' theresearcher holds as on any empirical data they might derive. (shrink)

We elaborate the kind of metaphysical, ontological arguments and positions put forth by Martin and Sugarman in several ways, in an attempt to clarify that it is the assumption of psychological and sociocultural entities as fixed ontological categories that makes psychological—sociocultural dualism problematic, not the necessary distinction it draws between sociocultural and psychological processes. In so doing, we develop an emergent, mutable metaphysics and ontology for psychological and sociocultural processes that emphasizes their dynamic interrelation. We then attempt to articulate and (...) defend a neorealist hermeneutics as a viable epistemological accompaniment to this dynamic, interactionist metaphysics, and to indicate its appropriateness to psychological inquiry in particular. (shrink)

Interactionism has emerged as a promising approach to moral character in the wake of the situationist challenge and the character-situation debate. This paper will consider whether interactionism is troubled by a familiar problem from the philosophy of mind: the coupling-constitution or causal-constitution fallacy. In relation to character, this issue pertains to whether the external factors featured in interactionist models are partly constitutive of the agent’s character, or whether they merely play a causal role. In contrast to some other (...) interactionist theorists, I argue that interactionism doesn’t need to make distinctions regarding causation and constitution, and would be better off without attempting to do so. Making such claims would only add metaphysical baggage to interactionism that won’t aid in its goal of providing an empirically adequate moral psychology of character. Interactionists are thus better off evading the C-C fallacy challenge, rather than attempting to meet it head-on. (shrink)

One may gather from the arguments of two of the last papers published before his death that J. L. Mackie held the following three theses concerning the mind/body problem : (1) There is a distinct realm of mental properties, so a dualism of properties at least is true and materialism false.

In the debate about the nature of social cognition we see a shift towards theories that explain social understanding through interaction. This paper discusses autopoietic enactivism and the we-mode approach in the light of such developments. We argue that a problem seems to arise for these theories: an interactionist account of social cognition makes the capacity of shared intentionality a presupposition of social understanding, while the capacity of engaging in scenes of shared intentionality in turn presupposes exactly the kind of (...) social understanding that it is intended to explain. The social capacity in question that is presupposed by these accounts is then analyzed in the second section via a discussion and further development of Searle’s ‘sense of us’ and ‘sense of the other’ as a precondition for social cognition and joint action. After a critical discussion of Schmid’s recent proposal to analyze this in terms of plural pre-reflective selfawareness, we develop an alternative account. Starting from the idea that infants distinguish in perception between physical objects and other agents we distinguish between affordances and social affordances and cash out the notion of a social affordance in terms of “interaction-oriented representations”, parallel to the analysis of object affordances in terms of “action-oriented representations”. By characterizing their respective features we demonstrate how this approach can solve the problem formulated in the first part. (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that since (1) every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and (2) cases of causal overdetermination are rare, it follows that if (3) mental events cause physical events as frequently as they seem to, then (4) mental events must be physical in nature. In defence of (1), it is sometimes said that (1) is supported if not entailed by conservation laws. Against this, I argue that conservation laws do not lend sufficient support to (...) (1) to render its denial ‘unscientific’, and that those who accept (3) and deny (4) may consequently respond to the Exclusion Argument by denying (1) without thereby setting themselves at odds with current science. I also argue that conservation laws are compatible with (3) and the negation of (4), and that one can therefore accept conservation laws and (3) while denying both (1) and (4). (shrink)

Levine's discussion of Rethinking Religion (1990) and "Crisis of Conscience, Riddle of Identity" (1993) includes some rash charges, some useful comments, and some profound misunderstandings. The latter, especially, reveal areas where we need to clarify and further defend our claims. In the second section we shall discuss the epistemological and methodological issues that Levine raises. Then we shall turn in the third section to theoretical and substantive matters. In fact, Levine remains almost completely silent on substantive matters (except to say (...) that our claims are "obvious" and "trite.") Levine claims, in effect, (1) that religion is outside of the scope of scientific analysis, (2) that our competence approach to theorizing is not necessary for generating the theoretical claims that we make, and (3) that the substantive consequences of those theoretical claims are obvious and trivial. We unequivocally reject the first and third claims and, Levine's profound misunderstandings about the competence approach to theorizing notwithstanding, completely agree with the second. Identifying the confusions in Levine's discussion that inform item (3) will clarify our position. We turn first, though, to matters of epistemology and method (as these bear on items (1) and (2)). (shrink)

The views of linguistic analysts and objectivists are explored with regard to the question of interactionism. It is argued that the admission of a logical difference between explanation by cause and explanation by motive cannot disqualify causal explanations of human action, cannot be construed as challenging the competence of science, and cannot count against interactionism. It is also argued that objectivist programs for eliminating mentalistic concepts either implicitly admit interactionism or cannot distinguish relevantly between interactionism and (...) parallelism. (shrink)

The journey of phenomenology apparently is not so extensive, because it was the first half of the twentieth century when Edmund Husserl appeared as the founder of phenomenology. But, it has its very roots in the works of ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This journey did not stopped here, as various phenomenologists have also been contributing in this field and establishing the linkage between phenomenology and symbolic interactionism as well as its very relation to research. Researchers (...) in the presented work have critically analyzed the contributions of prominent phenomenologists, i.e. from Hegel to Dreyfus and have applied relational analysis. The present study propounds that with the passage of time, the concept of phenomenology has been constructively evolving; in a sense that it has become more calculative. (shrink)

What influence did Josiah Royce's academic work (1913-1917) have on the development of classical Symbolic Interactionist thought? And which philosophical influences shaped Royce's social and philosophical thought? This book provides a holistic approach to Royce's academic work and the social philosophy that shaped Symbolic Interactionist theory. By critically evaluating the works of Royce, this book reveals how his ideas and social philosophy made significant contributions to both Symbolic Interactionist thought and sociological theory. Situating his contributions within a socio-historical time frame, (...) Royce's social philosophy is compared and contrasted to the major concepts of George Herbert Mead (Mind, Self, and Society) and Herbert Blumer's core synthesized components of classical symbolic interactionist thought (Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method). Thus, demonstrating that Royce's later academic works closely resemble not only the basic ideas of Mead but also have a strong correspondence with Blumer's synthesis of the three basic premises and eight root images that outline the theoretical core of Symbolic Interactionist thought. For those looking to investigate or discover new aspects of symbolic interactionist theory from a classical viewpoint, this book offers a unique insight into an American philosopher whose contribution to the development of Symbolic Interactionism has been largely unnoticed. (shrink)

A plea has been made for replacing the perspective of “symbolic interactionism” with a new interactionist's perspective—“radical interactionism.” Unlike in symbolic interactionism, where Mead's and Blumer's ideas play the most prominent roles, in radical interactionism's, Park's ideas play a more prominent role than either Mead's or Blumer's ideas. On the one hand, according to Mead, the general principle behind the organization of human group life was once dominance, but it is now “sociality.” On the other hand, (...) according to Park, this general principle is now and has always been dominance. Blumer takes a position much closer to Mead's than Park's arguing that the general principle underlying the organization of human group life is sociality. Under certain special conditions, however, it can become dominance. Although like radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is rooted in pragmatism, unlike in radical interactionism, symbolic interactionism is still plagued with strains of utopian thought, among which the notion of sociality is the most virulent. Sociality may be the principle on which human group life is organized in heaven, but, down here on earth, it remains organized on the basis of domination. Thus, radical interactionism provides a much-needed antidote to the idealistic overtones still found in symbolic interactionism. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the role played by disturbed phenomenology in accounting for the formation and maintenance of the Capgras delusion. Whilst endorsing a two-stage model to explain the condition, I nevertheless argue that traditional accounts prioritise the role played by some form of second-stage cognitive disruption at the expense of the significant contribution made by the patient’s disturbed phenomenology, which is often reduced to such uninformative descriptions as “anomalous” or “strange”. By advocating an interactionist model, I argue that (...) the delusional belief constitutes an attempt on the part of the patient to explain his/her initially odd and somewhat disturbed phenomenal content and, moreover, that the delusion then structures the patient’s experience such that what he/she perceives is an impostor. This fact is used to explain the delusional belief’s maintenance and resistance to revision. Thus, whilst accepting that second-stage cognitive disruption has a part to play in explaining the Capgras delusion, the emphasis here is placed on the role played by the patient’s changing phenomenal content and its congruence with the delusional belief. Unlike traditional two-stage models, which posit a unidirectional progression from experience to belief, the interactionist model advocates a two-way interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes. The application of this model to other delusional beliefs is also considered. (shrink)

Because many involuntarily childless people have equal interests in benefitting from assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization as a mode of treatment, we have normative reasons to ensure inclusive access to such interventions for as many of these people as is reasonable and possible. However, the prevailing eligibility criterion for access to assisted reproductive technologies—'infertility'—is inadequate to serve the goal of inclusive access. This is because the prevailing frameworks of infertility, which include medical and social infertility, fail to precisely (...) capture and unify the relevance of certain involuntarily childless experiences as warranting assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment. I argue that the least we can do for those who have an interest in accessing ARTs is to conceptualize involuntarily childless experiences in dialogue with interactionist and ecological models of disability, to outline a unified and more inclusive eligibility criterion. (shrink)

Interactionists about folk psychology argue that embodied interactions constitute the primary way we understand one another and thus oppose more standard accounts according to which the understanding is mostly achieved through belief and desire attributions. However, also interactionists need to explain why people sometimes still resort to attitude ascription. In this paper, it is argued that this explanatory demand presents a genuine challenge for interactionism and that a popular proposal which claims that belief and desire attributions are needed to (...) make sense of counternormative behavior is problematic. Instead, the most promising conception of belief and desire ascriptions is the communicative conception which locates them in the context of declarative and imperative communication, respectively. Such a communication can take both verbal and non-verbal form. (shrink)

This study expands theoretical understanding of organizational misconduct through qualitative analysis of widespread deceptive sales practices at a large U.S. life insurance company. Adopting a symbolic interactionist perspective, this research describes how a set of taken-for-granted interpretive frames located in the organization’s culture created a worldview through which deceptive sales practices were seen as normal, acceptable, routine operating procedure. The findings from this study extend and modify the dominant theoretical ‘pressure/opportunity’ model of organizational misconduct by proposing that the process engine (...) driving misconduct is not amorally rational organization members, but rather is organizational members acting on socially constructed views of the organization that normalize misconduct. (shrink)

One of the major reasons underlying the widespread rejection of the theory that the mind is an immaterial substance distinct from the body, But which nevertheless acts on the body, Is that it is felt that such a theory commits one to denying the principle of the conservation of energy. My aim in this article is to assess the strength of this objection. My thesis is that the usual replies are inadequate, But--Strong as this objection appears--Some important logical distinctions have (...) been overlooked and when these are taken into account its force vanishes. (shrink)

Two basic models of law and morality -- Essentially ambiguous concepts -- The debate between Fuller, Hart, and Dworkin -- The relations between law and morality -- A pluralist framework -- What is Legal Interactionism? -- Understanding the dynamics of law --Three apparent anomalies in modern law -- The necessary and contingent relationship between law and morality.

Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical...