scholarly journals AVICENNA ON ANIMAL SELF-AWARENESS, COGNITION AND IDENTITY

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-96
Author(s):  
Ahmed Alwishah

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive and systematic study of Avicenna's account of animal self-awareness and cognition. In the first part, I explain how, for Avicenna, in contrast to human self-awareness, animal self-awareness is taken to be indirect, mixed-up (makhlūṭ), and an intermittent awareness. In his view, animal self-awareness is provided by the faculty of estimation (wahm); hence, in the second part, I explore the cognitive role of the faculty of estimation in animals, and how that relates to self-awareness. The faculty of estimation, according to Avicenna, serves to distinguish one's body and its parts from external objects, and plays a role in connecting the self to its perceptual activities. It follows that animal self-awareness, unlike human self-awareness, is essentially connected to the body. In the third part of the paper, I show that, while Avicenna denies animals awareness of their self-awareness, he explicitly affirms that animals can grasp their individual identity, but, unlike humans, do so incidentally, as part of their perceptual awareness.

Author(s):  
Micah Allen ◽  
Manos Tsakiris

Embodied predictive processing accounts place the visceral milieu, its homeostatic functioning, and our interoceptive awareness thereof on the center stage of self-awareness. Starting from the privileged status that homeostatic priors have within the cortical hierarchy of an organism whose main imperative is to maintain homeostasis, we focus on the mechanisms that underlie interoceptive precision and its impact on embodiment and cognition. Beyond their privileged status for ensuring the stability of organism, this chapter considers the psychological importance that interoceptive priors and interoceptive precision have for self-awareness and the grounding of a coherent self-model. In a manner analogous to the role that interoception plays for homeostasis, interoception at the psychological level seems to contribute to the stability of self-awareness. This psychological role of interoception is illustrated by a growing body of research that considers the antagonism but also the integration between exteroceptive and interoceptive models of the self.


1975 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
CAROLINE M. POND

1. The hydrodynamic drag acting on the crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes is measured and it is concluded that, in the range of velocities used in walking, the drag is independent of the posture of the limbs and the direction of motion of the body. At swimming velocities the streamlining caused by promotion of the legs reduces the drag losses to half that of a crayfish moving in the forwards walking posture at the same speed. 2. The forwards walking of intact crayfish is compared with that of the same animal after amputation of one or more pairs of legs. It is concluded that the third and fourth pair of legs provide most of the propulsion under water and the second pair is not essential to locomotion under any of the conditions tried.


Author(s):  
David W. Kling

The concluding chapter provides summary observations of the book’s themes that highlight the complex, multifaceted dimension of conversion throughout twenty centuries of Christian history. These include the convert’s cognizance of divine presence; the crucial importance of historical context (political, religious, institutional, and socioeconomic factors); continuity and discontinuity (how much of the new displaces the old in conversion?); nominal, incomplete, and “true” conversions; personal testimonies and narratives (the autobiographical impulse attests to the converted life); the role of gender; identity and the self; agency (are converts actors or are they being acted upon?); the mechanisms behind and the motivations for conversion; the body as a site of conversion; the role of music; conversion as event and process; coercive practices; and forms of communication in the converting process.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas T Hirblinger ◽  
Dana M Landau

‘Inclusion’ has emerged as a prominent theme in peacemaking. However, its exact meaning remains vague, as do assumptions about the relationship between inclusion and peace. This article seeks to problematize the research, policy and practice of inclusion. Focusing on United Nations (UN) peacemaking, we ask how the object of inclusion has been framed, and based on what strategies and underlying rationales. We do so against the backdrop of emerging debates about an agonistic peace, which suggest that violent antagonistic relationships can be overcome if peace processes enable contestation between adversaries. This requires that peacemakers recognize the constitutive role of difference in political settlements. We identify three distinct strategies for inclusion, with corresponding framings of the included. Firstly, inclusion can be used to build a more legitimate peace; secondly, to empower and protect specific actor groups; and thirdly, to transform the sociopolitical structures that underlie conflict. The first strategy frames the included in open terms that can accommodate a heterogeneity of actors, the second in closed terms pertaining to specific identity traits, and the third in relational terms emerging within a specific social, cultural and political context. In practice, this leads to tensions in the operationalization of inclusion, which are evidence of an inchoate attempt to politicize peace processes. In response, we argue for an approach to relational inclusion that recognizes the power relations from which difference emerges; neither brushing over difference, nor essentializing single identity traits, but rather remaining flexible in navigating a larger web of relationships that require transformation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-129
Author(s):  
Ruth Anna Spooner ◽  
Rachel Sutton-Spence ◽  
Miriam Nathan Lerner ◽  
Kenny Lerner

Abstract We report here on strategies used in the art of literary translation between ASL and English through the self-reflections of three ASL-English “translators” as they grapple with the varying degrees of translator visibility that push them beyond the traditional expectations of faceless translators into becoming performers of the translated texts. During translation, their faces, hands, and/or voices embody the text, becoming an integral part of the piece, which adds layers of complexity to the ways we think about the translator’s role and the process of translation. We hope that our reflections will challenge prevailing notions about creating, performing, and translating ASL literature, as well as raise questions about recasting the role of the translator and the body in sign language translation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 107 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-446
Author(s):  
Ayelet Even-Ezra

In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul writes: It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows—how he was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast, except in my infirmities. (2 Cor 12:1–5 nkiv) This brief and enigmatic account is caught between multiple dialectics of power and infirmity, pride and humility, unveiling and secrecy. At this point in his letter Paul is turning to a new source of power in order to establish his authority against the crowd of boasting false apostles who populate the previous paragraphs. He wishes to divulge his intimate, occult knowledge of God, but at the same time keep his position as antihero that is prevalent throughout the epistle. These dialectics are enhanced by a sophisticated play of first and third person. The third person denotes the subject who experienced rapture fourteen years ago, while the first person denotes the narrator in the present. Only after several verses does the reader realize that these two are in fact the same person. This alienation allows Paul the intricate play of boasting, for “of such a one I will boast, yet of myself I will not boast.”


Author(s):  
José Luis Bermúdez

How can we be aware of ourselves both as physical objects and as thinking, experiencing subjects? What role does the experience of the body play in generating our sense of self? What is the role of action and agency in the construction of the bodily self? These questions have been a rich subject of interdisciplinary debate among philosophers, neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and cognitive scientists for several decades. José Luis Bermúdez been a significant contributor to these debates since the 1990’s, when he authored The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) and co-edited The Body and the Self (MIT Press, 1995) with Anthony Marcel and Naomi Eilan. The Bodily Self is a selection of essays all focused on different aspects of the role of the body in self-consciousness, prefaced by a substantial introduction outlining common themes across the essays. The essays have been published in a wide range of journals and edited volumes. Putting them together brings out a wide-ranging, thematically consistent perspective on a set of topics and problems that remain firmly of interest across the cognitive and behavioral sciences.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 146-157
Author(s):  
Fedai Kabadayı ◽  
Mustafa Şahin

The aim of this study is to predict career search self-efficacy. In this context, predictive variables are self-transcendence, self-consciousness and self-control and self-management. The research data obtained from 1278 university students. 786 (61.5%) were girls. Regression analysis and correlation analysis were used. According to the findings, it was determined that self- transcendence, self-control and self-management, social anxiety, appearance consciousness and internal self-awareness were significant predictors of career search self-efficacy. The strongest predictor is the variable self-transcendence. In this context, experimental interventions or psycho-educational programs based on these skills, which are related to the self, can be tested in order to increase career search self-efficacy.


Author(s):  
Reinhard Zimmermann

The gradual emergence of a European private law is one of the most significant contemporary legal developments. Comparative law scholarship has played an important role in this process and will continue to do so. This article discusses the Europeanization of private law as a new and challenging task for comparative law. The second section considers the Europeanization of private law, describing the creation of the European Union and the role of the European Court of Justice. The third section discusses European legal scholarship. The fourth section cites the contributions of comparative law. The last two sections discuss current and future trends for the European private law.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Sibylle Baumbach ◽  
Ulla Ratheiser

AbstractThe opening chapter introduces and contextualizes the politics and poetics of Victorian surfaces. First, we delineate the increasing interests in both natural and constructed surfaces by taking a closer look at discourses that reflect a growing fascination with surfaces, including (pseudo-)medical treatises on physiognomy. Secondly, we focus on the politics of surface readings by scrutinizing the politics of various visual representations of Queen Victoria and the (self-)fashioning of the body politic at the centre of a growing surface culture. Third, we develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of the poetics of Victorian surfaces by analyzing the attention paid to (or withheld from) surfaces in Victorian literature and culture. By examining the role of surface reading in Victorian texts, we offer an overview of different surface cultures and debates surrounding the challenges attached to surfaces, explore how to do things with surfaces, and thereby outline what can be described as a ‘poetics of surface.’


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