scholarly journals Terminology: Aboutness, Representation, and Metasemantics

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen ◽  
Josh Dever
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

This short chapter does two things. First, it shows that in fact workers in AI frequently talk as if AI systems express contents. We present the argument that the complex nature of the actions and communications of AI systems, even if they are very different from the complex behaviours of human beings, and the way they have ‘aboutness’, strongly suggest a contentful interpretation of those actions and communications. It then introduces some philosophical terminology that captures various aspects of language use, such as the ones in the title, to better make clear what one is saying—philosophically speaking—when one claims AI systems communicate, and to provide a vocabulary for the next few chapters.

Sombras e Luzes no Entusiasmo em Kant

2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Viriato Soromenho-Marques ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World Order ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Way

This paper tackles the complex nature of the concept of enthusiasm in three distinct moments of Kant’s thought. It pervades along the different evolutionary periods of the critical philosophy, both as a symptom of the most ugly features of human condition and as a sign of the way human beings are invited and commanded to take part in the process of fulfîlling the tasks and promises of a moral rational world order.

The Atonement and the Solution to the Problems of Guilt and Shame

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers shame in its major varieties and shows that each of these kinds of shame has a defeat in the atonement of Christ. It then considers guilt in all its elements, including the brokenness in the psyche of the wrongdoer and the bad effects on the world resulting from his wrongdoing, and it shows that, on the interpretation of the doctrine of the atonement argued for in this book, the atonement can remedy all human guilt. Consequently, through the atonement of Christ, a person in grace is freed from guilt and reconciled with God and with other human beings as well, and his guilt is defeated in his flourishing. On this interpretation of the doctrine, one can see the way in which the atonement of Christ makes sense as a solution to the main problem that the atonement was meant to remedy.

Law as a Malleable Artifact

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Schauer
Keyword(s):  
Natural Kind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Way ◽  
Concept Of Law

Law is not a natural kind, but is instead an artifact. Like all artifacts, the artifact of law is created by human beings. But what human beings create can be re-created, and thus the artifact that is law is always open to modification or revision. And if law is open to modification or revision, then so too is our concept of it. This chapter explores the way in which one form of jurisprudential scholarship is that which seeks not to identify what our concept of law now is, but, rather, what our concept of law ought to be, in light of any number of moral or pragmatic goals.

Engels on women, the family, class and gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 194277862110000
Author(s):  
Sheila Margaret McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Women's Oppression ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Way

This article looks at Engels’s writings to show that his ideas about the role of labour in the evolution of human beings in a dialectical relationship between human beings and nature is a crucial starting point for understanding human society and is correct in its essentials. It is important for understanding that we developed as a species on the basis of social cooperation. The way human beings produce and reproduce themselves, the method of historical materialism, provides the basis for understanding how class and women’s oppression arose and how that can explain LGBTQ oppression. Although Engels’s analysis was once widely accepted by the socialist movement, it has mainly been ignored or opposed by academic researchers and others, including geographers, and more recently by Marxist feminists. However, anthropological research from the 1960s and 1970s as well as more recent anthropological and archaeological research provide overwhelming evidence for the validity of Engels’s argument that there were egalitarian, pre-class societies without women’s oppression. However, much remains to be explained about the transition to class societies. Engels’s analysis of the impact of industrial capitalism on gender roles shows how society shapes our behaviour. Engels’s method needs to be constantly reasserted against those who would argue that we are a competitive, aggressive species who require rules to suppress our true nature, and that social development is driven by ideas, not by changes in the way we produce and reproduce ourselves.

Can animals sing? On birdsong, music and meaning

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hektor KT Yan
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
A Value ◽  
Music And Meaning ◽  
To Come ◽  
Factual Issue ◽  
The Way

This article deals with conceptual questions regarding claims to the effect that humans and animals share artistic abilities such as the possession of music. Recent works focusing on animals, from such as Hollis Taylor and Dominique Lestel, are discussed. The attribution of artistic traits in human and animal contexts is examined by highlighting the importance of issues relating to categorization and evaluation in cross-species studies. An analogy between the denial of major attributes to animals and a form of racism is drawn in order to show how questions pertaining to meaning can impact on our understanding of animal abilities. One of the major theses presented is that the question of whether animals possess music cannot be answered by a methodology that is uninformed by the way concepts such as music or art function in the context of human life: the ascription of music to humans or non-humans is a value-laden act rather than a factual issue regarding how to represent an entity. In order to see how humans and animals share a life in common, it is necessary to come to the reflective realization that how human beings understand themselves can impact on their perception and experience of human and non-human animals.

Anthropocentrism without a centre?

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Being And Time ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Unusual Structure ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unique Relationship ◽  
Made In ◽  
Number Of Authors ◽  
The Way

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.

scholarly journals Language Acquisition in the Light of Rationalist Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Language

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 303-315
Author(s):  
Halina Święczkowska ◽  
Beata Piecychna
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Speech Acquisition ◽  
The Way

Abstract The present study deals with the problem of the acquisition of language in children in the light of rationalist philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. The main objective of the paper is to present the way Gerauld de Cordemoy’s views on the nature of language, including its socio-linguistic aspects, and on the process of speech acquisition in children are reflected in contemporary writings on how people communicate with each other. Reflections on 17th-century rationalist philosophy of mind and the latest research conducted within the field of cognitive abilities of human beings indicate that between those two spheres many similarities could be discerned in terms of particular stages of the development of speech and its physical aspects.

scholarly journals Meanderings Around the Notion of ‘Contact’ in Reference to Languages, their Dynamics, and to ‘we’

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-548
Author(s):  
Robert Nicolaï
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Classical Sense ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
As If

This paper is a linguistic, anthropological and philosophical exploration of language, with particular focus on language contact. The goal is not to address linguistic phenomena from a descriptive perspective, in the classical sense of the term, nor as if they were a “given”, and nothing further. Nor is the goal to craft a model. Instead it is an attempt to account for all relevant elements which (empirically) come into play in ordinary language use, considering them both in terms of language dynamics and in terms of language usage; this necessarily entails taking into consideration our own practices, as actors of communication and as builders of knowledge. We are ever stakeholders in this play (and its plays) because we are the ones who identify and/or attribute relevance. In other words, this text is a reflection on the (our) frameworks established through communication practices (frameworks which naturally have an impact on the form of our tools, including languages!) It highlights that the objectivization of phenomena which underlies our practices (whether academic or not) is closely dependent on the means by which we grasp the phenomena—this is nothing new but is worth noting afresh. Methodologically speaking, observing this point is an essential element in the elaboration of a theory to account for how phenomena are empirically grasped, and more particularly what it entails in the field of ‘language contact’.

First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Bulliet
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The Way

One of the few predictable opportunities for the exercise of free will that comes the way of most human beings is the bestowal of names upon their children. To be sure, local or national custom may legally restrict or otherwise limit the scope of that freedom in some cases; but by and large, there is normally some choice to be made, and the beneficiary of the choice, the child, is inevitably powerless to influence it.

Is God Really in History?

1979 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-390
Author(s):  
Frederick Sontag
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

For some time it seemed as if Christianity itself required us to say that ‘God is in history’. Of course, even to speak of ‘history’ is to reveal a bias for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forms of thought. But the justification for talking about the Christian God in this way is the doctrine of the incarnation. The centre of the Christian claim is that Jesus is God's representation in history, although we need not go all the way to a full trinitarian interpretation of the relationship between God and Jesus. Thus, the issue is not so much whether God can appear or has appeared within, or entered into, human life as it is a question of what categories we use to represent this. To what degree is God related to the sphere of human events? Whatever our answer, we need periodically to re-examine the way we speak about God to be sure the forms we use have not become misleading.

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