Aesthetics and Cognitive Science

Author(s):  
Gregory Currie

The subject of this article is the connection between art and all those aspects of mind that have, to some degree, an empirical side. It covers results in neuropsychology and neuroscience, in cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as in various parts of the philosophy of mind. This article, however, ignores questions about the natural history of our mental capacities. To the extent that art has human psychology as its subject, there must be potential for conflict with the sciences of mind. As philosophers have recently noted, results in social psychology challenge our ordinary conception of human motivation, suggesting that moral character either does not exist at all or plays an insignificant role in shaping behaviour.

1859 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 381-457 ◽  

The necessity of discussing so great a subject as the Theory of the Vertebrate Skull in the small space of time allotted by custom to a lecture, has its advantages as well as its drawbacks. As, on the present occasion, I shall suffer greatly from the disadvantages of the limitation, I will, with your permission, avail myself to the uttermost of its benefits. It will be necessary for me to assume much that I would rather demonstrate, to suppose known much that I would rather set forth and explain at length; but on the other hand, I may consider myself excused from entering largely either into the history of the subject, or into lengthy and controversial criticisms upon the views which are, or have been, held by others. The biological science of the last half-century is honourably distinguished from that of preceding epochs, by the constantly increasing prominence of the idea, that a community of plan is discernible amidst the manifold diversities of organic structure. That there is nothing really aberrant in nature; that the most widely different organisms are connected by a hidden bond; that an apparently new and isolated structure will prove, when its characters are thoroughly sifted, to be only a modification of something which existed before,—are propositions which are gradually assuming the position of articles of faith in the mind of the investigators of animated nature, and are directly, or by implication, admitted among the axioms of natural history.


Zootaxa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 3395 (1) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUIS M. P. CERÍACO ◽  
ROGER BOUR

The work Prodromus Monographiae Cheloniorum, published by Schweigger in 1812, has recently been the subject ofseveral studies. One result of these studies—the rediscovery of the Testudo gigantea Schweigger, 1812holotype—triggered an intense debate in The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, where, among other issues in dispute,the identity and nature of the specimen indicated as the holotype for the species is put in question. Using historical sources,mostly unpublished, and analysis and comparison of taxidermic characteristics of the specimen with other specimens ofthe same nature, we can clearly trace its origin to the extinct Royal Cabinet of Natural History of Ajuda in Lisbon, fromthe “philosophical journey” of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira to the specimens transported to Paris by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1808, thus helping dispel any doubts regarding the identity and nature of what is being identified as the Testudogigantea holotype, along with other chelonian specimens. This information is of great importance in the current taxonomicdebate as well as in recognizing the historic importance of the Royal Cabinet of Natural History of Ajuda and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s 1808 mission to Lisbon.


Polar Record ◽  
1942 ◽  
Vol 3 (24) ◽  
pp. 553-563
Author(s):  
N. A. Mackintosh

The purpose of this article is to give a general indication of the present state of our knowledge of whales, regarded as an element of the oceanic fauna, and to indicate some of the more important problems which still await solution. The term “whales” is used here to include only the largest of the Cetacea, which are the Right whales, the Rorquals and the Sperm whale; and the subject has to do with these whales in the collective sense, that is to say their habits as a community, and their breeding, growth and distribution, especially in the southern hemisphere, rather than with such matters as comparative anatomy and physiology.


Dialogue ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Thomas Mathien

Some writers about the history of philosophy in Canada have wondered why it should be studied. That is a worthy question, but it is not the one I want to discuss here. I am going to assume there are good reasons for doing so because I want to consider some general features of the subject of such studies and to determine what has to be done to establish certain descriptive claims about it. I will also point out some concerns I have about the proper explanation of certain interesting features of Canadian philosophic activity, and I will present a brief evaluation of one major study. I will do this with the aid of a contention that the study of the history of an intellectual discipline is a little like an evolutionary study of a biological species, but I will close by pointing out one reason for doing history which goes beyond description, and even explanation, of the past.


1975 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 479-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willy Canziani

A survey of the scientific work of the psychologist, Prof. Dr. Franziska Baumgarten, takes into consideration her research and her methods in the fields of occupational psychology, developmental psychology, professional ethics, and political and social psychology.


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