Humor as Violation and Deprecation: A Cognitive Anthropological Account

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 217-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Grant Purzycki
Keyword(s):  
Individual Group ◽  
The Past ◽  
Target Individual ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Schematic Knowledge ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

AbstractOver the past few centuries, scholars have expressed a number of models of humor which are divergent, but potentially complementary. Specifically, the Incongruity Hypothesis posits that humor is our confrontation with a stimulus that is surprising or inconsistent with the way we normally view the world. The Hermetic Hypothesis maintains that the incongruity of humorous statements or events exploits shared cultural (i.e., schematic) knowledge. The Deprecation Hypothesis suggests that humor involves lowering the status of a target individual, group, or object. This paper tests a number of predictions derived from these approaches using statements that isolate the types of violations in both form (i.e., schematic or ontological template violations) and content (i.e., deprecating or non-deprecating). Using cognitive anthropological approaches to the mind, the present results suggest that the most effective forms of humor are deprecating, schematic violations.

A Portrait of Consciousness

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-99
Author(s):  
Garry L. Hagberg
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Model ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Departing from observations taken from the legal judgment that lifted the ban on Ulysses that concern the intricate way that Joyce in his novel portrays “the screen of consciousness,” this chapter first examines the classical empirical model of human perception where the eye is modeled on the lens of a camera. Moving to a consideration of what that model misses in terms of the webs of associations woven into perception by the experiential history of the perceiver and some philosophical arguments critiquing that oversimplified model, the chapter then looks into some details concerning acts of remembering, moments of recognition, the understanding of human motives, and the way the past can overlay the perception of the present, all of which challenge any reductive model of mere ocular sensation as the fundamental content of perception. With this background the chapter then moves to its main project, a reading of Joyce’s great novel that sees the work as an expansive and encompassing study of the nuances of perception, of the relationally complex ways in which the mind organizes and interacts with the world, and of the structuring power that our language exerts within perceptual consciousness.

Profilometry. Using Corneo-scleral topography for scleral lens fitting

The Eye ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (128) ◽  
pp. 19-22
Author(s):  
Gregory DeNaeyer
Keyword(s):  
Ocular Surface ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Contact Lenses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

The world-wide use of scleral contact lenses has dramatically increased over the past 10 year and has changed the way that we manage patients with corneal irregularity. Successfully fitting them can be challenging especially for eyes that have significant asymmetries of the cornea or sclera. The future of scleral lens fitting is utilizing corneo-scleral topography to accurately measure the anterior ocular surface and then using software to design lenses that identically match the scleral surface and evenly vault the cornea. This process allows the practitioner to efficiently fit a customized scleral lens that successfully provides the patient with comfortable wear and improved vision.

scholarly journals Interrogating the Founding Gestures of the New Materialism

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Bruining
Keyword(s):  
New Materialism ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Way

In this article, I aim to further thinking in the broadly ‘new materialist’ field by insisting it attends to some ubiquitous assumptions. More specifically, I critically interrogate what Sara Ahmed has termed ‘the founding gestures of the “new materialism”’. These founding rhetorical gestures revolve around a perceived neglect of the matter of materiality in ‘postmodernism’ and ‘poststructuralism’ and are meant to pave the way for new materialism’s own conception of matter-in/of-the-world. I argue in this article that an engagement with the postmodern critique of language as constitutive, as well as the poststructuralist critique of pure self-presence, does not warrant these founding gestures to be so uncritically rehearsed. Moreover, I demonstrate that texts which rely on these gestures, or at least the ones I discuss in this article, are not only founded on a misrepresentation of postmodern and poststructuralist thought, but are also guilty of repeating the perceived mistakes of which they are critical, such as upholding the language/matter dichotomy. I discuss a small selection of texts that make use of those popular rhetorical gestures to juxtapose the past that is invoked with a more nuanced reading of that past. My contention is that if ‘the founding gestures of the “new materialism”’ are not addressed, the complexity of the postmodern and poststructuralist positions continues to be obscured, with damaging consequences for the further development of the emerging field of new materialism, as well as our understanding of cultural theory’s past.

scholarly journals Need to Change Exam Preparation Strategy

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Subhash Madankar
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Educational Tool ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Past ◽  
Exam Preparation ◽  
The World ◽  
Examination Methods ◽  
Preparation Strategy ◽  
Expected Outcomes ◽  
The Way

All over the world, there are different students who acquired the different ways of preparation.  Every professional graduator having different mindsets or approach towards the examination. Due to this, some student will get good outcomes in minimum time and some will not get expected outcomes even when they were tried a lot. The examination methods have a large impact on how and when student study and what they learn. The examination should not only be used as a control that a student is qualified, but also as an educational tool to influence the learning process. Over a long period of time, students were thinking that exam would the way where we will express our knowledge. But according to some student will be not. Now a day, a number of students adopted different way of learning and attempting the examination. And getting good marks in an exam will not be an issue. Today, the world is practical oriented. They demand not only the base of knowledge but a group of knowledge along with skills. Also, the way of learning is different than the past decade. Now we have to change our mindset regarding exam and way which will be adopting for it.

scholarly journals The Material Value of Flags: Politics and Space in Northern Ireland

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Dominic Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Way

This article examines the way in which the availability of cheaply produced polyester flags has changed the symbolic landscape in the public places of Northern Ireland. The “tradition” of flying flags to express identity is common throughout the world and an important feature of an annual marking of residential and civic spaces in Northern Ireland. Such displays have been a consistent part of the reproduction of political identities through commemoration and the marking of territory. However, the availability of cheaply produced textiles has led to a change in the way the displays take place, the development of a range of new designs and helped sustain the control of areas by particular paramilitary groups. It highlights how the “symbolic capital” of the national flags can be used by different social groups having implication on the status and value of the symbol.

Veronicas and Artists

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Religious Images ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way ◽  
Contemporary Artists

Chapter One deals with several central issues with regard to understanding the role of religious motifs in contemporary art. Besides being a repetition of imagery from the past, religious motifs embedded in contemporary artworks become a means to problematise not only the way different periods in the history of art are delimited, but larger and seemingly more rigid distinctions as those between art and non-art images. Early religious images differ significantly from art images. The two types are regulated according to different sets of rules related to the conditions of their production, display, appreciation and the way images are invested with the status of being true or authentic instances of art or sacred images. Chapter One provides a discussion of the important motif of the image not made by an artist’s hand, or acheiropoietos, and its survival and transformation, including its traces in contemporary image-making practices. All images are the result of human making; they are fictions. The way the conditions of these fictions are negotiated, or the way the role of the maker is brought to visibility, or concealed, is a defining feature of the specific regime of representation. While the cult image concealed its maker in order to maintain its public significance, and the later art image celebrated the artist as a re-inventor of the old image, contemporary artists cite religious images in order to reflect on the very procedures that produce the public significance and status of images.

Contemporary Echoes of the World Soul

2021 ◽  
pp. 320-342
Author(s):  
Valia Allori
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Hard Problem ◽  
Quantum Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Way

Quantum mechanics is a groundbreaking theory: it not only is extraordinarily empirically adequate but also is claimed to having shattered the classical paradigm of understanding the observer-observed distinction as well as the part-whole relation. This, together with other quantum features, has been taken to suggest that quantum theory can help one understand the mind-body relation in a unique way, in particular to solve the hard problem of consciousness along the lines of panpsychism. In this chapter, after having briefly presented panpsychism, Valia Allori discusses the main features of quantum theories and the way in which the main quantum theories of consciousness use them to account for conscious experience.

Projectivism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Blackburn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Propensity ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
The Way

‘Projectivism’ is used of philosophies that agree with Hume that ‘the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on the world’, that what is in fact an aspect of our own experience or of our own mental organization is treated as a feature of the objective order of things. Such philosophies distinguish between nature as it really is, and nature as we experience it as being. The way we experience it as being is thought of as partly a reflection or projection of our own natures. The projectivist might take as a motto the saying that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and seeks to develop the idea and explore its implications. The theme is a constant in the arguments of the Greek sceptics, and becomes almost orthodox in the modern era. In Hume it is not only beauty that lies in the eye (or mind) of the beholder, but also virtue, and causation. In Kant the entire spatio-temporal order is not read from nature, but read into it as a reflection of the organization of our minds. In the twentieth century it has been especially non-cognitive and expressivist theories of ethics that have adopted the metaphor, it being fairly easy to see how we might externalize or project various sentiments and attitudes onto their objects. But causation, probability, necessity, the stances we take towards each other as persons, even the temporal order of events and the simplicity of scientific theory have also been candidates for projective treatment.

scholarly journals Ancestry.com and the Evolving Nature of Historical Information Companies

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-28
Author(s):  
Jerome de Groot
Keyword(s):  
Dna Sequencing ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corporate Entity ◽  
The World ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
A Company ◽  
Historical Institution ◽  
The Way

This study of the genealogy and biotech company Ancestry analyzes the ways in which the organization has evolved over the past few years. Ancestry is difficult to categorize as a corporate entity. The company trades in servicing both “traditional” types of history (genealogical records) and, more recently, biotech-based investigation through the use of DNA sequencing. Ancestry is highly influential in the way that millions of people around the world access the past. Given this, the company’s shifts in focus are of great interest. Through considering various new elements of the way that Ancestry functions, and illustrating that this complexity is foundational to its purpose, the article suggests the company is redefining what a public historian or public historical institution might be, adding a scientific dimension to historical data and also acting to present a particular model of the past through its advertising campaigns. The article suggests that public history’s models for considering such protean organizations are in need of attention, and the complexity of such a company demonstrates new challenges and opportunities for scholars in the field.

scholarly journals The foundational problem of logic

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gila Sher
Keyword(s):  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Formal Aspect ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Normativity Of Logic ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Foundational Problem ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe construction of a systematic philosophical foundation for logic is a notoriously difficult problem. In Part One I suggest that the problem is in large part methodological, having to do with the common philosophical conception of “providing a foundation”. I offer an alternative to the common methodology which combines a strong foundational requirement (veridical justification) with the use of non-traditional, holistic tools to achieve this result. In Part Two I delineate an outline of a foundation for logic, employing the new methodology. The outline is based on an investigation of why logic requires a veridical justification, i.e., a justification which involves the world and not just the mind, and what features or aspect of the world logic is grounded in. Logic, the investigation suggests, is grounded in the formal aspect of reality, and the outline proposes an account of this aspect, the way it both constrains and enables logic (gives rise to logical truths and consequences), logic's role in our overall system of knowledge, the relation between logic and mathematics, the normativity of logic, the characteristic traits of logic, and error and revision in logic.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document