scholarly journals Quasi-Naturalism and the Problem of Alternative Normative Concepts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Camil Golub
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Normative Discourse ◽  
Normative Role ◽  
Rule Out

Abstract The following scenario seems possible: a community uses concepts that play the same role in guiding actions and shaping social life as our normative concepts, and yet refer to something else. As Eklund (2017) argues, this apparent possibility poses a problem for any normative realist who aspires to vindicate the thought that reality itself favors our ways of valuing and acting. How can realists make good on this idea, given that anything they might say in support of the privileged status of our normative concepts can be mirrored by the imagined community? E.g., the realist might claim that using our concepts is what we ought to do if we are to describe normative facts correctly, but members of the other community can claim the same about their concepts, using their own concept of ought. A promising approach to this challenge is to try to rule out the possibility of alternative normative concepts, by arguing that any concepts that have the same normative role must share a reference as well. (Eklund calls this referential normativity.) In this paper I argue that normative quasi-naturalism, a view that combines expressivism about normative discourse with a naturalist metaphysics of normativity, supports referential normativity and solves the problem of alternative normative concepts.

Modernism, Empiricism, and Rationalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-47
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Squires
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern Poetry ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Irish Poetry ◽  
Dimensional Spectrum ◽  
Culture History ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rule Out

Modernism is usually defined historically as the composite movement at the beginning of the twentieth century which led to a radical break with what had gone before in literature and the other arts. Given the problems of the continuing use of the concept to cover subsequent writing, this essay proposes an alternative, philosophical perspective which explores the impact of rationalism (what we bring to the world) on the prevailing empiricism (what we take from the world) of modern poetry, which leads to a concern with consciousness rather than experience. This in turn involves a re-conceptualisation of the lyric or narrative I, of language itself as a phenomenon, and of other poetic themes such as nature, culture, history, and art. Against the background of the dominant empiricism of modern Irish poetry as presented in Crotty's anthology, the essay explores these ideas in terms of a small number of poets who may be considered modernist in various ways. This does not rule out modernist elements in some other poets and the initial distinction between a poetics of experience and one of consciousness is better seen as a multi-dimensional spectrum that requires further, more detailed analysis than is possible here.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: When Two Actors Perform Different Tasks: Still No Evidence for Shared Task-Sets in Joint Task Switching

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110315
Author(s):  
Motonori Yamaguchi ◽  
Husnain H. Shah ◽  
Bernhard Hommel
Keyword(s):  
Task Switching ◽  
The Other ◽  
Shared Task ◽  
Joint Condition ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Switch Costs ◽  
Joint Task ◽  
Task Sets ◽  
Rule Out

Two different variations of joint task switching led to different conclusions as to whether co-acting individuals share the same task-sets. The present study aimed at bridging this gap by replicating the version in which two actors performed two different tasks. Experiment 1 showed switch costs across two actors in a joint condition, which agreed with previous studies, but also yielded even larger switch costs in a solo condition, which contradicted the claim that actors represent an alternative task as their own when it is carried out by the co-actor but not when no one carries it out. Experiments 2 and 3 further examined switch costs in the solo condition with the aim to rule out possible influences of task instructions for and experiences with the other task that was not assigned to the actor. Before participants were instructed on the second of the two tasks, switch costs were still obtained without a co-actor when explicit task names (“COLOUR” and “SHAPE”) served as go/nogo signals (Experiment 2), but not when arbitrary symbols (“XXXX” and “​​​​”) served as go/nogo signals (Experiment 3). The results thus imply that switch costs depend on participants’ knowledge of task cues being assigned to two different tasks, but not on whether the other task is performed by a co-actor. These findings undermine the assumption that switch costs in the joint conditions reflect shared task-sets between co-actors in this procedure.

scholarly journals What Is Orientation in Dignitarian Thinking? Self, Other, Time and Space

2020 ◽  
pp. 174387212098228
Author(s):  
Stephen Riley
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Core Area ◽  
Methodological Challenge ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Normative Discourse ◽  
The Government

Drawing upon Kant’s analysis of the role of intuitions in our orientation towards knowledge, this paper analyses four points of departure in thinking about dignity: self, other, time and space. Each reveals a core area of normative discourse – authenticity in the self, respect for the other, progress through time and authority as the government of space – along with related grounds of resistance to dignity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the methodological challenge presented by our different dignitarian intuitions, in particular the role of universality in testing and cohering our intuitions.

scholarly journals Taking sociality seriously: the structure of multi-dimensional social networks as a source of information for individuals

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1599) ◽  
pp. 2108-2118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Barrett ◽  
S. Peter Henzi ◽  
David Lusseau
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Feedback Process ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Systems Approaches ◽  
Entropy Measures ◽  
Free Ranging ◽  
Source Of Information

Understanding human cognitive evolution, and that of the other primates, means taking sociality very seriously. For humans, this requires the recognition of the sociocultural and historical means by which human minds and selves are constructed, and how this gives rise to the reflexivity and ability to respond to novelty that characterize our species. For other, non-linguistic, primates we can answer some interesting questions by viewing social life as a feedback process, drawing on cybernetics and systems approaches and using social network neo-theory to test these ideas. Specifically, we show how social networks can be formalized as multi-dimensional objects, and use entropy measures to assess how networks respond to perturbation. We use simulations and natural ‘knock-outs’ in a free-ranging baboon troop to demonstrate that changes in interactions after social perturbations lead to a more certain social network, in which the outcomes of interactions are easier for members to predict. This new formalization of social networks provides a framework within which to predict network dynamics and evolution, helps us highlight how human and non-human social networks differ and has implications for theories of cognitive evolution.

Feasting Ritually: An Ethnography on the Implications of Feasts in Religious Rituals

2021 ◽  
pp. 0972558X2110571
Author(s):  
Anil Gopi
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
The People ◽  
Religious Festivals ◽  
The World ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
And Gender

Food and feast are integral and key components of human cultures across the world. Feasts associated with religious rituals have special social and cultural significance when compared to those in any other festivities or celebrations in people’s life. In this study, an approach is made to comparatively analyze the feasts at religious festivals of two distinctive groups of people, one with a characteristic of simple society and the other of a complex society. The annual feast happening at the hamlets of the Anchunadu Vellalar community in the last days of the calendar year is an occasion that portrays the egalitarian nature of the people. While this feast is restricted within a single community of particular caste affiliation and geographical limitations, the feast associated with the kaliyattam ritual of village goddess in North Malabar is much wider in scope and participation. The enormous feast brings the people in a larger area and exhibits a solidarity that cuts across boundaries of religion, caste and community. Beyond the factors of social solidarity and togetherness, these events also illustrate its divisive characters mainly in terms of social hierarchy and gender. A comparative study of both the two feasts of two different contexts reveals the characteristic features of religious feasts and the value of food and feast in social life and solidarity and also how it acts as a survival of their past and as a tradition.

Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor, and Liberation. By David McNally. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 277p. $72.50 cloth, $23.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-191
Author(s):  
Nicholas Xenos
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
State University ◽  
The Real

David McNally styles this book as beginning in a polemic and ending in a “materialist approach to language” much indebted to the German critic Walter Benjamin. The charge is that “postmodernist theory, whether it calls itself poststructuralism, deconstruction or post-Marxism, is constituted by a radical attempt to banish the real human body—the sensate, biocultural, laboring body—from the sphere of language and social life” (p. 1). By treating language as an abstraction, McNally argues, postmodernism constitutes a form of idealism. More than that, it succumbs to and perpetuates the fetishism of commodities disclosed by Marx insofar as it treats the products of human laboring bodies as entities independently of them. Clearly irritated by the claims to radicalism made by those he labels postmodern, McNally thinks he has found their Achilles' heel: “The extra-discursive body, the body that exceeds language and discourse, is the ‘other’ of the new idealism, the entity it seeks to efface in order to bestow absolute sovereignty on language. To acknowledge the centrality of the sensate body to language and society is thus to threaten the whole edifice of postmodernist theory” (p. 2).

Interpersonal Conflicts in the Relationship of Twins

1998 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 153-160
Author(s):  
S. A. Gruszewska
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Interpersonal Conflict ◽  
The Other ◽  
Psychological Space ◽  
Interpersonal Conflicts ◽  
Educational Methods ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractTaking into consideration two facts: that the structure of social life forces twins to part and that the presented roles in a pair are not equal, (one of the twins plays the role of a leader (L) and the other, the subordinate (P.)), one can ask the question — what meaning does the moment of parting have and what are its consequences?In order to do that, a survey was conducted, (a sample of 31 pairs of twins above the age of 30), in which every pair was asked the question: “Which one of you made the decision about parting?” The answer had two options: A – I, B – brother/sister. Out of 31 pairs of twins, 16 pairs chose the variant different from his brother or sister – that is A, B, admitting that the interpersonal conflict was the result of the parting. In 7 pairs, both twins chose the B variant – they withdrew from the conflict; and in 8 pairs they chose the A variant – looking for a compromise as the means of agreement.When analyzing the results of the survey, we can state the following:– in the relationship of twins, there is an interpersonal conflict;– the decision about parting is difficult with prevalent feelings of sadness and sorrow;– after parting, at least one of the twins has problems with preserving his identity and integrity of psychological space.Since the moment of parting is necessary and difficult, specialists and mainly parents are required to consciously change their position towards the relationship of twins. It has to be the result of applied educational methods which aim at creating subjectivity and equality of each of the twins before the moment of parting.

Greek Tyrants and the Persians, 546–479 B.C.

1990 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. M. Austin
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Asia Minor ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Western Asia

The word ‘tyrant’ was not originally Greek, but borrowed from some eastern language, perhaps in western Asia Minor. On the other hand, tyranny as it developed in the Greek cities in the archaic age would seem to have been initially an indigenous growth, independent of any intervention by foreign powers. It then became a constantly recurring phenomenon of Greek political and social life, so long as the Greeks enjoyed an independent history.

scholarly journals The Glucosamine Controversy; A Pharmacokinetic Issue

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Aghazadeh-Habashi ◽  
Fakhreddin Jamali
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Assessment Metrics ◽  
Disease Modifying ◽  
Clinical Trial Results ◽  
Higher Doses ◽  
Positive Results ◽  
Rule Out

Glucosamine (GlcN) is a naturally occurring aminosugar that is widely used to treat osteoarthritis despite controversial clinical trial results. Animal studies, on the other hand, unequivocally suggest anti-inflammatory and disease modifying effects for GlcN. Many explanations have been offered as to the root of the controversy. They include superiority of a crystalline sulphate salt over HCl, industry bias, insensitive assessment metrics and poor methodology. Herein, we rule out a difference in bioequivalence between GlcN salts and that of chemically equivalent doses and suggest additional factors; i.e., inconsistency in the chemical potency of some products used, under-dosing of patients as well as variable and erratic bioavailability indices for the lack of GlcN efficacy observed in some studies. Clinical trials using higher doses of pharmaceutical grade GlcN or formulations with greater bioavailability should yield positive results. This article is open to POST-PUBLICATION REVIEW. Registered readers (see “For Readers”) may comment by clicking on ABSTRACT on the issue’s contents page.

scholarly journals Rewiry metafory. Między ozdobą dyskursu a zwierciadłem duszy

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 46-69
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Popek
Keyword(s):  
Donald Davidson ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gottlob Frege ◽  
Ernst Cassirer ◽  
Rhetorical Tradition ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
George Lakoff ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon ◽  
Rule Out

The purpose of the text is to make some reconnaissance in the area of title "districts of metaphor" (or hunting grounds of metaphor) as well as reference to the unsolvable problems which are implied by a metaphorical mystery of metaphysical expressions. Thy are the order of the day in the main currents of philosophy. Starting from the rhetorical tradition of metaphor (the Aristotelian attempts of definition of metaphor as such) and of terms additional related with it (Max Black), I gradually illustrate what involves its post-rhetorical tradition. I show that philosophical symbolism derives from Aristotle’s hermeneutics, which becomes a gateway for understanding the mystery of metaphor. Like browsing in themselves mirrors, it grows also from simple phrases in complex sentences. In semantic sense, while the symbol has many meanings, the metaphor has a double meaning. It is not however limited by this matter, because in some sense, it has broader content than a symbol, as it introduces into language meanings that in the symbol are only internal (Paul Ricoeur). We also encounter reflective metaphors in our everyday speech and in the attempts of associative penetration into other people's expression. Conceptual decoding of metaphors is common for users of language (George Lakoff, Mark Johnson). On the other hand, there are specific districts of metaphorical expressions, which are reserved for poetic metaphors (Donald Davidson). Noteworthy are also the very unobvious contexts of metaphor in which the authors do not talk about this linguistic phenomenon directly (eg. Gottlob Frege, Ernst Cassirer). Declarative answer to the question whether the metaphor is a simply ornament of discourse or rather a mirror of the soul, is not possible too. Perhaps the metaphor as such includes the both variants. One must consider that being an ornament of speech or writing does not rule out it is also something more than just decoration. It wonders, bothers, disquiet, returning us into our souls. It is also like the unifying soul of all people – in cognitive sense.

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