Semiotics – Another Window on the World

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Hongbing Yu
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Marshall Mcluhan ◽  
Book Series ◽  
Intellectual Inquiry ◽  
The World ◽  
Normal University ◽  
The Universe

Abstract Contemporary semiotics proceeds and progresses along two major paths of human intellectual inquiry in general: One is to constantly extend and deepen social studies; the other is to use theoretical and logical reasoning to examine and even predict the laws of nature and the universe. To highlight these two paths and reflect the latest trends in current semiotic inquiry, we have launched the book series of “Select Works of Eminent Contemporary Semioticians,” published by the Nanjing Normal University Press. The first five English monographs included in this book series are Basics of semiotics (eighth expanded edition) and Logic as a liberal art by John Deely, Marshall McLuhan: The unwitting semiotician by Marcel Danesi, Signs in society and culture by Arthur Asa Berger, and The way of logic by Christopher S. Morrissey. These five books afford not only revelations in the ways of knowing and the dimensions of thought, but also new perspectives for interpreting contemporary sociocultural phenomena and their developments.

Freedom, Knowledge, Belief and Causality

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 132-154
Author(s):  
David Wiggins
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Physical Effect ◽  
The Other ◽  
Causal Determinism ◽  
The World ◽  
Causal Nexus ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Better Than

When we try to think about the causal nexus and the physical nature of the world as a whole we may be struck by two quite different difficulties in finding room in it to accommodate together (a) knowledge or reasoned belief and (b) causal determinism. (a) may seem to us to exclude (b) and (b) may seem to us to exclude (a). Taking it as a fact that there is knowledge and that knowledge seems to be indefinitely extensible, it has been felt by some philosophers that we can disprove total determinism by showing that if there were laws of nature which purported to govern all movements of matter in the universe there would still be something which even an ‘all-knowing’ predicter could not predict, viz. his own predictions or his own actions; and that given enough knowledge any agent could refute anybody else's predictions of his actions. So it has been thought that the phenomenon of knowledge somehow shows there cannot be laws to govern all movements of matter in the universe. This comfortably anodyne reflection is examined in the second part of the lecture. It elevates human minds and even confers a sort of cosmic importance on them. The other difficulty in making room for both (a) and (b) is in some loose sense the dual of this. Instead of taking knowledge for granted and questioning total determinism, it merely takes causality for granted but then deduces the total impossibility of knowledge. It simply asks: ‘How can we take a belief seriously, or consider it seriously as a candidate to be knowledge, if it is no better than a simple physical effect?’ This is a more pessimistic reflection and I shall begin with it.

Freedom, Knowledge, Belief and Causality

1969 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 132-154
Author(s):  
David Wiggins
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Physical Effect ◽  
The Other ◽  
Causal Determinism ◽  
The World ◽  
Causal Nexus ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Better Than

When we try to think about the causal nexus and the physical nature of the world as a whole we may be struck by two quite different difficulties in finding room in it to accommodate together (a) knowledge or reasoned belief and (b) causal determinism. (a) may seem to us to exclude (b) and (b) may seem to us to exclude (a). Taking it as a fact that there is knowledge and that knowledge seems to be indefinitely extensible, it has been felt by some philosophers that we can disprove total determinism by showing that if there were laws of nature which purported to govern all movements of matter in the universe there would still be something which even an ‘all-knowing’ predicter could not predict, viz. his own predictions or his own actions; and that given enough knowledge any agent could refute anybody else's predictions of his actions. So it has been thought that the phenomenon of knowledge somehow shows there cannot be laws to govern all movements of matter in the universe. This comfortably anodyne reflection is examined in the second part of the lecture. It elevates human minds and even confers a sort of cosmic importance on them. The other difficulty in making room for both (a) and (b) is in some loose sense the dual of this. Instead of taking knowledge for granted and questioning total determinism, it merely takes causality for granted but then deduces the total impossibility of knowledge. It simply asks: ‘How can we take a belief seriously, or consider it seriously as a candidate to be knowledge, if it is no better than a simple physical effect?’ This is a more pessimistic reflection and I shall begin with it.

Devotional Emerson

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gurley
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Modes Of Action ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

AbstractAgainst anti-realist readings of the Emersonian self, perhaps most influentially Cavell’s reading, this essay argues that Emerson is a devotional writer. Emerson’s notion of subjectivity is based in two complementary modes of action - one receptive and the other expressive - as one works to “align” oneself with the larger forces that constitute and order the universe. How the world is and how we humans make our way through it are not the same and must not be confused. Such confusion is the decisive mistake the anti-realist critic of Emerson makes. The Emersonian subject must experience the laws of reality directly, on one’s own, rather than “secondhand.” Emerson is a dramatist telling the story of how we come to ideas and learn to judge and to act: of how, that is, we come to have experience. Emerson seeks an unshifting ground through a moment of receptivity and a moment of activity. That he often rarely achieves insight does not make him an anti-realist. This essay demonstrates how, by showing - albeit briefly - that Emersonian experience is fundamentally religious: a work of devotion rather than aversion.

The Nature of Op Art: Bridget Riley and the Art of Nonrepresentation

10.1068/d54j ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Rycroft
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Representational Practice ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Media Practices ◽  
Critical Writings

The monochrome paintings of the British Op artist Bridget Riley produced between 1960 and 1965, in common with a number of experimental arts and media practices of the 1960s, were characterised by a drift away from traditional representational techniques towards what are now described as nonrepresentational practices. The dynamics of the Op Art aesthetic and the critical writings that surround it bear striking similarities to much recent work on nonrepresentational thought. Based upon an engagement with Riley's early work, and specifically with the perception and understanding of nature it engendered, an argument can be made that suggests that, despite claims to the contrary, Riley was engaged in a form of representational practice that rendered a new and fashionable understanding of cosmic nature. The multidimensional nature evoked in her aesthetic was designed to be experienced by the viewer in a precognitive, embodied fashion. In this there are strong echoes with the call made by nonrepresentational theorists who operationalise the same kind of cosmology to develop an evocative, creative account of the world. Both Op Art and nonrepresentational thought seem to build upon a shift in the representational register that occurred during the immediate postwar period, one which prompted representational practices which attempted to subjectify rather than objectify, to evoke instability and multidimensionality, and to exercise not only visual, oral, and cognitive ways of knowing, but also the precognitive and the haptic. The complex corelations between representation and nonrepresentation are apparent here, suggesting that it is problematic to emphasise one side of the duality over the other.

Dualism in Iranian and Christian Traditions

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
François de Blois
Keyword(s):  
Cosmological Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Indefinite Number ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Origin Of The Universe

Since the time when the human race first began to speculate about the origin of the universe there have been two cosmological models that have seemed particularly attractive to its imagination. One has been to derive everything in the world from a single primal origin, out of which the cosmos, in all its apparent complexity, evolves. The other has been to view the history of the universe as a battle between two opposing forces which contradict and undermine each other. The two views can be called monism and dualism. They are not the only possibilities. There have been systems that posit three, four or an indefinite number of principles, but most of these have also tended to assume one basic pair of opposites with one or more neutral or intermediate principles beside them; this too can be seen as a form of dualism.

scholarly journals 2012: Ideas Mayas Acerca De La Renovación Cí­clica Del Universo

Xihmai ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Alberto Morales Damián
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The Universe

2012:  IDEAS  MAYAS  ACERCA  DE  LA  RENOVACIÓN CíCLICA DEL UNIVERSO. 2012:                MAYA‟S    CIVILIZATION     IDEAS   ABOUT    THE CYCLIC RENEWAL OF THE UNIVERSE.       Resumen El pensamiento maya con respecto a la astronomí­a y el calendario poseen una gran originalidad y corresponden a una forma de entender la realidad completamente  diferente  a  la  del  pensamiento  occidental.  Los  mayas conciben que el tiempo está sujeto a recurrencias cí­clicas (dí­a-noche, año solar, perí­odos de 52 años), cada una de las cuales supone la destrucción y renovación del cosmos. Por otra parte, las supuestas profecí­as mayas acerca de un evento astronómico el próximo 21 de diciembre de 2012, en realidad no son acordes a la cosmovisión maya prehispánica, coinciden sin embargo con temores milenaristas propios del pensamiento occidental que se agudizan en una época de crisis global.   Palabras Clave: Mayas, religión, astronomí­a, profecí­as del 2012.   Abstract Mayan  thought  in  respect  to  astronomy  and  the  calendar  have  a  great originality and correspond to a way of understanding a complete different reality to the one of the western thought. Mayan people conceive that time is subject to cycle recurrences (day-night, solar year, and periods of 52 years), each one supposes destruction and renovation of cosmos. On the other hand, the supposed Mayan prophecies about an astronomical event next December 21st  2012, do not in fact agree with the view of the world of the pre Hispanic Mayans, however they coincide with millennial fear proper of the western thought that worsen in this times of global crisis.   Key words: Mayans, religion, astronomy, 2012 prophecies.      

scholarly journals The Evolution of The Language from the Philosophers’ Viewpoint

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 201
Author(s):  
Ahmadova Khanim Salim
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
The World ◽  
The Given ◽  
The Universe

<p>The article investigates linguistic sources about the language which have been investigated by the linguists for many years. The author has been studying linguistic sources comprehensively since the time of V. fon Humboldt, F. de Saussure etc. The main purpose of the author is to search the essence of the language and try to find the answer of the question how the language was evoluated. The questions “how life began? how the universe began? and how the language evoluated?” are highlighted in the given article. The author gives explanation to two theories about the essence of the language. The first one is the theory about the essence of the language which is supported by N. Chomsky and his followers. The content of their theory is that the language is innate. N. Chomsky always emphasized that the language is at least as much a system structuring and thinking about the world as it is a vehicle for communication. Though some linguists don’t agree with this idea. The second theory which is supported by a biologist Derek Bickerton and others is that the language is not innate. The author gives her comments on both of the theories. Sometimes one theory wins, sometimes the other one. But no concrete result has been found yet, either by linguists or by bilologist, etc. <strong></strong></p>

Malebranche, Nicolas (1638–1715)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Nadler
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Nicolas Malebranche ◽  
Nature And Grace ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
The Universe

Nicolas Malebranche, a French Catholic theologian, was the most important Cartesian philosopher of the second half of the seventeenth century. His philosophical system was a grand synthesis of the thought of his two intellectual mentors: Augustine and Descartes. His most important work, De la recherche de la vérité (The Search After Truth), is a wide-ranging opus that covers various topics in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, physics, the physiology of cognition, and philosophical theology. It was both admired and criticized by many of the most celebrated thinkers of the period (including Leibniz, Arnauld and Locke), and was the focus of several fierce and time-consuming public debates. Malebranche’s philosophical reputation rests mainly on three doctrines. Occasionalism – of which he is the most systematic and famous exponent – is a theory of causation according to which God is the only genuine causal agent in the universe; all physical and mental events in nature are merely ‘occasions’ for God to exercise his necessarily efficacious power. In the doctrine known as ‘vision in God’, Malebranche argues that the representational ideas that function in human knowledge and perception are, in fact, the ideas in God’s understanding, the eternal archetypes or essences of things. And in his theodicy, Malebranche justifies God’s ways and explains the existence of evil and sin in the world by appealing to the simplicity and universality of the laws of nature and grace that God has established and is compelled to follow. In all three doctrines, Malebranche’s overwhelming concern is to demonstrate the essential and active role of God in every aspect – material, cognitive and moral – of the universe.

Allowing ourselves to follow our bodies: Cultivating student curiosity via sensorily-oriented modes of teaching

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Bruff
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pedagogical Practice ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Metal Music ◽  
The World ◽  
Extreme Metal

This article addresses the themes animating the Special Issue from the other side of the coin, namely the notion of aestheticizing political pedagogies. This reflects the direction of travel in some sections of politics and international relations scholarship, where there has been an upsurge of interest in aesthetics and especially popular culture. While there have been valuable contributions on teaching within such work, there has been a lack of sustained reflection on how, for example, a more aesthetically informed pedagogical practice can help us encourage students to think critically in creative ways. There has also been a rather bloodless account of aesthetics, diverting attention away from its visceral essence. Taking inspiration from the writings of Matt Davies on aesthetics, Jennifer Mason on the sensory and Cynthia Enloe on curiosity and surprise, the article explores the potential for aestheticizing political pedagogies to be mobilized in purposeful, strategic ways for enhancing the capacity of students to think critically and creatively. More specifically, I discuss how sensorily-oriented modes of teaching can disrupt entanglements between students’ ways of knowing and experiencing the world and their ‘objective’ understandings of politics, society, culture and so on. Three examples from my own teaching practice are discussed, all rooted in my utilization of extreme metal music with the aim of cultivating curiosity among students about their topics.

Schleiermacher and the Problem of Divine Immediacy

1968 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 499-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles E. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Rational Reflection ◽  
The Universe

A problem which was widely recognised during Schleiermacher's life, and one which I think is not yet satisfactorily solved, concerned the integration of feeling and concepts within human consciousness. Within the domain of philosophy of religion it may be phrased as follows: How does religious feeling relate to rational reflection such that each complements and enriches the other? Schleiermacher was convinced that religion never originates in human understanding or autonomy and that one's understanding of the world is not necessarily dependent on religious faith. But he was equally convinced that reflection and religion ought to enjoy a harmony which reflects the harmony of the universe, and this ideal motivated his continuous attempt to construct a complementary philosophy and theology. His hope was to show that ‘understanding and feeling… remain distinct, but they touch each other and form a galvanic pile.… The innermost life of the spirit consists in the galvanic action thus produced in the feeling of the understanding and the understanding of the feeling, during which, however, the two poles always remain deflected from each other.’

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