Zhuangzi, Peirce, and the butterfly dreamscape: concentric meaning in the Qiwulun 齊物論

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-287
Author(s):  
Jamin Pelkey
Keyword(s):  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Ancient Text ◽  
The Core ◽  
Continuity Thesis ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Mary Douglas ◽  
Vivid Dream ◽  
Waking Up ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Pragmatic Maxim

Abstract Waking from a vivid dream, the sage finds himself lost between worlds of possibility and ultimately transformed. Zhuangzi’s famous butterfly story may seem familiar, but the text-linguistic structures of its broader interpretive context are little discussed and poorly understood. In this paper I argue that the Qíwùlùn 齊物論 chapter, like so many other ancient writings, is composed in a concentric, chiastic pattern, with sections in each half mirroring each other throughout, while the central sections provide a pivotal peak and interpretive key that radiate meaning back out to the margins. To quote Mary Douglas, “the meaning is in the middle.” The middle is also the place of Peircean Thirdness. In this paper I map the chapter’s text-level chiastic structures and trace its intimations of Peircean semiotic pragmatism. The core rings of the text endorse contrite fallibilism while also prefiguring triadic structure, the pragmatic maxim, and the continuity thesis. Referencing cultural and historical contexts plus recent scholarship on Zhuangzi and Peirce, I ultimately argue that this ancient text, like the pragmatist semiotic it foreshadows, can be better appreciated and applied by embracing the interplay of centers and margins, discarding debilitating ideologies, and waking up to new degrees of freedom.

Apt Emotions and Normative Continuity

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-101
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
The Other ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Relevant Concept ◽  
The Core ◽  
Continuity Thesis ◽  
Artistic Representations

This chapter characterizes a set of parallel assumptions. One, shared by many otherwise different contemporary philosophical treatments of the emotions, is that our affective responses are susceptible to assessments of rationality, fittingness, or some other notion of aptness. The other is that analogous norms of fittingness apply to those emotions directed at what is only fictional, or what is only imagined to be the case. This chapter identifies the relevant concept of emotional aptness that is at play in both kinds of assumptions, and which is at the core of the disagreement between the theses of normative continuity and normative discontinuity. The chapter then develops and assesses arguments in favor of the continuity thesis: the claim that the criteria determining such aptness of responses to contents of artistic representations apply invariantly to responses to analogous states of affairs in real life.

scholarly journals Degrees of Freedom at the Start of the Second 100 Years: A Pedagogical Treatise

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-405
Author(s):  
Joseph Lee Rodgers
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Models ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Introductory Statistics ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
Traditional Treatment ◽  
The Core ◽  
History Of ◽  
Data Points

Degrees of freedom is a critical core concept within the field of statistics. Virtually every introductory statistics class treats the topic, though textbooks and the statistical literature show mostly superficial treatment, weak pedagogy, and substantial confusion. Fisher first defined degrees of freedom in 1915, and Walker provided technical treatment of the concept in 1940. In this article, the history of degrees of freedom is reviewed, and the pedagogical challenges are discussed. The core of the article is a simple reconceptualization of the degrees-of-freedom concept that is easier to teach and to learn than the traditional treatment. This reconceptualization defines a statistical bank, into which are deposited data points. These data points are used to estimate statistical models; some data are used up in estimating a model, and some data remain in the bank. The several types of degrees of freedom define an accounting process that simply counts the flow of data from the statistical bank into the model. The overall reconceptualization is based on basic economic principles, including treating data as statistical capital and data exchangeability (fungibility). The goal is to stimulate discussion of degrees of freedom that will improve its use and understanding in pedagogical and applied settings.

scholarly journals Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Franco Barchiesi ◽  
Shona N. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Free Labor ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Status ◽  
Racial Slavery

Labor historiography in the contexts of modern racial slavery and emancipation has long placed changes in the status of work at the core of the very meaning of captivity and freedom, their epochal watersheds, and institutionalized or unintended overlaps. Reviewing, in this journal's pages, recent scholarship on the relations between slavery and capitalism, James Oakes summarized that the “crucial differences between the political economy of slave and free labor … ultimately led to a catastrophic Civil War and one of the most violent emancipations in the hemisphere.” The literature Oakes critically discussed exemplifies the growing academic interest in the multifarious functionality of coerced production for the development of global capitalism. The resulting picture reaches much further than mere questions of economic causality, or whether chattel slavery did kick-start the profitability of capitalism, rather than the other way around. At stake are explanations of how racial captivity—which liberal economic, political, and moral discourse deems an anachronism—shapes the very productive, financial, social, institutional, and philosophical foundations of the global present. Historic and contemporary activist resistance to recurring and ubiquitous waves of antiblack violence, as well as the increasingly self-confident affirmation of white supremacy across Western states and civil societies has rendered such dilemmas in starker terms, asking whether persistent echoes of racial slavery are symptoms that the system is “built this way” rather than being just “broken.”

scholarly journals Analysis and research of quadruped robot’s legs: A comprehensive review

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 172988141984414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhai Zhong ◽  
Runxiao Wang ◽  
Huashan Feng ◽  
Yasheng Chen
Keyword(s):  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Walking Speed ◽  
Load Capacity ◽  
Basic Component ◽  
Application Performance ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Research Results ◽  
The Core ◽  
Quadruped Robots ◽  
Job Adaptability

As an important basic component of quadruped robots, mechanical legs provide the robots with excellent maneuverability and versatility, which determine the core application performance such as job adaptability, walking speed, and load capacity. A large number of robotics institutes for the last few decades have studied mechanical legs used by quadruped robots and published many research results. In this article, we collect these research results and classify them into three categories (prismatic legs, articulated legs, and redundant articulated legs) according to the degrees of freedom and then introduce and analyze them. On this basis, we summarize and study the design methods of the actuators and mechanical leg structures. Finally, we make some suggestions for the development of quadruped robot’s legs in the future. The motivation of this review is to summarize and analyze previous research efforts and provide useful guidance for future robotic designers to develop more efficient mechanical legs of quadruped robots.

STRUCTURE OF COMPACT STARS WITH DENSE HADRONIC MATTER AT THE CORE

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 350-357
Author(s):  
HYUN KYU LEE
Keyword(s):  
Symmetry Energy ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Chemical Potential ◽  
Compact Stars ◽  
Hadronic Matter ◽  
Stellar Matter ◽  
Kaon Condensation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Weak Equilibrium

For a dense stellar matter, it is generally expected that as density increases, new degrees of freedom will emerge as the electron chemical potential becomes comparable to their energy scales. We discuss the nature of symmetry energy, which measures the energy relevant to the neutron-proton asymmetry and more importantly determines the electron chemical potential in weak equilibrium. The possible structure of compact stars with strangeness is briefly discussed for the case of kaon condensation.

scholarly journals Food Waste Legislation Scholarship: A Mapping Study

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Hackstadt
Keyword(s):  
Food Waste ◽  
Waste Reduction ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
The Core ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Food Law ◽  
Agriculture Industry ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Insight Into

The purpose of this study is to examine research activity on food waste legislation published in law journals to identify top sources and experts cited by recent scholarship. Searches for "food loss" and "food waste" were conducted in three legal research databases for law journal articles published between January 2013 and January 2018. The core list of selected articles consists of 13 law journal articles. The citations from each of the core articles were collected to form a database, which was analyzed to determine what kinds of resources legal scholars rely on when conducting research in food waste legislation. Government Sources and Primary Law contribute approximately 48% of the citations in the database. News, Nonprofit, and Law Reviews and Journals contribute approximately 31% of database citations. This study provides some insight into the complexity of food law and the facets of agriculture, industry, and society that affect the success of food waste reduction legislation.

The Finnish abstract motion construction mennä V-mA-An [go V-inf-ill] ‘do something unwished’

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-274
Author(s):  
Jari Sivonen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Specific Element ◽  
Affective Meaning ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
The Core ◽  
Men I ◽  
Image Schema ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Core Meaning

This paper addresses the usage, development and motivation of the Finnish mennä V-mA-An [go V-inf-ill] construction. In this construction, the literal motion sense of ‘going’ has been grammaticalized to evoke an affective meaning: the activity expressed in the construction’s infinitival element is considered as unwished (e.g. Johtaja-t men-i-vät lakkautta-ma-an ohjelma-n [manager- pl.nom go-pst-3pl shut.down-inf-ill show-acc] ‘Managers shut down the show [though they should not have]’). This paper uncovers the different ways the construction is used (for example, projecting the disapproving stance onto a specific element, such as the manner, objective or result of the activity, that the speaker finds especially inappropriate when compared to the desired course of events, or creating an ironic tone for the description of an event) and reveals its lexical profile in modern language. The role of the context in the interpretation of the construction as well as its grammaticalization process are also dealt with. It is argued that the affective meaning of the construction is metaphorically motivated by a previously undiscovered image-schematic pattern “deviant path – erroneous goal”. In this schema the trajector is conceived of abstractly deviating from a projected path and ending up at an unwished ending point, and this constitutes a contrast to the desired course of events, the core meaning of the construction. The analysis supports a tenet in cognitive semantics that linguistic structures are often motivated by general cognitive processes such as metaphor and image-schema patterns.

L’abandon progressif du fonctionnalisme dans les travaux de William Labov

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn Verleyen
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
The Core ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Linguistic Structures

Summary This paper traces the gradual abandonment of a functionalist perspective in labovian sociolinguistics. In an introductory point, the influence of French functionalism on William Labov, via Uriel Weinreich, is discussed. In the central part of the paper, Labov’s changing attitude towards functionalism is analysed, by distinguishing between different meanings of ‘functionalism’ and ‘functional’. It is shown how Labov gradually rejects the functionalist inspiration that was important in the beginning of his career. The reasons for this change in perspective, and its consequences, are examined. It is concluded that the rejection of the functionalist hypothesis does not affect the core of Labov’s work, which focuses on the correlation of social and linguistic structures. However, it leads to a very different conception of the nature of language variation and change.

Research & Design of the Multifunctional Landscape Hedge Trimmer

2013 ◽  
Vol 690-693 ◽  
pp. 3377-3380
Author(s):  
Yan Mei Meng ◽  
Jin Wei ◽  
Jian Zhi Liang ◽  
Zhen Dong ◽  
Chun Wa Qin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Error Compensation ◽  
High Speed ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Control Software ◽  
The Core ◽  
Single Person ◽  
Multifunctional Landscape ◽  
Online Interpolation ◽  
6 Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Compensation Function

This paper presents a multifunctional landscape hedge trimmer. It has 6 degrees of freedom, and it can trim the shape of flat, cylinder, cone, sphere, etc. The controller takes the embedded LINUX ARM9 processor as the core. It has a high-speed real-time online interpolation function, and an error compensation function. With the help of the developed control software it can control the trimming process automatically, making the trimming speed faster and the precision higher, and with its single-person operation feature, it greatly reduces the labor intensity and improves the labor efficiency.

Politicizing pedagogy

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Suneal Kolluri
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Democratic Education ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
The Core ◽  
Core Skills ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Democratic Life ◽  
The Given

Recent scholarship on civic education has introduced some useful ways to engage students in learning about controversial topics, debating them, and participating in democratic life. However, while those are valuable tools for active citizenship, they’re not sufficient. Democratic education should focus on issues that matter intensely to students’ local communities, the author argues, and it should be grounded in the core skills of the academic disciplines. To illustrate, he describes a social studies unit he taught at an urban high school in Oakland, Calif., focusing on a pair of competing narratives about the crack epidemic of the 1990s, with attention to the ways in which public perceptions depend on the source of the given argument and the context from which it originates.

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