What is it that Wittgenstein denies in his philosophy of psychology?

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-131
Author(s):  
Hans Julius Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Philosophy Of Psychology ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
General Criticism

AbstractTaking up some of W.’s paradoxical remarks about the existence of ‘mental things’ the paper investigates, what exactly he is criticizing. After a discussion of the mistaken idea of a private baptizing of one’s own ‘mental events’ W.’s general criticism of the ‘object-and-name model’ is treated with a view on the consequences it has for our understanding of the mental. This treatment includes a discussion of figurative kinds of language use as well as a discussion of the difference between ‘things’ and ‘objects of reference’: With respect to figurative uses of language it often makes no sense to treat constituent expressions as names of objects, and not all objects of reference are things in an unproblematic ordinary-life sense. So what at first sight appears to be a limitation of our understanding of the nature of an object and consequently seems to ask for more empirical research often turns out to be a limitation of our understanding of how we use our language. The paper concludes that one important aspect of what the later W. opposes is dualism: The mental cannot be conceived of as an additional ‘something’ a description of which could be just added to a description of a person as a physical being. Thus W.’s anti-dualism can also be read as turning against a dualism in his Tractatus: The mental realm as well as other provinces of ‘the higher’ are no longer seen as areas of entities about which we have to be silent.

scholarly journals An Interpretation of Recent Research on Exchange Rate Target Zones

1992 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 119-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars E. O Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Exchange Rate ◽  
Central Bank ◽  
Exchange Rates ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Target Zones ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Exchange Rate Target Zones ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
Central Bank Interventions

How do exchange rate bands work compared to completely fixed rates (between realignments); or, more precisely, what are the dynamics of exchange rates, interest rates, and central bank interventions within exchange rate bands? Does the difference between bands and completely fixed exchange rates matter, and if so, which of the two arrangements is best; or, more precisely, what are the tradeoffs that determine the optimal bandwidth? This article will present an interpretation of some selected recent theoretical and empirical research on exchange rate target zones, with emphasis on main ideas and results and without technical detail.

scholarly journals Urgent Matter

Konturen ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Jonathan Monroe
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Giorgio Agamben ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
American Poet ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
German American ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Disciplinary Cultures ◽  
General Economy

Opening questions about “things” onto the bureaucratically-maintained, compartmentalized discursive, disciplinary claims of “philosophy,” “theory,” and “poetry,” “Urgent Matter” explores these three terms in relation to one another through attention to recent work by Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Rancière, the German-American poet Rosmarie Waldrop, and the German poet Ulf Stolterfoht, whose fachsprachen. Gedichte. I-IX (Lingos I-IX. Poems) Waldrop rendered into English in an award-winning translation. The difference between the "things" called "poetry" and "philosophy," as now institutionalized within the academy, is not epistemological, ontological, ahistorical, but a matter of linguistic domains, of so-called concrete "images" as the policed domain of the former and of "abstraction" as the policed domain of the latter. Challenging the binary logics that dominate language use in diverse discursive/disciplinary cultures, Waldrop’s linguistically self-referential, appositional procedures develop ways to use language that are neither linear, nor so much without direction, as multi-directional, offering complexes of adjacency, of asides, of digression, of errancy, of being “alongside,” in lieu of being “opposed to,” that constitute at once a poetics, an aesthetics, an ethics, and a politics. Elaborating a complementary understanding of poetry as “the most philosophic of all writing,” a medium of being “contemporary,” Waldrop and Stolterfoht question poetry’s purposes as one kind of language apparatus among others in the general economy. Whatever poetry might be, it aspires to be in their hands not a thing in itself but a form of self-questioning, of all discourses, all disciplines, that “thing” that binds “poetry” and “philosophy” together, as urgent matter, in continuing.

A Dynamical, Self-Organized View of the Context for Linguistic Performance

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Linguistic Performance ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
Temporal Process ◽  
The World ◽  
Organizational View

Most everyone agrees that context is critical to the pragmatic interpretation of speakers’ utterances. But the enduring debate within cognitive science concerns when context has its influence in shaping people’s interpretations of what speakers imply by what they say. Some scholars maintain that context is only referred to after some initial linguistic analysis of an utterance has been performed, with other scholars arguing that context is present at all stages of immediate linguistic processing. Empirical research on this debate is, in my view, hopelessly deadlocked. My goal in this article is to advance a framework for thinking about the context for linguistic performance that conceives of human cognition and language use in terms of dynamical, self-organized processes. A self-organizational view of the context for linguistic performance demands that we acknowledge the multiple, interacting constraints which create, or soft-assemble, any specific moment of pragmatic experience. Pragmatic action and understanding is not producing or recovering a “meaning” but a continuously unfolding temporal process of the person adapting and orienting to the world. I discuss the implications of this view for the study of pragmatic meaning in discourse.

English as a Lingua Franca in the Expanding Circle

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Community Of Practice ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
The Other ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Expanding Circle ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
First Languages ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One

This article discusses English in terms of its role as a contact language among expanding circle users of English from different first languages. It begins by observing both similarities between English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and other lingua francas, and the difference in scale between them, with ELF involving a far higher number of people and first languages. The article goes on to explore empirical research into ELF, and its key findings: on the one hand, that certain “nonstandard” English forms are regularly preferred to “standard” (i.e. native) ones, and on the other, that ELF is far more affected by context and accommodation processes, and, therefore, far more diverse, than native Englishes. The notion of “community of practice,” it is argued, is, thus, more appropriate to ELF than that of “speech community.” The article concludes by considering three key areas of ELF research that need to be tackled.

Non-Empiricist Naturalism

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-219
Author(s):  
Oskari Kuusela
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Traditional Conception ◽  
Logical Models ◽  
The Difference

This chapter elucidates Wittgenstein’s later non-empiricist naturalism. This novel kind of naturalism makes it possible to recognize the relevance of natural historical considerations concerning humans and language use for logic, while retaining the traditional conception of logic as a non-empirical discipline. The justification and generality of the employment of natural history based logical models is explained, and distinguished from the justification and generality of empirical statements. The different ways in which Wittgenstein makes use of natural historical considerations in logical or grammatical clarification are discussed, and the difference of Wittgenstein’s approach from broadly Kantian philosophical anthropology clarified. The correctness or truth of logical accounts is explained and a method of multidimensional logical descriptions introduced.

scholarly journals Sustainability and Collaboration: Crossdisciplinary and Cross-Sector Horizons

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Thompson Klein
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Boundary Crossing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Second Keyword ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
And Training ◽  
Local Perspectives

The title of this article signals increasing collaboration across boundaries aimed at understanding and solving complex scientific and societal problems. The article is a reflective analysis of five intersecting keywords in discussions of sustainability and boundary crossing. This genre of discourse studies interprets language use, drawing in this case on a representative sample of authoritative definitions, case studies, and state-of-the-art accounts. The Introduction situates the discussion around the increasing number and size of teams as well as research across both academic disciplines and other sectors, followed by the five keywords that structure the overall argument. Section 2 examines the first of the five keywords, defining interdisciplinarity by marking its alignment with integration, confluence, interdependence, interaction, and balance. Section 3 considers the second keyword—transdisciplinarity—by tracing evolution of a problem-focused connotation, links to sustainability, inclusion of stakeholders, the imperative of critique, and transdisciplinary action research. Section 4 brings together insights on inter- and trans-disciplinarity in a composite “crossdisciplinary” alignment with collaboration, factoring in the nature of teamwork, public engagement, and translation. Section 5 then turns to learning, noting the difference between education and training then emphasizing transformative capacity, double- and triple-loop learning, reflexivity, and a transdisciplinary orientation. Section 6 takes up the final keyword—knowledge—by calling attention to inclusion, indigenous and local perspectives, nomothetic versus idiographic perspectives, the question of fit, and the nature of crossdisciplinary knowledge. The article concludes by identifying future research needs.

Volitions and Actions

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-190
Author(s):  
Michael Martin
Keyword(s):  
The Difference ◽  
Mental Events

In a recent paper Lawrence Davis has argued that the difference between an arm raising and someone raising his arm is that in the latter case a volition causes the arm to rise. In this paper I will show that Davis's theory is faulty and that certain obvious ways of repairing his theory do not work.Davis proposes the following as an account of Sam's raising his arm:(E) Sam raises his arm if he willed to raise his arm and this caused his arm to rise.According to Davis the volition — Sam's willing to raise his arm — need not be interpreted psychologically. Volitions could be ghostly mental events, but they might not be. He leaves this open. He also leaves open the question of whether volitions are introspectable events. Davis allows that in some cases Sam's arm rising can be caused by a volition different from the volition to raise his arm. For example, Sam might will to step on a pedal.

Language, Goals and Situations

1983 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3-4) ◽  
pp. 267-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Forgas
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Core Problem ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Methodological Difficulties

The question addressed in this review paper is how our goals and the surrounding social situation influence what we say and how we say it in social interaction. It is proposed that definitional and methodological difficulties in studying social situations constitute the core problem in this domain. Various approaches to conceptualising social situations in linguistics, psychology and sociology are outlined, and recent empirical research on cognitive representations of social episodes is summarised. Selected theories linking goals and situations to language use are reviewed, and empirical research on situational variations in language behaviour is considered. It is concluded that the use of predominantly ad hoc, intuitive classifications of social situations, and the dominance of the ethno graphic method in empirical research have limited progress in this field. A social cognitive paradigm, linking cognitive representations of situations to information processing models predicting the selection of linguistic alternatives is proposed as a suitable future model for research.

scholarly journals Small but Multi-functional: Response Tokens in Content Language Integrated Learning Interaction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arab World English Journal ◽  
Sabria Salama Jawhar
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Classroom Interaction ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Interactional Functions ◽  
The Relationship

This paper is an investigation of language use inside a content language integrated learning (CLIL) classroom at Saudi tertiary level. It examines the difference in language use between teachers and students in four subject-specific classrooms in which English is used as a medium of instruction. The study is informed by corpus linguistics (CL) and uses the principles and theoretical underpinning of conversation analysis (CA). It identifies the most frequent linguistic features of CLIL and examines their diverse interactional functions in this context. Amongst the most frequent linguistic features in CLIL are short response tokens such as “yes” and “no”. Using a micro-analytic approach to conversation analysis, a closer look at the data shows the students’ ability to use small and limited linguistic resources to accomplish multiple interactional functions such as taking the floor, taking turns and, most importantly, displaying orientation to knowledge. The data reflected the relationship between frequency and meaning construction. With regard to the difference in language use between teachers and students with regard to comes to short response tokens, the study shows some common interactional uses of response tokens between teachers and students, such as agreement, acknowledgement, response to confirmation checks and yes/no questions. On the other hand, it shows some exclusive interactional use of the same token by teachers and students. Finally, the paper emphasises the relationship of language, interaction and orientation to content knowledge in CLIL classrooms. Pedagogically, the findings have implications for teachers’ language use and for increased classroom interaction.

scholarly journals Big Data's Call to Philosophers of Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 310-322
Author(s):  
Jane Blanken-Webb
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Holistic Process ◽  
Post Test ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Coming To Know ◽  
Theory Of Inquiry

This paper investigates the intersection of big data and philosophy of education by considering big data’s potential for addressing learning via a holistic process of coming-to-know. Learning, in this sense, cannot be reduced to the difference between a pre- and post-test, for example, as it is constituted at least as much by qualities of experience as it is the situation, process of inquiry and its consequences. Long a perennial concern of philosophers of education, the author suggests that big data offers a budding opportunity for philosophers to engage in dialogue with empirical research in order to better understand the process of learning as coming-to-know. Drawing on John Dewey’s theory of inquiry and his philosophy of experience, the author demonstrates ways that both empirical and philosophical research stands to benefit from cross-dialogue. In offering an unprecedented glimpse of empirical detail, the author proposes that big data stands to afford new insights into this most complex human process and that Dewey’s philosophy offers a vital lens of interpretation that can help philosophers of education to make use of this data in addressing the perennial question of how humans come-to-know.

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