Gestures and Aḥādīth al-Ṣifāt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Livnat Holtzman
Keyword(s):  
Scholarly Activity ◽  
Abstract Concepts

This chapter spotlights the gestures (ishāra pl. ishārāt) which the teachers of Hadith (muḥaddithūn) performed while transmitting aḥādīth al-ṣifāt. The use of gestures in the context of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt entailed doctrinal and theological implications, and was in itself a matter of dispute. The performers of gestures among the muḥaddithūn of the seventh and eighth centuries, like Thabit al-Bunani (d. 740) and Harmala ibn ʿImran (d. 777) attributed the gestures to the Prophet and the ṣaḥāba. These muḥaddithūn perceived the gestures as iconic, namely gestures that display a concrete scene. The muḥaddith who in particular promoted the trend of performing gestures was Hammad ibn Salama (d. 784), and this chapter elaborates on his scholarly activity and public performances. Finally, this chapter evaluates the hermeneutical solutions to the gestures that accompanied the recitation of the anthropomorphic verses in the Quran and aḥādīth al-ṣifāt. These solutions were offered by the Hadith scholars who were active between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. These scholars, who were mostly Ashʿarites, tended to interpret the gestures as metaphoric, namely gestures representing abstract concepts. The chapter concludes with the unique discussion of the Hanbalite Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201) on the topic of gestures and aḥādīth al-ṣifāt.

The representation of abstract concepts: The role of affect

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Vigliocco ◽  
David P. Vinson ◽  
Pasquale Della Rosa ◽  
Stefano F. Cappa ◽  
Joseph T. Devlin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Concepts

Embodying Abstract Concepts

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Casasanto ◽  
Sandra Lozano
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Concepts

A Christmas Carol: Disability Conceptualised through Empathy and the Philosophy of ‘Technologically Useful Bodies’

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-191
Author(s):  
Ester Vidović
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Models ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Linguistic Approach

The article explores how two cultural models which were dominant in Great Britain during the Victorian era – the model based on the philosophy of ‘technologically useful bodies’ and the Christian model of empathy – were connected with the understanding of disability. Both cultural models are metaphorically constituted and based on the ‘container’ and ‘up and down’ image schemas respectively. 1 The intersubjective character of cultural models is foregrounded, in particular, in the context of conceiving of abstract concepts such as emotions and attitudes. The issue of disability is addressed from a cognitive linguistic approach to literary analysis while studying the reflections of the two cultural models on the portrayal of the main characters of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. The studied cultural models appeared to be relatively stable, while their evaluative aspects proved to be subject to historical change. The article provides incentives for further study which could include research on the connectedness between, on one hand, empathy with fictional characters roused by reading Dickens's works and influenced by cultural models dominant during the Victorian period in Britain and, on the other hand, the contemporaries’ actual actions taken to ameliorate the social position of the disabled in Victorian Britain.

Mentoring Resident Scholarly Activity: A Toolkit and Guide for Program Directors, Research Directors and Faculty Mentors

MedEdPORTAL ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Fenton ◽  
Jiyeon Kim ◽  
Erika Abramson ◽  
Linda Waggoner-Fountain ◽  
Monique Naifeh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Program Directors ◽  
Scholarly Activity ◽  
Faculty Mentors

The Effect of Odor and Color on Chemical Cooling

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Pellegrino ◽  
Curtis Luckett
Keyword(s):  
Primary Component ◽  
Magnitude Scale ◽  
Trigeminal System ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Specific Chemical ◽  
Chemical Binding ◽  
Cooling Intensity ◽  
Crossmodal Associations ◽  
First Session

Chemesthesis, along with taste and olfaction, is a primary component of flavor that engages the trigeminal system through specific chemical binding. For instance, many gums or confectionaries incorporate chemical cooling agents, such as Wilkinson Sword (WS) compounds, to create the sensation of coldness. The current study was designed to evaluate crossmodal associations of color and aroma with the chemesthetic perception of cooling. A “minty” and non-odorized set of confectionary stimuli, colored green, blue or white, with moderate cooling properties (with WS-3) were used in this study. In the first session, participants were randomly presented a stimuli and asked to rate several attributes including its cooling intensity on a generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS). In the second session, the same participants were asked to relate cooling levels to different colors and which color relates to the “minty” odor. Additionally, open-ended reasons were given for association choices. Appearance and odor influenced the intensity of cooling sensation. In particular, the odorized and blue samples were rated as cooler than the non-odorized and other colored samples, respectively. The follow-up session confirms blue as a color associated with cooling properties, especially cool objects/abstract concepts. Meanwhile, odor’s enhancement on cooling sensation may be more perceptual in nature through affective matching from enhanced flavor.

Making it abstract, making it contestable: Gender/sex as a politicized concept

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Mazzuca ◽  
Matteo Santarelli
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Biological Feature ◽  
Dynamic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cultural Construct ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
The One

The concept of gender has been the battleground of scientific and political speculations for a long time. On the one hand, some accounts contended that gender is a biological feature, while on the other hand some scholars maintained that gender is a socio-cultural construct (e.g., Butler, 1990; Risman, 2004). Some of the questions that animated the debate on gender over history are: how many genders are there? Is gender rooted in our biological asset? Are gender and sex the same thing? All of these questions entwine one more crucial, and often overlooked interrogative. How is it possible for a concept to be the purview of so many disagreements and conceptual redefinitions? The question that this paper addresses is therefore not which specific account of gender is preferable. Rather, the main question we will address is how and why is even possible to disagree on how gender should be considered. To provide partial answers to these questions, we suggest that gender/sex (van Anders, 2015; Fausto-Sterling, 2019) is an illustrative example of politicized concepts. We show that no concepts are political in themselves; instead, some concepts are subjected to a process involving a progressive detachment from their supposed concrete referent (i.e., abstractness), a tension to generalizability (i.e., abstraction), a partial indeterminacy (i.e., vagueness), and the possibility of being contested (i.e., contestability). All of these features differentially contribute to what we call the politicization of a concept. In short, we will claim that in order to politicize a concept, a possible strategy is to evidence its more abstract facets, without denying its more embodied and perceptual components (Borghi et al., 2019). So, we will first outline how gender has been treated in psychological and philosophical discussions, to evidence its essentially contestable character thereby showing how it became a politicized concept. Then we will review some of the most influential accounts of political concepts, arguing that currently they need to be integrated with more sophisticated distinctions (e.g., Koselleck, 2004). The notions gained from the analyses of some of the most important accounts of political concepts in social sciences and philosophy will allow us to implement a more dynamic approach to political concepts. Specifically, when translated into the cognitive science framework, these reflections will help us clarifying some crucial aspects of the nature of politicized concepts. Bridging together social and cognitive sciences, we will show how politicized concepts are abstract concepts, or better abstract conceptualizations.

Effects of Context on Processing Emotionally Neutral Abstract and Concrete Concepts

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 1191-1200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liusheng Wang ◽  
Hongmei Qiu ◽  
Jianjun Yin
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Context Condition ◽  
Word Context ◽  
Concrete Concepts ◽  
Concrete Words

The abstractness effect describes the phenomenon of individuals processing abstract concepts faster and more accurately than they process concrete concepts. In this study, we explored the effects of context on how 43 college students processed words, controlling for the emotional valence of the words. The participants performed a lexical decision task in which they were shown individual abstract and concrete words, or abstract and concrete words embedded in sentences. The results showed that in the word-context condition the participants' processing of concrete concepts improved, whereas in the sentence-context condition their processing of abstract concepts improved. These findings support the embodied cognition theory of concept processing.

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