scholarly journals Into Your (S)Kin: Toward a Comprehensive Conception of Empathy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tue Emil Öhler Søvsø ◽  
Kirstin Burckhardt

This paper argues for a comprehensive conception of empathy as comprising epistemic, affective, and motivational elements and introduces the ancient Stoic theory of attachment (Greek, oikeiōsis) as a model for describing the embodied, emotional response to others that we take to be distinctive of empathy. Our argument entails that in order to provide a suitable conceptual framework for the interdisciplinary study of empathy one must extend the scope of recent “simulationalist” and “enactivist” accounts of empathy in two important respects. First, against the enactivist assumption that human mindreading capacities primarily rely on an immediate, quasi-perceptual understanding of other’s intentional states, we draw on Alfred Schutz’ analysis of social understanding to argue that reflective types of understanding play a distinct, but equally fundamental role in empathic engagements. Second, we insist that empathy also involves an affective response toward the other and their situation (as the empathizer perceives this). We suggest analyzing this response in terms of the Stoic concepts of attachment, concern, and a fundamental type of prosocial motivation, that can best be described as an “extended partiality.” By way of conclusion, we integrate the above concepts into a comprehensive conceptual framework for the study of empathy and briefly relate them to current debates about empathic perception and prosocial motivation. The result, we argue, is an account that stays neutral with regard to the exact nature of the processes involved in producing empathy and can therefore accommodate discussion across theoretical divides—e.g., those between enactivist, simulationalist, and so-called theory-theorist approaches.

Author(s):  
R. N. Tomas

Peridinium balticum appears to be unusual among the dinoflagellates in that it possesses two DNA-containing structures as determined by histochemical techniques. Ultrastructurally, the two dissimilar nuclei are contained within different protoplasts; one of the nuclei is characteristically dinophycean in nature, while the other is characteristically eucaryotic. The chloroplasts observed within P. balticum are intrinsic to an eucaryotic photosynthetic endosymbiont and not to the dinoflagellate. These organelles are surrounded by outpocketings of endoplasmic reticulum which are continuous with the eucaryotic nuclear envelope and are characterized by thylakoids composed of three apposed lamellae. Girdle lamellae and membranebounded interlamellar pyrenoids are also present. Only the plasmalemma of the endosymbiont segregates its protoplast from that of the dinophycean cytoplasm. The exact nature of this symbiotic relationship is at present not known.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-517
Author(s):  
Yuk Hui ◽  
Louis Morelle

This article aims to clarify the question of speed and intensity in the thoughts of Simondon and Deleuze, in order to shed light on the recent debates regarding accelerationism and its politics. Instead of starting with speed, we propose to look into the notion of intensity and how it serves as a new ontological ground in Simondon's and Deleuze's philosophy and politics. Simondon mobilises the concept of intensity to criticise hylomorphism and substantialism; Deleuze, taking up Simondon's conceptual framework, repurposes it for his ontology of difference, elevating intensity to the rank of generic concept of being, thus bypassing notions of negativity and individuals as base, in favour of the productive and universal character of difference. In Deleuze, the correlation between intensity and speed is fraught with ambiguities, with each term threatening to subsume the other; this rampant tension becomes explicitly antagonistic when taken up by the diverse strands of contemporary accelerationism, resulting in two extreme cases in the posthuman discourse: either a pure becoming, achieved through destruction, or through abstraction that does away with intensity altogether; or an intensity without movement or speed, that remains a pure jouissance. Both cases appear to stumble over the problem of individuation, if not disindividuation. Hence, we wish to raise the following question: in what way can one think of an accelerationist politics with intensity, or an intensive politics without the fetishisation of speed? We consider this question central to the interrogation of the limits of acceleration and posthuman discourse, thus requiring a new philosophical thought on intensity and speed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-562
Author(s):  
Ulrike Zeshan ◽  
Nick Palfreyman

AbstractThis article sets out a conceptual framework and typology of modality effects in the comparison of signed and spoken languages. This is essential for a theory of cross-modal typology. We distinguish between relative modality effects, where a linguistic structure is markedly more common in one modality than in the other, and absolute modality effects, where a structure does not occur in one of the modalities at all. Using examples from a wide variety of sign languages, we discuss examples at the levels of phonology, morphology (including numerals, negation, and aspect) and semantics. At the phonological level, the issue of iconically motivated sub-lexical components in signs, and parallels with sound symbolism in spoken languages, is particularly pertinent. Sensory perception metaphors serve as an example for semantic comparison across modalities. Advocating an inductive approach to cross-modal comparison, we discuss analytical challenges in defining what is comparable across the signed and spoken modalities, and in carrying out such comparisons in a rigorous and empirically substantiated way.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azrulhizam Shapi’i ◽  
Nor Azan Mat Zin ◽  
Ahmed Mohammed Elaklouk

Brain injury such as traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke is the major cause of long-term disabilities in many countries. The increasing rate of brain damaged victims and the heterogeneity of impairments decrease rehabilitation effectiveness and competence resulting in higher cost of rehabilitation treatment. On the other hand, traditional rehabilitation exercises are boring, thus leading patients to neglect the prescribed exercises required for recovery. Therefore, we propose game-based approach to address these problems. This paper presents a rehabilitation gaming system (RGS) for cognitive rehabilitation. The RGS is developed based on a proposed conceptual framework which has also been presented in this paper.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sergio Ripoll ◽  
Vicente Bayarri ◽  
Francisco J. Muñoz ◽  
Ricardo Ortega ◽  
Elena Castillo ◽  
...  

Our Palaeolithic ancestors did not make good representations of themselves on the rocky surfaces of caves and barring certain exceptions – such as the case of La Marche (found on small slabs of stone or plaquettes) or the Cueva de Ambrosio – the few known examples can only be referred to as anthropomorphs. As such, only hand stencils give us a real picture of the people who came before us. Hand stencils and imprints provide us with a large amount of information that allows us to approach not only their physical appearance but also to infer less tangible details, such as the preferential use of one hand over the other (i.e., handedness). Both new and/or mature technologies as well as digital processing of images, computers with the ability to process very high resolution images, and a more extensive knowledge of the Palaeolithic figures all help us to analyse thoroughly the hands in El Castillo cave. The interdisciplinary study presented here contributes many novel developments based on real data, representing a major step forward in knowledge about our predecessors.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianka Plüschke-Altof

Despite often being used interchangeably, the dominant equation of the rural with the peripheral is not self-evident. In order to critically scrutinize the discursive node, the aim of this article is twofold. On one hand, it argues for overcoming the prevalent urban‒rural divide and dominant structural approaches in sociological and geographical research by introducing discursive peripheralization as a conceptual framework, which allows the analysis of the discursive (re-)production of socio-spatial inequalities on and between different scales. On the other hand, this article explores how rural areas are constituted as peripheries within a hegemonic discourse naturalizing the ascription of development (non-)potentials. Following a critical discourse analysis approach, this will be illustrated in the case of periphery constructions in Estonian national print media.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 168-185
Author(s):  
Sethulego Z. Matebesi

A growing body of literature on urban and grassroots social movements is replete with case studies of citizens mobilizing against infrastructural development projects. These mobilizations, known as insurgent citizenship—the participation in alternative channels of political expression—take different forms and have various impacts. An investigation into the case of the mobilizing agenda of the Greater Bloemfontein Taxi Association (GBTA) against using a costly intermodal transport facility in Bloemfontein is aimed at highlighting the often neglected dilemma of how powerless citizens—for example, taxi owners—respond to state hegemony. Theoretically, the article is grounded in the conceptual framework of insurgent citizenship and, empirically, draws on narratives of a range of participants. The findings provide an understanding of the importance of organizational structure and leadership in the sustained insurgent action by the GBTA. It is argued that the insurgent action by the GBTA is produced mainly by—on the one hand—the conflictual relationship between government policies and practices and—on the other hand—grassroots resistance to their exclusionary and marginalizing effects. Furthermore, the findings elucidate that insurgent practice may be driven by neoliberal principles of competition, profit, and entrepreneurship.


2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Brem ◽  
Björn Ivens

The fields of frugal and reverse innovation as well as sustainability and its management have received tremendous interest in recent times. However, there is little literature on how both fields are related to each other. Hence, this paper gives an overview of research in both areas and provides a view of the relationship between frugal and reverse innovation, sustainability management and performance constructs. The link between frugal and reverse innovation on the one hand and sustainability performance on the other hand is established through a differentiated perspective on dimensions representing different fields of sustainability management, i.e. the sustainability of resources used in value creation, the sustainability of the actual value creation processes, and the sustainability of the outcomes of value creation processes. Moreover, we also argue for a positive link between the three dimensions of sustainability management and a company’s market performance.


The author concludes, from his microscopic examinations of the structure of muscular fibres, that those subservient to the functions of animal life have, in man, an average diameter of one 400dth of an inch, and are surrounded by transverse circular striae varying in thickness, and in the number contained in a given space. He describes these striae as constituted by actual elevations on the surface of the fibre, with intermediate depressions, considerably narrower than the diameter of a globule of the blood. Each of these muscular fibres, of which the diameter is one 400dth of an inch, is divisible into bands or fibrillae, each of which is again subdivisible into about one hundred tubular filaments, arranged parallel to one another, in a longitudinal direction, around the axis of the tubular fibre which they compose, and which contains in its centre a soluble gluten. The partial separation of the fibrillae gives rise to the appearance of broken or interrupted circular striae, which are occasionally seen. The diameter of each filament is one 16,000dth of an inch, or about a third part of that of a globule of the blood. On the other hand, the muscles of organic life are composed, not of fibres similar to those above described, but of filaments only ; these filaments being interwoven with each other in irregularly disposed lines of various thickness; having for the most part a longitudinal direction, but forming a kind of untraceable network. They are readily distinguishable from tendinous fibres, by the filaments of the latter being uniform in their size, and pursuing individually one unvarying course, in lines parallel to each other. The fibres of the heart appear to possess a somewhat compound character of texture. The muscles of the pharynx exhibit the character of animal life; while those of the oesophagus, the stomach, the intestines, and the arterial system, possess that of inorganic life. The determination of the exact nature of the muscular fibres of the iris presented considerable difficulties, which the author has not yet been able satisfactorily to overcome.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document