Sharing Our Concepts with Machines

As AI systems become increasingly competent language users, it is an apt moment to consider what it would take for machines to understand human languages. This paper considers whether either language models such as GPT-3 or chatbots might be able to understand language, focusing on the question of whether they could possess the relevant concepts. A significant obstacle is that systems of both kinds interact with the world only through text, and thus seem ill-suited to understanding utterances concerning the concrete objects and properties which human language often describes. Language models cannot understand human languages because they perform only linguistic tasks, and therefore cannot represent such objects and properties. However, chatbots may perform tasks concerning the non-linguistic world, so they are better candidates for understanding. Chatbots can also possess the concepts necessary to understand human languages, despite their lack of perceptual contact with the world, due to the language-mediated concept-sharing described by social externalism about mental content.

Perception and Cognition. All Colors of the World: Metaphorization of Color

The present study investigates relationship of conventional Russian color metaphors with a group of directly embodied basic colors and a group of colors of secondary embodiment for twelve color domains categories within the boundaries of one cognitive system. The tallying of the metaphor data allowed to sort all color metaphors into six groups based on the presence in the mapping as a source or target domain of a particular component (concrete objects, fabrics, materials, abstract, philosophical ideas, moral qualities, names of the animals, emotions, and embodied components. The results of the study suggest that color metaphors of the primary embodied color group were more numerous and more diverse in meanings and emotional implications than that of the secondary embodied color group. Many metaphors in all six color domains in the first group were embodied, while metaphors in only one group of colors were embodied for the second group. Finally, metaphors in the group of primary embodiment were equally diverse in mappings with that of the color metaphors in the group of secondary embodiment.

Explorative Journey Through Hadith Collections

The article offers insight into a fresh way to utilise hadith collections beyond criticising their material in terms of their authenticity or discussing their implications for Islamic law. It builds on a digital corpus of collections to represent the wealth of canonical Sunni, Shia and Ibadite traditions. In this first exploration of this corpus, the interconnectedness of early Islamic Arabia with other parts of world is highlighted through an analysis of travelling words, proper names, and concrete objects in a few case studies organised into five sections by geographical area. These include translation, a Wanderwort, and contact through commerce and trade. The methods applied to analyse the material are those of historical and comparative linguistics. The results indicate that exploring linguistic aspects of hadith collections—notwithstanding editorial revision and their canonisation—can inform studies of language change in Arabic and set the course to research the standardisation of Arabic. Key words: Hadith Studies, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, Middle Persian, Southern Arabia, Late Antiquity

Roman Numerals in Spanish Primary Education

This article illustrates the importance of teaching Roman numerals, a component of a Latin language programme, as part of a Maths curriculum in a Spanish primary school. The aim is to contextualise the topic with concrete examples, supported by ancient Roman objects such as the milestone. The author discusses the relevance of a more integrated cross-curricular lesson to teach Roman numerals so that students better understand their use and make comparisons between ancient Roman and more modern traditions and culture, and to understand Roman influences on the modern age. Lastly, the author describes a teaching experiment in a Spanish primary school using some ad hoc materials to fulfil the aim of the study. The study outlines the positive results of integrating Roman numerals within the Maths lesson and shows that the students gained a richer and more valuable learning experience as they made reference to the concrete objects.

Pengaruh PENGARUH METODE OUTDOOR LEARNING BERBANTUAN MEDIA BENDA KONKRET TERHADAP HASIL BELAJAR MATEMATIKA

This study aims to determine the affect of outdoor learning methods assisted by concrete objects media on the learning outcomes of mathematic students in grade V at SDN Kalisalak Salaman. This research method is Pre-experimental with a One Group Pretest-Postest Design. The subject was 19 students in grade V at SDN Kalisalak chosen by saturated sampling. The method of data completion is done by testing. Validity test of product-moment and reliability test using cronbach alpha formula by SPSS for Windows 25.0. The prerequisite test consists of a normality test by SPSS for Windows 25.0. Data analysis using parametric statistic technique that is Paired Sample T-Test by SPSS for Windows 25.0. The result shows that the outdoor learning method was assisted by concrete object media affected on learning outcomes of mathematic. This is evidenced by the results of the Paired Sample T-Test with a probability value of 0,000 < 0,05. Based on the results of the analysis and discussion, there are differences in the mean pretest 0f 58,95 and post-test of 87,89. Based on these studies it can be concluded that the application of the outdoor learning method assisted by concrete objects media affects the learning outcomes of mathematic.

Theorising craft practices through sketching

This article explores how craft practice is theorised through sketching, by comparing narratives about the role of sketching from interviewed Swedish upper secondary textile design and floristry education teachers, and aiming to discern connection to curriculum. The theory and methods used in the article are influenced by Ivor Goodson’s work on subject knowledge and curriculum change (1998). Empirical data was obtained from multiple sources, including interviews with four teachers. The findings reveal that, while sketching has been intrinsic to textile design and seamstress vocational knowing for considerable time, sketching is a relatively new phenomenon within floristry vocational knowing and education; essentially dating from the 2011 Swedish educational reform. The discussion claims that sketching provides means to theorise craft practice, through providing an intermediary level between the abstract (theory) and the concrete (objects) within the practice

On the Possibility of Presentism with Occurrents

This paper defends the possibility of admitting occurrents in a presentist ontology. Two ways of doing so are proposed, the first one involves Meinongian presentism. By using the notion of non-existent object and coherently modifying some mereological principle, it is argued, the presentist can allow for occurrents. The second proposal involves ex-concrete objects. Ex-concrete objects, i.e. objects that are contingently not concrete, have been used by Linsky and Zalta (Philosophical Perspectives, 8 (Logic and Language), 431-458, 1994), Williamson (2002) in the modal metaphysics debate, by Orilia (Philosophical Studies, 173 (3), 589-607, 2016) in the presentism-eternalism debate, and by Longenecker (Synthese 195 (11), 5091-5111, 2018) in the debate about material constitution. I argue that, just by admitting ex-concrete objects, it is possible to have occurrents even for the presentist. Of course, in order to do so we must modify our definitions of occurrent and continuant. Nevertheless, I argue that my theory is metaphysically sound, at least for the presentist persuaded by the intuitive claim that there are occurrents, which otherwise she must reject.

Haecceities

This chapter is an account of the particularity of ordinary concrete objects like balls and bikes that appear within our experience. It argues that certain sorts of haecceities, which is to say irreducible individualities or bare particularities, are required to account for the particularity of such things. These haecceities involve modal structure of a distinctive sort. Various accounts are explored. But the central model developed involves haecceities of minimal spatial and temporal material bits, which help in turn to constitute the present time slice of a perceived object. This time slice could occur at different times or in different possible worlds, and instantiates a substantial form that constrains, in a perdurantist manner, available forms of identity over time rooted in concrete relations.

Introduction

This is an introductory chapter. It sketches the project of the book, which is to understand the ontology of a central class of particulars, and of their most basic and central properties and relations. This central class encompasses the commonsense entities that our experience seems naïvely to reveal. First of all, there are ordinary visible objects like balls and cars. The book investigates the kind of particularity they present in experience. Second, there are locations in space and time that such ordinary things occupy, and which have a somewhat different sort of particularity. Third, there are the material bits that make up the balls and cars. The proper understanding of both the particularity and the concrete properties and relations of ordinary concrete objects like these demands certain metaphysical novelties. It requires a return to the ancient conception that there is a difference between different ways of being, specifically between the existence of actual tables and chairs with their evident colors and shapes on one hand, and what might be called “the subsistence” of certain merely possible beings on the other. But it also requires the recognition of various sorts of unity relations less than strict identity, which for instance relate determinable and relevantly determinate properties. All these novelties involve distinctive forms of modal structure.