What Shall We Think About an Afrocentric Vision?

This essay was originally a lecture given in Hungarian in Pécs, Hungary, at a conference on African Globalities/Global Africans, the 4th Pécs African Studies Conference on June 9-10, 2016. It starts its analysis with the ancient Greeks, since when, and even more so since Hegel, we have known that in the fields of both thinking and actions, along theses and antitheses, then with luck, along syntheses, “welter” the phrasing of notions and conceptions and the debates over them as well as everyday and historical events. We also know that syntheses many times are born with difficulty. What is more, in many cases, series of theses and antitheses get to grips with each other for a long period of time without the hope of creating a synthesis. And of course, to open the gates elsewhere: this old-world syllogism, as a reflective model, is not sufficient for the interpretation of the realistic and mental entity that inundates us. However, nowadays we can pick up on the specific mental-interpretational ideology that stands out in the form of this model whose essence is Afrocentrism set against the Eurocentric approach (Biernaczky, 2017). This is discussed in the paper.

RESPONSIBILITY AS A LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL VALUE

В статье рассматриваются лингвокультурные характеристики этической категории «ответственность» в русском языковом сознании. Охарактеризованы понятийные, образно-ситуативные и ценностные признаки этого концепта. Показана специфика уточнения ответственности в философско-этическом и юридическом аспектах (негативная и позитивная ответственность), выделены признаки безответственности как отрицательного коррелята ответственности. The paper deals with linguistic and cultural features of ethical category «responsibility» as reflected in Russian linguistic consciousness. This concept is analyzed in notional, perceptive, situational and evaluative aspects. It is specified in philosophic and legal discourse as negative and positive responsibility. As a regulative mental entity it has its antipode – irresponsibility, which has a variety of lexical nominations.

COGNITIVE AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE LITERARY DIALOGUE

The following article deals with the concept analysis in the literary dialogue from the perspective of Cognitive and Cultural linguistics. Cognitive and Cultural linguistics are the modern trends of Linguistics as a result of anthropocentric paradigm to language. In this approach, the interaction between the language and human is the main basis of this paradigm. Cognitive and Cultural Linguistics have own main notions as interdisciplinary branches of linguistic sciences and “concept” is considered as one of basic notions of Cognitive and Cultural linguistics as well as being the core of attention of several interdisciplinary branches of linguistics. Different definitions were given to the notion of "concept". Concept is formed through the individual's emotional, physical, historical, personal and social experience gained in the process of percepting the world. Another definition representing the concept is that it is a complex mental entity as well as being a component of the conceptual world picture conceptually relevant either to the whole community or an individual linguistic personality. In this article, concepts Beauty and Love are analyzed according to the study with the notional, image-bearing and evaluative layers. The conceptual features, which constitute the structure of the concept are revealed at each stage of the analysis in the article. In this regard, two concepts are analyzed according to dictionary definitions in notional level. The image-bearing and evaluative layers are based on the features of the concept in the extracts of literary dialogues of the texts. In addition, the contextual analysis reveals the conceptual features, which are not found at the level of dictionary analysis and phraseological analysis.

Mechanica finalis and Raymond Ruyer’s Philosophy of Neofinalism

The article discusses Raymond Ruyer’s philosophy of neofinalism, which offers an original reading of the theory of final cause consistent with the data of the natural sciences. In contrast to the classical version of causa finalis, neofinalism accentuates not the object in its finished form, but rather the goal-oriented process of searching for the forms of its realization. Final cause opens out as unsubjected consciousness that is realized as qualitative evaluation which influences the object’s behavior. Ruyer calls this primary consciousness an “absolute survey” or external contour of consciousness. Its secondary version is an internal contour or the consciousness of intentional objects. The finalist process is realized through a mechanical consequence, and the result of finalism is a being, while the result of the mechanics is an aggregate. Mechanics and finality converge at the meta-level in the operations of trans-spatial and trans-subjective forms that assemble the structural solutions for local processes. Consciousness ceases to be “conscious about something” and on the contrary, becomes “something” itself, a thing that in precritical philosophy would have called a “mental entity.” Ruyer’s works exerted great influence on Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy and fit into the ongoing tradition of exegesis of the multiple and complex nature of reality alongside the oeuvre of Gabriel Tarde, Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson and Gilbert Simondon. Ruyer proposed and developed such terms in Deleuze’s vocabulary as molar and molecular, assemblage, virtuality, transversality, trans-individuality and trans-spatiality. The article provides an outline of Ruyer’s writings and gives an account of his main work Neofinalism together with commentaries and comparisons with the views of Plato, Bergson, Simondon, Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Daniel Dennett and Antonio Damasio.

Notional Component of the Concept PAIN

The article is devoted to the study of the notional component of the concept PAIN. The notion of concept is the basis of cognitive linguistics. This mental entity contains complex information about objects or phenomena and their interpretation in the human mind. Concepts occur as a result of our cognitive activities. Although of classifications of concepts varies, almost all the linguists agree on its structure. They single out the nucleus – the prevailing meaning and the peripheral meaning(s) – less prevailing, though still important. In addition, concepts are described as entities consisting of notional, figural and evaluative components. Concepts can be studied and understood only through verbalization which varies due to different factors such as age, sex, profession etc. The methods used to establish notional component of the concept comprise etymological analysis and the analysis of definitions. In the process of etymological analysis, archaic meanings of the concept have been singled out. The analysis of definitions has been conducted on the basis of English lexicographical sources. As a result, one nuclear meaning of the lexeme and seven peripheral meanings have been distinguished. Moreover, synonymic words, which can realize the additional characteristics of the concept, have been analyzed.

The Structure of Bias

What is a bias? Standard philosophical views of both implicit and explicit bias focus this question on the representations one harbours, for example, stereotypes or implicit attitudes, rather than the ways in which those representations (or other mental states) are manipulated. I call this approach representationalism. In this paper, I argue that representationalism taken as a general theory of psychological social bias is a mistake, because it conceptualizes bias in ways that do not fully capture the phenomenon. Crucially, this view fails to capture a heretofore neglected possibility of bias, one that influences an individual’s beliefs about or actions toward others, but is, nevertheless, nowhere represented in that individual’s cognitive repertoire. In place of representationalism, I develop a functional account of psychological social bias which characterizes it as a mental entity that takes propositional mental states as inputs and returns propositional mental states as outputs in a way that instantiates social-kind inductions. This functional characterization leaves open which mental states and processes bridge the gap between the inputs and outputs, ultimately highlighting the diversity of candidates that can serve this role.

Towards the Functional Typology of Signs

In this paper, we propose a sketch of the functional classification of the sign as the main object of semiotics. The well-known structural classifications of the sign as a carrier of meaning and information were based on its use in communication, while the cognitive value of the sign as a means of cognition was emphasized. As a mental entity, developing in the process of cognition, from the idea of Possibility to revealing Regularity, the sign was represented by Ch. Pierce, who defined its basic, cognitive, function. In linguistics the role of the sign in communication was especially emphasized, systems of communicative functions of the language sign were proposed by K. Bühler and R. Jacobson. However, the specific tasks that different signs perform are not only related to the aspect of meaning, but also to their significance. Signs that regulate social interaction, as well as signs of art, highlight the value side of their content. R. Barthes believed that the function of a thing can be determined on the basis of its structure – in decomposing it into component parts and then in recomposing it; this way you can understand how the whole works. If you use this method, you can distinguish between different functional character types. In the process of semiosis semantic relations between the two sides of the sign (signans vs signatum) can be different, which allows us to distinguish three main functional types of signs: identifiers, regulators and models. A sign-identifier is usually closely connected with its object, it seems to be “talking about itself”; a sign-regulator has the character of an indication or imperative, it “tells you”, indicating the path to its object; a sign-model recreates the image of an object in another space – it “tells about something”. Modeling signs represent the most complex level of sign organization and semiotic problems. Modeling can use iconic techniques, including the principle of harmonic similarity (or syntactic coding, according to U. Eco), or use the principle of functional similarity. Modifications are possible for any type of signs. The functional types of signs are in a sense correlated with the functions of language in the model of K. Bühler. The proposed classification could systematize ideas about the functions of the sign and the essence of semiosis, in which, according to Ch. Morris, “something functions as a sign”. Functional typology of signs can serve as a methodological basis for a particular semiotic analysis in different areas of semiotics and linguistics.

Consciousness

Philosophers have used the term ‘consciousness’ for four main topics: knowledge in general, intentionality, introspection (and the knowledge it specifically generates) and phenomenal experience. This entry discusses the last two uses. Something within one’s mind is ‘introspectively conscious’ just in case one introspects it (or is poised to do so). Introspection is often thought to deliver one’s primary knowledge of one’s mental life. An experience or other mental entity is ‘phenomenally conscious’ just in case there is ‘something it is like’ for one to have it. The clearest examples are: perceptual experiences, such as tastings and seeings; bodily-sensational experiences, such as those of pains, tickles and itches; imaginative experiences, such as those of one’s own actions or perceptions; and streams of thought, as in the experience of thinking ‘in words’ or ‘in images’. Introspection and phenomenality seem independent, or dissociable, although this is controversial. Phenomenally conscious experiences have been argued to be nonphysical, or at least inexplicable in the manner of other physical entities. Several such arguments allege that phenomenal experience is ‘subjective’; that understanding some experiences requires undergoing them (or their components). The claim is that any objective physical science would leave an ‘explanatory gap’, failing to describe what it is like to have a particular experience and failing to explain why there are phenomenal experiences at all. From this, some philosophers infer ‘dualism’ rather than ‘physicalism’ about consciousness, concluding that some facts about consciousness are not wholly constituted by physical facts. This dualist conclusion threatens claims that phenomenal consciousness has causal power, and that it is knowable in others and in oneself. In reaction, surprisingly much can be said in favour of ‘eliminativism’ about phenomenal consciousness; the denial of any realm of phenomenal objects and properties of experience. Most (but not all) philosophers deny that there are phenomenal objects – mental images with colour and shape, pain-objects that throb or burn, inner speech with pitch and rhythm, and so on. Instead, experiences may simply seem to involve such objects. The central disagreement concerns whether these experiences have phenomenal properties – ‘qualia’; particular aspects of what experiences are like for their bearers. Some philosophers deny that there are phenomenal properties – especially if these are thought to be intrinsic, completely and immediately introspectible, ineffable, subjective or otherwise potentially difficult to explain on physicalist theories. More commonly, philosophers acknowledge qualia of experiences, either articulating less bold conceptions of qualia, or defending dualism about boldly conceived qualia. Introspective consciousness has seemed less puzzling than phenomenal consciousness. Most thinkers agree that introspection is far from complete about the mind and far from infallible. Perhaps the most familiar account of introspection is that, in addition to ‘outwardly perceiving’ non-mental entities in one’s environment and body, one ‘inwardly perceives’ one’s mental entities, as when one seems to see visual images with one’s ‘mind’s eye’. This view faces several serious objections. Rival views of introspective consciousness fall into three categories, according to whether they treat introspective access (1) as epistemically looser or less direct than inner perception, (2) as tighter or more direct, or (3) as fundamentally non-epistemic or nonrepresentational. Theories in category (1) explain introspection as always retrospective, or as typically based on self-directed theoretical inferences. Rivals from category (2) maintain that an introspectively conscious mental state reflexively represents itself, or treat introspection as involving no mechanism of access at all. Category (3) theories treat a mental state as introspectively conscious if it is distinctively available for linguistic or rational processing, even if it is not itself perceived or otherwise thought about.

Colloquium 2 The Metaphysics of the Syllogism

This paper addresses a central metaphysical issue that has not been recognized: what kind of entity is a syllogism? I argue that the syllogism cannot be merely a mental entity. Some counterpart must exist in nature. A careful examination of the Posterior Analytics’s distinction between the syllogism of the fact and the syllogism of the reasoned fact shows that we must set aside contemporary logic to appreciate Aristotle’s logic, enables us to understand the validity of the scientific syllogism through its content rather than its form, and explains the priority of the scientific syllogism over other valid syllogisms. The opening chapters of Posterior Analytics II help us to distinguish the entities that scientific syllogism must include as its terms; namely, a genus, an essential nature, and essential attributes of the genus. Often, the attributes are found in closely linked sequences. By exploring why there are such sequences and how they are linked, the paper argues that sequences of genus, nature, and sequential attributes are the basis in nature for the process of reasoning that we call the syllogism: we come to grasp the syllogism over time but the sequences to which it refers exist together in things. So understood, the syllogism, like knowledge of forms and truths, exists in us and in the world.