Emma E. A. Cohen
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195323351
- eISBN:
- 9780199785575
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323351.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected ...
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The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belém, northern Brazil, this book combines fine‐grained description and analysis of mediumistic activities in an Afro‐Brazilian cult house with a scientific account of the emergence and the spread of the tradition's core concepts. The book develops a novel theoretical approach to questions that are of central importance to the scientific study of transmission of culture, particularly concepts of spirits, spirit healing, and spirit possession. Making a radical departure from established anthropological, medicalist, and sociological analyses of spirit phenomena, the book looks instead to instructive insights from the cognitive sciences and offers a set of testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities. Predictions and claims are grounded in the data collected and sourced in specific ethnographic contexts. The data presented open new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenge the existing but outdated theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.Less
The Mind Possessed examines spirit concepts and mediumistic practices from a cognitive scientific perspective. Drawing primarily, but not exclusively, from ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Belém, northern Brazil, this book combines fine‐grained description and analysis of mediumistic activities in an Afro‐Brazilian cult house with a scientific account of the emergence and the spread of the tradition's core concepts. The book develops a novel theoretical approach to questions that are of central importance to the scientific study of transmission of culture, particularly concepts of spirits, spirit healing, and spirit possession. Making a radical departure from established anthropological, medicalist, and sociological analyses of spirit phenomena, the book looks instead to instructive insights from the cognitive sciences and offers a set of testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities. Predictions and claims are grounded in the data collected and sourced in specific ethnographic contexts. The data presented open new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenge the existing but outdated theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.
Robert Stainton
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250387
- eISBN:
- 9780191719523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250387.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; ...
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It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; only they stand in inferential relations, and are true or false. Sentences are, indeed, the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Does this near truism really hold of human languages? This book, drawing on a wide body of evidence, argues forcefully that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complete thoughts. It considers the implications of this empirical result for language-thought relations, various doctrines of sentence primacy, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. The book is important both for its philosophical and empirical claims, and for the methodology employed. Stainton illustrates how the methods and detailed results of the various cognitive sciences can bear on central issues in philosophy of language. At the same time, he applies philosophical distinctions to show that arguments which seemingly support the primacy of sentences do not really do so.Less
It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words. Sentences, it is said, are what we believe, assert, and argue for; uses of them constitute our evidence in semantics; only they stand in inferential relations, and are true or false. Sentences are, indeed, the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Does this near truism really hold of human languages? This book, drawing on a wide body of evidence, argues forcefully that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complete thoughts. It considers the implications of this empirical result for language-thought relations, various doctrines of sentence primacy, and the semantics-pragmatics boundary. The book is important both for its philosophical and empirical claims, and for the methodology employed. Stainton illustrates how the methods and detailed results of the various cognitive sciences can bear on central issues in philosophy of language. At the same time, he applies philosophical distinctions to show that arguments which seemingly support the primacy of sentences do not really do so.
Steven Horst
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195317114
- eISBN:
- 9780199871520
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195317114.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Contemporary debates in philosophy of mind‐between reductionists, dualists, nonreductive materialists, and eliminativists‐have been based upon the perception that mental phenomena like consciousness ...
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Contemporary debates in philosophy of mind‐between reductionists, dualists, nonreductive materialists, and eliminativists‐have been based upon the perception that mental phenomena like consciousness and intentionality are uniquely irreducible. The “explanatory gap” between mind and body seems to be an urgent and fascinating problem if one assumes that intertheoretic reductions are the rule in the special sciences, with the mind as the lone exception. While this debate was going on in philosophy of mind, however, philosophers of science were rejecting this very sort of reductionism: intertheoretic reductions are not ubiquitous but rare. This book argues that post‐reductionist philosophy of science poses problems for all the familiar positions in philosophy of mind and calls for a deep rethinking of the problematic. To this end, a new perspective, Cognitive Pluralism, is urged.Less
Contemporary debates in philosophy of mind‐between reductionists, dualists, nonreductive materialists, and eliminativists‐have been based upon the perception that mental phenomena like consciousness and intentionality are uniquely irreducible. The “explanatory gap” between mind and body seems to be an urgent and fascinating problem if one assumes that intertheoretic reductions are the rule in the special sciences, with the mind as the lone exception. While this debate was going on in philosophy of mind, however, philosophers of science were rejecting this very sort of reductionism: intertheoretic reductions are not ubiquitous but rare. This book argues that post‐reductionist philosophy of science poses problems for all the familiar positions in philosophy of mind and calls for a deep rethinking of the problematic. To this end, a new perspective, Cognitive Pluralism, is urged.
Robert C. Fuller
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195369175
- eISBN:
- 9780199871186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369175.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are ...
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This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are heavily influenced by our sensory organs, emotional programs, sexual sensibilities, and the neural structure of our brains. Studying “spirituality in the flesh” opens up new and exciting agendas for understanding the nature and value of human religiosity. This exploration of embodied spirituality establishes middle ground between the explanations of religion typically made by either scientists or humanists. The book takes most scientific interpreters to task for failing to understand the inherently cultural aspects of embodied experience, even as he chides most religion scholars for ignoring new knowledge about the biological substrates of human thought and behavior. Each chapter takes up a different facet of embodied experience and shows the ways it helps us understand just how and why humans reconstruct their worlds in religious ways. Emotional programs such as fear or wonder, altered consciousness, sexuality, pain, and spatial orientation to the environment provide critical categories that are used to interpret selected episodes in American religious history. Topics as diverse as apocalypticism, nature religion, Native American peyotism, and the sexual experimentalism found in 19th‐century communal societies illustrate how the study of spirituality in the flesh enriches our appreciation of religion.Less
This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are heavily influenced by our sensory organs, emotional programs, sexual sensibilities, and the neural structure of our brains. Studying “spirituality in the flesh” opens up new and exciting agendas for understanding the nature and value of human religiosity. This exploration of embodied spirituality establishes middle ground between the explanations of religion typically made by either scientists or humanists. The book takes most scientific interpreters to task for failing to understand the inherently cultural aspects of embodied experience, even as he chides most religion scholars for ignoring new knowledge about the biological substrates of human thought and behavior. Each chapter takes up a different facet of embodied experience and shows the ways it helps us understand just how and why humans reconstruct their worlds in religious ways. Emotional programs such as fear or wonder, altered consciousness, sexuality, pain, and spatial orientation to the environment provide critical categories that are used to interpret selected episodes in American religious history. Topics as diverse as apocalypticism, nature religion, Native American peyotism, and the sexual experimentalism found in 19th‐century communal societies illustrate how the study of spirituality in the flesh enriches our appreciation of religion.
Eric F. Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151947
- eISBN:
- 9780199870400
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151947.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
Theories of musical meaning and psychological research on music have tended to treat music as a special domain, removed from the practical realities of everyday life. This book takes a different ...
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Theories of musical meaning and psychological research on music have tended to treat music as a special domain, removed from the practical realities of everyday life. This book takes a different approach, tackling musical meaning from the perspective of perception, and treating meaning in terms of listeners' experiences and responses, rather than in abstractly philosophical terms. Using an eclectic mix of musical examples, it discusses the relationship between music and everyday sounds, music and motion, music and subjectivity, and the experience of music as a virtual environment. It starts from the premise that there is a significant overlap between our auditory experience of music and the primarily practical function of auditory perception in the lives of human beings. Framed by the ideas of ecological theory, the book emphasizes the importance of understanding perception as the relationship between perceivers and their environments, as a reciprocal relationship between perception and action, and in terms of the ways in which sounds specify events. Sitting at the intersection of music psychology, analysis, and critical musicology, the book presents an appraisal of cognitive and ecological accounts of perception as well as detailed analytical discussions of musical examples.Less
Theories of musical meaning and psychological research on music have tended to treat music as a special domain, removed from the practical realities of everyday life. This book takes a different approach, tackling musical meaning from the perspective of perception, and treating meaning in terms of listeners' experiences and responses, rather than in abstractly philosophical terms. Using an eclectic mix of musical examples, it discusses the relationship between music and everyday sounds, music and motion, music and subjectivity, and the experience of music as a virtual environment. It starts from the premise that there is a significant overlap between our auditory experience of music and the primarily practical function of auditory perception in the lives of human beings. Framed by the ideas of ecological theory, the book emphasizes the importance of understanding perception as the relationship between perceivers and their environments, as a reciprocal relationship between perception and action, and in terms of the ways in which sounds specify events. Sitting at the intersection of music psychology, analysis, and critical musicology, the book presents an appraisal of cognitive and ecological accounts of perception as well as detailed analytical discussions of musical examples.
Fred Lerdahl
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195178296
- eISBN:
- 9780199870370
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178296.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This book builds on and in many ways completes the project of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's influential A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Like the earlier volume, this book is both a ...
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This book builds on and in many ways completes the project of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's influential A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Like the earlier volume, this book is both a music-theoretic treatise and a contribution to the cognitive science of music. After presenting some modifications to Lerdahl and Jackendoff's original framework, the book develops a quantitative model of listeners' intuitions of the relative distances of pitches, chords, and regions from a given tonic. The model is used to derive prolongational structure, trace paths through pitch space at multiple prolongational levels, and compute patterns of tonal tension and attraction as musical events unfold. The consideration of pitch-space paths illuminates issues of musical narrative, and the treatment of tonal tension and attraction provides a technical basis for studies of musical expectation and expression. These investigations lead to a fresh theory of tonal function and reveal an underlying parallel between tonal and metrical structures. Later portions of the book apply these ideas to highly chromatic tonal as well as atonal music. In response to stylistic differences, the shape of pitch space changes and psychoacoustic features become increasingly important, while underlying features of the theory remain constant, reflecting unvarying features of the musical mind. The theory is illustrated throughout by analyses of music from Bach to Schoenberg, and frequent connections are made to the music-theoretic and psychological literature.Less
This book builds on and in many ways completes the project of Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff's influential A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Like the earlier volume, this book is both a music-theoretic treatise and a contribution to the cognitive science of music. After presenting some modifications to Lerdahl and Jackendoff's original framework, the book develops a quantitative model of listeners' intuitions of the relative distances of pitches, chords, and regions from a given tonic. The model is used to derive prolongational structure, trace paths through pitch space at multiple prolongational levels, and compute patterns of tonal tension and attraction as musical events unfold. The consideration of pitch-space paths illuminates issues of musical narrative, and the treatment of tonal tension and attraction provides a technical basis for studies of musical expectation and expression. These investigations lead to a fresh theory of tonal function and reveal an underlying parallel between tonal and metrical structures. Later portions of the book apply these ideas to highly chromatic tonal as well as atonal music. In response to stylistic differences, the shape of pitch space changes and psychoacoustic features become increasingly important, while underlying features of the theory remain constant, reflecting unvarying features of the musical mind. The theory is illustrated throughout by analyses of music from Bach to Schoenberg, and frequent connections are made to the music-theoretic and psychological literature.
Mark Tatham and Katherine Morton
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199250677
- eISBN:
- 9780191719462
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199250677.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Phonetics / Phonology
This book is about the nature of expression in speech. It is a comprehensive exploration of how such expression is produced and understood, and of how the emotional content of spoken words may be ...
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This book is about the nature of expression in speech. It is a comprehensive exploration of how such expression is produced and understood, and of how the emotional content of spoken words may be analysed, modelled, tested, and synthesized. Listeners can interpret tone-of-voice, assess emotional pitch, and effortlessly detect the finest modulations of speaker attitude; yet these processes present almost intractable difficulties to the researchers seeking to identify and understand them. In seeking to explain the production and perception of emotive content, the book reviews the potential of biological and cognitive models. It examines how the features that make up the speech production and perception systems have been studied by biologists, psychologists, and linguists, and assesses how far biological, behavioural, and linguistic models generate hypotheses that provide insights into the nature of expressive speech.Less
This book is about the nature of expression in speech. It is a comprehensive exploration of how such expression is produced and understood, and of how the emotional content of spoken words may be analysed, modelled, tested, and synthesized. Listeners can interpret tone-of-voice, assess emotional pitch, and effortlessly detect the finest modulations of speaker attitude; yet these processes present almost intractable difficulties to the researchers seeking to identify and understand them. In seeking to explain the production and perception of emotive content, the book reviews the potential of biological and cognitive models. It examines how the features that make up the speech production and perception systems have been studied by biologists, psychologists, and linguists, and assesses how far biological, behavioural, and linguistic models generate hypotheses that provide insights into the nature of expressive speech.
Wolfram Hinzen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199289257
- eISBN:
- 9780191706424
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289257.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology
This book introduces generative grammar as an area of study, asking what it tells us about the human mind. It lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the ...
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This book introduces generative grammar as an area of study, asking what it tells us about the human mind. It lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the philosophies of mind and language. It introduces Chomsky's program of a ‘minimalist’ syntax as a novel explanatory vision of the human mind. It explains how the Minimalist Program originated from work in cognitive science, biology, linguistics, and philosophy, and examines its implications for work in these fields. It also considers the way the human mind is designed when seen as an arrangement of structural patterns in nature, and argues that its design is the product not so much of adaptive evolutionary history as of principles and processes that are historical and internalist in character. The book suggests that linguistic meaning arises in the mind as a consequence of structures emerging on formal rather than functional grounds. From this, the book substantiates an unexpected and deeply unfashionable notion of human nature. It also provides an insight into the nature and aims of Chomsky's Minimalist Program.Less
This book introduces generative grammar as an area of study, asking what it tells us about the human mind. It lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the philosophies of mind and language. It introduces Chomsky's program of a ‘minimalist’ syntax as a novel explanatory vision of the human mind. It explains how the Minimalist Program originated from work in cognitive science, biology, linguistics, and philosophy, and examines its implications for work in these fields. It also considers the way the human mind is designed when seen as an arrangement of structural patterns in nature, and argues that its design is the product not so much of adaptive evolutionary history as of principles and processes that are historical and internalist in character. The book suggests that linguistic meaning arises in the mind as a consequence of structures emerging on formal rather than functional grounds. From this, the book substantiates an unexpected and deeply unfashionable notion of human nature. It also provides an insight into the nature and aims of Chomsky's Minimalist Program.
Ilkka Pyysiäinen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195380026
- eISBN:
- 9780199869046
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380026.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book provides a cognitive scientific perspective to beliefs about supernatural agents. First, human intuitions about agents, agency, and counterintuitive concepts are outlined and explained. ...
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This book provides a cognitive scientific perspective to beliefs about supernatural agents. First, human intuitions about agents, agency, and counterintuitive concepts are outlined and explained. Second, various kinds of folk beliefs and theological doctrines about souls and spirits are analyzed in the light of the human cognitive architecture, using descriptions of spirit possession and shamanism as materials. Third, scholastic discussions of God’s cognitive capacities as well as folk-psychological God beliefs are analyzed. This analysis combines with a discussion of Buddhist ideas of soullesness and of buddhahood in textual traditions and in folk beliefs. Beliefs about God and buddhas are shown to rest on the same cognitive capacities of understanding agency and intentionality that underlie spirit beliefs. The Buddhist doctrine of soullessness was originally a denial of the self as a separate spiritual entity, not a denial of personal agency. God and buddhas differ from ordinary agents in that they are believed to have open access to all minds. Therefore, they can serve as means of representing what persons believe others to believe. Such divine minds are also used as an explanation for the fact that the whole of reality is intuitively experienced as if intentionally directed by a personal will. The book ends with a discussion of the future of religion and atheism.Less
This book provides a cognitive scientific perspective to beliefs about supernatural agents. First, human intuitions about agents, agency, and counterintuitive concepts are outlined and explained. Second, various kinds of folk beliefs and theological doctrines about souls and spirits are analyzed in the light of the human cognitive architecture, using descriptions of spirit possession and shamanism as materials. Third, scholastic discussions of God’s cognitive capacities as well as folk-psychological God beliefs are analyzed. This analysis combines with a discussion of Buddhist ideas of soullesness and of buddhahood in textual traditions and in folk beliefs. Beliefs about God and buddhas are shown to rest on the same cognitive capacities of understanding agency and intentionality that underlie spirit beliefs. The Buddhist doctrine of soullessness was originally a denial of the self as a separate spiritual entity, not a denial of personal agency. God and buddhas differ from ordinary agents in that they are believed to have open access to all minds. Therefore, they can serve as means of representing what persons believe others to believe. Such divine minds are also used as an explanation for the fact that the whole of reality is intuitively experienced as if intentionally directed by a personal will. The book ends with a discussion of the future of religion and atheism.
Craig Speelman and Kim Kirsner
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198570417
- eISBN:
- 9780191708657
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198570417.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to ...
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For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This book takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the book reviews and considers the areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive processes. It also draws parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to propose not only a new theory of mental function, but also demonstrate that the mind is essentially subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing, this book presents a new perspective on psychology — one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from the current focus on highly specific behaviours.Less
For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This book takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the book reviews and considers the areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive processes. It also draws parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to propose not only a new theory of mental function, but also demonstrate that the mind is essentially subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing, this book presents a new perspective on psychology — one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from the current focus on highly specific behaviours.
Andrea Rotstein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199286270
- eISBN:
- 9780191713330
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286270.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This study of the genre of Greek iambic poetry, from the perspective provided by ancient testimonies, places research on iambos in the framework of a new methodological approach to ancient genres ...
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This study of the genre of Greek iambic poetry, from the perspective provided by ancient testimonies, places research on iambos in the framework of a new methodological approach to ancient genres based on the cognitive sciences, offering an unprecedented study of ancient theories of genres and the way they affected ancient scholarship. It examines the possibility of musical performance of iambic poetry as well as the various occasions of public performance, particularly at musical contests and rhapsodic recitals. The author argues that, from the Archaic to the Classical period, there was a shift from the notion of literary class depending primarily on rhythm and on its archetypical representative, Archilochus, towards iambos as a genre defined mainly by invective as its dominant feature.Less
This study of the genre of Greek iambic poetry, from the perspective provided by ancient testimonies, places research on iambos in the framework of a new methodological approach to ancient genres based on the cognitive sciences, offering an unprecedented study of ancient theories of genres and the way they affected ancient scholarship. It examines the possibility of musical performance of iambic poetry as well as the various occasions of public performance, particularly at musical contests and rhapsodic recitals. The author argues that, from the Archaic to the Classical period, there was a shift from the notion of literary class depending primarily on rhythm and on its archetypical representative, Archilochus, towards iambos as a genre defined mainly by invective as its dominant feature.
Vyvyan Evans
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199234660
- eISBN:
- 9780191715495
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234660.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics
This book is concerned with word meaning, and the role of words in meaning construction. The specific problem addressed concerns how best to account for the inherent variation of word meaning in ...
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This book is concerned with word meaning, and the role of words in meaning construction. The specific problem addressed concerns how best to account for the inherent variation of word meaning in language use. That is, the books seeks to provide an account for the way in which the meaning associated with any given word form appears to vary each time it is used, in terms of the conceptualization that it, in part, gives rise to. The book develops a new theoretical synthesis building upon developments in cognitive science: in particular cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. The model proposed is termed the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory for short. The theory is based upon two central theoretical constructs: the lexical concept and the cognitive model. The essential insight of the theory is that meaning construction in language understanding relies upon the interaction between distinct types of knowledge representation — units of semantic structure: lexical concepts, and units of conceptual structure: cognitive models — which inhere in distinct representational systems that evolved for different purposes: the conceptual system and the linguistic system. The book provides a joined-up account of lexical semantics and semantic compositionality which is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible.Less
This book is concerned with word meaning, and the role of words in meaning construction. The specific problem addressed concerns how best to account for the inherent variation of word meaning in language use. That is, the books seeks to provide an account for the way in which the meaning associated with any given word form appears to vary each time it is used, in terms of the conceptualization that it, in part, gives rise to. The book develops a new theoretical synthesis building upon developments in cognitive science: in particular cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. The model proposed is termed the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory for short. The theory is based upon two central theoretical constructs: the lexical concept and the cognitive model. The essential insight of the theory is that meaning construction in language understanding relies upon the interaction between distinct types of knowledge representation — units of semantic structure: lexical concepts, and units of conceptual structure: cognitive models — which inhere in distinct representational systems that evolved for different purposes: the conceptual system and the linguistic system. The book provides a joined-up account of lexical semantics and semantic compositionality which is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible.
Todd Tremlin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195305340
- eISBN:
- 9780199784721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195305345.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved ...
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This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.Less
This book provides an introduction to the cognitive science of religion, a new discipline of study that explains the origins and persistence of religious ideas and behavior on the basis of evolved mental structures and functions of the human brain. Belief in gods and the social formation of religion have their genesis in biology — in powerful, often hidden, processes of cognition that all humans share. Arguing that we cannot understand what we think until we first understand how we think, the book describes ways in which evolution by natural selection molded the modern human mind, resulting in mental modularity, innate intelligences, and species-typical modes of thought. The book details many of the adapted features of the brain — agent detection, theory of mind, social cognition, and others — focusing on how mental endowments inherited from our ancestral past lead people to naturally entertain religious ideas, such as the god concepts that are ubiquitous the world over. In addition to introducing the major themes, theories, and thinkers in the cognitive science of religion, the book also advances the current discussion by moving beyond explanations for individual religious beliefs and behaviors to the operation of culture and religious systems. Drawing on dual-process models of cognition developed in social psychology, the book argues that the same cognitive constraints that shape human thought also work as a selective force on the content and durability of religions.
Christopher Peacocke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199239443
- eISBN:
- 9780191717000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239443.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. Among these are that fundamental reference rules for concepts can provide a substantive account of ...
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This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. Among these are that fundamental reference rules for concepts can provide a substantive account of understanding. They can support a realistic treatment of truth and reference, and can do so in a way that is superior to justificationist, pragmatist, and pure conceptual-role theories of content. Current issues in philosophy and its adjacent cognitive sciences that require a substantive theory of sense for its resolution are presented.Less
This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. Among these are that fundamental reference rules for concepts can provide a substantive account of understanding. They can support a realistic treatment of truth and reference, and can do so in a way that is superior to justificationist, pragmatist, and pure conceptual-role theories of content. Current issues in philosophy and its adjacent cognitive sciences that require a substantive theory of sense for its resolution are presented.
D. Jason Slone
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195169263
- eISBN:
- 9780199835256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195169263.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
People believe what they shouldn’t because they have active minds that are continuously engaged in the construction of novel thoughts, and in the transformation of culturally transmitted ideas. The ...
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People believe what they shouldn’t because they have active minds that are continuously engaged in the construction of novel thoughts, and in the transformation of culturally transmitted ideas. The key to understanding religion is to identify the aspects of cognition that constrain religious behavior. Given the fact that religion is a natural by-product of cognition, studies of religion should include cognitive psychology in addition to theology and ethnography.Less
People believe what they shouldn’t because they have active minds that are continuously engaged in the construction of novel thoughts, and in the transformation of culturally transmitted ideas. The key to understanding religion is to identify the aspects of cognition that constrain religious behavior. Given the fact that religion is a natural by-product of cognition, studies of religion should include cognitive psychology in addition to theology and ethnography.
Andy Clark
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195333213
- eISBN:
- 9780199868858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The human mind emerges at the productive interface of brain, body, and social and material world. Unravelling the workings of these embodied, embedded, and sometimes extended minds requires an unusual mix of neuroscience, computational, dynamical, and information-theoretic understandings, ‘brute’ physiology, ecological sensitivity, and attention to the stacked designer cocoons in which we grow, work, think, and act.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. It argues that work on embodiment, action, and cognitive extension likewise invites us to view mind and cognition in a new and illuminating manner. The human mind emerges at the productive interface of brain, body, and social and material world. Unravelling the workings of these embodied, embedded, and sometimes extended minds requires an unusual mix of neuroscience, computational, dynamical, and information-theoretic understandings, ‘brute’ physiology, ecological sensitivity, and attention to the stacked designer cocoons in which we grow, work, think, and act.
John E. Richards
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195331059
- eISBN:
- 9780199864072
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331059.003.00018
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This introductory chapter begins with a brief background of the term neoconstructivism, which was generated by combining neo, taken from the Greek neos, meaning “new,” and constructivism, taken from ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief background of the term neoconstructivism, which was generated by combining neo, taken from the Greek neos, meaning “new,” and constructivism, taken from (among other sources) the pioneering theorist and researcher Jean Piaget. It then discusses the origins of this book, the idea of which was motivated in part by research on cognitive development.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a brief background of the term neoconstructivism, which was generated by combining neo, taken from the Greek neos, meaning “new,” and constructivism, taken from (among other sources) the pioneering theorist and researcher Jean Piaget. It then discusses the origins of this book, the idea of which was motivated in part by research on cognitive development.
Sharon B. Berlin
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195110371
- eISBN:
- 9780199865680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195110371.001.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
This is a book about how people change their minds and how mental health practitioners can help this process along. It addresses a gap in the literature on cognitive therapy that results from an ...
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This is a book about how people change their minds and how mental health practitioners can help this process along. It addresses a gap in the literature on cognitive therapy that results from an almost exclusive focus on the constructed aspects of personal meaning, and a lack of attention to the ways in which information that we pick up from life circumstances also influences what we know, feel, and do. Conceptions that ignore the role that current life conditions and interpersonal events play in creating or revising meanings limit the utility of cognitive therapy approaches for clients whose lives are marked by ongoing deprivation, threat, and vulnerability. In laying out a broader perspective, a Cognitive-Integrative perspective, the book expands the internal focus of traditional cognitive therapies to take more account of the role of information generated by environmental events and conditions in impeding or promoting change. It contends that mind draws on organized memories of previous experiences as well as currently available information to generate cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. The theoretical grounding for this perspective is drawn from a range of cognitive, neurological, social, psychological, and social work theories. Theoretical explanations are laid out. They are balanced with practice guidelines and grounded in an offering of clinical examples.Less
This is a book about how people change their minds and how mental health practitioners can help this process along. It addresses a gap in the literature on cognitive therapy that results from an almost exclusive focus on the constructed aspects of personal meaning, and a lack of attention to the ways in which information that we pick up from life circumstances also influences what we know, feel, and do. Conceptions that ignore the role that current life conditions and interpersonal events play in creating or revising meanings limit the utility of cognitive therapy approaches for clients whose lives are marked by ongoing deprivation, threat, and vulnerability. In laying out a broader perspective, a Cognitive-Integrative perspective, the book expands the internal focus of traditional cognitive therapies to take more account of the role of information generated by environmental events and conditions in impeding or promoting change. It contends that mind draws on organized memories of previous experiences as well as currently available information to generate cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. The theoretical grounding for this perspective is drawn from a range of cognitive, neurological, social, psychological, and social work theories. Theoretical explanations are laid out. They are balanced with practice guidelines and grounded in an offering of clinical examples.
R. Walter Heinrichs
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195122190
- eISBN:
- 9780199865482
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195122190.001.0001
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience
This book evaluates the progress of schizophrenia science by summarizing what is known about how patients with the illness differ from healthy people. The tools of meta-analysis are first explained ...
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This book evaluates the progress of schizophrenia science by summarizing what is known about how patients with the illness differ from healthy people. The tools of meta-analysis are first explained and then employed to make the strength and consistency of these differences explicit. Beginning with the study of symptoms, then moving through the search for objective disease markers, findings on the cognitive functions, structure, physiology, chemistry, and development of the brain, this book is a journey into the enigma of madness and its science. Schizophrenia emerges as an illness that reveals itself most strongly in thought processes, not biology. Schizophrenia is an anomaly at the frontier of mind and brain, and this book points the way to its solution.Less
This book evaluates the progress of schizophrenia science by summarizing what is known about how patients with the illness differ from healthy people. The tools of meta-analysis are first explained and then employed to make the strength and consistency of these differences explicit. Beginning with the study of symptoms, then moving through the search for objective disease markers, findings on the cognitive functions, structure, physiology, chemistry, and development of the brain, this book is a journey into the enigma of madness and its science. Schizophrenia emerges as an illness that reveals itself most strongly in thought processes, not biology. Schizophrenia is an anomaly at the frontier of mind and brain, and this book points the way to its solution.
Kenneth M. Heilman
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195144901
- eISBN:
- 9780199865642
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195144901.001.0001
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience
There are many ways to study the brain. Although anatomical and physiological studies can help us understand the substrates of behavior, most of what we have learned about how the brain mediates ...
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There are many ways to study the brain. Although anatomical and physiological studies can help us understand the substrates of behavior, most of what we have learned about how the brain mediates behavior comes from experiments of nature in which focal brain injuries induced by diseases, such as stroke, produce behavioral changes. This book focuses on what the lesion method has taught us about how the brain works. In this book a renowned neurologist recounts his experiences seeing patients with behavioral deficits caused by various brain disease and injuries, cognitive disorders, and memory disorders (such as aphasia, alexia, agraphia, agnosia, apraxia, and dementia), and explains what they have taught him about brain function and dysfunction. The book discusses brain behavior relationships, particularly issues related to neurological patients and their families.Less
There are many ways to study the brain. Although anatomical and physiological studies can help us understand the substrates of behavior, most of what we have learned about how the brain mediates behavior comes from experiments of nature in which focal brain injuries induced by diseases, such as stroke, produce behavioral changes. This book focuses on what the lesion method has taught us about how the brain works. In this book a renowned neurologist recounts his experiences seeing patients with behavioral deficits caused by various brain disease and injuries, cognitive disorders, and memory disorders (such as aphasia, alexia, agraphia, agnosia, apraxia, and dementia), and explains what they have taught him about brain function and dysfunction. The book discusses brain behavior relationships, particularly issues related to neurological patients and their families.
