Jeffrey C. Alexander
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195162509
- eISBN:
- 9780199943364
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162509.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world? What binds societies together and how can these social orders be structured in a fair way? This book addresses this central ...
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How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world? What binds societies together and how can these social orders be structured in a fair way? This book addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others—the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest—are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. The book demonstrates that solidarity creates inclusive and exclusive social structures, and shows how they can be repaired. It is not perfect, it is not absolute, and the horrors which occur in its lapses have been seen all too frequently in the forms of discrimination, genocide, and war. Despite its worldly flaws and contradictions, however, solidarity and the project of civil society remain our best hope—the antidote to every divisive institution, every unfair distribution, and every abusive and dominating hierarchy. A grand and sweeping statement, the book is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.Less
How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world? What binds societies together and how can these social orders be structured in a fair way? This book addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others—the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest—are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. The book demonstrates that solidarity creates inclusive and exclusive social structures, and shows how they can be repaired. It is not perfect, it is not absolute, and the horrors which occur in its lapses have been seen all too frequently in the forms of discrimination, genocide, and war. Despite its worldly flaws and contradictions, however, solidarity and the project of civil society remain our best hope—the antidote to every divisive institution, every unfair distribution, and every abusive and dominating hierarchy. A grand and sweeping statement, the book is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.
Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198236818
- eISBN:
- 9780191679377
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198236818.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Language
This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore ...
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This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut off literature altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value helps restore to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore the limits of fictionality, particularly in relation to metaphysical and sceptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a cultural construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are, at root, indistinguishable. They offer analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and ‘making’ in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, the authors aim to bring rigour and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing.Less
This book examines the complex and varied ways in which fictions relate to the real world, and offers a precise account of how imaginative works of literature can use fictional content to explore matters of universal human interest. While rejecting the traditional view that literature is important for the truths that it imparts, the authors also reject attempts to cut off literature altogether from real human concerns. Their detailed account of fictionality, mimesis, and cognitive value helps restore to literature its distinctive status among cultural practices. The authors also explore the limits of fictionality, particularly in relation to metaphysical and sceptical views, prevalent in modern thought, according to which the world itself is a kind of fiction, and truth no more than a cultural construct. They identify different conceptions of fiction in science, logic, epistemology, and make-believe, and thereby challenge the idea that discourse per se is fictional and that different modes of discourse are, at root, indistinguishable. They offer analyses of the roles of narrative, imagination, metaphor, and ‘making’ in human thought processes. Both in their methods and in their conclusions, the authors aim to bring rigour and clarity to debates about the values of literature, and to provide philosophically sound foundations for a genuine change of direction in literary theorizing.
Diana C. Mutz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691144511
- eISBN:
- 9781400840489
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691144511.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Research and Statistics
This chapter talks about the significance of generalizability. Experimentalists often go to great lengths to argue that student or other convenience samples are not problematic in terms of external ...
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This chapter talks about the significance of generalizability. Experimentalists often go to great lengths to argue that student or other convenience samples are not problematic in terms of external validity. Likewise, a convincing case for causality is often elusive with observational research, no matter how stridently one might argue to the contrary. The conventional wisdom is that experiments are widely valued for their internal validity, and experiments lack external validity. These assumptions are so widespread as to go without question in most disciplines, particularly those emphasizing external validity, such as political science and sociology. But observational studies, such as surveys, are still supposed to be better for purposes of maximizing external validity because this method allows studying people in real world settings.Less
This chapter talks about the significance of generalizability. Experimentalists often go to great lengths to argue that student or other convenience samples are not problematic in terms of external validity. Likewise, a convincing case for causality is often elusive with observational research, no matter how stridently one might argue to the contrary. The conventional wisdom is that experiments are widely valued for their internal validity, and experiments lack external validity. These assumptions are so widespread as to go without question in most disciplines, particularly those emphasizing external validity, such as political science and sociology. But observational studies, such as surveys, are still supposed to be better for purposes of maximizing external validity because this method allows studying people in real world settings.
Guay C. Lim and Jerome L. Stein
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198293064
- eISBN:
- 9780191596940
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198293062.003.0003
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Macro- and Monetary Economics, International
The underlying movements in the equilibrium real exchange rate – NATREX – in Australia are explained by the evolution of the fundamentals. They are: the terms of trade, the private saving ratio, ...
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The underlying movements in the equilibrium real exchange rate – NATREX – in Australia are explained by the evolution of the fundamentals. They are: the terms of trade, the private saving ratio, fiscal policy, the productivity of capital in the tradable and nontradable sectors, and world real interest rates. Real trade deficits and the growth of the debt are initially produced by a rise in the productivity of capital, which stimulates investment or a decline in social thrift. The foreign debt is only a source of concern if it has resulted from a decline in the social saving ratio. Social policies designed to reduce a trade deficit that adversely affect growth are counterproductive.Less
The underlying movements in the equilibrium real exchange rate – NATREX – in Australia are explained by the evolution of the fundamentals. They are: the terms of trade, the private saving ratio, fiscal policy, the productivity of capital in the tradable and nontradable sectors, and world real interest rates. Real trade deficits and the growth of the debt are initially produced by a rise in the productivity of capital, which stimulates investment or a decline in social thrift. The foreign debt is only a source of concern if it has resulted from a decline in the social saving ratio. Social policies designed to reduce a trade deficit that adversely affect growth are counterproductive.
THOMA SUDDENDORF and ANDREW WHITEN
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264195
- eISBN:
- 9780191734540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264195.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The imaginative powers of humans obviously exceed those of other species; however these characteristics and knowledge did not spring from nowhere. Instead they evolved on the shoulders of the ...
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The imaginative powers of humans obviously exceed those of other species; however these characteristics and knowledge did not spring from nowhere. Instead they evolved on the shoulders of the distinctive psychology of man’s pre-human ancestors. This chapter defines the key characteristics of the ancestral foundations of man and describes the evidence in great ape behaviour for two aspects of imagination. The first level of imagination is inventiveness. Inventiveness is the capacity to generate novel and diverse behavioural responses to any given environmental circumstance. In the experimental studies presented in this chapter wherein chimpanzees are tasked to solve particular problems, it was found that great apes such as gorillas, orang-utans, and chimpanzees display imaginative skills compared to other primates. The second aspect of imagination refers to the capacity to operate mentally in a ‘pretend’ world. This second level of imagination is higher than inventiveness as it requires holding mind distinctions between the hypothetical and real world. Although the experimental studies generated intriguing results, these results are limited, and while the pretence in apes should be observable, it is dominated by the manifestation of a more general capacity for secondary representation.Less
The imaginative powers of humans obviously exceed those of other species; however these characteristics and knowledge did not spring from nowhere. Instead they evolved on the shoulders of the distinctive psychology of man’s pre-human ancestors. This chapter defines the key characteristics of the ancestral foundations of man and describes the evidence in great ape behaviour for two aspects of imagination. The first level of imagination is inventiveness. Inventiveness is the capacity to generate novel and diverse behavioural responses to any given environmental circumstance. In the experimental studies presented in this chapter wherein chimpanzees are tasked to solve particular problems, it was found that great apes such as gorillas, orang-utans, and chimpanzees display imaginative skills compared to other primates. The second aspect of imagination refers to the capacity to operate mentally in a ‘pretend’ world. This second level of imagination is higher than inventiveness as it requires holding mind distinctions between the hypothetical and real world. Although the experimental studies generated intriguing results, these results are limited, and while the pretence in apes should be observable, it is dominated by the manifestation of a more general capacity for secondary representation.
S. N. Dorogovtsev and J. F. F. Mendes
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198515906
- eISBN:
- 9780191705670
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198515906.003.0009
- Subject:
- Physics, Soft Matter / Biological Physics
This chapter describes some perspective directions of network research and outlines recent progress in understanding the organization and function of real-world networks.
This chapter describes some perspective directions of network research and outlines recent progress in understanding the organization and function of real-world networks.
Jeffrey Gray
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- April 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198520917
- eISBN:
- 9780191584916
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198520917.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
How does conscious experience arise out of the functioning of the human brain? How is it related to the behaviour that it accompanies? How does the perceived world relate to the real world? Between ...
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How does conscious experience arise out of the functioning of the human brain? How is it related to the behaviour that it accompanies? How does the perceived world relate to the real world? Between them, these three questions constitute what is commonly known as the Hard Problem of consciousness. Despite vast knowledge of the relationship between brain and behaviour, and rapid advances in our knowledge of how brain activity correlates with conscious experience, the answers to all three questions remain controversial, even mysterious. This book analyses these core issues and reviews the evidence from both introspection and experiment. To many its conclusions will be surprising and even unsettling: (1) The entire perceived world is constructed by the brain. The relationship between the world we perceive and the underlying physical reality is not as close as we might think. (2) Much of our behaviour is accomplished with little or no participation from conscious experience. (3) Our conscious experience of our behaviour lags the behaviour itself by around a fifth of a second: we become aware of what we do only after we have done it. (4) The lag in conscious experience applies also to the decision to act: we only become aware of our decisions after they have been formed. (5) The self is as much a creation of the brain as is the rest of the perceived world.Less
How does conscious experience arise out of the functioning of the human brain? How is it related to the behaviour that it accompanies? How does the perceived world relate to the real world? Between them, these three questions constitute what is commonly known as the Hard Problem of consciousness. Despite vast knowledge of the relationship between brain and behaviour, and rapid advances in our knowledge of how brain activity correlates with conscious experience, the answers to all three questions remain controversial, even mysterious. This book analyses these core issues and reviews the evidence from both introspection and experiment. To many its conclusions will be surprising and even unsettling: (1) The entire perceived world is constructed by the brain. The relationship between the world we perceive and the underlying physical reality is not as close as we might think. (2) Much of our behaviour is accomplished with little or no participation from conscious experience. (3) Our conscious experience of our behaviour lags the behaviour itself by around a fifth of a second: we become aware of what we do only after we have done it. (4) The lag in conscious experience applies also to the decision to act: we only become aware of our decisions after they have been formed. (5) The self is as much a creation of the brain as is the rest of the perceived world.
Diana C. Mutz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691165110
- eISBN:
- 9781400865871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691165110.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter utitlizes survey data to address the issue of whether those who watch in-your-face politics in the real world are also those likely to be affected by it. By combining content analyses of ...
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This chapter utitlizes survey data to address the issue of whether those who watch in-your-face politics in the real world are also those likely to be affected by it. By combining content analyses of forty different contemporary political programs with viewership data, the chapter gains some purchase on who watches political programs that include this kind of content as opposed to less in-your-face political programming. One would presume that the patterns of news consumption remains traditional—that is, that people who watch political television are those most interested in politics, the most partisan, and so forth. However, the greater variety of available political programming means that some of these demographic correlates may have changed.Less
This chapter utitlizes survey data to address the issue of whether those who watch in-your-face politics in the real world are also those likely to be affected by it. By combining content analyses of forty different contemporary political programs with viewership data, the chapter gains some purchase on who watches political programs that include this kind of content as opposed to less in-your-face political programming. One would presume that the patterns of news consumption remains traditional—that is, that people who watch political television are those most interested in politics, the most partisan, and so forth. However, the greater variety of available political programming means that some of these demographic correlates may have changed.
Elina Birmingham, Jelena Ristic, and Alan Kingstone
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195315455
- eISBN:
- 9780199979066
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195315455.003.0010
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology
Gaze following, a key component of social attention, has received substantial research interest over the past few decades. There has been an increasing trend to study gaze following using controlled ...
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Gaze following, a key component of social attention, has received substantial research interest over the past few decades. There has been an increasing trend to study gaze following using controlled computer-based laboratory tasks. While these methods offer more control over the experimental setting, they remove much of what is unique about real-world social situations. This chapter argues that the use of highly simplified, structured social attention experiments may be reducing the natural variance in behavior that is expected in real-world social settings, thus limiting what social attention researchers can discover. Examples are drawn from research with healthy individuals and individuals with known social attention difficulties (i.e., autism spectrum disorders [ASD]). These examples illustrate that the most interesting and robust social attention findings may come from an approach that seeks to incorporate the complexity and ambiguity of real-world social situations. This approach, Cognitive Ethology, is discussed.Less
Gaze following, a key component of social attention, has received substantial research interest over the past few decades. There has been an increasing trend to study gaze following using controlled computer-based laboratory tasks. While these methods offer more control over the experimental setting, they remove much of what is unique about real-world social situations. This chapter argues that the use of highly simplified, structured social attention experiments may be reducing the natural variance in behavior that is expected in real-world social settings, thus limiting what social attention researchers can discover. Examples are drawn from research with healthy individuals and individuals with known social attention difficulties (i.e., autism spectrum disorders [ASD]). These examples illustrate that the most interesting and robust social attention findings may come from an approach that seeks to incorporate the complexity and ambiguity of real-world social situations. This approach, Cognitive Ethology, is discussed.
Barbara A. Younger and Kathy E. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195366709
- eISBN:
- 9780199863969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195366709.003.0012
- Subject:
- Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Vision
Humans are sophisticated information-processors, and categorization reduces the complex array of information in the world to manageable units that can be readily processed. Categorization is ...
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Humans are sophisticated information-processors, and categorization reduces the complex array of information in the world to manageable units that can be readily processed. Categorization is ubiquitous to intellectual and social life, and the contributors to this volume are among those who have helped to delineate how the mechanisms that support categorization develop, particularly very early in childhood. Examining the origins of categorization in human infants requires clever methodologies, but not simply because infants have negligible labeling abilities and poor motor control. It is challenging to investigate infants' categorization of real-world objects for the very practical problem that actual instances of vehicles, furniture, animals, or tools may simply be too large, dangerous, unpredictable, or unwieldy ever to be used in infancy laboratories. Thus, researchers have devised clever techniques of assessing preverbal concepts with tasks that involve pictures or models representing real-world referents. This chapter reviews evidence in support of the thesis that some of these very techniques have contributed to conflicting patterns of results that have fueled debate over single- versus dual-process accounts of early categorization and, more generally, the need to distinguish perceptual and conceptual categorization processes. In particular, it is argued that infants' performance on categorization tasks may be distorted by their fragile understanding of the symbolic media used to represent real-world categories in the context of such tasks.Less
Humans are sophisticated information-processors, and categorization reduces the complex array of information in the world to manageable units that can be readily processed. Categorization is ubiquitous to intellectual and social life, and the contributors to this volume are among those who have helped to delineate how the mechanisms that support categorization develop, particularly very early in childhood. Examining the origins of categorization in human infants requires clever methodologies, but not simply because infants have negligible labeling abilities and poor motor control. It is challenging to investigate infants' categorization of real-world objects for the very practical problem that actual instances of vehicles, furniture, animals, or tools may simply be too large, dangerous, unpredictable, or unwieldy ever to be used in infancy laboratories. Thus, researchers have devised clever techniques of assessing preverbal concepts with tasks that involve pictures or models representing real-world referents. This chapter reviews evidence in support of the thesis that some of these very techniques have contributed to conflicting patterns of results that have fueled debate over single- versus dual-process accounts of early categorization and, more generally, the need to distinguish perceptual and conceptual categorization processes. In particular, it is argued that infants' performance on categorization tasks may be distorted by their fragile understanding of the symbolic media used to represent real-world categories in the context of such tasks.
Iwo Białynicki-Birula and Iwona Białynicka-Birula
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198531005
- eISBN:
- 9780191713033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198531005.003.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
The aim of science is to describe, explain, and predict the behaviour of the world that surrounds us. Modeling the real world with the use of simple constructs is one of the basic tools used by ...
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The aim of science is to describe, explain, and predict the behaviour of the world that surrounds us. Modeling the real world with the use of simple constructs is one of the basic tools used by scientists. The main concept in the science of modeling is simplification — the omission of all less important factors.Less
The aim of science is to describe, explain, and predict the behaviour of the world that surrounds us. Modeling the real world with the use of simple constructs is one of the basic tools used by scientists. The main concept in the science of modeling is simplification — the omission of all less important factors.
Frank Fischer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199282838
- eISBN:
- 9780191712487
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282838.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
The book closes with a brief Afterword on the implications of the theoretical and practical arguments contained in the preceding chapters. Given that they are designed for a world that does not yet ...
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The book closes with a brief Afterword on the implications of the theoretical and practical arguments contained in the preceding chapters. Given that they are designed for a world that does not yet fully exist, this closing discussion re-emphasizes the fact that the interrelated discussions are presented as part of an effort to help stimulate professional change and renewal, to promote a better understanding of expertise in deliberative democracy, to advance more expert practices conducive to real-world deliberative fora, and to think about how these practices might be brought into the professional policy curriculum.Less
The book closes with a brief Afterword on the implications of the theoretical and practical arguments contained in the preceding chapters. Given that they are designed for a world that does not yet fully exist, this closing discussion re-emphasizes the fact that the interrelated discussions are presented as part of an effort to help stimulate professional change and renewal, to promote a better understanding of expertise in deliberative democracy, to advance more expert practices conducive to real-world deliberative fora, and to think about how these practices might be brought into the professional policy curriculum.
Christopher Grobe
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479829170
- eISBN:
- 9781479839599
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479829170.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This chapter argues that reality TV is inherently confessional—and quite aware of being so. Against a scholarly tradition of seeing fly-on-the-wall “surveillance” footage as the genre’s defining ...
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This chapter argues that reality TV is inherently confessional—and quite aware of being so. Against a scholarly tradition of seeing fly-on-the-wall “surveillance” footage as the genre’s defining feature, this chapter shows how direct-to-camera “confession booth” monologues form the true backbone of the genre. The argument centers around a deep study of the debut season of MTV’s The Real World (1992), but it also places this program in the context of later American reality TV and in a TV tradition that stretches back to PBS’s “drama-documentary” An American Family (1973). In order to illuminate the cultural mythos that surrounded The Real World and to capture elusive qualities of its affect and aesthetic, this chapter also treats the film Reality Bites (1994) and Dave Eggers’s memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) as works of criticism with something important to say about reality TV. In the course of exploring the complex nature of confession on The Real World, special attention is paid to The Real World’s editing aesthetic and to its troubled attempts to define what its cast members do as something other than performance, other than labor.Less
This chapter argues that reality TV is inherently confessional—and quite aware of being so. Against a scholarly tradition of seeing fly-on-the-wall “surveillance” footage as the genre’s defining feature, this chapter shows how direct-to-camera “confession booth” monologues form the true backbone of the genre. The argument centers around a deep study of the debut season of MTV’s The Real World (1992), but it also places this program in the context of later American reality TV and in a TV tradition that stretches back to PBS’s “drama-documentary” An American Family (1973). In order to illuminate the cultural mythos that surrounded The Real World and to capture elusive qualities of its affect and aesthetic, this chapter also treats the film Reality Bites (1994) and Dave Eggers’s memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) as works of criticism with something important to say about reality TV. In the course of exploring the complex nature of confession on The Real World, special attention is paid to The Real World’s editing aesthetic and to its troubled attempts to define what its cast members do as something other than performance, other than labor.
Meriel Jones
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570089
- eISBN:
- 9780191738760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570089.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This concluding chapter summarizes some of the major issues highlighted by the book as a whole, such as the extent to which Dionysius stands as an embodiment of masculine ideals in Chariton’s novel, ...
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This concluding chapter summarizes some of the major issues highlighted by the book as a whole, such as the extent to which Dionysius stands as an embodiment of masculine ideals in Chariton’s novel, and the way in which Achilles Tatius uses Cleitophon as the very opposite of such ideals. It is concluded that Cleitophon’s misperformances of gender are the author’s means of subverting traditional ideologies of masculinity, but that there is no way to determine whether Cleitophon himself is conscious of those misperformances. The chapter argues that the novels’ masculinities are presented as epideictic – as things to be performed, whether well or badly. The novels’ authors draw on and reflect on both earlier and contemporary gender ideologies, and while the men examined are not ‘real’, they are nonetheless evidence of very real masculine concerns.Less
This concluding chapter summarizes some of the major issues highlighted by the book as a whole, such as the extent to which Dionysius stands as an embodiment of masculine ideals in Chariton’s novel, and the way in which Achilles Tatius uses Cleitophon as the very opposite of such ideals. It is concluded that Cleitophon’s misperformances of gender are the author’s means of subverting traditional ideologies of masculinity, but that there is no way to determine whether Cleitophon himself is conscious of those misperformances. The chapter argues that the novels’ masculinities are presented as epideictic – as things to be performed, whether well or badly. The novels’ authors draw on and reflect on both earlier and contemporary gender ideologies, and while the men examined are not ‘real’, they are nonetheless evidence of very real masculine concerns.
Andy Clark
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195333213
- eISBN:
- 9780199868858
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333213.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Studies of mind, thought, and reason have tended to marginalize the role of bodily form, real-world action, and environmental backdrop. In recent years, both in philosophy and cognitive science, this ...
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Studies of mind, thought, and reason have tended to marginalize the role of bodily form, real-world action, and environmental backdrop. In recent years, both in philosophy and cognitive science, this tendency has been identified and, increasingly, resisted. The result is a plethora of work on what has become known as embodied, situated, distributed, and even ‘extended’ cognition. Work in this new, loosely-knit field depicts thought and reason as in some way inextricably tied to the details of our gross bodily form, our habits of action and intervention, and the enabling web of social, cultural, and technological scaffolding in which we live, move, learn, and think. But exactly what kind of link is at issue? And what difference might such a link or links make to our best philosophical, psychological, and computational models of thought and reason? These are among the large unsolved problems in this increasingly popular field. This book offers both a tour of the emerging landscape, and an argument in favour of one approach to the key issues. That approach combines the use of representational, computational, and information-theoretic tools with an appreciation of the importance of context, timing, biomechanics, and dynamics. More controversially, it depicts some coalitions of biological and non-biological resources as the extended cognitive circuitry of individual minds.Less
Studies of mind, thought, and reason have tended to marginalize the role of bodily form, real-world action, and environmental backdrop. In recent years, both in philosophy and cognitive science, this tendency has been identified and, increasingly, resisted. The result is a plethora of work on what has become known as embodied, situated, distributed, and even ‘extended’ cognition. Work in this new, loosely-knit field depicts thought and reason as in some way inextricably tied to the details of our gross bodily form, our habits of action and intervention, and the enabling web of social, cultural, and technological scaffolding in which we live, move, learn, and think. But exactly what kind of link is at issue? And what difference might such a link or links make to our best philosophical, psychological, and computational models of thought and reason? These are among the large unsolved problems in this increasingly popular field. This book offers both a tour of the emerging landscape, and an argument in favour of one approach to the key issues. That approach combines the use of representational, computational, and information-theoretic tools with an appreciation of the importance of context, timing, biomechanics, and dynamics. More controversially, it depicts some coalitions of biological and non-biological resources as the extended cognitive circuitry of individual minds.
Sebastian McEvoy
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199673667
- eISBN:
- 9780191751769
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673667.003.0078
- Subject:
- Law, Comparative Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter asks: in literature, can the subject be not only a literary fiction, a character, but also a legal fiction, say a person, and beyond that, a real thing, that is, an individual thing? It ...
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This chapter asks: in literature, can the subject be not only a literary fiction, a character, but also a legal fiction, say a person, and beyond that, a real thing, that is, an individual thing? It first argues that law and literature are similar in their relation to the real world. It then paradoxically questions one obvious difference between the two, especially as creating imbalance between them in relation to referential access to the real world. Law and literature are similar, not identical, in being required by principle or theory to be universal, not to deal with the individual, and so to be referentially vacuous in respect of the real world. However, law and literature differ in that the law is intended to be applicable to actual persons and in the process to real individuals, but withholds literature, despite the latter's sources, simulations, and effects, within a referential vacuum from the real world. The chapter concludes by noting that the law has tended to restore the balance between law and literature, but submits paradoxically and then rejects the proposition, firstly, that full force should be acknowledged to paratextual disclaimers that a literary text is fiction and to theories that deny truth to literary predications; and, secondly, that all predications of real individuals should be subjected to similar invalidation.Less
This chapter asks: in literature, can the subject be not only a literary fiction, a character, but also a legal fiction, say a person, and beyond that, a real thing, that is, an individual thing? It first argues that law and literature are similar in their relation to the real world. It then paradoxically questions one obvious difference between the two, especially as creating imbalance between them in relation to referential access to the real world. Law and literature are similar, not identical, in being required by principle or theory to be universal, not to deal with the individual, and so to be referentially vacuous in respect of the real world. However, law and literature differ in that the law is intended to be applicable to actual persons and in the process to real individuals, but withholds literature, despite the latter's sources, simulations, and effects, within a referential vacuum from the real world. The chapter concludes by noting that the law has tended to restore the balance between law and literature, but submits paradoxically and then rejects the proposition, firstly, that full force should be acknowledged to paratextual disclaimers that a literary text is fiction and to theories that deny truth to literary predications; and, secondly, that all predications of real individuals should be subjected to similar invalidation.
Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198236818
- eISBN:
- 9780191679377
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198236818.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Language
This chapter sets the stage for the discussions in the subsequent chapters. It presents a ‘no-truth’ theory of literature. That is, it is argued that, inter alia, that the concept of truth has no ...
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This chapter sets the stage for the discussions in the subsequent chapters. It presents a ‘no-truth’ theory of literature. That is, it is argued that, inter alia, that the concept of truth has no central or ineliminable role in critical practice. The point is not, of course, that critics have no concern with true judgements but only that there is no significant place for truth as a critical term applied to works of literature. The rejection of truth as an essential facet of literature is hardly original; indeed versions of ‘no-truth’ theories probably have wider support in the critical community at present than do ‘pro-truth’ theories. So why return again to such well-worn ground? Part of the answer — the positive part — is that a new paradigm is needed, replacing the standard truth/world axis which still dominates the debate, for explaining the values of literature and the nature of fiction. Another, more polemical, reason for taking up again the old debate about literature and truth is because the most prominent arguments currently advanced against ‘literary truth’ are radically misconceived.Less
This chapter sets the stage for the discussions in the subsequent chapters. It presents a ‘no-truth’ theory of literature. That is, it is argued that, inter alia, that the concept of truth has no central or ineliminable role in critical practice. The point is not, of course, that critics have no concern with true judgements but only that there is no significant place for truth as a critical term applied to works of literature. The rejection of truth as an essential facet of literature is hardly original; indeed versions of ‘no-truth’ theories probably have wider support in the critical community at present than do ‘pro-truth’ theories. So why return again to such well-worn ground? Part of the answer — the positive part — is that a new paradigm is needed, replacing the standard truth/world axis which still dominates the debate, for explaining the values of literature and the nature of fiction. Another, more polemical, reason for taking up again the old debate about literature and truth is because the most prominent arguments currently advanced against ‘literary truth’ are radically misconceived.
J. P. Telotte
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813125862
- eISBN:
- 9780813135540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813125862.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter discusses and examines the work of the Fleischer brothers, who introduced a new level of realism into animation style with their development of such technologies as the rotograph, the ...
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This chapter discusses and examines the work of the Fleischer brothers, who introduced a new level of realism into animation style with their development of such technologies as the rotograph, the turntable camera, and the rotoscope. These technologies were in part designed to facilitate the animation process by allowing the animators to trace real motion, to place their animated figures in what seemed to be real-world contexts.Less
This chapter discusses and examines the work of the Fleischer brothers, who introduced a new level of realism into animation style with their development of such technologies as the rotograph, the turntable camera, and the rotoscope. These technologies were in part designed to facilitate the animation process by allowing the animators to trace real motion, to place their animated figures in what seemed to be real-world contexts.
Margret Fetzer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719083440
- eISBN:
- 9781781700051
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719083440.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter explores the ways Donne's poems use language performatively. It analyses the Promethean dimension of Donne's poems, showing that his poems imply that what is at stake is similar to the ...
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This chapter explores the ways Donne's poems use language performatively. It analyses the Promethean dimension of Donne's poems, showing that his poems imply that what is at stake is similar to the real world, while the metaphors create new ways of seeing the same world. The chapter also studies how Donne's poems create the world, the truth and the self. Concepts such as role-play, theatricality and protean performance are also discussed.Less
This chapter explores the ways Donne's poems use language performatively. It analyses the Promethean dimension of Donne's poems, showing that his poems imply that what is at stake is similar to the real world, while the metaphors create new ways of seeing the same world. The chapter also studies how Donne's poems create the world, the truth and the self. Concepts such as role-play, theatricality and protean performance are also discussed.
David Carter
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781911325055
- eISBN:
- 9781800342187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781911325055.003.0007
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter looks at the specific artistic references in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). One artist is referred to by indirect reference and visual simulation of some of his works, and another ...
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This chapter looks at the specific artistic references in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). One artist is referred to by indirect reference and visual simulation of some of his works, and another is paid homage to by the inclusion of one of his works in a scene. The artists in question are M.C. Escher and Francis Bacon. The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, famous for his works featuring constructions which would be impossible in the real world, is not directly named in the film, but he is referred to indirectly by the mention of a phenomenon which he utilised in his work: the so-called 'Penrose Steps'. Meanwhile, in a sequence in which Cobb is talking to Mal, there is a painting visible on the wall of the room, Bacon's Study for a head of George Dyer, 1967. Nolan clearly shares some perspectives on the world with Bacon: a fascination with distorted reality, a sense of horror as in a nightmare, and, in some cases, the real world being actually torn apart.Less
This chapter looks at the specific artistic references in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010). One artist is referred to by indirect reference and visual simulation of some of his works, and another is paid homage to by the inclusion of one of his works in a scene. The artists in question are M.C. Escher and Francis Bacon. The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, famous for his works featuring constructions which would be impossible in the real world, is not directly named in the film, but he is referred to indirectly by the mention of a phenomenon which he utilised in his work: the so-called 'Penrose Steps'. Meanwhile, in a sequence in which Cobb is talking to Mal, there is a painting visible on the wall of the room, Bacon's Study for a head of George Dyer, 1967. Nolan clearly shares some perspectives on the world with Bacon: a fascination with distorted reality, a sense of horror as in a nightmare, and, in some cases, the real world being actually torn apart.
