2,465 research outputs found
Quine, Ontology, and Physicalism
Quine's views on ontology and naturalism are well-known but rarely considered in tandem. According to my interpretation the connection between them is vital. I read Quine as a global epistemic structuralist. Quine thought we only ever know objects qua solutions to puzzles about significant intersections in observations. Objects are always accessed descriptively, via their roles in our best theory. Quine's Kant lectures contain an early version of epistemic structuralism with uncharacteristic remarks about the mental. Here Quine embraces mitigated anomalous monism, allowing introspection and the availability in principle of full physical descriptions of the perceptual states which get science off the ground. Later versions abandon these ideas. My epistemic-structural interpretation explains why. I argue first-personal introspective access to mental states is incompatible with global epistemic structuralism
Perceptual-gestural (mis)mapping in serial short-term memory: The impact of talker variability
The mechanisms underlying the poorer serial recall of talker-variable lists (e.g., alternating femaleâmale voices) as compared with single-voice lists were examined. We tested the novel hypothesis that this talker variability effect arises from the tendency for perceptual organization to partition the list into streams based on voice such that the representation of order maps poorly onto the formation of a gestural sequence-output plan assembled in support of the reproduction of the true temporal order of the items. In line with the hypothesis, (a) the presence of a spoken lead-in designed to further promote by-voice perceptual partitioning accentuates the effect (Experiments 1 and 2); (b) the impairment is larger the greater the acoustic coherence is between nonadjacent items: Alternating-voice lists are more poorly recalled than four-voice lists (Experiment 3); and (c) talker variability combines nonadditively with phonological similarity, consistent with the view that both variables disrupt sequence output planning (Experiment 4). The results support the view that serial short-term memory performance reflects the action of sequencing processes embodied within general-purpose perceptual input-processing and gestural output-planning systems
Constructing a concept of number
Numbers are concepts whose content, structure, and organization are influenced by the material forms used to represent and manipulate them. Indeed, as argued here, it is the inclusion of multiple forms (distributed objects, fingers, single- and two-dimensional forms like pebbles and abaci, and written notations) that is the mechanism of numerical elaboration. Further, variety in employed forms explains at least part of the synchronic and diachronic variability that exists between and within cultural number systems. Material forms also impart characteristics like linearity that may persist in the form of knowledge and behaviors, ultimately yielding numerical concepts that are irreducible to and functionally independent of any particular form. Material devices used to represent and manipulate numbers also interact with language in ways that reinforce or contrast different aspects of numerical cognition. Not only does this interaction potentially explain some of the unique aspects of numerical language, it suggests that the two are complementary but ultimately distinct means of accessing numerical intuitions and insights. The potential inclusion of materiality in contemporary research in numerical cognition is advocated, both for its explanatory power, as well as its influence on psychological, behavioral, and linguistic aspects of numerical cognition
Portrait Reification with Generative Diffusion Models
An application of Generative Diffusion Techniques for the reification of human portraits in artistic paintings is presented. By reification we intend the transformation of the painter's figurative abstraction into a real human face. The application exploits a recent embedding technique for Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models (DDIM) inverting the generative process and mapping the visible image into its latent representation. In this way, we can first embed the portrait into the latent space, and then use the reverse diffusion model, trained to generate real human faces, to produce the most likelihood real approximation of the portrait. The actual deployment of the application involves several additional techniques, mostly aimed to automatically identify, align and crop the relevant portion of the face, and to postprocess the generated reification in order to enhance its quality and to
allow a smooth reinsertion in the original painting
The Concept of Experience in Husserl's Phenomenology and James' Radical Empiricism
In this paper, I develop a comparison between the philosophies of Husserl and James in relation to their concepts of experience. Whereas various authors have acknowledged the affinity between Jamesâ early psychology and Husserlâs phenomenology, the late development of Jamesâ philosophy is often considered in opposition to Husserlâs transcendental phenomenology. This is because Jamesâ radical empiricism achieves a non-dual dimension of experience that precedes the functional division into subject and object, thus contrasting with the phenomenological analysis of the dual structure of intentionality. However, I argue that the later âgeneticâ development of phenomenology converges with some central aspects of Jamesâ radical
empiricism. This is because genetic phenomenology leads us to conceive of the flow of primal impressions as a fundamental dimension of experience that precedes the subject-object duality and is at the base of the process of co-constitution of the subject and the object in reciprocal dependence. At the same time, Husserl conceives of the impressional core of experience as structured by formal conditions that depend on the
concrete constitution of an embodied subject. For this reason, I argue that Husserlâs genetic phenomenology can complement Jamesâ radical empiricism, thus leading to the development of the doctrine of pure experience as a form of empirical and not metaphysical realism
Reification and the refugee: using a counterposing dialogical analysis to unlock a frozen category
Thousands of individuals each year seek refugee status and the question of who can be accepted requires politicians within democracies to seek a public mandate. Unlike other socio-political categories individuals cannot self-identify as refugee; the category must be bureaucratically conferred. Therefore sustained humanitarian public concern is vital to the acceptance of refugees. This article sets parameters on this public concern. It examines how public narratives reify the refugee category. Showing how this reification constrains the citizenship, integration and opportunities of individuals, now safe, yet continually categorized in everyday public discourse as refugee. Interviews, focus groups (Study 1) and ethnography (Study 2) were conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom (N = 57). The article introduces a counterposing dialogical analysis where public positioning of refugees is counterposed against dialogue by ârefugeesâ anticipating their positioning. The analysis uncovers an hegemonic social representation of humanitarianism indexing âthe refugeeâ as the passive recipient of help framed by a public narrative diachronically frozen in the initial act of flight. Three objectifying reification processes stabilize the category. âRefugeesâ in turn employ counter-positional tactics of distancing, compensation and future-orientation. The limited success of these tactics suggest the need to scale up such tactics to collective-level communication strategies. Success of communication strategies requires questioning the underlying function humanitarian-talk serves in creating a sense of European identity. Together these strategies could re-work the temporal features of the refugee category facilitating a repositioning and enabling the emergence of post-refugee narratives
Preparing the Global Software Engineer
With a goal of preparing software engineering
students for practice in todayâs global settings, Uppsala
University has for some years run courses involving global
collaboration. The âIT in Societyâ course is one such course
which applies an âOpen Ended Group Projectâ model, in
partnership with a local health sector client and global
educational partners. Within each iteration of the course,
students across the partnering institutions are given a brief
around an open-ended problem. They work in collaboration
with their client and stakeholders to investigate options and
produce a report with their findings and recommendations,
informed by global perspectives. The report may or may not be
supported by working software prototypes. We analyze student
evaluations & reflections on the course to unpack their
perceptions of software engineering, the perceived relevance of
a global learning experience and its role in reshaping their
identities as global software engineers
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