A Unified Interpretation of the Varieties of False Pleasure in Plato's Philebeus

Most commentators think that Plato's account of the varieties of false pleasure is disjointed and that various types of false pleasure he identifies are false in different ways. It really doesn't look that way to me: I think that the discussion is unified, and that Plato starts with less difficult cases to build up to a point about more important but less clear cases. In this paper, I do my best to show how this might work. I don't think I will ever work on this again: the experience of writing this paper and dealing with frustrating refereeing practices has led me to pretty much switch to aesthetics. I'm much happier. But here are the fruits of my labor. I know there are a few details I got wrong (in particular a place or two where I should have scrutinized Frede's translation more closely), but I still think that I'm on the right track. I hope it's useful to someone

Perceptual Moment

Moving image art can provide unique possibilities for making sense of our surrounding reality. Consisting of a series of artworks produced through a creative research methodology, this thesis project explores wonderment and its role in visual perception. The series, Perceptual Moments, is comprised of short, evocative video works presented in a variety of modes including interactive and sculptural installation. To question the role of vision in mediating reality, the works engage the viewer through an intensive experience of seeing. This accompanying essay explores key visual and editing devices in the series that appear to have a role in shaping the viewer’s perception and interpretation of the visual experience, including “the chasm,” “the blur” and “interactive installation.” The essay also investigates the motivation behind the works through journal entries and offers critical analyses for each production. The visual devices in question are grounded within the context of psychology, neuroscience, phenomenology and film theories. Philosopher Gaston Bachelard provides an anchor for the concept of wonderment, while theorists Jonathan Crary and Gilles Deleuze create dialogical space around the act of viewing filmic images and the affect that it involves. The devices are also observed in other media works, including seminal pieces by Stan Brackhage, Kurt Kren and Jan Svankmajer as well as contemporary figures such as Nathalie Djurbergand Matt Hope.PsychologyVisual perceptionFil

Contemporary aesthetic perspectives on imagination and reality media

The growing and ubiquitous presence of ‘digital reality media’, meaning technolog-ical devices that do not rely either on inner visualization or imagination – such as Augmented and Virtual Reality devices and 360º video (Engberg & Bolter 2020) – raises several issues. Such issues are related to the role played by the imagina-tive faculties both within emerging visual-motor and perceptive configurations and within the transformative process of remediation instantiated by the virtualization of reality. This contribution aims firstly to discuss the concepts of second-order media and reality media (Bolter, Engberg & MacIntyre 2021) by linking them to Pinotti’s concept of an-iconology (Pinotti 2021). By drawing on Tavinor’s digital aesthetics (Tavinor 2022), this contribution argues that the an-iconic condition of VR media might be better intended as a desirable outcome in current research, rather than a condition already achieved. In order to discuss whether the imaginative aspects and those that define the use of digital devices are characterized by an interactive statute, this contribution addresses Montani’s notion of ‘intermedial imagination’ (Montani 2022) and Flusser’s concept of Technoimagination (Flusser 2008). Thirdly, this paper discusses how the interactive concept of imagination – suggested by the re-definition of the relationship between distance and materiality, provenance and pertinence – is displayed differently in VR and AR. Finally, the contribution faces the topic of the fallout that the most recent technological development (in terms of reality media), such as BCI (brain computer interface), might have on human imaginative faculties

How active perception and attractor dynamics shape perceptual categorization: A computational model

We propose a computational model of perceptual categorization that fuses elements of grounded and sensorimotor theories of cognition with dynamic models of decision-making. We assume that category information consists in anticipated patterns of agent–environment interactions that can be elicited through overt or covert (simulated) eye movements, object manipulation, etc. This information is firstly encoded when category information is acquired, and then re-enacted during perceptual categorization. The perceptual categorization consists in a dynamic competition between attractors that encode the sensorimotor patterns typical of each category; action prediction success counts as ‘‘evidence’’ for a given category and contributes to falling into the corresponding attractor. The evidence accumulation process is guided by an active perception loop, and the active exploration of objects (e.g., visual exploration) aims at eliciting expected sensorimotor patterns that count as evidence for the object category. We present a computational model incorporating these elements and describing action prediction, active perception, and attractor dynamics as key elements of perceptual categorizations. We test the model in three simulated perceptual categorization tasks, and we discuss its relevance for grounded and sensorimotor theories of cognition.Peer reviewe

Imagination in mathematics

This article will consider imagination in mathematics from a historical point of view, noting the key moments in its conception during the ancient, modern and contemporary eras

Rethinking affordance

n/a – Critical survey essay retheorising the concept of 'affordance' in digital media context. Lead article in a special issue on the topic, co-edited by the authors for the journal Media Theory

Embodied Cognition and the Magical Future of Interaction Design

The theory of embodied cognition can provide HCI practitioners and theorists with new ideas about interac-tion and new principles for better designs. I support this claim with four ideas about cognition: (1) interacting with tools changes the way we think and perceive – tools, when manipulated, are soon absorbed into the body schema, and this absorption leads to fundamental changes in the way we perceive and conceive of our environments; (2) we think with our bodies not just with our brains; (3) we know more by doing than by seeing – there are times when physically performing an activity is better than watching someone else perform the activity, even though our motor resonance system fires strongly during other person observa-tion; (4) there are times when we literally think with things. These four ideas have major implications for interaction design, especially the design of tangible, physical, context aware, and telepresence systems

Walking as Do-It-Yourself Urbansim

This article develops a series of theoretical notions arising in the context of an urban art project that took place in London in the summer of 2004 under the title “Where do you breathe?”1 As a participatory urban intervention, the project challenged the notion of authorship in public space by casting the act of walking as a transformation of urban space, and examined the potentials for a practice of photography based on interaction rather than passive representation