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- Volume 23, Issue, 2016
Pragmatics & Cognition - Volume 23, Issue 3, 2016
Volume 23, Issue 3, 2016
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Biosemiotic conflict in communication
Author(s): Jean Jacques Askenasypp.: 364–375 (12)More LessMaurice Merleau-Ponty and Y. Michael Barilan have described the conflictual aspects of human communication (Merleau-Ponty, 1967). Humans communicate through verbal language, body-language, and stereotypes. (I coined the term ‘phatic communication’ for stereotypes.) These 3 types of communication can be in harmony or conflict.
Verbal (VC) and corporal (CC) communication are well known. During the past decade, I have examined the field of phatic communication (PC). Phatic communication consists of laughing, crying, yawning, sighing, gasping, sneezing and hiccupping, actions that date back over 500 million years to the Reptilia class of the animal kingdom. During the last million years, these biosemiotic actions have acquired psychological meanings in humans as a result of neocortex connections.
The simultaneous presence of threatening verbal signs with empathic stereotype signs, such as violence with laughter or aggression with a smile, requires a rational / emotional effort to decide within milliseconds if the message is a threat or joke.
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The Cobweb of Context
Author(s): Leah Gruenpeter Goldpp.: 376–389 (14)More LessThe question of context is fundamental in the debate on “What is art?” What the uses of the term mean colour all debates about life and art. Since I am interested in the interpretation and understanding of context in art, and also in life, as well as in how visual arts reinforce or change our mind-constructs either consciously (intentionally) or automatically, I investigate the place of context within this scheme, while referring to various approaches to context and raise series of questions that offer alternatives and point to difficulties.
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Remarks on the Barthesian notion of punctum
Author(s): Roberto Grecopp.: 390–403 (14)More LessThis paper aims to be a compendium on the significance of images as an effective mediator in communication. The research work has resulted from the assumption that it is possible to think of the image as an intrinsically ethical mediator in communication. It has been amply demonstrated that the use of images can reach a level within a communication that is inherently ethical, able to take effective account of an otherness. There cannot exist, in this sense, a communication that is not an appeal, a search for the other, inside this kind of exchange, with full respect of the other’s essence. A communication that makes use of images in an ethical manner will also be more immediate and certainly more effective. In order to address these issues, this paper’s investigation has been deepened with the semiotics bibliography of French essayist Roland Barthes, with particular reference to those essays concerning a kind of poetics of the punctum, an analysis in relation to those images that are able to disrupt the relationship between observer and observed.
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Place and Person(a)
Author(s): Rodica Amelpp.: 404–415 (12)More LessWithout any polemic intention, our present contribution will be concerned with the idea of corporeality as an ontological index, in positive and negative perspective. In the positive perspective, corporeality represents the definitional index of the human person. More specifically, we shall approach the (human) corporeality within the formative process of the person`s consciousness (persona). In order to make relevant our philosophical target, the idea of corporeality will be treated within the semiotic extension of the concept of place / locus (Romanian: loc, Latin: locus, French: lieu/place, Hebrew: makom ‘place/ locus’ — Hamakom ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’), in conformity with the following three oppositions: (a) place as a physical index vs. human symbol; (b) place with reference to physical persona vs. spiritual persona; (c) place in profane sense vs. sacred sense. In the negative perspective, the absence of corporeality makes relevant a new meaning of the Judaic concept hamakom: Hamakom with the sense of ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’.
We intend to establish two targets for our research: 1. to follow the process during which the definitional index represents a formative agent of (self) consciousness; and 2. to establish the switching point where hamakom (“the place”) becomes Hamakom ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’.
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Coordination, negotiation, and social attention
Author(s): Oren Bader and Aya Peri Baderpp.: 416–436 (21)More LessLiving with others is a key factor shaping our urban life. Their bodily presence scaffolds our social world and is involved in the way the built environment appears to us. In this article we highlight the influence of the embodied presence of other human beings on the constitution of a special type of urban architecture — the extraordinary architectural space. Our analysis, which lies at the intersection between architecture, phenomenology and cognitive science, suggests that being in the direct presence of others constitutes this extraordinary architectural space in the sense that it transforms the built setting into a negotiated place and reveals for the subject some of its extraordinary properties. The architectural examples we discuss show that these intersubjective advantages are often embedded in and encouraged by the design of such built objects.
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Marcelo Dascal’s Theory of Controversies
Author(s): Aviram Sarielpp.: 437–460 (24)More LessIn his Theory of Controversies, Marcelo Dascal proposed three types of polemic exchange, in which Controversy was added to the classic types of Discussion and Dispute. For example, in Dascal’s lights, logic is associated with polemic discussions, power manipulations with disputes, and ‘soft logic’ with controversies. The theory was remarkably successful in providing a realist framework for polemic exchanges. In this paper, I provide a conceptually independent substantiation and expansion of the theory, by associating it with meta-ethical analysis of thick and thin concepts, indebted to Michael Walzer, Menachem Fisch and Yitzhak Benbaji.
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Terror and the Leviathan
Author(s): Y.M. Barilanpp.: 461–471 (11)More LessThe article surveys the history of “terror” vis a vis the development of international humanitarian and human rights law. During the French Revolution, the word “terror” was coined to describe a deviation from the laws of war. Justified by a mixture of ideology and necessity. People who resort to terrorism either suspends or rejects the laws of war (jus in bellum) in the name of an alternative and heightened sense of truth. However, the terrorists’ strong sense of probity and mission is also an opening for re-establishing communication, arbitration and mitigation of cruelty and destruction. This paper represents International Humanitarian Law (IHL) as an “abstract Leviathan”, submission to which is the contemporary norm of pacification. From the perspective of radical terrorism, it is tyrannical. From other perspectives, it is open to criticism and change. Most importantly, it is on the side of rational arbitration rather than arbitrary ordeal. Even radical terrorism, which refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the abstract Leviathan, seeks to communicate its radical messages rather than to seek victory my means of physical annihilation of its opponents.
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Soft logic and numbers
Author(s): Moshe Klein and Oded Maimonpp.: 473–484 (12)More LessIn this paper, we propose to see the Necker cube phenomenon as a basis for the development of a mathematical language in accordance with Leibniz’s vision of soft logic. By the development of a new coordinate system, we make a distinction between −0 and +0. This distinction enables us to present a new model for nonstandard analysis, and to develop a calculus theory without the need of the concept of limit. We also established a connection between “Recursive Distinctioning” and soft logic, and use it as a basis for a new computational model. This model has a potential to change the current computational paradigm.
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Controversies on Body
Author(s): Giovanni Scarafilepp.: 486–499 (14)More LessMy paper is related to applied ethics with special reference to the ethics of communication. The task of this discipline is to defend otherness in the various contexts where it exists. The departure point for my paper is the observation that the physician–patient relationship, instead of being the place of therapeutic alliance, is increasingly becoming a source of conflict, as is shown by the statistics on legal actions between doctors and patients, lack of communication skills identified amongst patients, and cases of burnout amongst doctors. This situation calls on ethics to take two steps simultaneously. Firstly, it must not forego the duty of indicating the rules. Secondly, it must be capable of suggesting directions where those same rules can be applied. Succeeding in this task is decisive not only in domains where the ethical approach may be welcomed, but also for ethics as such, otherwise destined to be a disembodied specialization.
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Communication disorders, interpersonal conflicts and sexual dysfunctions
Author(s): Nunzia Marciantepp.: 501–504 (4)More LessThe aim of this article is to analyze the effects of comunication, conflicts, and body language on sexual dysfunctions. As explained in the work of Merleau Ponty, the everyday experience goes through the body and communicates its being in the world through external stimuli, generating emotions and developing affectivity. In this perspective, the sexuality is something more than a set of biological mechanism. Simultaneous, experiencing of conflicting feelings and emotions, such as anger, may affect the body sexual response, such as vaginism and dyspareunia. One of the most important purpose of Sex Therapy is the integration of all the contributing professional and academic disciplines both from the points of view of research and clinical practice. This perspective requires a change in the attitude of the disciplines in recognising the importance of the integrated study of sexuality for the future happines of human beings and the implications for society.
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The Babel tower of the body
Author(s): Yochi Keshetpp.: 506–514 (9)More LessThis article follows the idea that our body offers a unique language to read our personal history; our physical body remembers everything and is ready to tell all. We just have to learn the language it speaks. The purpose of this article is to examine how body language allows us to read the presence of conflicts between the body, mind and emotions and resolve them. In this article, I will deal with the following questions: What is the significance of the signs that the brain has imprinted on the surface of the body? Why does our body preserve these signs? What is the body’s role in communicating between people and within themselves?
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Uses and abuses of the body in the postmodern era
Author(s): Mirko D. Garasicpp.: 516–527 (12)More LessThis paper will focus on two controversial cases relating to the [mis]use of the notion of autonomy in situations of life and death. While in one case the patient’s will to die was not respected, in the other there was no attempt to save the life of the individual. I have chosen to put these two specific cases in parallel for the fact that in both instances the presence of some kind of mental impairment is not given at all. Yet, in both situations there is substantial reference to some type of temporary competence -as this is the key element that, allegedly, should function as decisive to assess the moral and legal justification behind the decision to enforce -or not- medical treatment upon the protagonists of these two very sad stories. Following on from the objective of this paper thus, the contraposition of these two cases will provide us with a vivid image of the practical implications of using the notion of autonomy (here presented under the form of a more psychiatric-oriented term: competence) in an inconsistent manner within the Western world (US and EU). Raising many doubts over its appropriateness.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 31 (2024)
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Volume 30 (2023)
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Volume 29 (2022)
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Volume 28 (2021)
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Volume 27 (2020)
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Volume 26 (2019)
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Volume 25 (2018)
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Volume 24 (2017)
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Volume 23 (2016)
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Volume 22 (2014)
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Volume 21 (2013)
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Volume 20 (2012)
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Volume 19 (2011)
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Volume 18 (2010)
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Volume 17 (2009)
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Volume 16 (2008)
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Volume 15 (2007)
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Volume 14 (2006)
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Volume 13 (2005)
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Volume 12 (2004)
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Volume 11 (2003)
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Volume 10 (2002)
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Volume 9 (2001)
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Volume 8 (2000)
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Volume 7 (1999)
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Volume 6 (1998)
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Volume 5 (1997)
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Volume 4 (1996)
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Volume 3 (1995)
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Volume 2 (1994)
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Volume 1 (1993)
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