Construction of Meaning

How are we to understand digital objects? How are we to relate ‘cyberspace’ to physical space? This chapter attempts to provide a set of theoretical tools to understand ‘spaces’ of online interaction and what happens within them without resorting to filamentous constructions of ‘disembodied’ online interaction or to the underlying idealistic Cartesian dualism that pervades many of the theoretical positions that ostensibly refute it. To do so, I make connections between cognitive processes of human subjectivity, the embodied, gestural enactments of physical social spaces, and the social interactions that take place in online environments. The crux of the argument is that like identity, meaning and subjectivity are social phenomena: individual cognition requires social interaction. Similarly, social interaction, mediated or immediate, defines our spaces of subjectivity. This connecting of online ‘spaces’ to embodied cognition may provide a way to understand digital objects and the online interactions they enable through a reconsideration of the concept of space.

This chapter examines in depth under what conditions linguistic meaning can be the object of
an empirical science.
Possible answers, from the point of view of semantics, are given to questions about the proper
object of theories of language structure, about what a theory of language structure explains,
and about the elements a theory of language structure contains.
It is shown that the only empirical observations related to semantics are utterances and human
behaviours; the semantic description of a human language is thus the description of the set of
constraints that words and structures of that language impose on the construction of the senses
of the utterances. Some of these constraints are imposed by articulators (connectives and operators);
others by ‘ordinary’ words; both kinds of constraints concern the points of view
which are necessary in order to build the senses of the utterances.

In this research, science and its political appearance are studied through an empirical exploration of their representations in narrative expressions. The field of investigation is allocated to formal and informal discourse on university, education and research in Sweden and China. The analysed expressions were taken from 202 written reports, as students and personnel in both countries answered an open ended-question, and four formal documents: the Chinese and Swedish laws on higher education and documents on research, science, and technology. The narratives were processed through a Meaning-Constitution-Analysis (MCA), a tool used to perform a deep study of a text based on a phenomenological approach that aims at making the implied assumptions and worldviews explicit. The analysis revealed a common representation of the university as an intermediary between the government and the student in the Swedish narratives and as a meta-character differentiated from the government in the Chin...

In de vorige drie nummers van deze jaargang van Speling stonden goedheid, schoonheid en waarheid centraal. Maar hebben het werken aan het goede, het streven naar het schone en het zoeken naar het ware ook iets met elkaar te maken? Vallen zij in een zinvol verband samen? Of zijn het op zichzelf staande bezigheden? Zin in vele zinnen Wij gebruiken het woord 'zin' in vele betekenissen. De nieuwe Dikke van Dale noemt er veertien. En van die veertien betekenissen is 'bete-kenis' zelf er één. De zin van iets is de betekenis, de strekking of be-doeling ervan. Maar die betekenis, strekking of bedoeling moeten we doorgaans halen uit de samenhang tussen de onderdelen van datgene wat zin geeft. Woorden ontvangen als het ware hun betekenis uit de ordening waarmee ze in een zin-in de betekenis van volzin-zijn ge-plaatst. Die zin is dan een syntactisch verband dat een gedachte of een mededeling uitdrukt. De plaatsing in de zin geeft meerwaarde aan de woorden: samen krijgen ze betekenis, vormen ze een zinvol geheel. De woorden worden meer dan ze in hun afzonderlijkheid zouden zijn. Zouden we de woorden los na elkaar en in een willekeurige volg-orde uitspreken, dan zou dat betekenisloos gebrabbel lijken, of op zijn best een experimenteel gedicht. De woorden zouden 'zinledig' zijn: leeg van betekenis. Maar door de geordende wijze waarop ze met el-kaar verbonden zijn, kunnen ze ons iets zeggen. Ze krijgen zin. Die zinnen kunnen lang of kort zijn, krom of krachtig, helder of ingewik-keld. Maar ze vertellen wel allemaal iets. 'They make sense', zouden we in het Engels zeggen. Die betekenis kan ook ons gedrag beïnvloeden. Zin heeft immers ook te maken met motivatie, met animo, dus met een innerlijke ge-moedsgesteldheid. 'We hebben er zin in.' Dat wil zeggen: we zijn ge-motiveerd om te doen wat we gaan doen. Die motivatie ontlenen we aan de betekenis die we toekennen aan die activiteit waar we zin in moeten hebben. 'Heb je zin om een artikel voor Speling te schrijven?'

In building a constructivist view of language, the inherently experiential
nature of language should not be absolutized but seen rather as depending on the overlap between the first-order and the second-order consensual
domains as the sources of experience.

Los videojuegos juegan un papel cada vez más importante en la sociedad contemporánea. En la medida en que el videojuego y su cultura cobran mayor importancia, también crecen los interrogantes en torno a ellos. ¿Cómo afectan los videojuegos en nuestras vidas cotidianas? ¿Son cultura? ¿Es posible construir un sentimiento de pertenencia a partir de ellos? Identidad gamer explora la controvertida figura del gamer o videojugador desde una perspectiva sociológica. La obra es el resultado de un experimento que nació en la web de AnaitGames y que es al mismo tiempo difusión de resultados de una investigación académica, debate público y herramienta metodológica para crear nuevo conocimiento. En ella, el lector encontrará —con un lenguaje accesible pero riguroso— una disección de la identidad gamer y sus diferentes figuraciones o versiones. Añade, en cada caso, un análisis que incluye la vibrante discusión que suscitó cada categoría en la web de AnaitGames: un debate siempre controvertido y estimulante alrededor de la identidad gamer. Es un libro que, además, va más allá de las propias consideraciones sobre el mundo del videojuego, sus comunidades e identidades: es también un tratado sobre la sociedad actual y sus problemas, particularmente, sobre la construcción de sentido en el mundo contemporáneo. Identidad gamer está destinado a todas aquellas personas que tengan interés por el videojuego y su relación con nuestra cambiante realidad sociocultural

Artificial intelligence becomes an integral part of human life. At the same time, modern widely used approaches, which work successfully due to the availability of enormous computing power, based on ideas about the work of the brain, suggested more than half a century ago. The proposed model describes the general principles of information processing by the human brain, taking into account the latest achievements. The neuroscientific grounding of this model and its applicability in the creation of AGI or Strong AI are discussed in the article. In this model, the cortical minicolumn is the primary computing processor that works with the semantic description of information. The minicolumn transforms incoming information into its interpretation to a specific context. In this way, a parallel verification of hypotheses of information interpretations is provided when comparing them with information in the memory of each minicolumn of the cortical zone, and, at the same time, determining a significant context is the information transformation rule. The meaning of information is defined as an interpretation that is close to the information available in the memory of a minicolumn. The behavior is a result of modeling of possible situations. Using this approach will allow creating a strong AI or AGI.

Il s'agit d'une tentative d'élaboration d'une théorie du discours fondée sur les pronoms personnels d'énoncés "je" ( discours égolocutif), "tu" (discours allocutif), "il" (discours délocutif). Sans chercher à heurter la sensibilité des partisans de l'opposition récit/discours, nous revenons sur cette question pour en relativiser la dualité cloisonnante au vue des travaux initiés par Genette… Ensuite, après avoir analysé, exemples littéraires à l'appui, les implications de cette triptyque dans la classification dynamique et des genres et textes littéraires, nous voyons comment elle permet d'approcher objectivement la polyphonie discursive des textes, et ce, dans le cadre d'une morphogenèse de formes discursives - Je pense notamment à mes maîtres: Pierre Cadiot (in mémoriam), Peer Aage Brandt (Case Uninersity). MERCi et Bonne lecture. J'attends vos avis, mon mail est indiqué sur la première page ( pas l'adresse: je n'y habite plus).

There are certain thoughts - intimations - that will seem corny, or laughable, and therefore dismissed - and only seriously absorbed into the changing mind when felt, in the shelter of the quietly moving music of the soul.
It is the function of art, and of love, to make this music heard . . . 

  It is not the music of depression - it is the way through.

Ancient rhetorical tradition discussed the possible semantic discrepancy between the written words (scripta) and writer’s intention (voluntas). In the case of such discrepancy, the intended meaning of an author was usually preferred to the lexical/syntactic meaning of a text. The debate about the hermeneutical importance of authorial intention continues in modern hermeneutics. There are those for whom the meaning of a text is isomorphic with authorial intention, and those for whom the meaning of a text is completely independent from authorial intention. In comparison with these extreme positions, Augustine seems to hold a middle ground. He has both hermeneutical and theological reasons for avoiding the one-sided extremes.
Augustine defends the importance of human authorial intention as an undeniable factor not only in the existence of the signa data (i.e., words/sentences as intentional signs), but partially also in the establishment of their meaning(s). Nevertheless, he postulates certain restrictions to the human authorial intention in determining the meaning(s) of scriptural texts. Accordingly, this paper investigates these restrictions or qualifications that Augustine postulates for the acknowledged hermeneutical role of authorial intention. I will argue that, for Augustine, there were primarily two reasons for defending a limited role of (the human) authorial intention in interpretation of the Scriptures.
1. The Scriptures as a double-authored text (i.e., a text authored by God and humans) prevent the human authorial intention from being the ultimate hermeneutical criterion.
2. To equate the human authorial intention with the meaning of a text would tie the meaning of the canonical texts to the past history and may eliminate the possibility of Christological interpretations of the Old Testament.

Es ist eigentlich um das Sprechen und Schreiben eine närrische Sache; das rechte Gespräch ist ein bloßes Wortspiel. Der lächerliche Irrtum ist nur zu bewundern, daß die Leute meinen -sie sprächen um der Dinge willen . Gerade das Eigentümliche der Sprache, daß sie sich bloß um sich selbst bekümmert, weiß keiner. Darum ist sie ein so wunderbares und fruchtbares Geheimnis,daß wenn einer bloß spricht, um zu sprechen, er gerade die herrlichsten, originellsten Wahrheiten ausspricht. Will er aber von etwas Bestimmtem sprechen, so läßt ihn die launige Sprache das lächerlichste und verkehrteste Zeug sagen. Novalis Eine öfters bemerkte Eigentümlichkeit von Klees letzten Lebensjahren ist der Kontrast zwischen einer bis dahin unerreichten künstlerischen Produktivität -ein Viertel seines gesamten Schaffens entstand in den Jahren 1937-1940und einer Kargheit von Äußerungen des Künstlers, die diese Produktion erläutern können. Allerdings hatten viele Künstler zu ihrer Kunst wenig zu sagen, jedoch traf dies im Fall Klee vor 1933 kaum zu .· Das Werk der frühen Jahre in Bern und München wird durch die Tagebücher und Briefe aus dieser Zeit beträchtlich erhellt; auch während Klees zehnjähriger Tätigkeit am Bauhaus entstanden viele theoretische und pädagogische Texte, die gleichfalls Einsichten in sein Schaffen geben. Ab Dezember 1933, nach Klees Rückkehr in die Schweiz, hören solche Texte auf. Weil es wenige dokumentarische Anhaltspunkte gibt, die als Grundlage zu einer wissenschaftlichen Auslegung des Spätwerkes dienen könnten, wurde lange Zeit diese Schaffensperiode in der Klee-Literatur relativ vernachlässigt -eine Situation, die sich erst in den letzten Jahren zu verändern begann . Bei Deutungsversuchen erschien dieser Mangel geradezu beklagenswert, denn das Spätwerk, mit seinem überwiegend figürlichen Charakter, seinen beziehungsreichen Bildtiteln und seiner prägnanten Ausdruckskraft, geschaffen von einem Künstler, der an einer tödlichen Krankheit litt, schien besonders tiefgründige Aussagen zu bergen . Kein Wunder, daß trotz dem Fehlen von Stützpunkten manche Kommentatoren der Versuchung zu ikonographischen Deutungen traditioneller Art nicht w iderstehen konnten . 1 Auch denjenigen, die sich nicht auf eine erzählerische Lesart der Bilder einließen, schien es dennoch eine Voraussetzung, daß es Klee hier um oft tiefgehende Aussagen und Mitteilungen persönlichster Art ging . 2 Keiner hat diese Stellungnahme so beharrlich vertreten wie Jürgen Glaesemer. Die vereinfachten Formen und Farben des Spätwerkes, so behauptete er, »wirken auf den Betrachter ganz unmittelbar als Träger von persönlichen Mitteilungen. Die kräftigen Liniengebilde aus seinen reduzierten, leuchtenden Farbflächen sind Ausdruck einer Bildsprache, die eine direkte Aussage anstrebt.« 3 Für Glaesemer war der Kontrast zwischen der Vielzahl der Bilder und der Kargheit der Worte kein Zufall, denn am Ende hätten die Bilder die Rolle der Sprache übernommen : » ... es blieb ausschließlich den Werken vorbehalten, die Erfahrungen der letzten Jahre >Sprache< werden zu lassen .« 4 Die Zeichnungen nähmen in dieser Entwicklung eine privilegierte Stelle ein : es gäbe eine »Umkehrung von Schreiben und Zeichnen «; »an die Stelle des Schreibens [sei] das Zeichnen getreten«; Zeichnen würde »die einzig selbstverständliche Form der Mitteil~ng«. 5 Handeln wir aber im Geiste Klees, wenn wir seine letzten Bilder als eine Art Schrift betrachten, als Träger von -Aussagen und Mitteilungen, deren Sinn es zu entschlüsseln gilt? Verstand er überhaupt Kunst als Ausdruck innerer Erfahrungen, als Kommunikation mit dem Beschauer? Dies war allerdings die herrschende Auffassung in der deutschen Kunstkritik seiner Zeit und motivierte auch die Bestrebungen vieler Künstler wie zum

The Full Hebrew text of my thesis: The Nature of "The Goodness Experience in Nature"; A Phenomenological Inquiry Grounded in Eugene Gendlin’s Ideas

מחקר זה החל בזיהוי שסביבות מסוימות "עושות טוב" להרבה אנשים באופן די דומה, ועוסק בתיאור פנומנולוגי של חווית הטוּב (Well-being) בסביבה, דרך התמקדות בתחושת הטוּב הסובייקטיבית בעת שהות בטבע. חקר החוויה הסובייקטיבית נחשב ל"בעיה הקשה של ההכרה" והמחקר מציע מתודולוגיה חדשנית בתחום זה ע"י שימוש בהתמקדות: שיטה להפניית תשומת הלב לחוויה הגופנית, והמשגתה בדיבור בזמן-אמת. התכנים העיקריים שעלו בניתוח תמטי ומבני של ההתמקדויות היו תאור חווית אחדוּת שלוּבה בתחושת נבדלוּת ועצמיוּת, ותחושת כוונה, ידיעה, ויכולת מוגברת. ההתוודעות לתחושות אלה הופיעה מתוך "רפרוף" תשומת הלב של המתמקדים בין שדות משמעות של פנים / חוץ, ומומשג / לא-מומשג; תוך גילוי משהו חדש, קישורו לעולם המשמעות הפרטי, ופיתוחו להמשגה מכלילה. המחקר מצביע על קשר בין חווית ה"טבילה" במימד הלא מילולי והלא מומשג שבטבע, ליצירת משמעות, ומעלה את האפשרות שהתחדשות-משמעות היא היא החוויה המיטיבה שבטבע.

FROM THE BACK COVER: What is the essential nature of meaning? . . . . . This book answers by examining interpretive theories from the past and present. It finds that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation, a struggle that reaches crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand, this crisis is mollified by Heidegger's hermeneutical phenomenology, which argues that we are always already in a meaningful relationship to the objects of the world. On the other hand, this crisis is exacerbated when phenomenology, structuralism, and aesthetic theory directly make meaning into an object of study. . . . . . . . . These historical developments culminate with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, whose non-hermeneutical phenomenology delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity. Intriguingly, Lacan's work reveals meaning to be sexual in nature. By integrating his notion of sexual difference with his work in discourse theory and topology, this book demonstrates how the subject's struggle with meaning can be suspended.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Broadly speaking, the majority of books on Jacques Lacan focus on the earlier periods of his career. They also tend to target the psychoanalytic clinical community, or else discuss his work in various political, social, and cultural contexts. But in almost all cases these books refrain from a detailed exegesis of his actual texts. They instead prefer to comment on his theoretical apparatus as a whole before turning to its practical implications. . . . . . This book positions itself against this grain. Firstly, it closely analyzes some half-dozen key Lacanian texts. This analysis is organized under a single thematic – the question of meaning – in order to advance the reader's understanding of the trajectory of Lacan's thought across his entire career, as well as to promote the book's thesis that the field of meaning can be suspended. Accordingly, an initial chapter takes up the hermeneutical tradition from Flacius onward. This is then supplemented by a chapter which surveys phenomenological, structuralist and aesthetic theories of meaning and their differing methods of textual analysis. Together these two chapters provide a unique context for the sustained analysis of Lacan's texts which begins in the third chapter, an analysis that forms the bulk of the book's content. This contextualization potentially widens the book's appeal to any scholar wishing to explore his relationship to those textual objects he interacts with on a daily basis. And because this book assumes the reader has little to no familiarity with Lacan, the reader will find patient explanations of the basics of his theories before slowly being led up to the more difficult theories of his late years. Again the argument is that Lacan has something to offer all scholars. His work is not just reserved for psychoanalysts. . . . . . It is with his late theories that the serious student of Lacan will find the book's most original contribution. For in the fourth chapter a detailed account is provided of how Lacan derived his infamous formulae of sexuation from Aristotelian logic. These formulae are then extensively discussed against the backdrop of interpretive theory and textual analysis, showing how these formulae capture much more than just the difference between the sexes. Strikingly, this difference is also found to run through meaning itself, something the final chapter aims to demonstrate. It does this by amalgamating three key components of late-Lacan: sexuation, discourse theory and his use of topological spaces. This amalgamation is a first in the literature. But this amalgamation is not just useful in demonstrating the book's thesis. It further suggests how seemingly divergent aspects of late-Lacanian theory can be made to work together.

In this essay I elucidate several of Frankl's key ideas associated with meaning-centered Logotherapy in conversation with philosophers of existence (Camus, Jaspers, and Sartre), in order to bring to light the crucial philosophical elements of Frankl's Logotherapy. The following "existential" themes, as they emerge from the overarching search for existential meaning, are considered: Existential distress; ultimate existential situations; and the issues of freedom, facticity, and transcendence.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

This paper proposes that advertising work and therefore testing be viewed from a new theoretical perspective; that of modern semiotics. This perspective gives new insight into the constructive nature of meaning, the system of signification, the dominant role of the signifier over the signified, and the active participation of the individual in receiving and constructing messages. Within this framework, it is proposed that a clear understanding of advertising work/effectiveness arises when investigation of the form, i.e. the system through which the content/message of an ad is constructed, gains primary importance in the research process. Utilising a constructive approach to advertising work allows for a reliable understanding of the relationships which produce meaning; as these are constructed by the consumer and utilised in defining sense of social and self-identity.

In this volume,‭ ‬volume‭ ‬6,‭ ‬I will deal with insight and understanding,‭ ‬meaning and communication and intersubjectivity.‭ (‬In an appendix I will include a number of‭ –‬isms,‭ ‬cognitive biases and fallacies that might interfere in,‭ ‬with and distort these things.‭)
The latter is pre-supposed by,‭ ‬present,‭ ‬necessary and operating in all four of these notions when they are employed as verbs.‭ ‬I hope and intend to employ these words and explore them without the need for ghost-in-the-machine like mysterious,‭ ‬mystical and mythical‭ ‘‬mental‭’ ‬processes and organs such as‭ ‘‬mind‭’ ‬and‭ ‘‬consciousness‭’ ‬but by means of different meanings,‭ ‬dimensions,‭ ‬levels of t notions of intersubjectivity.‭ ‬Intersubjectivity enfolds‭ (‬like a pregnant mother her foetus‭) ‬insight,‭ ‬understanding,‭ ‬meaning and communication.‭ ‬Intersubjectivity is the beginning,‭ ‬the ground and reason for and the end of all meanings or sense that human beings could have.‭ ‬I am not interested in all the details of insight,‭ ‬experience,‭ ‬understanding,‭  ‬meaning,‭ ‬concepts and ideas,‭ ‬dialogue,‭ ‬discourse,‭ ‬interaction,‭ ‬communication‭ (‬for example as speculated about by Habermas and his followers,‭ ‬Brandom et al‭)‬.‭ ‬etc‭  ‬but merely the fact that these things require,‭ ‬assume,‭ ‬presuppose‭ (‬different aspects,‭ ‬features,‭ ‬functions,‭ ‬processes,‭ ‬etc of‭) ‬intersubjectivity.‭  ‬For those who are so inclined they could execute experiments‭ (‬for example in the disciplines of philosophy,‭ ‬psychology,‭ ‬sociology,‭ ‬cognitive sciences,‭ ‬anthropology,‭ ‬etc‭) ‬to establish that what I state here is a fact and not merely speculate.‭ ‬I will leave speculation‭  ‬-‭ ‬about the activities and nature of the first,‭ ‬second and third person‭ (‬the public,‭ ‬etc‭) ‬participants in the activities and process of communication,‭ ‬the question of second and third contingencies,‭ ‬or Habermas’s interactionist cum dialogical intersubjectivity and/or Brandom’s discursive intersubjectivity,‭ ‬the insufficiency of the former’s coordination and the need for synthesis,‭ ‬modes of structuration and the temporal dimensions of communication,‭ ‬threefold semiotic or twofold semiological structuralist theories of signs,‭ ‬theories of individualist or collective learning,‭ ‬action-directing models cultural models,‭ ‬pre-supposed structural‭  ‬features of the social relationships that are involved in communication,‭  ‬the structure parameters of for example the process of communication embedded in an intersubjective context‭ (‬I would say all the following themselves‭  ‬are intersubjective‭)‬,‭ ‬as discursive practice,‭ ‬including discourse,‭ ‬argumentation,‭ ‬communication,‭ ‬communication exchange,‭ ‬linguistic communication,‭ ‬everyday communication,‭ ‬interaction,‭ ‬etc‭  ‬-‭ ‬those,‭ ‬especially Continentals and those influenced by them,‭ ‬who suffer from the need for metaphysical speculation and to ontologize in complex terms about the most simple and obvious notions.

The reason for these attitudes of mine towards mental things,‭ ‬processes,‭ ‬organs,‭ ‬etc is that I do not believe they exist,‭ ‬apart from being umbrella-notions that refer to a number of undefined and not yet conceptualized meanings.‭ ‬They have their origins in uneducated,‭ ‬uninformed redundant myths and folk psychology.‭ ‬Their usage date back to almost pre-historic times in the evolution of human thinking and psychology and are conceptual remainders and linguistic left overs‭  ‬of primitive flat earth socio-cultural attitudes and beliefs.

I further need to make four points concerning my approach in this volume and my approach to or understanding of philosophy,‭ ‬they manner or style in which I write,‭ ‬especially in this volume and how I employ and interpret the nature and one function of intersubjectivity,‭ ‬both in this volume and in general.‭ ‬The latter I present as a kind of hypothesis and conclusion.

Institutionalized and internalized,‭ ‬competence intersubjectivity contain many user-illusions and an imaginary or manifest image of reality,‭ ‬including of themselves‭ (‬Dennett and Sellars‭)‬,.‭ ‬This can be contrasted we a comprehension or comprehensive,‭ ‬understanding intersubjectivity.‭ ‬It is possible and perhaps even necessary to transform or replace the competence intersubjectivity to a comprehension or understanding‭ (‬scientific,‭ ‬Dennett and Sellars‭) ‬image of reality and themselves.Ethics and morality and studies of ethics and morality deal with the reality of competence intersubjectivity‭ (‬by means of socio-cultural practices that are derived from,‭ ‬based on an created by means of this restrictive,‭ ‬misleading,‭ ‬unreal,‭ ‬illusory,‭ ‬unrealistic intersubjectivity and the life-worlds associated with it‭)  ‬and human life-worlds constituted on the basis of and in terms of this intersubjectivity.‭ ‬This is why I am a nihilist,‭ ‬a libertarian,‭ ‬at least a minarchist or rather an anarchist and epistemologically a sceptic.


Kant’s‭ ‬things in themselves are similar‭ ‬to Dennett and Searle‭’‬s‭ ‬notions of manifest and scientific image.‭ ‬With my addition that we‭  ‬are socialized and internalize the competent,‭ ‬know how to do it,‭  ‬institutionalized manifest,‭ ‬everyday intersubjectivity,‭ ‬instead of the comprehension,‭ ‬insights and understanding knowing that,‭ ‬scientific intersubjectivity of all scientific disciplines.‭


This piece can be read as independent as comments on meta-ethics,‭ ‬or it can be read as a chapter in my Book‭ ‘‬Intersubjectivity‭ (‬continued‭)’‬,‭ ‬or it can be read as an introduction to my thoughts on philosophy and more specifically Intersubjectivity as‭ –


Determining the nature of‭  ‬philosophy


Determining the nature of the subject-matter of philosophy,‭ ‬sociology,‭ ‬social psychology,‭ ‬aspects of cognitive sciences,‭ ‬ethics,‭ ‬epistemology,‭ ‬etc,


Determining the nature of philosophical methodology and approaches.

Reasons why I have refrained from reflecting and writing on ethics and morality‭ ‬-‭

a‭)‬  The intersubjectivity that are institutionalized,‭ ‬socialized and internalize and therefore being employed to constitute reality,‭ ‬life-worlds,‭ ‬selves,‭ ‬discourses and socio-cultural practices,‭ ‬including specialized disciplines,‭ ‬eg philosophy,‭ ‬is that of‭  ‬Kantian things-for-us or Searle‭’ ‬and Dennett’s notion of manifest,‭ ‬imaginary,‭ ‬competent or know-how,‭ ‬knowing-how-to images.‭ ‬This kind of intersubjectivity underlies human morality and ethics,‭ ‬as well as approaches of philosophers to these and other branches of philosophy.

‭ ‬b‭) ‬How philosophers exist and how they live,‭ ‬their attitudes and beliefs,‭ ‬are very different from the theories of human existence,‭ ‬consciousness,‭ ‬selves,‭ ‬ethics,‭ ‬morality,‭ ‬epistemology,‭ ‬ontology,‭ ‬metaphysics,‭ ‬etc they advocate or express in and as their theories.‭ ‬Philosophers have their own private ways or personal styles of im/morality and being a-ethical while they advocate theories of ethics‭ (‬and other branches of philosophy‭) ‬that are completely different from their real attitudes and beliefs.

c‭) ‬As far as institutionalized and lived ethics and morality go I am a nihilist,‭ ‬an anarchist,‭ ‬or at least a minarchist,‭ ‬a Pyrrhonist,‭ ‬or at least a Humean or Kantian sceptic if not a fallibilist.

A suggestion before I paste the usual,‭ ‬contemporary encyclopaedic notions of ethics as a branch of philosophy and present notions of the‭ ‘‬division‭’ ‬of the subject and approaches to ethics and meta-ethics.‭

When a compatibilist says free will and determinism are compatible,‭ ‬and critics say they are mistaken‭ – ‬see below‭ – ‬they talk about specific situations,‭ ‬while those who points out that there do exists some kinds of determinisms after al,‭ ‬the latter take a more general,‭ ‬big picture view and make a statement on a greater or higher level of generality or generalization.

Semiotics (sometimes spelled “semeiotic”) is the name first given by John Locke, and later reprised by Charles S. Peirce, for the “doctrine of signs,” or the study of how some things can stand for other things to still other things. This deliberate inquiry can be contrasted with “folk semiotic” accounts, which assume that there is some intrinsic feature about, say, the human voice or a painted board that makes them capable of signifying. Such a naive assumption does not withstand serious scrutiny. From a philosophical standpoint, what makes something a sign is an involvement in a specific sort of triadic relation. This relation is found in human/nonhuman and deliberate/nondeliberate signs alike. Semiosis, the action of signs, is what permits communication, but it is wider than communication. For example, if while in an adjacent room I smell that the turkey in the oven is ready, my pet dog can smell it too, and the turkey is not trying to “tell” us anything. But if the cook in the kitchen tells me it is ready, I receive that message, while my dog hears the sounds but is none the wiser (in contemporary semiotic parlance, my dog and I couple our Umwelten via indices, but the symbols at hand generate interpretants only in my anthroposemiosis). In spite of the fact that it has a long and distinguished history (especially during the medieval period), general inquiry into signs became an organized research program only in the mid-20th century. Today, in addition to philosophers, semiotics attracts a wide range of scholars, such as ethologists, cognitive scientists, linguists, art historians, logicians, media theorists, literary critics, computer programmers, biologists, sociologists, and so on. From a methodological standpoint, then, parochialism is not an option. The scholarly literature can nevertheless be fruitfully divided into theoretical and applied strands. Not surprisingly, most philosophers drawn to semiotic questions work in the former strand. Semiotics is not to be confused with “semiology,” a (now largely defunct) project that originated in the lectures of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and which was active in the 1960s, mainly in France. Semiotics, by contrast, is a vibrant tradition that continues to flourish worldwide. Although some persist in employing the term “semiotics” when discussing narrow studies that focus exclusively on cultural codes, such terminological misuse masks the fact that a study of signs is broader than a study of language. A sustained philosophy of signs, then, promises (as Locke initially surmised) to yield truly novel insights.

We live in a hyper-competitive world, where whole industries either shift towards services or become obsolete due to new market entrants, technologies or even social practices. A world, where permanent interactions with customers, fast time-to-market, and the ability to innovate »right« (e.g. the right thing or value) are the key to corporate success. On that score the business sphere isn't getting tired of emphasizing the need for strategic innovation (which means »creating superior customer value«, business model innovations or even the disruption and creation of new markets).

This paper uncovers some of the often overlooked links of design (design thinking, design- driven innovation and service design) to strategic innovation through the lens of »customer value«. It will do so by ...

1) Disenchanting the big corporate rhetoric on above claims by showing that prevailing and too one-sided understandings of strategy and innovation, rather reinforce than escape old industry paradigms.

2) Examining designs still undervalued contributions to strategy-making by approaching business challenges with a user/value-centric and radical service logic.

3) Showing that every dimension of strategic innovation culminates in the concept of perceived user value and meaning, which gets reviewed in detail (dimensions, forms, proper- ties), especially with regards to constructing value propositions.

4) Arguing that the current service design and business model innovation discourses cannot be negotiated separately, as they may be good methodological complements.

So when speaking about the innovation of value for the customer, the paper argues, the above stated and seemingly separated fields intersect. Therefore their most apparent systemic connections and the facilitation of value creation by design are outlined and discussed.

Nihilism poses grave problems for those who seek directives to lead their lives. In this article, the three most important ways to deal with nihilism are inquired, with an emphasis on their credibility. Both nihilism from a metaphysical perspective and the emphasis on pleasure from nihilistic considerations are given attention. The acceptance of nihilism can have far-reaching consequences, which are evaluated at various points. Nietzsche’s approach must also be considered. He accepts what he calls a sort of nihilism, but as a means to ‘new’ values. This alternative to nihilism is examined no less critically than the other two stances.

Existential questions of meaning in life have been at the core of human existence and communication since antiquity, as reflected historically in philosophy and religion-both attempt to instill life with meaning by making sense of and explaining human existence, thus making it meaningful. In fact, almost every human pursuit and field of study is in the name of constructing meaning and order in a random, unorderly world without any universal meaning:

The article discusses the hollow myth of modernity and the misguided movement in the present time that puts great faith in a technological future. Critique is directed against subjectivistic philosophy in the guise of Kantianism, Hegelianism, and their continuation in postmodern philosophy. The thought of Neo-Hegelian psychologist/philosopher Wolfgang Giegerich is refuted.

Keywords: Hegel, Romanticism, subjectivism, technology, puer aeternus, individual, collectivism, meaning, World Soul, individuation, Self, Goedel, Kant, Giegerich.

This essay analyzes the art of narrative in “Zhou Wu Wang you ji” 周武王有疾 (“King Wu of Zhou Suffered from Illness”) and in its counterpart in the modern-script recension of the Shangshu 尚書 to reconstruct the rhetoric of persuasion in these texts. “Zhou Wu Wang you ji” is often misleadingly referred to as “*Jinteng” 金縢 (“Metal-Bound Coffer”) in reference to its Shangshu counterpart. The former dates to the Warring States period and is part of the Tsinghua collection of manuscripts (henceforth Qinghua Manuscripts). By making explicit the strategies by which meaning is constructed in “Zhou Wu Wang you ji” in comparison to its transmitted counterpart, I cast light on their different audiences as well as on their social use in the politico-philosophical discourses of their respective periods. In this, I develop and partly emend my previous reading of “Zhou Wu Wang you ji.”

The use of light and shadow, colour and contrast, camera choice, placement and movement, composition, measure and rhythm, time and space, the application of the most sophisticated digital, logistical, financial tools available, the operation of machines, are not so much that you see, or even that you feel, but so that you know.

Feelings and beauty are not life’s summum bonum; holiness is. Feelings and beauty only point to and help understand holiness. The exactness of the feelings brought about in the viewer often depends on that subtle and nuanced use of the elements at the cinematographer’s disposal. These elements go in an unspoken tandem with mutual cultural nuances that are implicit themselves.

Esta investigación ha sido motivada por mis preguntas alrededor de la relación entre el conflicto armado colombiano y las prácticas artesanales textiles que surgen antes, durante o después de los impactos más directos de la violencia sociopolítica. Este texto da cuenta de un estudio fenomenológico-hermenéutico sobre las prácticas textiles; me he preguntado cuáles son sentidos que giran en torno a las prácticas de costura, bordado y tejido en este contexto. Por consiguiente, aquí exploro las experiencias y las narrativas que las mujeres a las que entrevisté –víctimas de distintos hechos de violencia– construyen alrededor de las prácticas que realizan, de sus objetos textiles y de los espacios de encuentro por medio del hacer.
En esta investigación solamente participaron mujeres. Por lo tanto, las reflexiones están construidas de acuerdo con un análisis en clave femenina porque histórica y culturalmente las mujeres han estado atravesadas por nociones de lo textil, y lo textil, a su vez, está atravesado por nociones femeninas y feminizadas. Si bien, no representa un análisis desde los estudios de género, para mí fue importante reflexionar sobre cómo lo textil me atraviesa a mi como mujer y cómo atraviesa a las ocho mujeres que participaron conmigo en esta investigación.

The Twin Earth scenario assumes reference to natural kinds is unique and never changes (rigid designation), and that we can give justice to the intuition of reference-permanence and things having a deep structure only by pushing meaning outside the brain or mind (semantic externalism). This, I'll show, doesn't follow. Besides, the intuition itself is misconstrued here. To say the term “water” expressed a thought or concept or belief denoting H2O before its actual discovery around 1750, is to make a claim without real content and be guilty of after-the-fact rationalizing. If anything, Twin Earth undercuts the theory of semantic externalism and its core-notion of rigid designation. A pluralized, descriptivist model of reference, I claim, is a better fit for our scientific data and ordinary intuitions either way.

"From Once Upon a Time in the West to Moulin Rouge, from Ghanaian video-movies to Japanese Manga, from Christian symbolism in advertising to the mythic significance of female messiah figures, from the relationship of the arts and theology to the role of the audience in the meaningmaking process, the book provides a feast for anyone wanting to explore the interconnectivity of religion, media and society" (Robert Johnston, Fuller Theological Seminary).

After decades of relative negligence and marginalization, in the past twenty years the elusive concept of emotion has been brought back to the forefront of critical enquiry in the widely conceived field of humanities. Indeed, the large body of recent publications on the nature of creativity and reception, whether of cognitivist (Stockwell or empiricist (Sikora, Miall and Kuiken 2011) leanings, makes that tendency evident. If the renewed interest in emotion is a fact, then clearly it is to a large extent due to the gradual paradigm shift in liberal arts from the post-structuralist dogmas of indeterminacy and cultural determinism to methodological propositions with a cognitive-affective focus. However, it can be observed that, despite their growing popularity and impact, these new developments still meet with suspicion at best and resistance at worst on the part of academia 1 . This collective angst of the new and unknown hardly comes as a surprise since the history of professional criticism itself, starting from the two concurrent, trailblazing projects of Russian Formalists and New Critics in the first quarter of the 20th century, represents a history of distrust towards the category of emotion. Emotions, deceptive and ineffable as they may be, have long been associated with naïve, unrefined and superficial responses to all types of artworks. Obscuring the proper view of creative works and distracting from more serious considerations, they would be rendered unsuited for disciplines like literary or musical studies, both of which have always struggled to secure their autonomy in the academic world, for example, by striving to "emulate the precision of science" (Selden, Widdowson and Brooker 2005: 17). In the realm of literature, the presence of emotions in criticism was in the first place effectively erased through the affective fallacy (Wimsatt and Breadsley 1949), a New Critical prohibition which discards readers' emotional responses as unreliable, "impressionistic and relativist" (Tyson 1 On a positive note, the impressive number of conferences and seminars devoted to the theme of emotions that have been held in recent years at prestigious universities around the world seems to downplay the scale of that phenomenon. More importantly, such events may engender potential interdisciplinary collaborations alongside creating an opportunity for embracing new theoretical contributions to a field of study hitherto dominated by one specific school. For example, a cursory content analysis of the Book of Abstracts issued on the occasion of the 2015 PASE Conference on Emotion(s) in Wrocław, Poland, reveals that only 13 out of a total of 156 submissions were distinctively cognitivist-oriented. 2006: 137), hence polluting the procedure of close reading; the structuralists, who were more concerned with the how of literature and its underlying rules, reduced emotions to styles of reception; reader response proponents, on their part, refashioned them into strategies of reading; finally, the emergence of post-structuralist theories from the 1960s onwards brought the primacy of ideology, which again meant little room for emotions. Paradoxically, a similar emotion-skeptic sentiment has prevailed in music where expressivity seems central to the creation of meaning. Since its foundation, contemporary music theory has been plagued with a formalist imperialism, firmly lodged in structuralist thinking, that advocates the view of music as "an autonomous language governed by its own grammar" (Marecki and Paprocki 2012: 149). Commenting on this predominant practice, Lawrence M. Zbikowski (2008: 504) summarizes it as a purely scientific approach whose main goal is to "develop systematic perspectives on musical organization and on close readings of individual musical works based on these perspectives."

We suggest here a model of the origin of the phenomenal world via the naturalization of logical conflict or incompatibility (which is broader than, but includes logical contradiction). Physics rules out the reality of meaning because of the method of formalization, which requires that logical conflicts cannot be part of the model. We argue that (a) meaning-making requires a logical conflict; (b) logical conflict assumes a phenomenal present; (c) phenomenological specious present occurs in living systems as widely as meaning-making; (d) it is possible to provide a physiological description of a system in which the phenomenal present appears and choices are made; (e) logical conflict, or incompatibility itself, is the mechanism of intentionality; (f) meaning-making is assured by scaffolding, which is a product of earlier choices, or decision-making, or interpretation. This model can be seen as a model of semiosis. It also allows putting physiology and phenomenology (or physics and semiotics) into a natural connection.

This rather fervent, if self-denuding, compendium is for the author who seeks to reach deeper than technical agility and fashionably irreligious agitprop.

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7: 13-14).

Brutal Anatoly Lunacharsky, head of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's "enlightened" Education Ministry, had a remedy for narrow gates and narrow minds. Like Comrade Alexander Bogdanov, a member of the Soviet state-fed "god-builders" - богостроительe - it was massive blood transfusions done on self. Both men died of their Bolshevik Narkompros. "Many are called, but few are frozen" is still the parody from "cognitive scientists".

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight" (Proverbs 3:5).

Man, who no longer knows humility from pride, shall not be humbled by "this lacrimarum vale". Like sci-fi Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, or Abulurd Harkonnen II, he will do the inhuman to avoid humiliation - especially the ultimate affront of being found to be in error. The enlightened, masked, artist-god will point a camera - or syringe - at himself, and shoot.

Data quality represents a major strategic asset for organisations and privacy is one of the main influencing factors impacting on organisations' practices related to customers' data collection. Other elements which affects this relationship are individuals handling data within the organisation and their different needs, however there is limited research focussing on these aspects. This work presents early findings of an empirical qualitative research using focus groups within a social constructivist approach to delve into managers' perception of data quality and to understand the impact of privacy on organisational practices. Focus groups have been widely adopted in academic research as an exploratory method to collect people's opinion. This study shows how some features, like involving pre-existing groups, the adoption of  questionnaires and the workshops' setting can positively influence focus groups' outcome, encouraging participants' co-operative interaction, helping them to clarify concepts and raising awareness about privacy and data quality.

This article examines two orthographic features in the Acrostic Hymn of Nebuchadnezzar II. It aims to show that the text makes use of the possibilities of the cuneiform writing system to create various levels of meaning. The first example clarifies structure and content with regard to a difficult passage in the fourth and last stanza of the text, in which a possible change of actors is indicated by an orthographic feature. The second example shows how orthography is used in the first stanza of the text to augment its message. These examples demonstrate how structural elements and micro-features such as orthography were used creatively to enhance the message of the hymn.

Previous critical discourse studies on the Nigerian print media have focused attention on unearthing ideologies in news reports, editorials and advertisements but with little attention paid to ideological meanings in media contributors' articles. This paper, therefore, examines ideological meanings in 'open letters to President Obasanjo' written by readers in selected Nigerian newspapers. Specifically, the paper analyses how writers of the 'open letters to President Obasanjo' deploy lexical relations and collocational patterns to foreground dominant ideological and socio-political issues in Nigeria. Data which comprise excerpts of open letters to President Obasanjo published between January 2003 and August 2007 are purposively sampled from five Nigerian national newspapers (The Daily Champion, The Daily Independent, The Guardian, The Sun, and The Vanguard). The data are analysed qualitatively using a synthesis of insights from Fairclough' (1995b) socio-cognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday's (1994) Systemic-functional linguistics (SFL). The findings reveal that through the lexical relations of synonyms, antonyms and hyponymy, the socio-political and ideological issues of corruption and misappropriation of fund, political intimidations by the ruling party and resistance against president's prolonged stay in office are foregrounded. The paper concludes that studying open letter to the president from a critical discourse perspective has revealed the ideological frames of mind of Nigerian newspaper readers.