A philosophical investigation in machine understanding. The case of implicit meaning

Author(s): Maria Wilkowska / Language(s): English / Issue: 12/2013

The question of machine thinking and understanding, once initiated by Alan Turing, has puzzled scholars from various disciplines. This paper aims at investigating some of the facets involved in the topic of machine language understanding with particular interest devoted to indirect meaning comprehension (more specifically, the implicature). So far as the subject under examination – the chatbot – manages to understand directly conveyed information, still much is to be done with respect to implicit data in which everyday messages (formulated in ordinary language) abound. This situation generates a number of not only hard-science questions but also, more importantly, given the viewpoint of this paper, it gives rise to a considerable amount of philosophically- oriented and frequently neglected issues and dilemmas too. This study is a brief investigation of exactly those phenomena.

Against the Frame

Author(s): Wojciech Kalaga / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2016

The paper explores theoretical foundations of the frame from two semiotic perspectives: that of the Saussurean dyadic sign dominant in the European tradition and that of the triadic sign of the Peircean/American descent. If – within the post- Saussurean agenda – meaning can be fairly easily “framed” and closed in the field of the signified, Peirce’s concepts of interpretant and infinite semiosis implement a mechanism which inherently obliterates the frame. Given this duality of approaches, the contention “No meaning without a frame” is thus true and paradoxical at the same time, and that paradox goes far beyond the Derridean concept of the parergon, which only belongs to both the inside and the outside. The frame, as construed in this paper, is not merely a material or imaginary, inactive partition, but is itself an operational agent which isolates and delineates a text ontologically as the other of the context, and simultaneously subverts that otherness by necessitating further semiosis and its own partial self-erasure. Regarding the interrelations amongst texts and between text and context, the frame is thus envisaged, and investigated in the paper, not so much as a factor of resistance or separation, but as an osmotic boundary facilitating rather than preventing a bi-directional flow of meanings. Putting this in epistemological terms, one may say that interpretation – paradoxically again –requires an enframing of its object, but at the same time it dissolves the stipulated frame and reaches beyond it.

Between emotion, imagination and cognition: Play as a hybrid neuro-evolutionary concept in bridging Saussure, Hegel and Alexander von Humboldt

Author(s): Jui-Pi Chien / Language(s): English / Issue: 2-3/2015

This study seeks to discover hidden links between Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics, Hegel’s Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics / Philosophy of Mind and Alexander von Humboldt’s Cosmos. To begin with, the notion of play is employed to examine the interplay between our emotion, imagination and cognition, and to examine how such a composite of faculties serves to unify conceptualizations of communicationmodelling systems, philosophical hermeneutics and moral psychology in our times. At discovering a certain future-oriented and symbiotic scheme of time implied in these theories, the inquiry moves on to engage with certain perspectives on the evolution of our verbal and nonverbal capacities.

Blocking evil infinites: A note on a note on a Peircean strategy

Author(s): Frederik Stjernfelt / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2015

This brief note considers Peirce’s strategy of terminating potentially evil infinities – concerning relations, continuous predicates, leading principles, habits – by appeal to the Nota Notae principle.

C. S. Peirce on the dynamic object of a sign: From ontology to semiotics and back

Author(s): Helmut Pape / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2015

That reality, and in particular the (dynamic) objects of signs, are independent of our thoughts or other representations is a crucial thesis of Peirce’s realism. On the other hand, his semiotics implies the claim that all reality and all real objects are real for us only because of the signs we use. Do these two claims contradict, even exclude, eachother? I will argue that both Peirce’s metaphysics and his semiotics provide a natural via media: a structural account of the openness of processes, featuring transitive relations, connects process ontology implicit in his evolutionary metaphysics and the relational, quasi-inferential features embodied in interpretational sequences of signs. It is shown that Peirce’s notion of a sign, its normative role and his account of the directional force of objects implies a sort of logical causality that supports the unity of objects. In this way sign sequences are able to relate flexibly sign use with contextually specified independent objects. That is to say, relational properties of object-oriented chains of interpretations provide sign users with a flexible, fallibilistic instrument able to capture by contingent identity relations (teridentity) of the identity of objects in changing situations.

Digitális írásbeliségek

Author(s): László Ropolyi / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 10/2014

Documentary and ecosemiotics: Frames and faces in the work of Johan van der Keuken

Author(s): Hing Tsang / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2016

This article argues that the work of the late Johan van der Keuken offers a contribution to ecological semiotics, and that it also defines the relationship between the semiotic animal and nature in ways that avoid glottocentricism. Taking from the recent work of Kalevi Kull, Jesper Hoffmeyer, and John Deely amongst others, I will argue that van der Keuken’s documentaries offer a view of ecology that is broader than a study of bio-physical processes that might reduce ecology to a narrow political issue. In order to support this argument, I will be looking at two contrasting films from van der Keuken – Flat Jungle (1978) and Face Value (1991). The first film examines natural habitats within a confined coastal area in Western Europe, while the second film looks at human beings in the different urban environments of late-20th-century Europe. I will then argue that van der Keuken does not collapse the vital distinctions between umwelt and Lebenswelt, yet his films also succeed at reminding us of their constant interdependence.

Duševní poruchy a konstrukce normality

Author(s): Martin Charvát / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 2/2016

The text provides a description as well as an analysis of mental disorders as socially constructed entities while focusing on the category of normality not only in its medical sense but also in social and cultural one. Our methodology has to be understood as rooted in social constructionism. We work with concepts created within social anthropology and semiotics but also existentialist psychotherapy or Mad Studies. When postulating mental disorder as a topic of social anthropology, we suggest that mental disorder is one of the key concepts behind the social and cultural understanding of normality: normality in regard to emotions, thinking, and behaviour is to a great extent defined negatively – that is, by what it isn't – with mental disorder being one of its major opposites. Normality in Western societies is significant mostly in the areas of mental health, sexuality, and gender whereas these areas may overlap; being different in terms of sexuality or gender (as in gender identity or gender expression) may be – and often is – interpreted as a sign of a mental disorder. As for our findings, on a general level we suggest that the binary between the normal and unproblematic on the one hand and a disorder on the other hand is arbitrary. The border between the two categories has to do with social and cultural rules more than with actual medicine. More specifically, we describe a physician as a constructor who puts individual signs (symptoms) together and forms diagnoses which can change their structure, shift, or even break down completely. Researching mental disorders as a part of the socially constructed reality allows us to see the power dynamics and questionability of seemingly natural categories such as health and illness, or normality and abnormality.

Elya Tzaneva. Ethnosymbolism and the Dynamics of Identity. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2015.

Author(s): Evgenia Troeva / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 3/2016

Fotografija kao sredstvo vizuelne komunikacije

Author(s): Danka Ninkovic Slavnic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 1/2006

In modern world media images are everywhere: we look at them at billboards, newspapers, on TV, Internet... But how do we understand what we have seen? This article tried to explain photography - as a medium and a message by analyzing the relation between photography and presented reality. Barthes’ thoughts about photography are used here to show the creation of meaning in a photographic message. Although perception is usually very brief, message is not simple and literal one but it has two levels of meaning – denotative and connotative. It is a common expression that ‘pictures don’t lie’. Belief in trustworthiness of photographic record (photography as a witness) was supported by state use of photography (for ID, in police and juridical practice). In this text some answers on questions why do we trust photography and what are the changes in period of digitization are given. Light motif in this paper is the idea that the photographic expression is caused by reality, technical possibilities and culture. Its single-meaning and superficial look makes a picture powerful. Covered with the reflection of reality, there is a picture determined by culture. It’s no longer that only art historians, curators or media experts are dealing with pictures. They are part of everyday life and that is why there is a need for common people to understand their meanings, or, to use a term well known in western literature, to gain ‘visual literacy’.

Funkcija slike u ilustraciji televizijskih vesti

Author(s): Brankica Draškovic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 14/2010

Following the main methodological foundations of discourse analysis and content analysis, the unit for analysis in this paper is taken to be the visual side of the television news in central news broadcast of the two different television stations with national coverage: Dnevnik 2 of the Public broadcaster Radio-television of Serbia and Vesti at 18,30 of TV B92. Ten news broadcasted in the election period, from 8th to 12th May 2008, comprised the sample that was analysed. In order to analyse discourse of the visual and its relation to text in television news, certain theoretical views have been adopted, which allow us to establish the degree of acceptability of message transfer via the audio-visual code in the sample and the extent to which it suited the recipients in a given moment. The results of the analysis have shown that the relation between the visuals and the text in a television information is indeed complex and indirect one, i.e. that depending on content and genre the picture tells more or less than the text, often in a banal manner, through the first association, relating to the text, but also quite often contradicting the text.

Godhood and Mathematics

Author(s): Chris H Ransford / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

Scientists who approach questions related to faith and Godhood from their supposedly wholly objective angles routinely reach totally different conclusions. Therefore, a new approach using the most objective tool possible, that of pure mathematics, is attempted. The validity of using some mathematics in this context is briefly examined. Mathematical analysis leads to a number of counter-intuitive outcomes, such as the mathematical necessity of some measure of evil in a godlike universe, the mathematical illegitimacy of prescriptive religions, and more. This article is adapted from the forthcoming book ‘God and the Mathematics of Infinity: What Irreducible Mathematics Says About Godhood’.

Hedge mazes and landscape gardens as cultural boundary objects

Author(s): Katarzyna Kaczmarczyk,Montanae Salvoni / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2016

Despite their obvious functional and stylistic differences, hedge mazes and English landscape gardens have salient symbolic and structural similarities which make them fruitful objects of comparative analysis. Both invert the norms expected of interior and exterior spaces, of human cultivation and “wilderness”, creating landscapes of semiotic uncertainty. Being at once natural and cultural, both types of space present a “problem to be solved” either by reaching a centre or understanding a layout. Both “play” with the notion of boundary by constructing uncrossable and at times oppressive walls from seemingly fragile plant matter or by hiding their boundaries. At the same time there are important differences which make this comparison of boundary spaces even more interesting: hedge mazes and landscape gardens are distinguishable by their respective structural levels, the presence or absence of a centre, their relation to other parts of gardens and connected human habitations.

Historia i struktura. Problem uprawomocnienia

Author(s): Andrzej Leder / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 22/2016

In his text the author is defining the conflict of the structuralist and historicist – synchronic and diachronic thought – described by de Saussure – as a development of two different ethical axioms in the field of social philosophy. He tries to show, how each of this axioms can generate a different ontology of social being. Applying some elements of Deleuzian thought the author analyzes the theoretical position of the two ethical axioms. Then, on the fundament of the Lacanian, and more generally poststructuralist thought he tries to give a draft of a theoretical space in which such a change of ethical positions would be possible. He develops thus a new philosophy of symbolic fields.

Imagetext and Ekphrasis as Chances of Revival in Translation Studies

Author(s): Felix Nicolau / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

Translation Studies has crossed a tumultuous interval of theorization. But has it passed the linguistic limits instituted by a semiotician like Umberto Eco?Wouldn’t be the time to access more courageously the intersemiotic interregnum with its heterogeneous transfer of signs? As it happens in advertising, concrete poetry,tattoos, and stage or filmed version of famous texts? If we have gradually accepted that in the postcolonial and cross-cultural epoch what matters is not consensus, but negotiation and understanding, if we assimilated the postmodern lesson about Grand Narratives (J–F. Lyotard) and the subjectivity of recorded history, then we have to question ourselves about the role of translation and translators in a post-industrial society which blends globalized edutainment and corporatist efficiency, prejudice,reverse colonialism and anti-establishment movements. What type of equivalence are we supposed to choose in order to persuade today? The ekphrastic approach of translations may be better tuned to out gadgetized and image-informed epoch.

Is Euler’s circle a symbol or an icon?

Author(s): Amirouche Moktefi / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2015

Th e most familiar scheme of diagrams used in logic is known as Euler’s circles. It is named aft er the mathematician Leonhard Euler who popularized it in his Letters to a German Princess (1768). Th e idea is to use spaces to represent classes of individuals. Charles S. Peirce, who made significant contributions to the theory of diagrams, praised Euler’s circles for their ‘beauty’ which springs from their true iconicity. More than a century later, it is not rare to meet with such diagrams in semiotic literature. They are often offered as instances of icons and are said to represent logic relations as they naturally are. This paper discusses the iconicity of Euler’s circles in three phases: first, Euler’s circles are shown to be icons because their relations imitate the relations of the classes. Then, Euler’s circles themselves, independently of their relations to one another, are shown to be icons of classes. Finally, Euler’s circles are shown to be iconic in the highest degree because they have the relations that they are said to represent. The paper concludes with a note on the so-called naturalness of Euler’s circles.

Is God Evil, Stupid, or just Counter-Factual

Author(s): Slavoj Žižek / Language(s): English / Issue: 8/2015

This essay contains additional comments on my previous book, The Monstrosity of Christ (2011). Here, I am following the main didactic line according to which anyone who wants to fight for emancipation should not be afraid to examine all aspects of religious life. The current story fits perfectly the materialist procedure of the immanent self-undermining of a religious edifice – the claim that god is evil or stupid can be much more unsettling than the claim that there is no god since the first claim destroys the very notion of divinity. Christ demands of each of his followers that they become necrophagic fetishists; Christians who justify their ludicrous anti-Semitism by characterizing Jewish people as ‘Christ-killers’ should keep this in mind: the Jews may have killed God, but the Christians ate him.

Jan Mukařovský: The Semiology of Art

Author(s): Ondrej Sládek / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

An introduction to an English translation of Jan Mukařovský´s lecture The Semiology of Art (1936-1937). In this lecture Mukařovský (1891−1975), a Czech aesthetician, literary historian, theorist, and leading proponent of Czech structuralism, develops his interpretation of the semiotics of art from a detailed explanation of the basic functions of the artistic sign. He emphasizes the role of the aesthetic function, which is dominant but latently and potentially contained in all the other functions of the linguistic and the artistic sign. He then defines the artistic sign as the dialectical negation of the communicative sign. The document includes the translantion of Mukařovský´s lecture.

Juri Lotman’s autocommunication model and Roland Barthes’s representations of Self and Other

Author(s): Lei Han / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2014

Th is paper discusses Juri Lotman’s concept of autocommunication and explores its applicability by referring to Roland Barthes’s representations of Self and Other. Th e texts to be discussed include Barthes’s writings on Japan and China, an excerpt from his rewriting of Balzac’s “Sarrasine” in S/Z, and his autobiography and Rousseau’s Confessions. Th e paper contrasts two cultural communication cases in terms of analysing two kinds of a-semantic codes: (1) the positive a-semantic code of Japan, and (2) the negative a-semantic code of China. With reference to “Sarrasine” and S/Z, the paper discusses two specific codes, cultural memory and imagination, which lead to the addressee’s reformulations. Finally, the paper examines how different modes of autocommunication are put into practice in Barthes’s autobiographical and Rousseau’s confessional writings.

Književnost kao ideologija sjećanja – postmoderna kao ideologija zaborava

Author(s): Jela Sabljic-Vujica / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 1/2016

The modern social(Foucault, Ginzburg, Hobsbawm, Chartier) and literary (Eagleton, Belsey, Williams, Jameson) theory is characterized by a radical critical detachment from the centralizing praxis of terms (literature continuity, class relations) and its too transparent understanding of ideological, historical and artistic facts. This twist in theoretical discourse is not only perspective but also crucial: the context of power loses its manifestation in formal discourse, the subjects of interest are the actions and experiences whose meanings cannot be adjusted to the horizon of expectation of the dominant ideological praxis – through history and complementary social sciences (sociology, psychology, ethnology) the emphasis is put on the subjective experience and resistance to memory, in literature and literary theory the emphasis is on the dialectics of text and context. This paper will analyse the relationship between ideology and memory in the context of contemporary literature and modern historical and literary theory.