Empirical Conditions for a Reidean Geometry of Visual Experience

Thomas Reid’s Geometry of Visibles, according to which the geometrical properties of an object’s perspectival appearance equal the geometrical properties of its projection on the inside of a sphere with the eye in its centre allows for two different interpretations. It may (1) be understood as a theory about phenomenal visual space—i.e. an account of how things appear to human observers from a certain point of view—or it may (2) be seen as a mathematical model of viewpoint-relative but mind-independent relational properties of objects. This paper makes a systematic and a historical claim. I shall argue, first, that given certain features of the human visual system phenomenal visual space differs in several aspects from Reidean visual space. Secondly, I suggest that, since Reid was aware of some of these empirical facts, we should interpret Reid as endorsing the second interpretation of the Geometry of Visibles.     

Visual Arguments in Film

Our aim is to point out some differences between verbal and visual arguments, promoting the rhetorical perspective of argumentation beyond the relevance of logic and pragmatics. In our view, if it is to be rational and successful, film as (visual) argumentation must be addressed to spectators who hold informed beliefs about the theme watched on the screen and the medium’s constraints and conventions. In our reflections to follow, we apply rhetorical analysis to film as a symbolic, human, and communicative act that may sometimes be understood as a visually laid out argument. As a mixture of visual, auditory, and verbal stimuli, film demands active and complex interpretation and (re)construction. Our suggestion is to focus on five different but interrelated elements. The reconstruction and evaluation of the visual argument will be based on those elements, and the whole process will be one of visual argumentation.

Visual Geometry of Classical Japanese Gardens

Axiomathes - The concept of geometry may evoke a world of pure platonic shapes, such as spheres and cubes, but a deeper understanding of visual experience demands insight into the perceptual...     

Visual Object Agnosia without Alexia or Prosopagnosia: Arguments for Separate Knowledge Stores

We review the points raised by Farah (this issue) in her discussion of the paper by Rumiati, Humphreys, Riddoch, and Bateman (1994), in which a case study was presented of a patient, Mr W., with visual object agnosia without either prosopagnosia or alexia. We reiterate the argument that Mr W. had impaired stored knowledge about the visual characteristics of objects, and that this was more severe than his deficit at a semantic level. In addition, we summarize supporting evidence from another patient (Humphreys & Rumiati, submitted), who showed the same pattern of breakdown as Mr W. We suggest that stored visual knowledge can be specific to the form of stimulus (words, objects, and faces), that these different forms of knowledge may be represented in distinct neural areas, and that agnosia can result after damage to stimulus-specific sites of knowledge representation.     

Contemporary Arguments Against Nonsexist Language: Blaubergs (1980) Revisited

Two studies investigated whether undergraduatesenrolled in sport management classes at a midwesternuniversity supported or resisted nonsexist language.Resistive statements were classified using arguments identified by Blaubergs (1980). In Study 1, 82primarily Caucasian students reacted to a videotapeabout language. Half (48%) supported nonsexist language;32% were ambivalent; 21% were opposed to nonsexist language. The negative comments fit 7 ofBlaubergs' 8 categories after 2 were modified; 2additional categories (Sexism is Acceptable andHostility toward Proponents of Change) emerged. In Study2, 164 primarily Caucasian undergraduates speculatedon why others resisted nonsexist language. Theircomments led to the addition of 2 more new categories:Tradition and Lack of Understanding. The finalmodification of Blaubergs' classic arguments contains 12categories that should be useful in studying resistanceto nonsexist language.     

Arguments for adjuncts

It is commonly assumed across the language sciences that some semantic participant information is lexically encoded in the representation of verbs and some is not. In this paper, we propose that semantic obligatoriness and verb class specificity are criteria which influence whether semantic information is lexically encoded. We present a comprehensive survey of the English verbal lexicon, a sentence continuation study, and an on-line sentence processing study which confirm that both factors play a role in the lexical encoding of participant information.     

Looking for Arguments

How do people find arguments while engaged in a discussion? Following an analogy with visual search, a mechanism that performs this task is described. It is a metarepresentational device that examines representations in a mostly serial manner until it finds a good enough argument supporting one??s position. It is argued that the mechanism described in dual process theories as ??system 2??, or analytic reasoning fulfills these requirements. This provides support for the hypothesis that reasoning serves an argumentative function.     

Apparent Distortions in Photography and the Geometry of Visual Space

In this paper I contrast the geometric structure of phenomenal visual space with that of photographic images. I argue that topologically both are two-dimensional and that both involve central projections of scenes being depicted. However, I also argue that the metric structures of the spaces differ inasmuch as two types of “apparent distortions”—marginal distortion in wide-angle photography and close-up distortions—which occur in photography do not occur in the corresponding visual experiences. In particular, I argue that the absence of marginal distortions in vision is evidence for a holistic metric of visual space that is spherical, and that the absence of close-up distortions shows that the local metric structure possesses a dynamic variable curvature which is dependent upon the distance away of objects being viewed at a given time.     

生命伦理学研究的当代视阈与方法

生命伦理学的当代研究,应该在原有成就基础上,突破唯人本中心论的生物医学伦理学模式,追求对包括生物医学伦理学在内的世界生命伦理学、地球生命伦理学的构建,使生命伦理学成为引导当代人类走向未来、健康生存的真正桥梁.因而,生命伦理学的当代研究,首先须重新认识生命,理解生命,打通人类生命与世界生命、个体生命与整体生命之间的血缘通道,弘扬生命的亲生命本性.唯有如此,才能真正打开以自然宇宙、历史演化、人类存在为三维向度的生命伦理认知视阈,探索构建生态化综合的生命伦理研究方法.     

Visual Art and the Rhythm of Experience

The concept of rhythm is frequently used by art historians, critics, and philosophers as a way of describing central features of visual art. Since rhythm is generally considered to be a temporal phenomenon associated with music, it is far from clear how visual art, composed of fixed lines, figures, and color, can be associated with rhythmicity. Linked to a temporal ordering or structure in music, the notion of rhythm in visual art leads to a claim that the aesthetic aspect of a painting does not consist in, or emerge from, its spatial structures, but rather its temporal ordering of the visual field. Recently this account of rhythm in visual art has been criticized by philosopher Jason Gaiger, who argues that visual art does not comprise movement and therefore cannot be associated with a temporal rhythm. Through a discussion of temporality and rhythm in Edmund Husserl, Erwin Straus, and Henri Maldiney, this article maintains that rhythmicity is a central aspect of experiences with visual art. It is shown that the phenomenological account of rhythm in the experience of visual art is fundamentally linked to a different notion of time.     

Analogical Arguments for Egalitarianism

Egalitarians sometimes analogize socioeconomic opportunities to starting gates, playing fields, and the results of a lottery. A fair game is one in which all have an equal opportunity to succeed; egalitarians propose that the same is true of a fair society. A second type of argument for egalitarianism appeals to intuitions about the distribution of found resources. A just division of manna discovered on a strange planet seems to be an equal one. Both types of argument share a crucial feature: they concern the once‐off division of a fixed sum of goods. I argue that the most compelling reasons to depart from an equal division of goods derive from the economic activity involved in producing more of those goods, e.g., Pareto improvements due to efficiency gains that result from incentives that encourage production. We cannot conclude that game analogies and found resources cases arbitrate in favour of equality against non‐egalitarian principles because they exclude precisely those considerations that provide the strongest reasons to reject equality.     

Why Trompe l'oeils Deceive Our Visual Experience

Philosophers suggested that usual picture perception requires the simultaneous occurrence of the perception of the surface and of the depicted object. However, there are special cases of picture perception, such as trompe l'oeil perception, in which, unlike in usual picture perception, the object looks like a real, present object we can interact with, of the kind we are usually acquainted with in face-to-face perception. While philosophers suggested that usual picture perception and trompe l'oeil perception must differ with respect to the perception of the surface, nobody has ever proposed a final explanatory account for such a difference. Here, I propose such an account. I consider the two possible options as candidates for the explanation of the illusory power of trompe l'oeil perception. The first is that, with trompe l'oeils, we perceive the surface unconsciously. The second is that, with trompe l'oeils, we cannot perceive the surface at all, that is, we cannot perceive it either consciously or unconsciously. I show that the second option is the unique plausible option, as it is in line with vision science, and with our received view about the nature of usual picture perception.     

政治不平等的两个论证

政治平等被认为是现代社会的一个重要特征。以贝淡宁和白彤东为代表的贤能政治学者反对政治平等,提倡政治不平等。他们的论证依靠的是对政治共同体的目的论的特定解读,同时他们的论证可以重构为工具主义和非工具主义两种版本。本文通过对这两个版本的重构,指出政治不平等的工具主义论证面临政治权利作为基本福祉反驳和滑坡论证反驳,而政治不平等的非工具主义论证面临专家-老板谬误反驳和非目的论反驳。