The semiotics of religion: Reflections from a semanticist

Robert Yelle's The Semiotics of Religion makes important contributions on two fronts. First, it offers powerful and compelling analyses of a considerable range of religious phenomena. Second, it advances significant theoretical and meta-theoretical frameworks that underpin those analyses. The theoretical framework is semiotic in its broad outlines, but the meta-theoretical one is more pragmatically oriented: i.e., don't be dogmatically committed to any particular theoretical doctrine, but rather use whatever resources help to shed more light on the subject matter. Despite that meta-theoretical positioning, several of Yelle's analyses remain stubbornly committed to a set of core doctrines that limit the extent of his investigations and lead to questions about the persuasiveness of certain details of his analyses. In other words, Yelle does not always follow his own meta-theoretical recommendations. The author diagnoses the source of those limiting assumptions and suggests some perspectives from within the philosophy of language more generally that might potentially serve to bring his method closer to his meta-theoretical ideals.     

The Principle of Production and a Critique of Metaphysics： From the Perspective of Theory of Baudrillard

In this article, I discuss Baudrillard＇s critique of metaphysics based on his work The Mirror of Production, in which he stresses the principle of production--i.e., dichotomy and derivation. In the development of classical German philosophy, the principle of production was speculatively established, first as Descartes＇ cogito, then as Fichte＇s Tathandlung, and finally as Hegel＇s labor, and grew to be a major principle of modem metaphysics. At the article＇s conclusion, the meaning of Symbolic Exchange--Baudrillard＇s utopian condition lying beyond the principle of production--will be discussed.     

The imagination of the body: The logic of imagination and the metaphor of therapeutic space in the therapeutic community of Thalassa House

In this paper the author discusses the metaphors of the community in Thalassa House, a therapeutic community in Hungary of which he is both the founder and leader.     

Symbolic Filtering: Selectively Permeable Evangelical Boundaries in an Age of Religious Pluralism

Since Peter Berger's (1967, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, Garden City, NY: Doublday) early work on the sacred canopy, scholars have debated the effects of increased diversity on religious belief and vitality. Smith (1998, American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving, Chicago: University of Chicago Press), in particular, has suggested that subcultures like American evangelicalism can thrive in a religiously pluralistic environment by both engaging with the world while remaining symbolically distinct from it. This article builds on this work as well as recent scholarship on boundary permeability by exploring the mechanisms by which American evangelicals negotiate their boundaries as they adapt to their surroundings. Based on a qualitative content analysis of 109 articles from two evangelical missionary periodicals published over a period of over 20 years, I examine the use of both boundary‐strengthening and boundary‐weakening processes employed by evangelical missionaries and missiologists (or “boundary agents”). I find that almost every instance of boundary weakening is also accompanied by boundary strengthening, suggesting that symbolic boundaries are becoming selectively permeable through a process I identify as “symbolic filtering.” In conclusion, the article briefly considers the implications of these findings for the broader discussion of symbolic boundaries and religious pluralism.     

A Survey on Development and Applications of the Multi‐criteria Decision Making Method MULTIMOORA

This paper focuses on the MULTIMOORA method. Specifically, it discusses its development as well as extensions alongside with an overview of their applications. Indeed, the MULTIMOORA is a relatively new multi‐criteria decision making method consisting of the three parts. Therefore, it is specific with peculiarities of both complete and partial aggregation techniques. The MULTIMOORA method consists of the three parts, namely the Ratio System, the Reference Point, and the Full Multiplicative Form. The paper discussed the extensions of MULTIMOORA into the fuzzy environment and group decision making. The carried out survey identified the two major areas of application of MOORA and MULTIMOORA, namely engineering decision support for technological development and economic researches. The economic researches can further be classified into those related to micro‐level or macro‐level analyses. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

不同语义水平下参照方式、情绪效价和特质评价对记忆的影响

为了探索影响记忆的深层次因素及其作用机制,采用内隐实验范式,考察了不同语义水平下参照方式、情绪效价和特质评价对记忆的影响。结果发现,参照方式、情绪效价和特质评价分别对记忆产生了显著的影响;在不同语义水平下,自我相关的特质词和非特质词的记忆优势表现在不同的再认提取阶段;个体对自我相关的消极词表现出显著的记忆优势;参照方式、情绪效价和特质评价的交互作用不显著。结果表明,参照方式、情绪效价和特质评价是对记忆产生影响的独立因素,但参照方式对记忆的影响受到情绪效价和特质评价的制约。     

类别性空间记忆右侧化优势及其受威胁情境的影响

以往研究发现类别空间关系表征具有左半球激活优势,但在行为表现中是否存在对侧化的右侧化优势尚且不明确。本研究采用两个被试内实验,探讨空间记忆的行为表现是否具有右侧化优势以及这种优势是否受威胁情境的影响。实验1被试学习完一幅模拟地图中物体位置关系后进行相对位置判断任务,结果发现了显著的空间行为反应右侧化优势。实验2使被试在威胁情境中完成相同任务,发现右侧化优势消失。实验表明类别性空间记忆的行为表现具有右侧化优势,且具有情境不稳定性,这为空间记忆的偏侧化研究提供了一定的行为实验证据。     

FROM EMBODIED TO EXTENDED COGNITION

Embodied cognitive science holds that cognitive processes are deeply and inescapably rooted in our bodily interactions with the world. Our finite, contingent, and mortal embodiment may be not only supportive, but in some cases even constitutive of emotions, thoughts, and experiences. My discussion here will work outward from the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the brain to a nervous system which extends to the boundaries of the body. It will extend to nonneural aspects of embodiment and even beyond the boundaries of the body to prosthetics of various kinds, including symbioses with a broad array of cultural artifacts, our symbolic niche, and our relationships with other embodied human beings. While cognition may not always be situated, its origins are embedded in temporally and spatially limited activities. Cognitive work also can be off‐loaded to the body and to the environment in service of action, tool use, group cognition, and social coordination. This can blur the boundaries between brain areas, brain and body, and body and environment, transforming our understanding of mind and personhood to provide a different grounding for faith traditions in general, and of the historically dualist Christian tradition in particular.     

Spatial updating according to a fixed reference direction of a briefly viewed layout

Three experiments examined the role of reference directions in spatial updating. Participants briefly viewed an array of five objects. A non-egocentric reference direction was primed by placing a stick under two objects in the array at the time of learning. After a short interval, participants detected which object had been moved at a novel view that was caused by table rotation or by their own locomotion. The stick was removed at test. The results showed that detection of position change was better when an object not on the stick was moved than when an object on the stick was moved. Furthermore change detection was better in the observer locomotion condition than in the table rotation condition only when an object on the stick was moved but not when an object not on the stick was moved. These results indicated that when the reference direction was not accurately indicated in the test scene, detection of position change was impaired but this impairment was less in the observer locomotion condition. These results suggest that people not only represent objects’ locations with respect to a fixed reference direction but also represent and update their orientation according to the same reference direction, which can be used to recover the accurate reference direction and facilitate detection of position change when no accurate reference direction is presented in the test scene.     

从幸福学角度对和谐消费的阐释

本文从幸福学的角度,对和谐消费的内涵进行了阐释和分析。基于幸福学中所提出的参照点效应、范围-频次分布理论和内在可评估性理论对不和谐的消费现象,包括奢侈性、炫耀性和过度消费的形成机制和原因进行了分析和解释,并由此提出促进社会和谐消费的建议和启示,以期对政策制定者、企业和个人消费者提供借鉴。