Intentionality and Interpretation

Introduction. Current demand for practicing intercultural dialogue in the educational space is of strategic importance for the future professional in today's convivial world. Purpose: This article describes psychological and pedagogical techniques for acquiring linguistic and cultural information in order to use it as an object of research and to form ideas or conceptions (to ideate) about this object in a cross-cultural context. Materials and methods: Logical analysis and interpretive case study based on the cognitive approach to creating learning specifications become the main methods in developing principles for incorporating idea generation, or ideation into academic practice. The material of the study was the analytical data of practical work on different sources of cultural heritage. The article provides examples of consideration of ideative objects "scream/cry" as authorial concepts in the visual language of E. Munch, V. Kandinsky and the story by I. Bunin and "punishment" in F. Dostoevsky. Results: Interpretations of ideation vary and will continue to vary. Here, ideation as dealing with the ideative object is a bridge to the "frame alignment" of the conceptual category, schematization, formative recovery of the idea, or conceptualisation. As an educational component, ideation is a multicyclic process involving students' actions (goal configuration, object field recognition, object localisation, object adaptation) triggered by the teacher's corresponding actions (purposefulness, problem situation modelling, object contingencies analysis, object fulfilment orientation). Conclusion: Education is the space where the foundations are laid for intercultural dialogue and thus for the interaction of cultures.

The thesis brings together philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific theories of affect in developing a dual process account of emotion. Philosophers and psychologists who take a cognitivist view claim that emotions in humans and other mammalian species require intentionality, arising as the product of evaluations which bear upon our survival or wellbeing, whereas neuroscientists conclude from their research that emotion has its foundations in subcortical affect mechanisms by which behaviours may arise as spontaneous responses to valuable stimuli. Parts I and II of the thesis examine these two accounts, which are construed as cognitive-evaluative and primitive emotional processes respectively. It is further proposed that both these manifestations of emotion are to be found in mammalian species. Given that cognitive-evaluative and primitive emotional states can be demonstrated to coexist and function separately in mammalian species, how do we explain cases in which the two pro...

Abstract

The thesis brings together philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific theories of affect in developing a dual process account of emotion.
Philosophers and psychologists who take a cognitivist view claim that emotions in humans and other mammalian species require intentionality, arising as the product of evaluations which bear upon our survival or wellbeing, whereas neuroscientists conclude from their research that emotion has its foundations in subcortical affect mechanisms by which behaviours may arise as spontaneous responses to valuable stimuli. Parts I and II of the thesis examine these two accounts, which are construed as cognitive-evaluative and primitive emotional processes respectively. It is further pro-posed that both these manifestations of emotion are to be found in mammalian species.
Given that cognitive-evaluative and primitive emotional states can be demonstrated to coexist and function separately in mammalian species, how do we explain cases in which the two processes seem to be non-accidentally associated? To exemplify: how does it come about that an appraisal that I have been unfairly treated is accompanied by aggressive feelings and impulses towards the object of my anger?
Cognitivists accept that the somatic changes accompanying emotions are associated with appraisals but argue that such changes play no role in emotion as an evaluative process other than that of marking the appraisal as significant for our wellbeing. In contrast, a dual process model of emotion is proposed for the interaction of primitive emotions and emotional appraisals whereby the appraisal process arouses a primitive emotion through the detection of patterns within complex external contexts which have a significance for an individual’s wellbeing. The neurophysiological changes  associated with the primitive emotion when so aroused, will in turn, invest the appraisal with feelings, sensations characteristic of those neurophysiologies. These feelings influence evaluation in ways which are fundamental to the successful performance of everyday mental functions.

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.

Computer games contribute to their players' emotions in diverse ways, ranging from sheer exhilaration to anger and disillusion. Our ability to enjoy computer game play that involves genuine intense emotions which in other contexts would be easily
deemed as "negative" suggests that there is something in the ways in which we make sense of computer games that separates gameplay from other activities we engage in. Focusing single player computer games and situating within the emerging field of computer game studies, this dissertation starts from the assumption that emotions are always already intertwined with the experience of play and proceeds to describe, not any idiosyncratic emotional experience, but the means by which games can ensure their contents to be involved in players' emotions.

Emotions are taken as intentional, as always about something. From this premise follows that to understand an emotion it is necessary to understand the reasons the subject has for relating to the object of the emotion in the particular way. Building on game studies, existential phenomenology, and philosophy of technology, this dissertation postulates a first person perspective from which to describe solitary computer game play and the emotions it involves in terms of their experienced signicance. From describing the freedoms and responsibilities imposed by the materiality of the computer game artefact on its voluntary player, the gameplay condition emerges as an intersubjective baseline for the players' judgements about events, objects, and states of aairs in the game, potentially surfacing as emotions.

Rather than being explained in terms of their rules, computer games appear as technological artefacts which simultaneously extend the concrete limitations against which their human players are free to realize their projects, and shape the ways in which human mind can be directed at aspects of the world. However, this can go on only as long as long as the player fulfills the requirements of which the gameplay condition comprises. Based on this condition, game artefacts can be described as standing out from among all other technological artefacts which co-shape human intentionality. By the conduct of emotional investment, the dissertation describes how voluntary players can end up experiencing emotions about aspects which would most likely seem trivial from a non-player's perspective.

Finally, the dissertation postulates an experiential ontology of computer game content, distinguishing between game content that is undeniable: crucial in terms of fullling the gameplay condition, and deniable: game content whose taking seriously is mostly voluntary. Thus, undeniable game content can be safely assumed as being involved in the emotions' of all players.

It's nonsense, but within that, Lewis Carroll's logic in this example strictly follows the logic of Edward Lear's nonsense. This is about the "Banker's" face after his encounter with the Bandersnatch in the chapter "The Banker's Fate" in Lewis Carroll's, Henry Holiday's and Joseph Swain's "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876). As for the Banker and his face, you find a textual allusion to Edward Lear as well as pictorial allusions to William Sidney Mount and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. --- See also https://www.academia.edu/10103262/Noseflip_animation_ and https://www.academia.edu/9964379/Schnarkverschlimmbesserung --- 2015-01-21: The illustration also may have been inspired by Charles Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", e.g. https://www.academia.edu/10287871/The_Expression_of_Emotions

2015-03-09: Removal of two obvious typing errors. No change of meaning.

2017-09-29: This is about the Banker's face. I just noticed that in some of my articles I called the "fit" in "The Hunting to the Snark" which uses that illustration "The Banker's Fate". Sorry, it is "The Banker's Tale".

Following recent work by Don Ross (Ross, 2000; Ross & Spurrett, 2004), I contrast the influential theories of Daniel Dennett and Paul Churchland in information-theoretic terms. Dennett makes much of the fact that the morphological shorthand which emerges before a witness as she looks upon cohesive aggregates of matter commands some measure of predictive power. This, for him, speaks against eliminating recourse to an intentional vocabulary. By contrast, the eliminative materialism defended by Churchland does not gloss such informational compressibility as an explanatory desideratum, and thus regards the informational noise which accrues at higher levels of description as patently unacceptable. Yet, since it is unlikely, as Ross et al. (2007) have recently suggested, that anything remains once we subtract the appeal to patterns, I argue that the ubiquity of informational compression in scientific explanation seriously undermines the claim that talk of the mental could be eliminated.

CHOICE: “bracing, energetic challenge to the status quo. Summing up: Recommended”.

CROATIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY: “Swirski is brilliant… his knowledge of and familiarity with literary practice is truly amazing… I would strongly recommend Swirski’s book to everybody interested in literature, art, aesthetics and literary interpretations”.

SUBSTANCE: “exceptionally cogent… enlightening… admirable”.

CANADIAN REVIEW OF COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: “the best study in the aesthetics of a literary work since Roman Ingarden... Swirski’s virtuoso investigations of literature from the standpoint of analytic aesthetics and the theory of evolution open new avenues in humanistic studies in general, and in literary studies in particular”.

PRESS REVIEW: "integrates literary studies with analytic aesthetics, girded by neo-Darwinian evolution. Scrutinizing narrative fiction through a lens provided by analytic philosophy, revered literary theorist Peter Swirski puts new life into literary theory while fashioning a set of practical guidelines for critics in the interpretive trenches... Reflecting a resounding shift from the poststructuralist paradigm, Swirski’s lively and colorful presentation, backed up by a dazzling variety of examples and case studies, reconceptualizes the aesthetics of literature and literary studies.”

PHILOSOPHY IN REVIEW: “Swirski’s analytical brilliance and his breathtaking expertise in literature and literary studies are obvious at every step of the way... beautifully written and beautifully argued book”

THE EVOLUTIONARY REVIEW: “fundamental affirmation of human purpose, design and agency… written with an accessible freshness and curiosity... timely invitation for literary scholars to view how far their field has come".

THE JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS AND ART CRITICISM: “a good deal of common sense supported by good critical arguments”.

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE (2011): “fascinating ‘explorations’ (as the subtitles announce) in topics both within and surrounding the study of literature, manifesting the author’s vast knowledge of a number of academic disciplines”.

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE (2012): “astute... lucid and undeniably valuable… fascinating… while Swirski is well informed by philosophical theories of meaning and art, he never loses sight of his principal subject, literature.”

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES: “insightful and of great import. For aficionados, it provides a multitude of fresh arguments and plenty of food for thought. It is both a skilful, scholarly work with an excellent historical survey into the humanities, and a frisky approach that does not fear popular culture and mass art.”""