Languages differ in how they describe space, and such differences between languages can be used to explore the relation between language and thought. This 2003 book shows that even in a core cognitive domain like spatial thinking, language influences how people think, memorize and reason about spatial relations and directions. After outlining a typology of spatial coordinate systems in language and cognition, it is shown that not all languages use all types, and that non-linguistic cognition mirrors the systems available in the local language. The book reports on collaborative, interdisciplinary research, involving anthropologists, linguists and psychologists, conducted in many languages and cultures around the world, which establishes this robust correlation. The overall results suggest that thinking in the cognitive sciences underestimates the transformative power of language on thinking. The book will be of interest to linguists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers, and especially to students of spatial cognition.

https://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/29/29337/29337053_lese_1.pdf

Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity

3.0 Frames of reference across modalities 3.1 The notion 'spatial frames of reference' 3.2 'Frames of reference' across modalities and the disciplines that study them 3.3 Linguistic Frames of Reference in Cross-Linguistic Perspective 3.3.1 The three linguistic frames of reference 3.3.2 The 'logical structure' of the three frames of reference 3.3.3 Realigning Frames of reference across disciplines and modalities

Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: Cross-linguistic evidence

This article examines the effects of memory loss on a patient's ability to remember the past and imagine the future. We present the case of D.B., who, as a result of hypoxic brain damage, suffered severe amnesia for the personally experienced past. By contrast, his knowledge of the nonpersonal past was relatively preserved. A similar pattern was evidenced in his ability to anticipate future events. Although D.B. had great difficulty imagining what his experiences might be like in the future, his capacity to anticipate issues and events in the public domain was comparable to that of neurologically healthy, age-matched controls. These findings suggest that neuropsychological dissociations between episodic and semantic memory for the past also may extend to the ability to anticipate the future.

Memory and Temporal Experience: the Effects of Episodic Memory Loss on an Amnesic Patient's Ability to Remember the Past and Imagine the Future

Emotions research is now routinely grounded in evolution, but explicit evolutionary analyses of emotions remain rare. This article considers the implications of natural selection for several classic questions about emotions and emotional disorders. Emotions are special modes of operation shaped by natural selection. They adjust multiple response parameters in ways that have increased fitness in adaptively challenging situations that recurred over the course of evolution. They are valenced because selection shapes special processes for situations that have influenced fitness in the past. In situations that decrease fitness, negative emotions are useful and positive emotions are harmful. Selection has partially differentiated subtypes of emotions from generic precursor states to deal with specialized situations. This has resulted in untidy emotions that blur into each other on dozens of dimensions, rendering the quest for simple categorically distinct emotions futile. Selection has shaped flexible mechanisms that control the expression of emotions on the basis of an individual's appraisal of the meaning of events for his or her ability to reach personal goals. The prevalence of emotional disorders can be attributed to several evolutionary factors.

/pdf/evolution-emotions-and-emotional-disorders-532djz8ud2.pdf

Evolution, emotions, and emotional disorders.

This interpretation of Aristotle's "Poetics" seeks to demonstrate that it is a coherent statement of a challenging theory of poetic art and that it hints towards a theory of mimetic art in general. Assessing this theory against the background of earlier Greek views on poetry and art, particularly Plato's, Stephen Halliwell sets Aristotle's ideas in the wider context of his philosophical system. The core of the book is an appraisal of Aristotle's view of tragic drama, in which Halliwell contends that at the heart of the "Poetics" lies a philosophical urge to instill a secularized understanding of Greek tragedy.

Aristotle's Poetics

Articles on Aristotle Vol. 4: Psychology and Aesthetics

Articles on Aristotle: Ethics and politics

Aristotle On Sense Perception 3, 6, and 7 explains the nature of light and of the borrowed colour of the sea. These need distinguishing from each other and from non-borrowed colour. Aristotle also allows imperceptible sounds and changes of pitch, yet denies imperceptible times. Why? I suggest that the discussion of imperceptible change of pitch is the target attacked in Theophrastus' account of singing. The theory of imperceptible times attacked seems unexpectedly elaborate, and I suggest it is a version of one found in the pseudo-Aristotelian de Audibilibus.

Richard Sorabji

Papers

Articles on Aristotle Vol. 4: Psychology and Aesthetics

Articles on Aristotle: Ethics and politics

Aristotle on colour, light and imperceptibles

Necessity, Cause, and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory.

The Ethics of War