Search results for "Piste"
showing 10 items of 1658 documents
ABDUCTIVE INFERENCES IN PRAGMATIC PROCESSES
2018
Abstract In pragmatic theories, the notion of inference plays a central role, together with the communicative act in which it is activated. Although some scholars, such as Levinson, Sperber and Wilson, propose detailed and accurate analyses of this notion, we will maintain that these analyses can be better systematized if seen through Peirce’s notion of abduction. We will try to maintain that the variety of inferential processes in play in a linguistic act is mostly of an abductive nature. Moreover, we will maintain that the typological tripartition of abductions discussed by Eco (1981) allows to account for a signi cant part of the mechanisms involved in the comprehension of an utterance, …
Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture or Laclau’s political ontology?
2018
AbstractThe present article concentrates on the main discrepancies that should arise in the discussion between Lotman’s semiotics of culture and Laclau’s discursive theory of hegemony. Some significant – but still abstract – commonalities conceal fundamental disagreements which I would group around four topics. Firstly, Lotman’s semiotic method is at odds with Laclau’s ontological way of thinking. Secondly, although both Lotman and Laclau subscribe to the openness of signification, it is impossible to incorporate their accounts of this openness without loose ends. In order to substantiate this claim, I examine Lotman’s concept of “boundary” and Laclau’s concept of the “limit.” Thirdly, we s…
Talis pater, talis filius: the role of discursive strategies, thematic narratives and ideology in Cosa Nostra
2018
The discursive analysis of criminal organizations’ family dynamics and ideological devices may provide important insights into the inner functioning of these groups. In this article, we describe and analyze a specific set of discursive strategies and the thematic narratives emerging from a TV interview with Giuseppe Riina, a member of Cosa Nostra and the son of one of the most important mafia bosses. Our analyses demonstrate the existence of recurring ideological devices such as reductionism, amoralism, familism, verticalism, normalism, victimism and religious relativism. The results are discussed in light of previous research that examines how discursive strategies and narratives may repre…
“Languaging the worker : Globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces”
2016
In the introduction to the special issue “Languaging the worker: globalized governmentalities in/of language in peripheral spaces”, we take up the notion of governmentality as a means to interrogate the complex relationship between language, labor, power and subjectivity in peripheral multilingual spaces. Our aim here is to argue for the study of governmentality as a viable and growing approach in critical sociolinguistic research. As such, in this introduction, we first discuss key concepts germane to our interrogations, including the notions of governmentality, languaging, peripherality and language worker. We proceed to map out five ethnographically and discourse-analytically informed ca…
Marx's critique of ideology for discourse analysis: from analysis of ideologies to social critique
2018
The notion of ideology is related to social and material reality and especially to the processes of social reproduction. Therefore, the analysis of ideology seems to fall into the domain of discourse analysis. The analysis of language and practices of signification in social contexts constitutes the basic triangle of discourse analysis. However, the Marxist concept of ideology always refers to some kind of falsity, that ultimately enables the researcher to not only analyse but also to criticize ideologies. Ideologies are always in some way false, injust or inadequate. It is at this point that discourse analysts usually raise the most serious objections as they understand truth itself as a d…
Leadership and church identity
2018
This article discusses how the theological-spiritual dimension, which has to do with the specific identity of the church, has implications for and partly determines the application of leadership theories and tools in the local church. The article also examines how leadership research can provide the means to realize a church’s theological or spiritual identity or its true nature. This implies a two-directional relationship between theology and leadership. On the one hand, theology should influence how churches are led, and on the other hand, leadership may facilitate the realization of the theological-spiritual dimension.
 There are a number of important articles on the theology of lea…
Can theism be defeated? CSR and the debunking of supernatural agent abductions
2016
De Cruz and De Smedt (2015) have clearly demonstrated the extent to which – and the way in which – evolved cognitive defaults play a role in the emergence of theistic ideas about God and in the for...
Two sorts of natural theology
2018
Usually, natural theology is understood as the project of providing arguments for the existence of God. This project is endorsed by Moreland and Craig. McGrath, on the other hand, says that this project fails. In the first part of this article, I show how McGrath’s dismissal of arguments for the existence of God follows from his view of natural theology. In the second part, I argue that McGrath’s natural theology contains an accurate critique of Moreland and Craig’s way of doing natural theology, a critique that exposes two major problems in their treatment of the moral argument for the existence of God. In the third part, I propose a way of providing arguments for the existence of God that…
Modeling Metaphysics: The Rise of Simulation and the Reversal of Platonism
2019
Philosophical reflection on and around Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is often focused on the ethical and epistemological implications of empirical findings or innovative methods within the field. In this paper I highlight some of the metaphysical implications of developments within M&S. I argue that the rise of simulation within and across scientific disciplines is accelerating the reversal of Platonism, whose emphasis on transcendence and reliance on hierarchical, static categories has dominated western philosophy for over two millennia. The success of M&S methodologies opens up new conceptual space for articulating a metaphysics of immanence that may provide a more adequate basis for unde…
Social representations of COVID-19 (Representaciones sociales del COVID-19)
2020
This is a reflection on the communication modalities of dissemination, propagation and propaganda as they have manifested in the COVID-19 pandemic. It describes the anchoring of the representations...