Media and Mindfulness
Truth and Beauty in Plato’s “Cosmic Soul”
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rafael Narvaez
In this paper, I outline Plato’s concept of “The Cosmic Soul,” one of the notable achievements of the human imagination. Implied in this concept is the idea of an intelligence inherent in reality itself, a universal, eternal, glorious, and indifferent “Divine Animal,” Plato says, a “breath” always sweeping through reality, organizing it and creating it. Following Plato, I note that the naked eye is blind to this level of reality, the level that, for him, in the end matters. Only heroic knowledge (Giordano Bruno’s coinage) can allow us to have a glimpse, beyond the reach of the senses, into this cosmic intelligence, thereby allowing us to realize our uniquely human potential, namely, to make a connection, however tenuous, with it. I use examples of contemporary science to translate Plato’s ideas, examples that are in turn translated by them. I note that Plato’s perspective, if it is not stereotyped as it often is, provides a guide or even a structure needed to search for, and to unify, scientific, aesthetic, and poetic truth.
Semantic Categories in the Space of Knowledge Realms
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jevgenija Sivoronova, Aleksejs Vorobjovs
Knowledge research in an interdisciplinary context shines a light on its complex nature. On one hand, knowledge is an epistemological problem. On the other hand, knowledge is our consciousness and social mind problem. We capture these two perspectives to illuminate our understanding of knowledge being. The study explores semantic categories based on their sense of belonging to specific knowledge realms. We use the epistemological attitude theory as a theoretical-methodological prism to understand how individuals cognise knowledge objects, perceive and use semantic categories as criteria for evaluating them, and, simultaneously, their understanding of semantic categories or the meanings of knowledge itself. The study involved sixty university academics from various scientific disciplines, including lecturers and researchers. The method used the epistemological attitude towards sources of knowledge semantic questionnaire. The relevance of semantic categories had to be evaluated based on specific types of knowledge: individual knowledge, objective and social knowledge, and transcendental knowledge or knowledge about knowledge. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we analysed academics' evaluations of semantic categories to determine their placement within three knowledge realms. By the results, we reflect on the meanings of knowledge, answering the question of where semantic categories, which express both epistemological and social meanings, are located by academics' consciousness. The results show that objective and social knowledge are the most acknowledged. At the same time, the semantic categories are closer to the subjective knowledge realm if these have a psychological valence and more distanced if these categories are highly abstract to conceive them.
Monsters, Economies, and Humanities: A Closer Look at the Human Experience through the Figure of the Monster
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cynthia Jones
Like Dorian Gray’s hidden portrait, the monster can be read as the exterior manifestation of the human interior (on an individual and collective level). ‘Monster’ stems from the Latin monstrare (to reveal) and monere (to warn/instruct). Therefore, the appearance of monsters within our cultural products (literature, folklore, film etc.) serve to reveal something about ourselves and to teach us. Similarly, the field of Economics and Humanities, center themselves around the human experience. Economics is the study of human behavior in the face of scarcity, and the Humanities center around the human experience as individuals and societies. This presentation proposes to use the monster as the lens through which we can bridge these two disciplines (Economics and the Humanities) to observe and learn more about ourselves and our choices. Building off theory from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seminal work, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996) this paper explores how the human experience within the industrialized economy to the knowledge economy can be understood through the representation of the monster within various texts and film. While the study of monsters as a depiction of certain economic phenomena is not new, this study explores the evolution of monstrous representation across two differing economies: the industrial and the knowledge economy. Looking at works such as The Time Machine (1895), White Zombie (1932), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Daybreakers (2009), and Lucy (2014), we tease out the ways in which the corporeal depiction of the monster shifts and evolves to illustrate certain economies.
