Cognitive science has traditionally viewed the mind as essentially disembodied, that is, the nature of mind and cognition is neither affected by the ¡Èsystem¡É it is implemented in nor affected by the environment that the system is situated in. But since the mid-1980s a new approach emerged in artificial intelligence that emphasized the importance of embodiment and situatedness and since then terms like embodied cognition, embodied intelligence have become more and more apparent in discussions of cognition. As embodied cognition has increased in interest so have the notions of embodiment and situatedness and they are not always compatible. This report has found that there are, at least, four notions of embodiment in the discussions of embodied cognition: software embodiment, physical embodiment, biological embodiment and human(oid) embodiment.

This paper analyses the similarities and differences of the cognitive structures of the English-Swedish idiom pair to step into someone’s shoes and att axla någons mantel (to shoulder someone’s mantle [lit.]) in order to investigate possible conceptual or embodied motivations for their meanings. Using dictionaries and corpora to support all findings, the conceptual nature and intended meaning of each idiom were closely analysed and compared. The investigation shows metaphorical, metonymical and embodied structures which might possibly explain why these two idioms mean the same thing as a whole even though they are lexically different from each other. The results indicate that conceptual and embodied mechanisms have motivated the meanings of the idioms, thus suggesting that idiom comprehension in general as well as second language learning would greatly benefit from a more cognitive approach.

What am “I”? To what does the word “I” refer? The Self is a concept that feels intuitively obvious to us, but is nevertheless elusive to describe. Against a backdrop of theoretical speculation, this essay presents a basic exposition of the Self with the aid of recent advances in cognitive neuroscience to address one of its most confounding problems: How does the brain sustain the Self – our sense of bodily identity? What informs the question then is dealt with by providing a frame of reference based on the philosophical theory of mereology to contain the analysis (i.e., the relationship of parts to wholes, and of parts to parts within a whole). In relation to the question “What makes us experience what we are?” the Self is put in a context of a multisensory description – a context in which the center very much fails to hold. Enacting such self-plasticity comes at the cost of explicit boundaries, and is in need of a theoretical and methodological framework – not instead, but of folk-psychological criteria – in determining the nature behind why and how we have the intuition of being a Self.

In the United States today, there is a dominant cultural narrative telling us that tallness is desirable and enjoyed by those who experience it. Much of the existing research on height correlates tallness with promotions, higher salaries, and general happiness. However, this research does not take into account the limitations of some of the previous research which tends to accept tall people’s vocabulary of motives at face value as the totality of their experience as a tall person. In particular, tall women tend to have much more to say about their lives as tall women than simply that it has afforded them many advantages. Drawing from interviews with ten women who were of a height 5’11” or taller, I utilize feminist standpoint epistemology to investigate how the experiences of tall women can often differ from the dominant cultural narrative of tallness. My findings indicate that tall women are frequently the subject of unwanted height-related comments that draw attention to their tallness, creating and reproducing a state of self-consciousness related to their height. This self-consciousness is reinforced by social infrastructure, heteronormative gender expectations, and othering in the form of harassment and bullying. The tall women in my study learned to negotiate and avoid their height in situations that caused them discomfort, yet eventually accepted their height as a part of their identity after overcoming adversity in their childhood and youth. My research shows that the experiences of tall women are significantly broader than contemporary research discusses, and that height has a much deeper impact on self-perception than has previously been acknowledged.

Abstract This is an overview of five substudies, which are based on autobiographical stories of teachers working in early childhood education and general education. By the concept of 'relational moral', I refer to human relationships between teachers and children or adolescents. I approached the main question 'How is the storied relational moral of teachers constructed in a re-storying process?' through two subquestions: 1. What is relational moral like as a moral horizon in teachers' narrative identity? and 2. What is relational moral like as a storied educational practice? Teachers' relational moral was considered to find its expression in the language of the mother. This view has its roots in feminist research, which has pointed out that identities are gendered, and that the historical and cultural roots of relational moral in the Western culture lie in the practices of mothers. This view also emphasizes that gender constitutes an important distinction in language use. Since the voices of women do not have the same power as the voices of men, the voices of relational moral are not heard. Basing on the applications of the narrative-biographical approach I analysed the stories as representative of the language of practice, i.e. as moral, multivoiced and dialogical. In the process of re-storying, I interpreted the moral words denoting vocation, hope, love, change and body as Other-oriented concepts implying the need to listen to children and a future orientation. Teachers construct their narrative embodied identities under the cross-pressure of different and contradictory voices. The loudest contradictory voices come from the administration, social and educational policies, and the media. The relational moral was storied as an embodied practice, as physical work in which many silent voices become audible through touching, gentleness and closeness. The concept of body position was developed as a tool to understand the concrete working bodies that carry moral meanings. Teachers' stories involve many body positions, of which the positions of relational moral are not always officially appreciated. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimus pohjautuu viiteen osatutkimukseen, joissa on analysoitu lastentarhanopettajien ja yleissivistävän koulutuksen opettajien omaelämäkerrallisia kertomuksia. Ihmissuhteisiin perustuvan moraalin käsitteellä viittaan suhteisiin opettajien ja lasten / nuorten välillä. Tutkimuskysymystäni, millaiseksi opettajien ihmissuhteisiin perustuva moraali rakentuu uudelleenkerrottuna, tarkastelin kahden alakysymyksen kautta. Ensin kuvasin, millaiseksi moraaliseksi horisontiksi rakentuu ihmissuhteisiin perustuva moraali opettajien narratiivisessa identiteetissä. Toiseksi tarkastelin sitä, millaiseksi ihmissuhteisiin perustuva moraali rakentuu kerrotuissa kasvatuskäytännöissä. Osatutkimusten pohjalta muotoutui uudelleen kertomista ohjaavaksi lähtökohdaksi opettajien ihmissuhteisiin perustuva moraali eräänlaisena äidin kielenä. Feministinen tutkimus on osoittanut, että identiteetit ovat sukupuolittuneita, ja että ihmissuhteisiin perustuvan moraalin historialliset ja kulttuuriset juuret nousevat länsimaissa äitiyden käytännöistä. Myös kieli on sukupuolittunutta. Tätä tutkimusta on innoittanut pyrkimys kuunnella äidin kielen hiljaisia ääniä, jotka jäävät helposti miehisen isän kielen korkeamman yhteiskunnallisen statuksen alle ja kuulumattomiin. Osatutkimuksissa sovellettiin narratiivis-biografista lähestymistapaa. Kertomukset valittiin laajemmasta aineistosta harkinnanvaraisesti ja niitä tarkasteltiin käytännön kielenä, moraalisina, moniäänisinä ja dialogisina. Analyyseissä pyrittiin kertomusten empaattiseen ja responsiiviseen lukemiseen, ja niissä käytettiin erilaisia temaattisia ja narratiivisia menetelmiä. Osatutkimusten uudelleenkerronnassa tulkitsin opettajien narratiivista identiteettiä kutsumuksen, rakkauden, toivon, muutoksen ja ruumiillisuuden käsitteiden avulla. Moraalisessa horisontissa ne ilmenevät Toiseen suuntautumisena, jolloin korostuu lasten kuuleminen ja tulevaisuuteen kurottautuminen. Opettajat kertovat identiteettinsä ruumiillisuutensa kautta: erilaiset moraaliset kielet luovat erilaisia odotuksia ja rajoituksia opettajan toiminnalle. Ristiriitojen keskellä muotoutuva moraalinen horisontti rakentuu ristiriitaiseksi ja epäyhtenäiseksi. Opettaja joutuu valitsemaan, millaisia moraalisia ääniä hän voi ja haluaa kuunnella ja millaista moraalista kieltä käyttää. Kuuluvimmat äänet, jotka kertomuksissa uhkasivat ihmissuhteisiin perustuvaa moraalia tulivat hallinnosta, sosiaali- ja koulutuspolitiikasta ja mediasta. Ihmissuhteisiin perustuva moraali konkretisoituu kertomuksissa ruumiillisena työnä, jossa monet hiljaiset äänet, kuten koskettaminen, hellyys ja läheisyys tulevat kuultaviksi. Ruumiinasennon käsitteen avulla kuvasin opettajien ruumiillisuuden moniäänisyyttä ja sitä, miten Toiseen suuntautuvia, ihmissuhteisiin perustuvan moraalin ruumiinasentoja voidaan helposti pitää ei-suotavina tai vähäarvoisina.

The representation of gender and ethnicity in the media has been widely acknowledged by scholars. Numerous studies have highlighted the underrepresentation of women and people of different ethnicities in news media, addressing not only the small number of their presence, but the way they are generalized and stereotyped through certain characteristics. Despite decades of scholarship, the results remain the same depicting men in positions of power and authority and women as subordinate to most men, often depicted as representatives in different contexts and rather as private persons within the private sphere. As the media influences people’s behaviour and attitudes through constant repetition of certain images, the power of pictures and the visual culture of news need to be addressed. In regard to previous research, the purpose of the given thesis is to examine the visual representation of women, men and people of different ethnicities in the online news of SVT Nyheter. Particularly by examining in what contexts and how, gender and ethnicity is visually embodied in the content of SVT Nyheter. The study is significant as SVT has a certain responsibility in showing a broad spectrum of representation from a gender and diversity perspective. Furthermore, there is a research gap to fill when it comes to studies of public service and the visual representation of news. However, by combining the meaning of visual and written text, the empirical part of this study is conducted through a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative content analysis with a multimodal visual analysis. The results reveal that men are most often embodied in the news articles of SVT Nyheter, both in stories of women/womanhood or men/manhood. Moreover, men are more likely to be portrayed as persons in positions of power and authority. The only two news topics in which women are overrepresented are gender issues and diversity issues. These categories raise questions of female subordination and resistance, often embodied through the smiling gaze. Hence, women’s experiences are reduced by their visual embodiment. Persons defined as “weaker”, such as people of different ethnicities, are more likely to directly face the camera, especially smiling when the topic connotes other feelings. The non-represented are people of different ethnicities or marginalised groups, often addressed but not given a voice. On the basis of the results of this research, it can be concluded that media raises power relations, illustrating that ”the human body”, is most often the male body.

This dissertation contributes to the development of philosophy of disability by drawing on disability studies, feminist philosophy, phenomenology, and philosophy of biology in order to contest epistemic and ontological assumptions about disability within biomedical ethics as well as within philosophical work on the body, demonstrating how philosophical inquiry is radically transformed when experiences of disability are taken seriously. In the first two chapters, I focus on epistemological and ontological concerns surrounding disability within biomedical ethics. Although disabled people and their advocates have been quite vocal regarding their views on disability and in critiquing bioethicists’ approaches to issues that affect them, the interests, knowledge, and experiences of disabled people have had minimal impact on discussions within biomedical ethics textbooks. The risks of making problematic assumptions about disability are high within this subfield insofar as bioethicists impact practices within medical facilities, public policy, and, through student engagement with their texts in biomedical ethics courses, the views of potential health care professionals. All of these, in turn, affect the care provided to disabled people and potential/actual parents of disabled children. Chapter three raises ontological issues related to disability theory, examining the role of the impairment/disability distinction in framing discussions of the body as well as the status of experience. I discuss two approaches to incorporating subjective experiences of the body in disability, arguing that neither is sufficient. I examine debates within feminist theory on questions related to experience. I argue that a feminist phenomenological approach that builds on Merleau-Ponty’s work offers the best way to address bodily experiences in disability theory. The assumptions that disability theorists and Merleau-Ponty make about disability are often at odds. Chapter four points out the ableism in Merleau-Ponty’s use of a case study and considers some of the oversights within Phenomenology of Perception. In spite of my critique, I argue that his approach to phenomenology—with appropriate modifications—is useful not only for theorizing the experiences of disabled people but also for addressing other types of marginalized embodiment. Chapter five applies this method to body integrity identity disorder (BIID), arguing that combining Merleau-Ponty’s insights with those of disability theory allows us to address lived experiences of BIID and to identify assumptions about disability within research on this condition.

This is a systemic practice doctorate where research is undertaken through a social and relational constructionist lens (McNamee and Hosking, 2012) under a broader umbrella of systemic qualitative research practice. A philosophical orientation to inquiry is taken, offering a way of exploring encounters, and specifically conversations in practice, in an embodied relational and dialogical way from within the experience. This locates me as an active participant alongside other active participants, and self- and relational reflexivity feature centrally within a systemic approach to practice and inquiry. The specific inquiry focus is on embodied, reflexive processes as I engage with others in everyday conversations on issues that matter to different professional and non-professional individuals and community groups; it is a complex ecology. Systemic, embodied, relational concepts are explored through a lens that sees inquiry as philosophically informed. This acknowledges the professional, personal and multiple contexts that inform both the doing and being in each conversation within practice and inquiry. The multi-versa of individuals and groups, professional and non-professional are examined through attention to moments of conversation portrayed through vignettes and dialogical excerpts. I try to capture a sense of the living dynamic of each of the interactions through attention to my multi-vocal inner dialogue and the multiplicity of felt experiences within these conversations where I am moved, stirred, unsettled and fully embodied: I become the case study in the ebbs and flows of this experience. How I inform these processes, and how I am informed by the responses of others, comes under close scrutiny. Attention is given to reciprocal responses, my internal dialogue, as I respond to what has gone before, external moves within these relational unfolding conversational encounters, how the conversation is experienced by those involved, and how we move on together. This inquiry focuses on embodied relational processes within the multiple complex dynamic of these conversations, unpacking our ways of ‘going on’ together (Wittgenstein, 1953). Autoethnography (Finlay, 2002; Ellis, 2004; Etherington, 2004), self- and relational reflexivity (1992), Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) (Pearce, 1994), and the process of writing itself are some of the concepts employed to enter this complexity. The unique additional inquiry tool introduced, alongside these, is the personal metaphor of rock climbing. This is chosen because of the fit I consider it has within a conceptual frame of relational embodiment, emphasising the ‘I’, a systemic practitioner and climber, as an embodied being with other embodied beings in conversation. I enter this process of inquiry with openness to enable change and to be changed, and I hope to challenge some established ideas about research. I consider the extent to which the metaphor illuminates embodied, self- and relationally reflexive processes in the context of systemic inquiry. The usefulness and application of this metaphor is tested as an embodied reflexive tool. I explore whether ways of thinking about and understanding embodied relational and dynamic processes can be extended. New features that come to light in the process of this inquiry are explored and the insights that may emerge, along with possible contributions to systemic inquiry and practice, are considered. The wider use of metaphors emerging through the dialogue that people offer to describe experience and to capture a sense of lived moments opens further potential for new learning. The reflexive scope and use of metaphor generally is discussed at the end, along with personal and professional learning from the process of writing and inquiry. I propose a new lens to reflexive inquiry that is suited to systemic practice, embodied reflexive inquiry in which I draw attention to embodied reflexive detailed features within interactions between people. This has wide-ranging applications in systemic and other contexts, including community settings, systemic therapy, training and supervision and across different professional networks, and is explored here. My hope is that this inquiry will to add to the growing field of systemic inquiry texts.

The topic of this thesis is the biopolitics of video activism vis-à-vis racialized police violence. It is written against the backdrop of recent developments in the critique of two central concepts in field of biopolitics, namely Giorgio Agamben’s bare life and Michel Foucault’s biopower. Offsetting their respective framework, Alexander G. Weheliye (et al.) has introduced the imposition of race onto bodies as anterior to biopolitics. I incorporate this in a critique of Pasi Väliaho’s notion of biopolitical screens. To facilitate grounded theorizing, a field study of police accountability video activist groups in the United States was conducted. I argue that their observed practices should be seen as forms of embodied counter-surveillance and I situate them in the racially saturated field of visibility specific to the U.S. context. Moreover, I argue that the practices entail an extension of corporealities which is not inherently political in the sense of overt discursive iconography. It is, however, ideologically disrupting in how it networks politicized bodies through time and space. I conclude that raising the video camera to “look back” in the face of racializing assemblages constitutes a rights claim to a political subjectivity, however not necessarily in terms of polity or citizenship. Instead, the media practices are transversal and hold the potential to entail a political subjectivity ontologically anterior to state sovereignty.

This study explores the problem of how we perceive built space and relate to its abstract representations. In 1897, Poincaré presented the problem of space for the 20th century in his essay ‘The Relativity of Space’, in which the human body and technics in our spatial experiences were already implied. Merleau-Ponty and Don Ihde's work is based on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and has been influenced to different degrees by Martin Heidegger. The study is presented as a comparative historical-thematic textual study. For Merleau-Ponty, our primordial perception is general, pre-self-conscious and ambiguous. It is only in reflecting on our lived experiences that we can adequately describe our perceptions. One's own body is the means of having a world that is already intersubjective. Merleau-Ponty explicates the fusion of body and soul, as well as our irreducible relation to the world by referring to studies of behavioural pathologies. From these studies the motility and spatiality of one's body, as well as habit acquisition are already informative on general spatial experiences, the syntheses of our perceptions and the unity of the world. The body-subject is the nexus of all levels of perceptions. Merleau-Ponty describes the constitution of embodiment relations (by means of habit acquisition) with artefacts that mediate our interaction and perceptions in the world. Ihde extends this aspect of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. Building on Merleau-Ponty's explications of the body, Ihde poses a structure of human-technology relations with different variations: embodiment, hermeneutic, alterity, background and horizonal relations that transform our perceptions of the world and ourselves. Ihde's 'body one' and 'body two' are based on the notion that perception is meaningful and culturally informed. Ihde (after Husserl), shows that geometry and Euclidean space are instances of cultural habitus as an abstraction from the lifeworld. The different human-technology relations are present in our lifeworld-experiences of which built space is constantly part in the background or foreground of our projects and actions. By comparing both philosophers' work in a phenomenological explication of built space, new light is thrown on our experiences and perceptions thereof which have implications on architectural education. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Philosophy / unrestricted