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Transcript of 1/22 Where is the counterintuitive agent in Judaism? Tamás Biró ACLC, University of Amsterdam...
1/22
Where is the counterintuitive agent in Judaism?
Tamás Biró
ACLC,University of Amsterdam
Groningen Centre for Religion & Cognition
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
2/22Tamás BIRÓ
E. Thomas Lawson & Robert N. McCauley
Lawson & McCauley, 1990.: Rethinking Religion, Connecting Cognition and Culture– Foundations of the Cognitive Science of Religion– Model of rituals, based on Chomskyan syntax
McCauley & Lawson, 2002: Bringing Ritual to Mind, Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms– Which predicts better the arousal connected to
rituals? Ritual form (L&McC, 1990) or frequency (Whitehouse, 1995)?
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
3/22Tamás BIRÓ
The fate of a scientific model
Prediction corroboration/falsification/improvement
Can L&McC 1990 / McC&L 2002 be applied to Judaism?
… I am afraid: not very much Open question: what about other religions?
Fritz Staal’s ritual structures; Mikhail on UMG
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
4/22Tamás BIRÓ
Overview
Introduction to / own reading of / elaboration on Lawson&McCauley’s model of ritual form– Back to the linguistic model– Introducing new roles, new structures, negation
L&McC: Implementation to religious rituals Implementation to Judaism
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
5/22Tamás BIRÓ
Linguistics: syntax–semantics interface
John broke the window.
The hammer broke the window.
The window was broken by John.
The window was broken by the hammer.
The window broke.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
6/22Tamás BIRÓ
Linguistics: syntax–semantics interface
subject verb object by-phrase
John broke the window.
The hammer broke the window.
The window was broken by John.
The window was broken by the hammer.
The window broke.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
7/22Tamás BIRÓ
Linguistics: syntax–semantics interface
subject verb object by-phrase
John broke the window.
The hammer broke the window.
The window was broken by John.
The window was broken by the hammer.
The window broke.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
8/22Tamás BIRÓ
Thematic roles (Theta-roles)
Semantic arguments of the action:– Agent: (“logical subject”)– Patient: (“logical direct object”)– Instrument
Further semantic roles:– Recipient: (“logical indirect/dative object”; L&McC p125)– Location, time– Experiencer– Etc.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
9/22Tamás BIRÓ
Frequent confusion: ontological categories – thematic roles
human
(incl. CIA)
agent
natural force agentive categories
agentive roles
natural force
animalpatient
plant recipientlocation
artefactnatural object
instrument
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
10/22Tamás BIRÓ
Thematic roles for action representation
So far: linguistic arguments to introduce them (arguments from specific languages and from cross-linguistic comparison).
My hypothesis: Linguistic observations reflect a deeper cognitive phenomenon: the mental representation of actions and states-of-affair in the world.
Need to be demonstrated even beyond religion.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
11/22Tamás BIRÓ
Axioms of Human Cognition 1
Axiom AHC 1:
(1a) (Object Agency Filter) Agentive roles can be filled only by (some!) agentive categories.
(1a’) Only agentive categories can bring about changes in the world.
(1b) (Agent Overdetection) Agentive roles are preferably filled by ontological agents (humans and CIAs, but not by natural forces).
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
12/22Tamás BIRÓ
Action representation formalism
(Lawson&McCauley, mixture of different linguistic formalisms.)
John broke the window.
J o hn
agent
broke
A
the wi ndow
patient
A C T I O N
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
13/22Tamás BIRÓ
Axioms of Human Cognition 2
The hammer broke the window.The window was broken by the hammer.John broke the window using the hammer.
Axiom AHC 2:
(2a) Agentive categories being able to perform action X can enable other categories to act as instrument, or as secondary agents in performing action X.(2b) Otherwise, non-agentive categories cannot act as instruments.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
14/22Tamás BIRÓ
Action representation formalism
The hammer broke the window.
The hammer
instrument
enabled by...
Quality
agent
br oke
A
the window
patient
A C T I O N
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
15/22Tamás BIRÓ
Enabling an instrument
Presupposition (explicit or implicit):
The hammer was moved:
– by John (an agent)– by folk-gravitation (an agentive natural force)– by a robot: an object acting as a secondary agent
Because the robot was – designed by a human (an agent)– activated by folk-electricity (an agentive natural force)
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
16/22Tamás BIRÓ
Enabling an instrument
The hammer moved by John broke the window.
J ohn
agent
mov ed
A
the hammer
patient
A C T I O N The hammer
instrument
agent
br oke
A
the window
patient
A C T I O N
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
17/22Tamás BIRÓ
Lawson & McCauley on religious rituals
– Religious ritual if and only if at least one slot is filled by a counterintuitive agent (CIA)…
– …or an agent/instrument enabled by a CIA.– The shortest chain of enabling counts (PSI).– “Special agent rituals” vs. others (PSA).– Balanced ritual systems need both.– Tedium if no special agent rituals.
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
18/22Tamás BIRÓ
Application to post-Temple Judaism
Special agent rituals in Judaism?– Circumcision?– Bar mitzvah?– Wedding?
Special patient rituals?– Ritual bath?
What about most commandments?– Positive vs. negative commandments
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
19/22Tamás BIRÓ
New thematic relations + negation
Presupposed enabling action:
Cf: Mum told us to take a coat whenever it’s cold.
C I Arabbi s
tradi ti on
agent
commanded
A
any X that i s ...
agent
Y / not Y
action
any I , T, L that i s ...
ins trumenttime
location
propos ition
A C T I O N
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
20/22Tamás BIRÓ
Co-indexing and predication
Don’t light fire on Shabbat!
C I A
agent
commanded
A
any J ew
agent
not l i ght
action
any fi re
patient
any s habbat
time
propos ition
A C T I O N
M os he
J ewi sh
Quality
agent
not l i ght
A
the l amp
patient
tomorrow
time
A C T I O N
Summer Course in Culture and CognitionCEU, Budapest, Hungary, July 6, 2007
21/22Tamás BIRÓ
Summary
An overview of Lawson & McCauley 1990 from a different perspective:– Thematic roles as elements of action
representation system.– Axioms of cognition
Implementing L & McC 1990 to Judaism: need to improve the model (what about other religions?)
– New thematic roles– Negation, co-indexing…