The article tries to analyse argumentation strategies of conspiracy theories advocates in Slovak Internet discussions. The goal is to comprehend the causes of persuasiveness and successful cultural transmission of conspiracy theories. The article is based on the presumption that arguments used by contributors in the discussion, are an image of what they consider to be persuasive, and for this reason, they reflect - to a certain extent - the successful cultural transmission. The results show that the pro-conspiracy argumentation in the discussions systematically repeats the “argument ad hominem”, which - instead of attacking the essence and content of arguments in official stories - attacked the sources of information or persons that supported them in a given discussion. The attacks accused them of intentional deception and participation in the conspiracy. Referring to cognitive-psychological literature, the author comes to a conclusion that this phenomenon can be explained by people´s natural tendency to prefer explanations that offer other people´s intentions as a cause of an event. Figuratively speaking, the conspiracy theories “sponge” on the natural property of human thinking to occupy oneself with intentions of other people.
In his article the author reflects on the ways of thinking by some Polish anthropologists representing the younger generation of researchers and mainly addresses the way in which they approach fieldwork. The author uses materials collected during his study of Polish ethnographers and anthropologists conducted from 2010 to 2014. The author applies tools of analysis and set of concepts developed by cognitive linguistics. Primarily he uses George Lakoff’s and Mark Johnson’s theory of metaphor, which lets him map and show the scale of the impact of everyday thinking on reasoning and practice in anthropology. This influence increases because anthropologists conceptualize fieldwork using such categories as empathy, empathize, dialogue and face-to-face relation with informants and fieldwork participants. Based on the gathered data the author distinguishes three fundamental subdomains involving 1. the field and the contact, 2. the researcher, and 3. the meeting. Each subdomain comprises three conceptual metaphors: 1. field is ownership, contact is a test of power, contact is a deal; 2. researcher is an expert, researcher is a sinner, researcher is obliged; 3. meeting is the situation, meeting is the task, meeting is a union. These metaphors not only constitute a model of selected aspects of anthropologists’ professional way of thinking, but also, indirectly, as preconceptions and hidden presuppositions influence researchers’ attitudes in the field, their results and the form of anthropological knowledge.
The article presents the interdisciplinary approach of Edwin Hutchins, analyzing his conception of distributed cognition as probably the most important and lasting contribution of anthropology to the repertoire of theoretical tools in cognitive science. At the same time, this conception resulted in one of the most interesting relationships between cognitive science and social sciences. These relationships are made possible by the assumptions of Hutchins’ conception, which directly contribute to interdisciplinary collaboration. His account of distributed cognition has enormous potential, allowing the integration of research into cognitive and social processes. This is also because it breaks with methodological individualism.
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