In this paper, I address the issue of the possible applicability of the ideas of Karl R. Popper’s social and political philosophy in the contemporary political life of postcolonial countries. Through reference to the reception of Popper’s philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe, I argue that Popper’s writings were effective in catalysing the political wholesale transformation by undermining Marxists’ pretensions to scientific status rather than through his anti-utopian and anti-revolutionary political recommendations. In the context of attempts to apply Popper’s ideas in postcolonial countries, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, I claim that the influence of Popper’s social thought on the politics of those countries may not be as effective as expected or desired.

Problem statement: Accepting architectural aesthetics, especially people’, s in-depth experiences of buildings, is of considerable importance. Few attempts have been made to recognise it as scientific content. There is still some confusion about which architectural theoretical model of aesthetics is more comprehensive and complete. In fact, this concept appears to be an ambiguous quality that requires cohesive data for more accurate research. The aesthetic experience of architecture has always been a complicated topic affected by different factors,therefore, knowing the raison d’, ê, tre and quality of this experience as a qualitative necessity can affect the design process and principle of architecture. Hence, what kind of quality is the aesthetic experience of architecture? What components does it depend on? Research objective: This study aims to provide a full description and develop a cohesive framework of the aesthetic experience of architecture in a bid to perceive its innate structure by proposing a conceptual model. Research method: This descriptive-analytical qualitative study reviewed the theoretical literature on the findings of cognitive sciences from an interpretative perspective to present the research results as a conceptual model. Conclusion: The aesthetic experience of architecture refers to the emotional evaluation of spatial perception experience based on a direct approach through perceptive, motivational, sensorimotor, cognitive, and behavioural components emerging as a combination of different emotional imaginations (e. g., joy and pleasure). Hence, according to the theories of cognitive sciences, it can be stated that the intrusion of unclear body reactions in the architectural experience indicates that perceptive and motivational components lead to behavioural reactions. This shows the relationships between emotional dimensions and the involvement of sensorimotor components through the body with the space. In fact, interaction with an architectural space through its resultant capabilities can involve motivational components. Therefore, the perception of architectural aesthetics depends on the intrinsically stimulated activities including emotional processing and cognitive factors of an individual’, s background. In this regard, behavioral components can draw the individual’, s attention and trigger his motivation and enable him, the experiencing subject, to gain a conscious experience and also enjoy the aesthetic experience through the phenomenon of architectural work.

The present article deals with introducing and critically studying the book Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Cartesian Science by Daniel Garber. Garber, one of the most prominent researchers of modern philosophy and contemporary Descartes-scholar, wrote the book in 1980, and it was published by Cambridge University Press. This work has been released in French, yet there is no Persian translation available. It is a collection of articles written separately by author and published in credible philosophical journals. The unifying subject of the articles is the relationship between Descartes’ philosophical and scientific areas of interest. This article intends to introduce the author and covers the literary style of the book in English in brief. The article mainly addresses the introduction and critical analysis of the book itself, in two parts successively: form and content. This article intends to introduce the author and covers the literary style of the book in English in brief. The article mainly addresses the introduction and critical analysis of the book itself, in two parts successively: form and content.

Background and Aim: The physical environment causes man to reveal complicated reactions in the form of feelings, feedback, value, interests and desires. These reactions specifically form the human’, s cognitive and perceptual process of the environment in the form of aesthetics values such as feeling of environmental desirability. The concept of environmental aesthetics is a complex one and has been widely discussed in different theoretical and empirical studies,however, the effects of environmental stimuli and characteristics on the human’, s desirable experience of the environment still looks a vague subject. Thus, in the view of the various levels of experiential perception of the space and resulting feeling of desirability, it is imperative to perform various accurate analyses of environmental psychology, as this will help recognize theoretical components to improve the quality of the environment. Accordingly, the following questions are raised: Which characteristics in theoretical models of environmental psychology do form perception of the environmental aesthetics through experience? Which components do constitute the main elements of experiencing the environmental aesthetics? Methods: The present research has a qualitative approach and uses descriptive-analytical method to review the main models to recognize the key approaches related with the concept of experiential aesthetics so that their underlying mechanisms are determined. In this connection, the process and relationship between the variables of the theoretical models is examined via content analysis. Discussion and Conclusion: Results indicated that three main components can be regarded as the structural dimensions of aesthetics dimensions through experience: 1. Continuous action consciousness through interaction with and attention to the environment,2. Sensory-motor consciousness by arousal and emotions, and 3. Structural consciousness through participation in the environment and environmental behavior.

One of the issues in architectural education is the gap between knowledge and its application in the design practice by students. So far, this issue has been addressed from different approaches in many research studies and some solutions have been proposed. However, the issue persists and architectural education continues to grapple with it. This research attempted to rethink this issue from a different approach. The approach is based on the embodied cognition. The basics of embodied cognition clarify the role of human body in the cognition. Cognition means perception of the environment. In this paper, we collected these basics from the written resources. The resources that studied are based on the Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception. He showed that the human body is both subject and an activist in the environment. He emphasized that the interaction between body and environment is the most important agent in perception. Therfore, the research methodology is logical argumentation. The methodology is underlying on the phenomenology of perception and embodied cognition. Also, some part of the methodology is experiment. In the experiment, we selected naive architecture students from Payame Noor University of Iran, who participated in the “understanding and presenting of environment” course in their first semester. Some of the exercises in the lesson were body-based practice. We surveyed all the exercises of the students and compared them with the basics of the research. The results show that one of the reasons for the gap between the knowledge and its application in the design practice is that the cognitive role of student body in the architectural training is not taken into account. Then, if the architectural knowledge and design practice were both based on the embodied cognition, the cognitive, actionable, and representative role of the student's body, the gap between knowledge and its application in the design practice will be reduce. Finally, the student body has a basic role in the architectural knowledge and design. In the body-based practices, we showed what and how the practice can help the student’s body to become active in the training. However, the training and body practice is not the same as some sports, but the practices that can help students to understand the environment and present their understanding. We present some of these practices and students' responses to them. We showed that the name of that practice is embodied experience and it is helpful for architectural students. Then, we proposed other embodied experiences to have an embodied architectural education and training: the same as geometry understanding by showing the Pahlevani and Zoorkhaneh rituals. The rituals take place in the geometric spaces and all actions are based on that geometry. The other one is understanding the structure by doing the bridge movement in bodybuilding sport. It helps students to understand the bridge structure and bearing forces by bridge building.

Problem statement: One of the main components of mental health is emotion. Emotions are constructed concepts that the human brain creates by giving meaning to its perceptions of the body and the surrounding environment in the process of simulating and predicting them. The way the environment is experienced affects the emotions of the person experiencing it. Environmental information is obtained through perceptual processes. Perception can be approached in two ways: by paying attention to the environment and trying to explore it, or by being present in the environment without paying attention. If a human being actively experiences the environment as an embodied subject, this experience leads to an increase in their awareness. This article aims to investigate how an embodied subject can be active in the environment in a way that leads to an increase in the emotional awareness of the person experiencing it. With the increase in emotional awareness of the individual, a new emotion is added to their emotional granularity, and in this process, the individual’s mental health also increases.Research objective: This article aims to fill a theoretical gap in the field of the relationship between environment and emotions, with an emphasis on increasing mental health. The research question is: How does the way a human being experiences the environment as an embodied subject relate to their emotional awareness and the increase in their mental health?Research method: This article, with a qualitative research strategy and an interpretative approach, attempts to determine the effect of the embodied experience of the environment on the emotional awareness of the person experiencing it by explaining concepts such as emotion, emotional awareness, and embodiment in architecture and their relationship to each other.Conclusion: If, during the experience of the environment, something new happens and creates distinction and attracts the attention of the person experiencing it, and in other words, an error in the prediction process occurs in the perception process, and if this new experience contains emotional meanings, it leads to the creation of a new emotion in the brain of the person experiencing it and its addition to their emotional granularity, which increases their emotional awareness and subsequently their mental health.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The present article is carried out with the aim of measuring the components of embodied cultural capital in the book of Beyhaqi"s history. The concept of cultural capital is considered as a resource that individuals, groups and societies use to achieve desired results; Therefore, cultural capital is a set of beliefs, information, privileges, and the like that every person needs in order to be a member of a class of society. According to Pierre Bourdieu"s point of view, cultural capital can be examined in three areas: subjective or embodied, objective, and institutional. The meaning of tangible cultural capital is that type of acquired information that is internalized in the form of stable desires of the organism and is classified as one"s abilities. METHODOLOGY: This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of method and practical in terms of purpose, which library and internet sources including books and articles, theses and dissertations have been used to complete the theoretical foundations. The scope and society under study includes the book Beyhaqi"s history by Khalil Khatib Rahbar, published by Mehtab (2004). FINDINGS: Based on the findings of this research, the cultural attitudes in the book of Beyhaghi history can be classified under three main sections, which include political, religious and moral attitudes. CONCLUSION: In the political field, emphasis should be placed on prudence and avoiding unwiseness and consultation on various issues of the country; In the religious field, observing the practical rituals of Islam such as praying, giving alms, reading the Qur"an, believing in God"s judgment and destiny, and trusting in self-knowledge; And in the moral and educational part, themes such as forgiveness and trustworthiness, self-control, wisdom and kindness, study, avoiding misbehavior, greed, lying, backbiting, informant and gossip and things of this type can be observed.

Introduction Studies emphasize the possibility of cognitive and emotional controlling of creativity. Various studies indicate that emotional and behavioral harassment could be implemented independent of conscious choice and guidance, which could be applied to influence creativity. These studies use external environmental stimuli and preparation techniques to activate mental representations, often based on the theory of embodied cognition, an approach that provides a basis for turning mental states into physical ones and vice versa. In other words, physical states can affect or even induce psychological states and thus affect behavioral outcomes. Over time, the concept that creativity also has a physical foundation has gradually evolved. Research evidence has shown that embodying common verbal metaphors in a specific language, both mentally and physically, can lead to the promotion of convergent and divergent thinking. Therefore, this research raises these questions for the first time: which symbol of embodiment can be attributed to creativity? Furthermore, can such an embodied symbol replace embodied verbal metaphors related to the concept of creativity and be used as a trigger or environmental stimulus to facilitate creativity? Therefore, this innovative research aims to extract the embodied symbol of creativity (based on the embodied cognition approach) and investigate its impact on creativity. Methods This mixed-method research was carried out in two stages: 1) Qualitative-extracting the embodied symbol of creativity and 2) Quantitative-examining this symbol on the level of creativity of industrial design students. First, during a call with the aim of extracting the physical symbol of creativity, the students of theater schools in the country were invited to imagine themselves in a state as if a creative idea came to their mind and then take pictures of their performance state (facial mimicry, shoulder and hand position). Then, the set of submitted images (80 images) was judged by five experts. Next, this symbol was reevaluated and voted on 30 volunteer art students at Tabriz Islamic Art University, so the image with the most affinity for inducing the concept of creativity was selected as an embodied symbol of creativity. In the second stage, to investigate this symbol's effectiveness on creativity, a semi-experimental method was used with a pretest-posttest design along with a control group. The target population included all students in the 4th to 6th semester of Bachelor of Industrial Design at Tabriz Islamic Art University. The sample group included 30 people who volunteered to participate in the research and were randomly divided into two groups of 15 people as experimental and control groups. Before the start of the intervention, both groups took Torrance's Figural test as a pretest (Form B) and were again tested with the same test as the posttest after two weeks. During the posttest, the experimental group, at the same time, was given the embodied symbol of creativity as an intervention, but the control group received no intervention. The data obtained were analyzed using the multivariate covariance methods on SPSS-23 software. Results In the first stage of the research, the images received from 80 theater students showed that 68% of the images are closely similar in terms of facial expressions, shoulder, and hand movements (indicating the "Aha moment"). In the meantime, after the final judging by five experts and voting by 30 art students, Figure No. 1 was chosen as the embodied symbol of creativity with the most votes (13 votes), which was 43% of the total votes. In the second stage, the average age (standard deviation) of the experimental and control groups were calculated as 21.53±0.834 and 21.80±0.941, respectively. In addition, the information about the participants' gender, separated into two experimental and control groups, showed that the gender of the majority of the experimental group members was female (60%), and the gender of the majority of the control group members was male (93.3%). This study examined the impact of tangible symbols of creativity on the creativity levels of industrial design students. The descriptive findings revealed an increase in the creativity post-test scores of the experimental group. This improvement was evident in key statistics like the mean and standard deviation. Meanwhile, the control group's scores remained essentially unchanged. The mean (standard deviation) in the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group was 159.20 (69.68) and 178.73 (59.45), respectively, and the mean (standard deviation) in the control group's pre-test and post-test were 181.13 (59.11) and 180.13 (60.67), respectively. Multivariate covariance analysis tests were used to determine the effect of the embodied symbol of creativity on the level of creativity and its sub-components (initiative, flexibility, fluency, and expansion). However, before the inferential analysis, parametric assumptions were also observed. Shapiro-Wilk test to measure the normality of the distribution of the research variables, Levine's test to check the equality of error variances, M-Box test to check the homogeneity of the variances of the dependent variables, and the assumption of homogeneity of the regression slope. In order to determine the effectiveness of the embodied symbol of creativity on the creativity sub-components, the multivariate covariance analysis test was used, indicating its significant effect on the fluency sub-component of creativity in the experimental group (F=18.54, P<0.01). Moreover, the effect size (Eta square) indicates that the changes in the scores of the groups in the fluency component, as much as 0.436, were caused by the implementation of the independent variable (an embodied symbol of creativity). Conclusion The findings indicate the extraction of the embodied symbol of creativity in the innovative way of this research and its ability as a trigger (effect size 0.436) of the cognitive dimension of the creativity process based on the promotion of the fluency component (F=18.54, P<0.01). However, using this symbol has not affected the other sub-components of creativity (originality, flexibility, and elaboration). The results indicate that it is possible to consider the extraction of an embodied symbol that gives the same visual direction and reference to the mental metaphors of different people about the concept of creativity. Due to its similarity with the representational mode of "Aha Moment", it could advance beyond the boundaries of the Persian language and its mental metaphors to find a cross-cultural application. However, conclusive results in this area require more extensive neurological evidence and experiments. Ethical Consideration Compliance with ethical guidelines This article is extracted from the master’s thesis of cognitive science (design and creativity) of the first author (Thesis Code: 20431050), in compliance with ethical principles, including obtaining consent in order to participate in the research, respecting the principle of confidentiality of participants, providing adequate information about how to research to all the participants and being free to withdraw the research process. Authors' contribution In this research, Susan Dadkhah contributed to developing the initial idea and choosing the title, designing the study method, defining concepts, literature review, research implementation, collecting, analyzing, interpreting the data, and writing the initial draft of the article. Seyed Ali Faregh, as the first supervisor, contributed in title approval, consultation, supervision of implementation, scientific discussions, statement of the problem and data interpretation. Kazem Pouralvar, the secondary, supervisor contributed to scientific discussion, translation, and source support. Babak Amraee, as the research consultant, provided the operational definition of the concepts, sample group coordination, and scientific discussion for data interpretations. All research team members were actively involved in the data interpretation and editing of the final draft. Funding The present research received no funding from any financing organization. Acknowledgments The authors would like to express their grate gratitude to all the theater students participating in this research. Besides, the authors appreciate Ebrahim Nabati, Hossein Nadalizade, Mahsa Dadbud, Hossein Baghban, Mohsen Sheidaiefar, Fakhri Sadat Hasani, Reza Hamedikhah, Narges Kamrava, Azar Mahmoudi, Arezou Belarak, Fatereh Yahyaee, and Setareh Hosseini. Conflict of interest The authors declared no conflict of interest.

Over the centuries, the concept of the self has remained a prominent subject of philosophical inquiry. However, recent years have witnessed a notable shift, with empirical investigations in fields such as psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology directing their focus toward unravelling the mysteries of the self. These multidisciplinary endeavours have yielded profound insights into the nature of the self, particularly its intricate connection to the physical body. This article centres on a prevailing theory in contemporary discourse: the concept of the embodied self. Central to this theory is the proposition that the self is not an abstract entity but is fundamentally constituted by and inseparably linked with the corporeal form. The article provides an analytical examination of the theoretical scaffolding supporting this theory, drawing substantiation from recent empirical studies spanning diverse disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science. Additionally, it delves into the realm of phenomenology, briefly delving into Merleau-Ponty's philosophical contributions.