Vector-based models of word meaning have become increasingly popular in cognitive science. The appeal of these models lies in their ability to represent meaning simply by using distributional information under the assumption that words occurring within similar contexts are semantically similar. Despite their widespread use, vector-based models are typically directed at representing words in isolation, and methods for constructing representations for phrases or sentences have received little attention in the literature. This is in marked contrast to experimental evidence (e.g., in (...) sentential priming) suggesting that semantic similarity is more complex than simply a relation between isolated words. This article proposes a framework for representing the meaning of word combinations in vector space. Central to our approach is vector composition, which we operationalize in terms of additive and multiplicative functions. Under this framework, we introduce a wide range of composition models that we evaluate empirically on a phrase similarity task. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche’s Case: Philosophy as/and LiteratureJeff MitchellNietzsche’s Case: Philosophy as/and Literature, by Bernd Magnus, Jean-Pierre Mileur and Stanley Stewart; 284 pp. New York: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1993, $16.95.In their “Pre(post)faces,” which open and conclude Nietzsche’s Case, the authors explain that the essay was primarily motivated by a problem they perceived in English-speaking Nietzsche criticism. Critical discussion of Nietzsche has suffered, they argue, from institutionalized “mutual shunning” which creates (...) a neat divide between literary and philosophical discourses. From within the safety of their professional keep, philosophers have generally adjudged literary treatments of Nietzsche’s writings negatively, assigning them a place on a scale ranging from “inaccurate” to “inept.” Viewed from the walls surrounding the literary stronghold, philosophical analyzes of Nietzsche have appeared naive and/or uninteresting. The authors assert that especially in the case of Nietzsche this turf mentality in the humanities has impoverished our cultural imagination, since he presents us with a sort of writing which defies mutually exclusive pigeon-holing as either philosophical or literary.Philosophy, the authors maintain, arises “out of the possibilities of idealization” (p. 138). Literary criticism, on the other hand, is “based on the possibilities of textualization” (p. 138). Philosophers studying Nietzsche tend to look for coherent meaning and, even more importantly, for logical rigor, whereas literary critics generally read “for novel new ideas, new insights, for fractures, fissures, and ambiguities in Nietzsche’s texts, for opportunities or connections missed” (p. 4). Nietzsche’s Case is an experiment in genre-mixing, [End Page 164] incorporating as it does all of these concerns into its critical perspective. The authors argue that Nietzsche’s work demands such criticism since his texts are informed by a conceptual rigor whose logic involves exploitation of the literary and rhetorical possibilities of the written word.The book’s project—undertaken, appropriately enough, by a philosopher (Magnus) and two literary theorists (Mileur and Stewart)—sets out to establish a new mode of criticism by carefully tracing the ways in which Nietzsche’s texts exceed traditional boundaries. The book’s extended argument aims at showing that Nietzsche’s transgression of hoary epistemic borders was directly motivated by his own genealogy of Western knowledge. “I, Plato, am the truth”—Nietzsche’s quip from the Twilight of the Idols ironically exposes the philosophical will to truth, and it is this claim to be primarily concerned with truth that the authors say can be seen “with only slight exaggeration,” as “the founding gesture of philosophy as it has been delivered over to us” (p. 4). They helpfully recall that part of Nietzsche’s genealogy which traces the origins of philosophy to religion and the priestly caste. Claims to the possession of knowledge were tied very early on to priestly strategies of asceticism and social domination, which cleverly highlighted the salvational nature of “true” knowledge as well as the discipline and self-renunciation required to attain it. On Nietzsche’s analysis, the dedication of philosophers to truth for truth’s sake and the supposedly disinterested character of their ideas and observations are the descendants of priestly asceticism.Magnus, Mileur and Stewart suggest that the philosophers’ assumption of a wholly objective and definitive access to truth was a pipedream, and that it helped seduce philosophers into a blindness vis-à-vis the interested and personal nature of their own theories, the textuality of their interpretations of world and humankind. If one grants this thesis, then the self-evident contemporary division between philosophy and literary criticism becomes, effectively, much less self-evident.The book’s originality and strength comes out best in the detailed analyses to which the authors’ new critical mode gives rise. In addition to displaying an impressive command of the enormous secondary literature on Nietzsche, the research team draws a series of novel and interesting comparisons between Nietzsche’s texts and texts from the English Renaissance and Romantic periods. Their emphasis on understanding the rhetorical aspects of Nietzsche’s writing—such as his continual use of hyperbole—should prove to be a genuine resource in interpreting his writings in the future. By pointing out and investigating the various rhetorical devices Nietzsche employs, they... (shrink)

This article argues that the freedom of voluntary action can be grounded in the contingency of the laws of nature. That is, the possibility of doing otherwise is equivalent to the possibility of the laws being otherwise. This equivalence can be understood in terms of an agent drawing a boundary between self and not-self in the domains of both matter and laws, defining the extent of the body and of voluntary behaviour. In particular, the article proposes that we can think (...) of ‘will’ as naming the component of the laws of nature delimited by this boundary. (shrink)

Are the French really ? Jeff Mitchell investigates what motivates such U.S. anti-French sentiments.

The article features an analytic protocol for examining controversial criminal cases in critical thinking courses. The rubric has been designed to be useful to busy critical thinking teachers who wish to draw on student interest in true crime. Six guidelines are presented that are intended to provide the instructor with a convenient scheme for quickly and easily framing classroom discussions. Due to their generality, the guidelines can be readily applied to a wide-range of cases, giving educators a high degree of (...) flexibility in the selection of criminal affairs. (shrink)

This innovative book proposes that what we think of as “moral conscience” is essentially the exercise of reflective judgment on the goods and ends arising in interpersonal relations, and that such judgment constitutes a form of taste. Through an historical survey Mitchell shows that the constant pendant to taste was an educational and cultural ideal, namely, that of the gentleman, whether he was an ancient Greek citizen-soldier, Roman magistrate, Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, Renaissance courtier, or Victorian grandee. Mitchell argues that (...) it was neither an ethical doctrine nor methodology that provided the high cultures with moral and political leadership, but rather an elite social order. While the gentry in the traditional sense no longer exists, it nevertheless made significant historical contributions, and insofar as we are concerned to understand the present state of human affairs, we need to grasp the nature and import of said contributions. (shrink)

In the essay I argue that the routine use of contraception is morally tantamount to early-term abortion because it produces the same result: namely, it prevents the creation of a human life that would have otherwise probably taken place. Because it can be shown that contraception is ethically acceptable, it follows that early-term abortion is as well.

John Dewey’s Ethics, which he co-authored with James Hayden Tufts, is now available as an online text in the public domain. Indeed, unrestricted access copies are obtainable on the Internet for both editions of the Ethics: the first edition of 1908 and the much revised second edition of 1932. This should be welcome news for teachers, because the book represents a cornucopian instructional resource. The Ethics constitutes an ambitious and comprehensive work that is organized into three distinct parts, which respectively (...) treat the historical and cultural background of Western mores, the main currents of Western moral theory, and the ethical aspects of several modern social problems. Given the text’s wide sweep... (shrink)

In philosophy textbooks for undergraduates the cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict is often cited as a proponent of moral relativism, and her writings are not infrequently excerpted to illustrate the view that the individual’s moral values are culturally determined. Because Benedict established that significant differences can exist in the underlying cultural patterns of different societies, her work is commonly construed as providing evidence for the arbitrary and non-rational basis of morals. The author of the present essay argues that this popular reading (...) of Benedict is mistaken. He draws a distinction between two different forms of moral relativism—the objective and the subjective—and then contends that Benedict is widely viewed as a subjective relativist when in fact her relativism was of the objective variety. He shows that her position actually has much in common with the pragmatic meliorism of John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. (shrink)

The distinction between weak and strong forms of critical thinking is a hallmark of Richard Paul’s pedagogy. He maintains that good reasoning entails a personal commitment to fair-mindedness. In this brief essay, I argue that Paul’s conception of fair-mindedness conflates cognitive empathy with empathetic concern and altruism. One’s understanding another’s perspective by no means entails approving of it, and one may seek to better grasp this standpoint for purely selfish reasons. Depending upon the circumstances, the other could be one’s competitor, (...) enemy, mark, or even intended victim. This implies that while we may wish that the world were otherwise, even very bad people can be highly effective critical thinkers. (shrink)

In this paper I give an account of self-deception by situating it within the theory of human conduct advanced by American pragmatists John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. After examining and rejecting the two most prevalent explanations of self-deception - namely, Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic interpretation and Jean-Paul Sartre's phenomenological one - I provide a brief sketch of some of Dewey's and Mead's fundamental insights into the inherently social nature of mind.I argue that one of the main forms of self-deception involves (...) unreflective acceptance of a belief that impartial inspection would readily expose as spurious. In this instance lying to oneself arises from the failure to analyze an appealing idea from the perspective of the generalized other which we acquire through participation in the universe of rational discourse. I conclude by pointing to certain features of contemporary social life that may indirectly promote such self-dissimulation. (shrink)

This is the first book published that specifically examines questions of ethics and advocacy that arise in conducting research on homelessness, exploring the issues through the deeply personal experiences of some of the field’s leading scholars. By examining the central queries from a broad range of perspectives, the authors presented here draw upon years of rich investigations to generate a framework that will be instructive for researchers across a wide spectrum of areas of inquiry.

This paper begins with a discussion of Stanley Cavell’s philosophy of language learning. Young people learn more than the meaning of words when acquiring language: they learn about (the quality of) our form of life. If we—as early childhood educators—see language teaching as something like handing some inert thing to a child, then we unduly limit the possibilities of education for that child. Cavell argues that we must become poets if we are to be the type of representatives of language (...) that education calls for. In the final section of the paper I discuss the work of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, someone who developed an approach to language teaching that overlaps in interesting ways with Cavell’s approach in The Claim of Reason. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan urges us to reject the view, dominant throughout history, that mere participation in an unjust war is not wrong.

However much one may wish for nonviolent solutions to the problems of unjust and unrestrained human violence that Glover explores in Humanity, some of those problems at present require violent responses. One cannot read his account of the Clinton administration’s campaign to sabotage efforts to stop the massacre in Rwanda in 1994 – a campaign motivated by fear that American involvement would cost American lives and therefore votes – without concluding that Glover himself believes that military intervention was morally required (...) in that case. Military intervention in another state that is intended to stop one group within that state from brutally persecuting or violating the human rights of members of another group is now known as “humanitarian intervention.” Those against whom the intervention is directed are almost always the government and its supporters, though this is not a necessary feature of humanitarian intervention. It is, however, a conceptual condition of humanitarian intervention that it does not occur at the request or with the consent of the government. The use of force within another state with the consent of the government counts as assistance rather than intervention. The principal reason that humanitarian intervention is contentious is that it seems to violate the target state’s sovereign right to control its own domestic affairs. Because humanitarian intervention is a response to human rights violations within the target state, it is regarded as altogether different from wars of defense against aggression. Indeed, since aggression is normally understood to be war against a state that.. (shrink)

While there are numerous questions that the having of children raise, there is one that philosophers should be particularly concerned with – “What is the good reason for the having of children?” Recently, Jeff Mitchell has given a deontological answer to this question (Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. XXIV, NO. 5 & 6, Sept/Oct & Nov/Dec 2002, pp. 42-46). His answer is based on the moral function of the having of children. He claims that parenthood is a “moral calling” and (...) that one should heed the call out of a sense of duty and responsibility for the good of society (Mitchell, 44). In this paper, I argue that such a “moral calling” account is mistaken. I maintain that Mitchell’s account is mistaken on two grounds. First, I maintain Mitchell has assumed a problematic stance at the outset and it infects his position in general. That assumption is that we can and should consider the interests of non-existent people when considering the utility of an outcome. By looking at this assumption, we see that the warrant for such a moral reason to have children is lacking, hence, we ought not to appeal to such a reason when deciding whether to have children. The second problem is the failure to provide the epistemic conditions for a central consideration – the warranted belief that one would probably make a good parent. Furthermore, even if we attempt to construct what such conditions might be given other aspects of Mitchell’s account, the conditions fail to provide an adequate justification for the central consideration. Thus, I intend to show that such a moral calling rationale for the having of children is not superior to rationales that focus on the individual’s self-interest. (shrink)

Self-creation and autonomy -- Creation, society and the imaginary -- Self and world -- The living body -- The human psyche -- The whole world and more : the meaning of the monadic psyche and its fate -- Magmas -- Determination and the logic of indeterminate being -- Indeterminacy and interpretation -- Autonomy and meaning.

In the Statesman , Plato brings together--only to challenge and displace--his own crowning contributions to philosophical method, political theory, and drama. In his 1980 study, reprinted here, Mitchell Miller employs literary theory and conceptual analysis to expose the philosophical, political, and pedagogical conflict that is the underlying context of the dialogue, revealing that its chaotic variety of movements is actually a carefully harmonized act of realizing the mean. The original study left one question outstanding: what specifically, in the metaphysical (...) order of things, motivated the nameless Visitor from Elea to abandon bifurcation for his consummating non-bifurcatory division of fifteen kinds at the end of the dialogue? Miller addressed in a separate essay, first published in 1999 and reprinted here. In it, he opens the horizon of interpretation to include the new metaphysics of the Parmenides , the Philebus , and the "unwritten teachings." "This study demonstrates how the Statesman is the culminating expression of Plato's lifelong effort, both in Athens and in the Academy, to bring metaphysical insight to the unending political crisis of his times."The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman a trail-blazing work. While not every reader will agree with the lessons Miller himself draws from this approach, none should fail to be impressed by its interpretive power. All this is exciting stuff. The interpretive pathway on which Miller has embarked has the potential for changing the face of scholarship on the late Platonic dialogues. Parmenides [Publishing] is to be commended for making these two important contributions available under a single cover." -- Kenneth Sayre, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame "Miller casts considerable light on virtually every aspect of the dialogue. . . . All in all, this book is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the Statesman." -- Stanley Rosen, Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy, Boston University MITCHELL MILLER is Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. He is the author of Plato's Parmenides. (shrink)

Most people are skeptical of the claim that the expectation that a person would have a life that would be well worth living provides a reason to cause that person to exist. In this essay I argue that to cause such a person to exist would be to confer a benefit of a noncomparative kind and that there is a moral reason to bestow benefits of this kind. But this conclusion raises many problems, among which is that it must be (...) determined how the benefits conferred on people by causing them to exist weigh against comparable benefits conferred on existing people. In particular, might the reason to cause people to exist ever outweigh the reason to save the lives of existing people? (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The notion of stakeholder salience based on attributes (e.g., power, legitimacy, urgency) is applied in the family business setting. We argue that where principal institutions intersect (i.e., family and business); managerial perceptions of stakeholder salience will be different and more complex than where institutions are based on a single dominant logic. We propose that (1) whereas utilitarian power is more likely in the general business case, normative power is more typical in family business stakeholder salience; (2) whereas in a general (...) business context legitimacy is socially constructed; for family stakeholders, legitimacy is based on heredity; and (3) whereas temporality and criticality are somewhat independent in general-business urgency, they are linked in the family business case because of family ties and family-centered non-economic goals. We apply this theoretical framework to position and integrate the contributions to this special section ofBusiness Ethics Quarterlyon “Stakeholder Theory, Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Family Enterprise.”. (shrink)

A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest (...) ways in which these ambiguities at once complicate and determine the significance of the thought of "... is" and its implications for the status of the opinions of mortals. (shrink)

Bruno Latour has been attempting to transform his sociological account of science into an ambitious theory of democracy. In a key early moment in this project, Latour alleges that Plato’s Gorgias introduces an impossibly ratio-nalistic and deeply anti-democratic philosophy which continues to this day to distort our understandings of science and democracy. Latour reckons that if he can successfully refute the Gorgias , then he will have opened up a space in which to authorize his own theory of democracy. I (...) argue that Latour’s refutation of the Gorgias is a failure. Hence, his political theory is, by his own standards, horribly underdetermined. I present another reading of the Gorgias , and consider the dialogue’s possible relevance for current theories of deliberative democracy. Key Words: Latour • Gorgias • Socrates • rhetoric • elenchus • deliberative democracy. (shrink)

In articles such as “Speech Acts without Propositions?” (2006), Marina Sbisà advocates a “strong” conception of speech acts as means by which speakers modify their own and others’ deontic statuses, including their rights, obligations, and commitments. On this basis Sbisà challenges an influential approach to speech acts as typically if not universally possessing propositional contents. Sbisà argues that such an approach leads to viewing speech acts as primarily aimed at communicating propositional attitudes rather than carrying out socially and normatively significant (...) action. For this reason she advocates eschewing propositions from speech act theory’s conceptual toolkit; she also proposes a liberalization of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantic content, which are widely thought to be mutually exclusive. In this chapter we examine Sbisà’s reasoning and argue that while it does justify denying propositional attitudes a central role in communication, it does not justify dispensing with propositions or other contents in our theorizing about speech acts. In addition, we endorse Sbisà’s proposal for liberalizing the force/content distinction, and show a variety of ways in which force indicators may also possess semantic content. (shrink)

This paper exposes a common mistake concerning the division of linguistic labor. I characterize the mistake as an overgeneralization from natural kind terms; this misleads philosophers about which terms are subject to the division of linguistic labor, what linguistic labor is, how linguistic labor is divided, and how the extensions of non-natural kind terms subject to the division of linguistic labor are determined. I illustrate these points by considering Sally Haslanger’s account of the division of linguistic labor for social kind (...) terms and raising an objection to it. Then, I draw on Tyler Burge’s work to characterize a conception of the division of linguistic labor that avoids the mistaken overgeneralization and grounds 1–4 above in social norms and practices. (shrink)

This article looks at the rare instances in Dewey’s collected works where psychiatry is addressed. Interestingly, Dewey draws on psychiatry as a way of demonstrating the flaws of excessively student-centered approaches to education. I take this to be of interest because it both clarifies Dewey’s philosophy of education while also suggesting that Dewey does not shy away from confronting truths disclosed by psychoanalysis. In fact, learning from advances in any and every field of inquiry is central to his philosophy of (...) education. While some readers of Dewey dismiss him as naïve or overly optimistic, this paper argues that Dewey invites the challenges offered by psychoanalytic work and that his understanding education for growth must be grounded in a psychoanalytically informed vision of the person. (shrink)

This paper provides an assessment of the bodily-attitudinal theory of emotions, according to which emotions are felt bodily attitudes of action readiness. After providing a reconstruction of the view and clarifying its central commitments two objections are considered. An alternative object side interpretation of felt action readiness is then provided, which undermines the motivation for the bodily-attitudinal theory and creates problems for its claims concerning the content of emotional experience. The conclusion is that while the bodily-attitudinal theory marks out a (...) distinctive proposal concerning the question of what emotions are, there remain significant issues which need addressing if it is to be a plausible competitor to existing theories of emotion. (shrink)

This book analyzes the moral confusion of contemporary society, relating rival conceptions of morality with a wide variety of views about the nature and predicament of man. Mitchell argues that many secular thinkers possess a traditional "Christian" conscience which they find hard to defend in terms of an entirely secular world-view, but which is more in line with a Christian understanding of man.

According to some philosophers, the mind enjoys a form of presence to itself. That is to say, in addition to being aware of whatever objects it is aware of, it is also (co-presently) aware of itself. This paper explores the proposal that we should think about this kind of experiential-presence in terms of a form of non-intentional awareness. Various candidates for the relevant form of awareness, as constituting supposed non-intentional experiential-presence, are considered and are shown to encounter significant problems. The (...) fact that a plausible account of the non-intentional awareness which experience putatively has of itself cannot be framed with reference to such forms of awareness is grounds for scepticism concerning the cogency of non-intentional experiential presence. (shrink)

There are many algorithm texts that provide lots of well-polished code and proofs of correctness. Instead, this book presents insights, notations, and analogies to help the novice describe and think about algorithms like an expert. By looking at both the big picture and easy step-by-step methods for developing algorithms, the author helps students avoid the common pitfalls. He stresses paradigms such as loop invariants and recursion to unify a huge range of algorithms into a few meta-algorithms. Part of the goal (...) is to teach the students to think abstractly. Without getting bogged with formal proofs, the book fosters a deeper understanding of how and why each algorithm works. These insights are presented in a slow and clear manner accessible to second- or third-year students of computer science, preparing them to find their own innovative ways to solve problems. (shrink)

Pragmatic arguments seek to justify the performance of an action by appealing to the benefits that may follow from that action. Pascal’s wager, for instance, argues that one should inculcate belief in God because there is everything to gain and little to lose by doing do. In this chapter I critically examine Pascal’s wager and William James’s famous “Will-to-Believe” argument by first explaining the logic of each argument and then by surveying the objections commonly arrayed against them. Finally, I suggest (...) that among the various versions of the wager found in Pascal’s Pensées is a neglected version that anticipates the Jamesian argument and that avoids the many-gods objection. (shrink)

The first interdisciplinary study of place, bringing together many of the key thinkers writing on the concept in the twenty-first century.

Art history on the edge : iconology, media, and visual culture -- Four fundamental concepts of image science -- Image science -- Image X text -- Realism and the digital image -- Migrating images : totemism, fetishism, idolatry -- The future of the image : Rancière's road not taken -- World pictures : globalization and visual culture -- Media aesthetics -- There are no visual media -- Back to the drawing board : architecture, sculpture, and the digital image -- Foundational (...) sites and occupied spaces -- Border wars : translation and convergence in politics and media -- Art X environment -- The historical uncanny : phantoms, doubles, and repetition in the war on terror -- The spectacle today : a response to retort -- Coda : for a sweet science of images. (shrink)

It is a commonly expressed sentiment that the science and philosophy of well-being would do well to learn from each other. Typically such calls identify mistakes and bad practices on both sides that would be remedied if scientists picked the right bit of philosophy and philosophers picked the right bit of science. We argue that the differences between philosophers and scientists thinking about well-being are more difficult to reconcile than such calls suggest, and that pluralism is central to this task. (...) Pluralism is a stance that explicitly drives towards accommodating and nurturing the richness and diversity of well-being, both as a concept and as an object of inquiry. We show that well-being science manifests a contingent pluralism at the level of methodology, whereas philosophy of well-being has largely rejected pluralism at the conceptual level. Recently, things have begun to change. Within philosophy, conceptual monism is under attack. But so is methodological pluralism within science. We welcome the first development, and bemoan the second. We argue that a joined-up philosophy and science of well-being should recognise the virtues of both conceptual and methodological pluralism. Philosophers should embrace the methodological justification of pluralism that can be found in the well-being sciences, and scientists should embrace the conceptual reasons to be pluralist that can be found in philosophical debate. (shrink)