Individuals shift their language to converge with interlocutors. Recent work has suggested that convergence can target not only observed but also expected linguistic behavior, cued by social information. However, it remains uncertain how expectations and observed behavior interact, particularly when they contradict each other. We investigated this using a cooperative map task experiment, in which pairs of participants communicated online by typing messages to each other in a miniature “alien” language that exhibited variation between alien species. The overall task comprised (...) three phases, in each of which participants were told that they would be paired with a different partner. One member of the pair was given explicit linguistic expectations in each phase, while the software controlled whether or not observed behavior from their partner would be consistent or inconsistent with these expectations. The other participant was given no such expectations, allowing us to control for the role of expectation. Participants converged to both observed and expected linguistic behavior, and convergence was boosted when observation and expectation were aligned. When expected and observed behavior were misaligned, participants updated their expectations, though convergence levels did not drop. Furthermore, participants generalized what they learned about one partner to apparent novel partners of the same alien species. We also discuss individual variation in convergence patterns and the lack of a relationship between linguistic convergence and success at the map task. Findings are consistent with observations outside the laboratory that language users converge toward expected linguistic behavior. They also have broader implications for understanding linguistic accommodation and the influence of social information on linguistic processing and production. (shrink)

We argue that work on norms provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to bias, oppression, and injustice. We briefly map out the geography of that debate before presenting Charlotte Witt’s view, showing how her position, and the normative ascriptivism at its heart, seamlessly connects individuals to the social reality they inhabit. We then describe recent empirical work on the psychology of norms and locate the notions of informal institutions and soft structures with (...) respect to it. Finally, we argue that the empirical resources enrich Witt’s ascriptivism, and that the resulting picture shows theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp. (shrink)

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the _Dictionary_ takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The _Dictionary_ will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

This paper provides new theoretical insights into the interconnections and relationships between women, management and globalization in the Middle East (ME). The discussion is positioned within broader globalization debates about women’s social status in ME economies. Based on case study evidence and the UN datasets, the article critiques social, cultural and economic reasons for women’s limited advancement in the public sphere. These include the prevalence of the patriarchal work contract within public and private institutions, as well as cultural and ethical (...) values which create strongly defined gender roles. The discussion examines the complexities of conceptualizing women’s equality and empowerment in Islamic states. The paper reveals that there have been significant achievements in advancing women in leadership and political roles, but that there are still institutional and cultural barriers embedded in business systems. Linking feminist, development and management theoretical strands a development framework is proposed which is sensitive to the Islamic Shar’ia encompassing government, organization and individual level strategies. It is suggested that scholars should integrate literatures from gender and management, development and Middle East studies, and in particular that critical scholars of gender and organization should consider the interrelations of the national and transnational in critiques of contemporary global capitalism to understand the complexity of women and social change in the ME. (shrink)

The central question addressed is: How should scientific research be conducted so as to ensure that nature is respected and the well being of everyone everywhere enhanced? After pointing to the importance of methodological pluralism for an acceptable answer and to obstacles posed by characterizing scientific methodology too narrowly, which are reinforced by the ‘commercial-scientific ethos’, two additional questions are considered: How might research, conducted in this way, have impact on—and depend on—strengthening democratic values and practices? And: What is thereby (...) implied for the responsibilities of scientists today? (shrink)

Haunted by dreams of a powerful red tide, Odd Thomas, accompanied by two otherworldly sidekicks--his dog Boo and the Chairman of the Board--is drawn to a small California coastal town, where nothing is at it appears and where he confronts overwhelming and sinister forces out to stop his quest.

The speed and degree to which e- commerce is infiltrating the very fabric of our society, faster and more pervasively than any other entity in history, makes an examination of its ethical dimensions critical. Though ethical lag has heretofore hindered ourexplorations of e- commerce ethics, it is now time to identify and confront them. In this paper we define e- commerce and describe thecharacteristics that set it apart from traditional brick and-mortar business. We then examine the ethical foundation of e- (...) commerce, focusing on the question, “Is there a special e- commerce ethics?” Our answer is “no.” We support our answer by showing that the current issues in e- commerce ethics and brick-and-mortar business are fundamentally the same, but that e- commerce issues have different manifestations and scope. We then demonstrate that ethical principles and rules in e- commerce and brick-and-mortar business are fundamentally the same, but have different manifestations at the most specific level. We elucidate this point by discussing the use of personal information and the opt-in, opt-out debate. We conclude with a call for research on trust, a key value in the success of e- commerce. (shrink)

We conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies that tested for an association between grandparental survival and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Using two different methodologies, we found that the survival of the maternal grandmother and grandfather, but not the paternal grandmother and grandfather, was associated with decreased grandoffspring mortality. These results are consistent with the findings of psychological studies in developed countries (Coall and Hertwig Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:1-59, 2010). When tested against the predictions of five hypotheses (confidence of (...) paternity; grandmothering, kin proximity, grandparental senescence, and local resource competition), our meta-analysis results are most in line with the local resource competition hypothesis. In patrilineal and predominantly patrilocal societies, the grandparents who are most likely to live with the grandchildren have a less beneficial association than those who do not. We consider the extent to which these results may be influenced by the methodological limitations of the source studies, including the use of retrospective designs and inadequate controls for confounding variables such as wealth. (shrink)

A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture. Edited by Antje Richter. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. IV.31. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Pp. xx + 978. €231, $299.

This discussion is grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic realism and takes the position that nursing is a practical science. As an exposition of the title statement, distinctions are made between opinion and truth, and the speculative, productive and practical sciences. Sources of opinion and truth are described and a discussion follows that truth can be achieved through knowing principles and causes of the natural kind behind phenomena. It is proposed that humans are the natural kind behind nursing phenomena. Thus, human nature provides (...) proper principles (the truth) of nursing practice. (shrink)

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the _Dictionary_ takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The _Dictionary_ will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (...) and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

It has been proposed that the policies and practices of food sovereignty, unlike those of today's hegemonic food/agricultural system, provide the means for satisfying and safeguarding the right to food security for everyone everywhere. My principal objective in this article, which gains its significance in the light of an explanatory critique of the current system, is to explore how scientific research — using what kinds of methodologies, and building on experiences of what and of whom? — can constructively inform these (...) practices and policies, and contribute towards appraising this proposal. (shrink)

Complementation and correction of a genetic defect with CNS manifestations lags behind gene therapy for inherited disorders affecting other organ systems because of shortcomings in delivery vehicles and access to the CNS. The effects of improvements in viral and nonviral vectors, coupled with the development of delivery strategies designed to transfer genetic material thoughout the CNS are being investigated by a number of laboratories in efforts to overcome these problems.

Can Martyrdom survive Secularization? is a survey of martyrdom in western society starting with the early Christian martyrs, and narrating its increasing politicization and secularization in more modern times. It argues that martyrdom is a two way street: the courage of men and women in the face of torture and death and the willingness of society to grant them the title of martyr. It recounts the careers of John Brown and his death on a Virginia gallows in 1859, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (...) and his execution by the Nazis in 1945, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the atomic bomb. The story ends with the advent of suicide bombers, the apparent reintroduction of religion as a motive and their role as a political weapon. (shrink)

This discussion is grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic realism and takes the position that nursing is a practical science. As an exposition of the title statement, distinctions are made between opinion and truth, and the speculative, productive and practical sciences. Sources of opinion and truth are described and a discussion follows that truth can be achieved through knowing principles and causes of the natural kind behind phenomena. It is proposed that humans are the natural kind behind nursing phenomena. Thus, human nature provides (...) proper principles (the truth) of nursing practice. (shrink)

IVF as lottery or investment: contesting metaphors in discourses of infertilityThis paper reports an aspect of a poststructural feminist study in which I explored the discursive formations within which women for whom in vitro fertilisation (IVF) was unsuccessful constitute themselves. In my exploration I draw on data from interviews with women who discontinued infertility treatment, print media material and infertility self‐help books. Specifically, I highlight a metaphor of lottery in discourses of infertility, arguing that it is hegemonic and showing how (...) when women are situated as gamblers, the metaphor is instrumental in polarising them into ‘winners’ or ‘losers’ in relation to the subjectivity of motherhood. I further deconstruct these subjectivities, showing how ‘winners’ are valorised and ‘losers’ are pathologised. But importantly, I show how infertile women who are not mothers resisted locating themselves as ‘losers’ in a metaphor of lottery and instead situated themselves in a contesting metaphor of investment as diligent ‘workers’ and as active agents in choosing the best employment of their bodily and monetary resources. This paper therefore amplifies the marginalised perspective of infertile women who are not mothers. (shrink)

Maxwell J. Mehlman, Transhumanist dreams and dystopian nightmares: The promise and peril of genetic engineering, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012, reviewed by Sheryl de Lacey.

Providing an illuminating and informed introduction to central philosophical issues, concepts and perspectives in the core fields of metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical logic, the Dictionary takes the most common terms and notions and clarifies what they mean to the philosopher and what sort of problems the philosopher finds associated with them. Thoroughly revised and updated, the bibliographies supply core reading lists, and each entry uses extensive cross referencing to related themes and concepts to provide a greater sense of access, control (...) and comprehension. The Dictionary will also provide those working in proximate fields with an understanding of areas of overlapping interest, concepts of common applicability and the full range and diversity of philosophical analysis and insight. (shrink)

This study constitutes a contribution to the discussion about moral reasoning in business. Kohlberg’s (1971, in Cognitive Development and Epistemology (Academic Press, New York), 1976, in Moral Development and Behavior: Theory and Research and Social Issues (Holt, Rienhart and Winston, New York)) cognitive moral development (CMD) theory is one explanation of moral reasoning. One unresolved debate on the topic of CMD is the charge that Kohlbergian-type CMD theory is gender biased. This research puts forth the proposal that the issue may (...) be elucidated by exposing an ambiguity in “gender” (Borna and White: 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 47, 89–99; Gentile: 1993, Psychological Science 4(2), 120–122; Unger: 1979, American Psychologist 34(11), 1085–1094). We use the Sociomoral Reflective Objective Measure (SROM) to measure CMD and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to measure gender as a psychosocial concept, rather than as a biological classification. The results of our study indicate that high femininity, measured as a psychosocial attribute, is associated with significantly lower Kohlbergian-type CMD scores among business practitioners. Sex moderates the effect of gender on CMD, but only indirectly. Our research also reveals that education plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between gender and moral reasoning. In addition, age has a significant direct effect on CMD scores of business practitioners. (shrink)

Der Streit um die Prinzipien der Theorienentwicklung hat in den Jahren seit dem Erscheinen von TH. S. KUHNS "Die Struktur wissen schaftlicher Revolutionen" mannigfache und lebhafte AufSerungen pro und contra hervorgerufen. Die Gegenposition wird im wesent lichen durch die Namen POPPER und LAKATOS charakterisiert. Die Kontroverse erweist sich als eine solche zwischen synchronischer und diachronischer, zwischen systematischer und historischer Betrach tungsweise. 1st die Entwicklung der Wissenschaften, wie man es nach KUHN glauben kann, in entscheidendem MafSe aufSeren Einfliissen und Zufalligkeiten ausgesetzt, (...) oder gibt es nicht doch rationale, rein wissenschaftsimmanente Kriterien, auf Grund derer eine Entwicklung im Sinne eines Fortschrittes zu immer besseren, richtigeren und lei stungsfahigeren Theorien moglich ist? Eine wesentliche Schwierigkeit, um dabei weiterzukommen, besteht darin, dafS es keine Moglichkeit zu geben scheint, eine Theorie zu bewerten, zu entscheiden, welche von zwei Theorien "wahrscheinlicher, richtiger, besser oder leistungs fahiger" ist. Wenn es geiange, eine numerische Bewertung von Hypothesen und Theorien in dieser Richtung zu finden, so ware damit auch ein Weg gewiesen, die Entwicklung der Theorien nicht nur zu rekon struieren, sondern vielleicht auch zu lei ten. Die Bewertung einer Theorie im Sinne ihrer Richtigkeit ist bisher nicht gelungen. Wenn POPPER, insbesondere in seinen spaten Arbeiten ("Objective Knowl edge"), die Auffassung vertritt, dafS die Entwicklung der Wissen schaften im Sinne einer immer grofSeren Wahrheitsahnlichkeit von statten gehe, so ist das bei ihm ein reiner Glaube, der auf Grund seines Modells von Versuch und Irrtum postuliert wird. (shrink)

Justice, Sustainability, and Security not only enhances our knowledge of these issues, but it teases out our moral dimensions and offer prescriptions for how governments and global actors might craft their policies to better consider their effects on the global human condition.

This article analyzes through a linguistic lens three official documents of the Roman Catholic Church on women’s ordination; it also identifies various discursive tactics utilized by text creators to reinforce gender hierarchy within the Church. Drawing from Fairclough’s three dimensional discourse framework, we examine the ideological message embedded in the linguistic features and the role each text plays within a matrix of power relations. Through close readings of Inter Insigniores: On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood, (...) Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of John Paul II, and Women and the Priesthood, we demonstrate how discourse analysis can serve as a useful tool for identifying logical fallacies, inconsistencies, dilemmas, and manipulative tactics in religious discourses. (shrink)

A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epis- tolary Connections. By Jennifer Eichman. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 127. Boston: Brill, 2016. Pp. xvi + 422. €139, $180.

Psychotherapy clients read two consumer-oriented brochures: a general brochure on psychology and a brochure on the topic of client-therapist intimacy. Half of the participants read the general brochure first and the brochure on client-therapist intimacy second, and half the participants did the reverse. Participants reported favorable reactions to the brochures, indicating they thought both should be made available to psychotherapy clients; that neither were too long, too sensitive, or too difficult to read; and that the brochures should be made available (...) early during the therapeutic process. After reading the client-therapist intimacy brochure, participants also showed some changes in Likert-type scores measuring attitudes regarding intimate contact between clients and therapists. Although participants were more negative about issues of sexual misconduct after reading the client-therapist intimacy brochure, they did not indicate a decrease in trust of therapists, nor did they indicate a greater likelihood of filing a false complaint. We concluded that therapists' reservations about presenting clients with factual information regarding therapist sexual exploitation of clients are not empirically founded. (shrink)

This junior/senior level text is devoted to a study of first-order logic and its role in the foundations of mathematics: What is a proof? How can a proof be justified? To what extent can a proof be made a purely mechanical procedure? How much faith can we have in a proof that is so complex that no one can follow it through in a lifetime? The first substantial answers to these questions have only been obtained in this century. The most (...) striking results are contained in Goedel's work: First, it is possible to give a simple set of rules that suffice to carry out all mathematical proofs; but, second, these rules are necessarily incomplete - it is impossible, for example, to prove all true statements of arithmetic. The book begins with an introduction to first-order logic, Goedel's theorem, and model theory. A second part covers extensions of first-order logic and limitations of the formal methods. The book covers several advanced topics, not commonly treated in introductory texts, such as Trachtenbrot's undecidability theorem. Fraissé's elementary equivalence, and Lindstroem's theorem on the maximality of first-order logic. (shrink)

In Singapore, the law holds that one person may constitute an illegal assembly. This makes each person, individually and at all times, latently assembled if not actually so. But where exactly does the permissible, non-assembled one end and the unlawful, gathered one begin? How and when does one become more than one, that is, some? For here an excess of one is not many, but rather an indeterminate some. Of what does this someness consist? This essay draws on Foucault and (...) Lacan’s discussion of the liar paradox and set theory’s concept of the “not-all” via Bateson and Kordela to make a few observations about the political subject’s constitution under illiberal democracy. (shrink)