Ewing, Harley; Ewing, Selena Review of: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Back Bay Books, 1995.

Are ecosystems morally considerable-that is, do we owe it to them to protect their “interests”? Many environmental ethicists, impressed by the way that individual nonsentient organisms such as plants tenaciously pursue their own biological goals, have concluded that we should extend moral considerability far enough to include such organisms. There is a pitfall in the ecosystem-to-organism analogy, however. We must distinguish a system’s genuine goals from the incidental effects, or byproducts, of the behavior of that system’s parts. Goals seem capable (...) of giving rise to interests; byproducts do not. It is hard to see how whole ecosystems can be genuinely goal-directed unless group selection occurs at the community level. Currently, mainstream ecological and evolutionary theory is individualistic. From such a theory it follows that the apparent goals of ecosystems are mere byproducts and, as such, cannot ground moral considerability. (shrink)

Saímos da leitura ortodoxa da obra de Merleau-Ponty para lhe sermos mais sinceros e fiéis. Neste sentido, apresentamos as consequências para a filosofia que, de modo heroico e dramático, recupera a natureza trágica do transcendental como revelação e engajamento na contingência eterna. Mostramos que o tema privilegiado para esta filosofia, seu verdadeiro solo, é a ausência de limites precisos da fenomenologia e da ontologia. Nesses termos, analisamos de que maneira a fenomenologia estende e fortalece as fronteiras ordinárias do Logos, que (...) jamais foi humano, mas, desde sempre uma Natureza que manifesta o Ser. (shrink)

Através desse diálogo tivemos o objetivo de propor uma compreensão do homem através da explicitação do sentido ético de edificação. Apresentamos a cidadania do mundo como uma finalidade moral do homem, que estava presente e oculta na fundamentação metafísica do humanismo. Agora, se o antropológico se fortalece por meio da realização ética do mundo, defendemos que o dever do melhor não é uma finalidade moral que se realiza em um infinito separado da finitude humana. O antropológico só é cidadão se (...) ele se compreende como uma finitude sem infinito separado, ou seja, como um fim em si, como um lugar de chegada. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:'0". J.~·VleWS GETTING ONE'S HANDS DIRTY; OR, PRACTISING WHAT YOU TEACH DAVID HARLEY Finlayson House, 40 Dumfries Street Paris, Ont., Canada N3L 2c8 Brian Patrick Hendley.. Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois U. P., 1986. Pp. xxi, 177· US$19.95; paper $9·95· B rian Hendley's book is more than a well-written account of three eminent philosophers who wrote about and participated in educational theory (...) and reform. The author has in fact selected Dewey, Russell and Whitehead as three stallions to draw a chariot. The precise nature of this "chariot" is indicated in the chapter entitled "The Philosopher as Educator Today" appearing at the end of the book: My intention throughout has been to suggest a way out of the current impasse in the philosophy ofeducation by reopening a conversation regarding a more productive role for philosophers to play, rather than merely analyzing concepts and policing arguments. My claim has been that philosophers of education can learn from their past, that we can see in Dewey, Russell and Whitehead instances of a productive approach to educational problems through thought and action. (P. 105) Having said this, the structure and contents of Hendley's book fall squarely into place. Chapter One, entitled "The Reconstruction of the Philosophy of Education", argues that there is a crisis in the current state of educational philosophy. The ensuing three chapters are devoted individually to Dewey, Russell and Whitehead. The concluding chapter, resting upon the strength of the examples given of three constructive contributors to the field, suggests new directions for the philosophy of education. It is clear that Hendley's book is more than an interesting account of the practical and theoretical educational activities of three of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Dewey, Russell and Whitehead are not gathered together between the. same covers in order to explore or present a detailed analysis of their theoretical similarities or who may have influenced Reviews 219 whom. Instead, one gathers that the author has selected them on the basis of his own admiration and preference rather than for any shared theories which connect them. The point is made, however, that the strongest common element, and the most significant one, is that each man had ideas about education, each was a philosopher, and each attempted to exert some practical influence upon the educational institutions and practices of the day. In short, Dewey, Russell and Whitehead were theorists who were prepared to get their hands dirty. Hendley argues that after the death of John Dewey in 1952 educational philosophy was neglected and· philosophers tended to pay less attention to education. The author goes on to suggest some renewed interest in the field on the grounds of contributions made to the fifty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education in 1955 under the theme "Modern Philosophies and Education", a special issue of the Harvard Education Review published in 1956; the publication of Israel Scheffler's edited collection of readings entitled Philosophy and Education in 1958; and R. S. Peters' Inaugural Address given at London in 1963, and his publication of Ethics and Education in 1966. According to this argument, we witness a general lapse after the death of Dewey, a rekindling in the mid-1950S and a broader resurgence in the 1960s. On the basis of the author's own account, I think that it is very difficult to argue that Dewey's death initiated any period of calm or disinterestedness. Furthermore, it is very problematic to point to various yearbooks or publications as indicators. The point is that with the death of Dewey there were numerous contenders to fill his position as the pre-eminent American philosopher of education. The extent to which anyone has been able to do so is a different matter. What I believe Hendley is really trying to say here is implicit in his argument, namely, that after the death of Dewey, no philosopher of equal stature took his place. The reason why no candidate equal to the task emerged is also suggested by the author. Dewey, Russell and Whitehead are to be admired because they had the... (shrink)

Constraints on the types of speech errors observed can be accounted for by a frame/content distinction, but connectionist modeling shows that they do not require this distinction. The constraints may arise instead from the statistical properties of our language, in particular, the sequential biases observed in the vocabulary. Nevertheless, there might still be a role for the frame/content distinction in syntactic planning.

Bloom masterfully captures the state-of-the-art in the study of lexical acquisition. He also exposes the extent of our ignorance about the learning of names for non-observables. HCLMW adopts an innatist position without adopting modularity of mind; however, it seems likely that modularity is needed to bridge the gap between object names and the rest of the lexicon.

We propose an account of dynamic predicates which draws on the notion of force, eliminating reference to events in the linguistic semantics. We treat dynamic predicates as predicates of forces, represented as functions from an initial situation to a final situation that occurs ceteris paribus, that is, if nothing external intervenes. The possibility that opposing forces might intervene to prevent the transition to a given final situation leads us to a novel analysis of non-culminating accomplishment predicates in a variety of (...) languages, including the English progressive. We then apply the force-theoretic framework to the composition of basic Vendlerian eventuality types within a lexical-decomposition syntax. The difference between predicates of forces and predicates of situations is argued to underlie the dynamic/stative contrast, and also to allow for a formal treatment of the difference between be and stay. Consequences for the relationship between language and cognition are discussed. (shrink)

This article explores the emergence of leadership during implementation of a water saving initiative in the rural community surrounding Barren Box Swamp in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia. Qualitative data analysis indicated that the system elements affecting the type of leadership to emerge included the extent to which the groups were engaged in the process, the level of access to resources, and the level of investment in the outcomes of the project. Although these results reinforced key aspects of complex problem-solving (...) through collaboration, they demonstrated varying degrees and types of both engagement and leadership within the case community. Given the current finding that these varying elements can coincide within one system, this case suggests that each community’s characteristics, resources and context will determine the optimal combination of leadership style and level of collaboration needed to facilitate sustainable community development. (shrink)

Eloise Jelinek was a leading authority on syntactic and semantic theory, information structure, and several Native American languages (including Lummi, Yaqui, and Navajo). She was one of the very first generative linguists who brought the theoretical implications of the properties of typologically unusual and understudied languages to the forefront of mainstream generative thinking.Jelinek originated the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis the idea that many languages restrict realization of their arguments to pronouns. In other work, Jelinek investigated a broad range of morphological, syntactic (...) and semantic phenomena in understudied and endangered languages. Besides the theoretical value of that work, it was instrumental in providing sophisticated semantic and syntactic documentation for such languages, where description is typically limited to the basic morphophonology and morphosyntax, as well as texts, that form the core of most descriptive work.Thirteen of her most important papers, together with a fourteenth essay previously unpublished, are here collected, each preceded by a short introduction that provides context for the work and evidence of its subsequent influence. (shrink)