Communication and interaction today happen in simply one mouse click away. Language and self-expression do not only develop as a recognized tool for oneself but is an avenue for others’ re-expression and identification. Through using Twitter, the elaboration of social interaction becomes easier and accessible. It becomes the primary method of doing things together and establishes a shared meaning that becomes the common ground of understanding by individuals and groups alike. The study aims to analyze the tweets of Kris Aquino, (...) known as the Philippines’ Queen of Multimedia using speech act categories of Searle and predict the meaning based on the speech acts committed. The study used content analysis for it represents systematic and objective means of describing and quantifying phenomena. The results showed that most tweets contained the ‘assertive’ label which refers to ‘those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case or not’. Further, her influence as a public figure contributed to the forceful implication of realizing the speech act reflected by her readers. Since impression is reality and intention cannot be quantified, what the general audience perceives on a certain person serves to be the truth. Thus, misinterpretation develops due to poor judgment on the elucidation in the tweets of the posters, readers and vice-versa. Keywords - Sociolinguistics, speech act theory, Twitter, micro-blogging, SNS, qualitative, content analysis, Philippines. (shrink)

Taking Parenting Public makes a compelling case that parenting has become dangerously undervalued in America today. It calls for a new investment—both personal and public—into the work of raising children and argues that we are all "stockholders" in the next generation. With a foreword by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West, Taking Parenting Public crosses boundaries to bring together thinkers from diverse fields spanning the political spectrum. It features contributions from distinguished experts in economics, political science, public policy, child development, (...) public health, history, and the media. While recent books have focused on working mothers or absent fathers, Taking Parenting Public is the first volume to take a comprehensive look at the common struggles of parents. These essays go beyond the usual chest-beating about busy parents torn between work and family demands to suggest bold solutions. Instead of the typical call for "parent replacement"—more child care, more after school programs and more mentors—the contributors offer fresh strategies for "parent replenishment," ways to put mothers and fathers back into the lives of their children not only as economic providers, but also as emotional and moral providers. (shrink)

A survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937–1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel; 2) Discussion of the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödel's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e.g., Penrose; 3) Replies to an instructive criticism of my 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance of Tarski's semantical (...) work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel, and our understanding of Gödel's theorem itself. (shrink)

1) A survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937–1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel; 2) Discussion of the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödel's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e.g. , Penrose; 3) Replies to an instructive criticism of my 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance of (...) Tarski's semantical work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel, and our understanding of Gödel's theorem itself. (shrink)

A German translation with 2017 postscript of Floyd, Juliet. 2012. "Wittgenstein's Diagonal Argument: A Variation on Cantor and Turing." In Epistemology versus Ontology, Logic, Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Per Martin-Löf, edited by P. Dybjer, S. Lindström, E. Palmgren and G. Sundholm, 25-44. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media. An analysis of philosophical aspects of Turing's diagonal argument in his (136) "On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem" in relation to Wittgenstein's writings on Turing and Cantor.

O presente artigo procede, em primeiro lugar, a um exame das evidências disponíveis referentes à atitude de Wittgenstein em relação ao, bem como conhecimento do, primeiro teorema da incompletude de Gödel, incluindo as suas discussões com Turing, Watson e outros em 1937-1939, e o testemunho posterior de Goodstein e Kreisel Em segundo lugar, o artigo discute a importância filosófica e histórica da atitude de Wittgenstein em relação ao teorema de Gödel e outros teoremas da lógica matemática, contrastando esta atitude com (...) a de, por exemplo, Penrose. Finalmente, a autora responde também a criticas instrutivas feitas por Mark Steiner a um artigo seu publicado em 1995, as quais estabelecem a importância do trabalho semântico de Tarski, quer para o nosso entendimento das observacoes de Wittgenstein. /// This paper presents, first, a survey of current evidence available concerning Wittgenstein's attitude toward, and knowledge of, Gödel's first incompleteness theorem, including his discussions with Turing, Watson and others in 1937-1939, and later testimony of Goodstein and Kreisel Secondly, the article discusses the philosophical and historical importance of Wittgenstein's attitude toward Gödal's and other theorems in mathematical logic, contrasting this attitude with that of, e. g., Penrose. Finally, the author also replies to an instructive criticism of her 1995 paper by Mark Steiner which assesses the importance ofTarskih semantical work, both for our understanding of Wittgenstein's remarks on Godel, and our understanding ofGodeVs theorem itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 127 seems to imply. Of course, this critique can easily be dismissed as asking for a book that Krieger did not wish to write. His method has produced important results, for Krieger has discerned developmental trends overlooked by others. Otherwise, the only area that I think needs further discussion is Ranke's conception of the nature and function of science. Krieger seems to imply that science automatically means (...) a nomological approach modeled upon the mechanical physical sciences. But Ranke was nourished in an atmosphere where science was often equated with Naturphilosophie. Certainly, Ranke's language is filled with images and terms popularized by Naturphilosophen. Ranke's quest for a science of history may fit very nicely with the ideal dimension of his thought if the science that he is talking about is analogous to Naturphilosophie. It may turn out that the basic polarity in Ranke's idea of history is an analytic construct that has little meaning for Ranke's own intentions. Krieger ends his study with a chapter devoted to the meaning of Ranke's work for modem historiography. It is the dialectical synthesis of the whole study. After recapitulating Ranke's achievements, Krieger then emphasizes the breach that separates Ranke from our conceptual world. We no longer share Ranke's beliefs or values. In fact, for most of us "he must seem simply archaic, and the more he is himself historically restored the more archaic he must seem" (p. 355). For the reader who had to struggle through this difficult book and to contend with Professor Krieger's passion for complex dependent clauses, this announcement appears as a grand denouement. But the shock is only temporary. Krieger's assertion of the differences that separate Ranke from us serves as a warning to those who still take Ranke's approach as an objective model for historical reconstruction. The deeper meaning of Ranke's view of history is the affirmation of history as an autonomous and independent form of knowledge. "History is an inimitable way of rendering comprehensible modes of humanity which must otherwise be incomprehensible" (p. 356). This form of knowledge, which is devoted "to the actual but equipped with a language of common sense organized around the categorical," proceedes by arranging things along a time line (p. 357). Here Krieger launches a spirited counterattack against those modem theorists who have questioned the viability of history as an independent form of knowledge or who have minimized the importance of developmental analysis, preferring instead to concentrate upon relatively static deep structures. Krieger's study affirms Ranke's project in its most general sense; that history is a cumulative logic of the actual, "the meeting ground of philosophy, science, and cataclysmic experience" (p. 356). And it serves, at the same time, as a positive demonstration that a developmental analysis does impart knowledge that other approaches cannot achieve. In this sense, Krieger's masterful study of Ranke reaffirms Ranke's central position as a founding father of modem historical thought. PETER HANNS REILL University of California, Los Angeles Arthur Quinn. The Confidence of British Philosophers:An Essay in Historical Narrative. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977. Pp. xii + 289. Gld. 80. This is a remarkable book. Almost all of it is a study, very well researched and presented, of four major English philosophical movements: Newtonians, the Utilitarians, the Oxford Hegelians, and the Russell, G. E. Moore, and Whitehead group. The study shows the initial enthusiasm, optimism, and confidence of each of the groups. Each believed that it had found a way to solve the intellectual and perhaps moral and social problems of mankind. As each movement developed, the confidence slowly eroded when philosophical problems and difficulties failed to disappear. The picture Quinn presents of these movements is very interesting. He has grouped together 128 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY much detail that makes us see the original intentions of the leaders of each of these movements. He also deftly shows how as stumbling blocks arose each movement lowered its goals and began to fade. Employing a very wide range of printed sources, Quinn presents a series of convincing vignettes, and in so doing be often reveals features of these movements that have been... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 287 the writers is deeply and seriously involved in answering what he takes to be fundamental questions about "what there is." But at the same time, it must be said that the degree of absorption which the essays reveal has about it an air of quaintness, as if, in reading them, one had suddenly discovered a community of people who spoke nothing but Elizabethan English. For the (...) problems constructed and dealt with in this way emerge from some earlier philosophical clime: from the worlds of Meinong's Investigations Into the Theory of Objects and Russell's Lectures on Logical Atomism, where the talk is of "elementary propositions," "The Ideal Language," "bare particulars," "denoting," what "subsists" as distinct from what "exists," and so on. If any of the writers are aware of the contributions made to philosophy by the later Wittgenstein (mentioned briefly only once in the text, p. 89), Wisdom (not referred to at all), Austin (who appears in a footnote as a translator of Frege), Ryle (mentioned once), and Strawson, this awareness is suppressed with a ruthlessness that borders on perversity. There is clearly here no feeling for the changes that have occurred in philosophy since 1933, or any awareness of the fact that the problems, which they pose, stem to a large extent from just those presuppositions which led to the abandonment of Logical Atomism some thirty years ago./n saying these things, I am, of course, not to be understood as implying that ontological investigations per se are always to be discounted, or that "progress in philosophy is linear," but merely that the fecundity of this particular mode of investigation has long since been shown to be exhausted. Finally, it is surprising to the reviewer that the volume does not contain a paper by Professor Gustav Bergmann. Most of the authors are former students of Professor Bergmann --and their work coincides with the scope of his own interests, as well as reflecting a similar approach to the problems being dealt with. To some extent, however, this omission is more apparent than real since he is mentioned frequently in the text--and, unless I have miscounted, some thirty-seven times in the footnotes. AVRUM STROLL University of California, San Diego BOOK NOTES Centre International de Synth~se, XXIV" Semaine de Synth~se" L'expdrience. 28 Mai-l" Juin, 1962. Paris, Editions A. Michel [1964]. 476 pp., 8 fig. = Revue de synth~se, 3m" serie, No. 29-31, Jan.-Sept., 1963. This large volume of the Revue de Synth~se deserves special notice, even though it is impossible to give it a critical review here. Here are gathered critical, empirical reports from competent scientists and other savants, including the whole range and all the domains of knowledge, on the concrete aspects of experience which special fields and methods of knowing reveal. Viewing experience from this wide perspective, and including in it what the Germans have called Erlebnis in order to do justice to the empirical aspects of existentialism as well as of phenomenology, these scholars have performed a basic service for the sciences and for philosophy. In addition to the more traditional distinctions between cognitive, moral, aesthetic, and religious experience, there are illuminating accounts of geological and biological empiricism (relating the terrestrial sciences to nuclear and cosmic sciences), and of experience englobante as distinguished from experience objective. Such catholic empiricism, such synthetic discriminations are indeed a great contribution to contemporary discussion and to progress in philosophical vocabulary and sympathies. 288 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Among the participants in this work are: G. Bouligant, George Bastide, Jean Boisset, Olivier Lacombe, Jean Lameere, Joseph Moreau, and Jean Wahl. Many other authors have contributed briefer communications. --H.W.S. Chalus, Paul, L'homme et la religion. Recherches sur les sources psychologiques des croyances. Pal~olithique-N~olithique-Age du Bronze-Cr&e-IsraEl-Iran. Paris, Editions A. Michel, 1963. 510 pp., 22 figs., 12 pl., diagrs. = L'l~volution de l'Humanit& Biblioth~que de Synth&e Historique. S~rie compl~mentaire. 33.93 NF. This addition to the notable series of works sponsored by the Centre International de SynthOse in Paris attempts to combine the history and psychology of religion. The theme is indicated in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European CultureDallas G. Denery IIStuart Clark. Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 415. Cloth, $75.00.A popular and pervasive historical narrative links the Renaissance development of linear perspective with Europe’s transition from a pre-modern to an early modern society. Erwin Panofsky gave this narrative its definitive form early (...) in the twentieth century and William Ivins boiled it down to a simple idea that served as the title of his most famous book. According to Ivins, single-point perspective, the artistic technique championed by Alberti and perfected in the paintings of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, allowed for “the rationalization of sight.” In other words, it provided a mathematically and geometrically grounded method for accurately representing the external world. It is a powerful and seductive claim, one that has shaped generations of scholarly work. It is also, Stuart Clark contends in this important new book, patently wrong. Far from exhibiting a renewed or reinvigorated confidence in the accuracy and reliability of vision, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, artists, theologians, and doctors worried that sight was susceptible, perhaps permanently so, to all sorts of debilitating derangements, displacements, and delusions.Rather than relate a history of progress, Clark offers a history of exhaustion, failure, and, ultimately, of rejection. Early modern intellectuals inherited a comprehensive theory of vision and cognition from their medieval predecessors known as perspectivist optics. This theory sought to secure the accuracy of human sense perception through regularized causal processes that linked things in the world with our various cognitive faculties. While some fourteenth-century intellectuals, most notably Nicolas of Autrecourt and Nicole Oresme, recognized structural deficiencies in this theory, their critiques were mostly ignored or treated as anomalies. Over the course of the next two and a half centuries, Clark argues, the challenges to this theory multiplied until it collapsed under their weight (20).Clark’s argument is straightforward and, as his evidence mounts, thoroughly convincing. Throughout each of the eight engrossing chapters that form the core of the book, Clark outlines a different threat, a different set of challenges that pointed out problems with the assumption that vision is trustworthy. The range and depth of those challenges are truly amazing. Doctors worried that imbalances in our humoral system, and especially in the black bile that causes melancholy, could render our visual perceptions dubious at best (ch. 2). Theologians, wary of the dangers of witchcraft and eager to prosecute its practitioners, obsessed over the cognitive threats that devils and demons posed to good Christians (ch. 4), while Protestant reformers relegated the entire tradition of Catholic miracles to the counterfeit illusions of the antichrist (ch. 5). For their part, artists believed that perspective undermined vision, depending as it does on the assumption that what we see is always relative, dependent upon our point of view (ch. 3).Clark structures much of his argument around George Hakewill’s 1608 book, The vanitie of the eye, an exposition on the natural, artificial, and demonic sources that forever render visual knowledge suspect. He could just as well have organized it around the opening pages of Descartes’s Meditations, and in many ways Clark’s book serves as a superb rumination on the sources of Descartes’s skeptical arguments. Unlike Etienne Gilson and, more recently, Richard Popkin, both of whom have done so much to open up the scholastic and early modern sources of Descartes’s skeptical thought experiments, Clark does not limit himself to philosophical lineages. Rather, he considers sources of visual skepticism that developed across an entire culture—in natural philosophy, medicine, art, religion, and literature (especially in Shakespeare’s Macbeth). Not only does the sheer volume and variety of such [End Page 103] sources help to explain Descartes’s urgent desire to overturn everything he had learned and begin again from the foundations, but it also contextualizes the specific arguments he employs. None of Descartes’s skeptical arguments were new and most were well known in the Middle Ages. What had changed over the intervening centuries, Clark contends, was how these arguments drew from... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European CultureDallas G. Denery IIStuart Clark. Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 415. Cloth, $75.00.A popular and pervasive historical narrative links the Renaissance development of linear perspective with Europe’s transition from a pre-modern to an early modern society. Erwin Panofsky gave this narrative its definitive form early (...) in the twentieth century and William Ivins boiled it down to a simple idea that served as the title of his most famous book. According to Ivins, single-point perspective, the artistic technique championed by Alberti and perfected in the paintings of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, allowed for “the rationalization of sight.” In other words, it provided a mathematically and geometrically grounded method for accurately representing the external world. It is a powerful and seductive claim, one that has shaped generations of scholarly work. It is also, Stuart Clark contends in this important new book, patently wrong. Far from exhibiting a renewed or reinvigorated confidence in the accuracy and reliability of vision, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, artists, theologians, and doctors worried that sight was susceptible, perhaps permanently so, to all sorts of debilitating derangements, displacements, and delusions.Rather than relate a history of progress, Clark offers a history of exhaustion, failure, and, ultimately, of rejection. Early modern intellectuals inherited a comprehensive theory of vision and cognition from their medieval predecessors known as perspectivist optics. This theory sought to secure the accuracy of human sense perception through regularized causal processes that linked things in the world with our various cognitive faculties. While some fourteenth-century intellectuals, most notably Nicolas of Autrecourt and Nicole Oresme, recognized structural deficiencies in this theory, their critiques were mostly ignored or treated as anomalies. Over the course of the next two and a half centuries, Clark argues, the challenges to this theory multiplied until it collapsed under their weight (20).Clark’s argument is straightforward and, as his evidence mounts, thoroughly convincing. Throughout each of the eight engrossing chapters that form the core of the book, Clark outlines a different threat, a different set of challenges that pointed out problems with the assumption that vision is trustworthy. The range and depth of those challenges are truly amazing. Doctors worried that imbalances in our humoral system, and especially in the black bile that causes melancholy, could render our visual perceptions dubious at best (ch. 2). Theologians, wary of the dangers of witchcraft and eager to prosecute its practitioners, obsessed over the cognitive threats that devils and demons posed to good Christians (ch. 4), while Protestant reformers relegated the entire tradition of Catholic miracles to the counterfeit illusions of the antichrist (ch. 5). For their part, artists believed that perspective undermined vision, depending as it does on the assumption that what we see is always relative, dependent upon our point of view (ch. 3).Clark structures much of his argument around George Hakewill’s 1608 book, The vanitie of the eye, an exposition on the natural, artificial, and demonic sources that forever render visual knowledge suspect. He could just as well have organized it around the opening pages of Descartes’s Meditations, and in many ways Clark’s book serves as a superb rumination on the sources of Descartes’s skeptical arguments. Unlike Etienne Gilson and, more recently, Richard Popkin, both of whom have done so much to open up the scholastic and early modern sources of Descartes’s skeptical thought experiments, Clark does not limit himself to philosophical lineages. Rather, he considers sources of visual skepticism that developed across an entire culture—in natural philosophy, medicine, art, religion, and literature (especially in Shakespeare’s Macbeth). Not only does the sheer volume and variety of such [End Page 103] sources help to explain Descartes’s urgent desire to overturn everything he had learned and begin again from the foundations, but it also contextualizes the specific arguments he employs. None of Descartes’s skeptical arguments were new and most were well known in the Middle Ages. What had changed over the intervening centuries, Clark contends, was how these arguments drew from... (shrink)

In his preface to The High Road to Pyrrhonism, Popkin tells us his book is a "partial fulfillment" of the promise he made in his earlier History of Scepticism to extend into the eighteenth century his investigation of his intent "to show how historical research can illuminate certain major issues in philosophy and the ideas of certain major thinkers." Anyone familiar with The History of Scepticism must surely have been impressed with the scholarly care that went into its writing. (...) We are indebted to Popkin for what his study shows, that the philosophers who have become history’s legacy to introductory philosophy courses did not philosophize in vacuums. Their thoughts emerged as the products of philosophical debates with contemporaries such as Montaigne, Gassendi, Mersenne, etc., who were the philosophical equals of their more famous brethren, even though not favored by history with comparable recognition. Were The High Road to Pyrrhonism an expansion of that excellent study, it would be welcome indeed. (shrink)

For 60 years, Herbert Schneider has been making notable contributions to philosophy. In 1972, at a surprise party for his 80th birthday, friends presented him with a collection of essays on areas of philosophy in which he himself had done pioneering work. These essays, together with five previously published but difficult-to-find papers written by Schneider himself, are included in the present book, along with a biographical sketch of Schneider prepared by the editors and a list of Schneider’s writings. Among the (...) better-known contributors are Joseph L. Blau, Max Fisch, Lewis Hahn, George Kline, Paul Kurtz, and Richard H. Popkin. The essays include historical studies in ancient and modern philosophy as well as analytical studies in social theory and problems of education. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are by fellow historians of ideas and philosophy, colleagues, and former students of Richard Popkin; its editor is his son, a historian at the University of Kentucky. The volume is in the style of a festschrift, but it has a special personal component. The notes on the contributors indicate how each came to know Popkin. The essays do not concentrate on developments of each author’s own work, but access Popkin’s work, in some (...) instances extending it, and often relating it to aspects of his career. The final contribution is a biographical sketch of his career, done by the editor, from letters that are part of Popkin’s papers housed in the Clark Library at UCLA. This biographical sketch is preceded by a memoir by Avrum Stroll, recounting his collaboration with Popkin on their Philosophy Made Simple, which they co-authored in 1955 and which, in its multiple printings, has served as an introductory textbook for generations of students.The fourteen essays are by B. Copenhaver, A. P. Coudent, S. Hutton, P. K. J. Park, and K. Peden ; J. E. Force, M. Mulsow, and D. B. Ruderman ; J. C. Laursen, J. R. Maia Neto, and G. Paganini ; and Y. Kaplan, D. S. Katz, and M. Goldish. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are by fellow historians of ideas and philosophy, colleagues, and former students of Richard Popkin; its editor is his son, a historian at the University of Kentucky. The volume is in the style of a festschrift, but it has a special personal component. The notes on the contributors indicate how each came to know Popkin. The essays do not concentrate on developments of each author’s own work, but access Popkin’s work, in some (...) instances extending it, and often relating it to aspects of his career. The final contribution is a biographical sketch of his career, done by the editor, from letters that are part of Popkin’s papers housed in the Clark Library at UCLA. This biographical sketch is preceded by a memoir by Avrum Stroll, recounting his collaboration with Popkin on their Philosophy Made Simple, which they co-authored in 1955 and which, in its multiple printings, has served as an introductory textbook for generations of students.The fourteen essays are by B. Copenhaver, A. P. Coudent, S. Hutton, P. K. J. Park, and K. Peden ; J. E. Force, M. Mulsow, and D. B. Ruderman ; J. C. Laursen, J. R. Maia Neto, and G. Paganini ; and Y. Kaplan, D. S. Katz, and M. Goldish. (shrink)

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of (...) the theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

In this sequel to his classic study The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, Popkin examines the important role played by the revival and reformulation of classical scepticism in eighteenth-century philosophy.

Richard Popkin has assembled 63 leading scholars to forge a highly approachable chronological account of the development of Western philosophical traditions. From Plato to Wittgenstein and from Aquinas to Heidegger, this volume provides lively, in-depth, and up-to-date historical analysis of all the key figures, schools, and movements of Western philosophy. The Columbia History significantly broadens the scope of Western philosophy to reveal the influence of Middle Eastern and Asian thought, the vital contributions of Jewish and Islamic philosophers, and the (...) role of women within the tradition. Along with a wealth of new scholarship, recently discovered works in 17th- and 18th-century philosophy are considered, such as previously unpublished works by Locke that inspire a new assessment of the evolution of his ideas. Popkin also emphasizes schools and developments that have traditionally been overlooked. Sections on Aristotle and Plato are followed by a detailed presentation on Hellenic philosophy and its influence on the modern developments of materialism and scepticism. A chapter has been dedicated to Jewish and Moslem philosophical development during the Middle Ages, focusing on the critical role of figures such as Averroës and Moses Maimonides in introducing Christian thinkers to classical philosophy. Another chapter considers Renaissance philosophy and its seminal influence on the development of modern humanism and science. Turning to the modern era, contributors consider the importance of the Kaballah to Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton and the influence of popular philosophers like Moses Mendelssohn upon the work of Kant. This volume gives equal attention to both sides of the current rift in philosophy between continental and analytic schools, charting the development of each right up to the end of the 20th century. Each chapter includes an introductory essay, and Popkin provides notes that draw connections among the separate articles. The rich bibliographic information and the indexes of names and terms make the volume a valuable resource. Combining a broad scope and penetrating analysis with a keen sense of what is relevant for the modern reader, _The Columbia History of Western Philosophy_ will prove an accessible introduction for students and an informative overview for general readers. (shrink)

Cadherin‐mediated cell‐cell adhesion is perturbed in protein tyrosine kinase (PTK)‐transformed cells. While cadherins themselves appear to be poor PTK substrates, their cytoplasmic binding partners, the Arm catenins, are excellent PTK substrates and therefore good candidates for mediating PTK‐induced changes in cadherin behavior. These proteins, p120ctn, β‐catenin and plakoglobin, bind to the cytoplasmic region of classical cadherins and function to modulate adhesion and/or bridge cadherins to the actin cytoskeleton. In addition, as demonstrated recently for β‐catenin, these proteins also have crucial signaling (...) roles that may or may not be related to their effects on cell‐cell adhesion. Tyrosine phosphorylation of cadherin complexes is well documented and widely believed to modulate cell adhesiveness. The data to date, however, is largely correlative and the mechanism of action remains unresolved. In this review, we discuss the current literature and suggest models whereby tyrosine phosphorylation of Arm catenins contribute to regulation or perturbation of cadherin function. (shrink)

Richard Popkin has assembled 63 leading scholars to forge a highly approachable chronological account of the development of Western philosophical traditions. From Plato to Wittgenstein and from Aquinas to Heidegger, this volume provides lively, in-depth, and up-to-date historical analysis of all the key figures, schools, and movements of Western philosophy. The Columbia History significantly broadens the scope of Western philosophy to reveal the influence of Middle Eastern and Asian thought, the vital contributions of Jewish and Islamic philosophers, and the (...) role of women within the tradition. Along with a wealth of new scholarship, recently discovered works in 17th- and 18th-century philosophy are considered, such as previously unpublished works by Locke that inspire a new assessment of the evolution of his ideas. Popkin also emphasizes schools and developments that have traditionally been overlooked. Sections on Aristotle and Plato are followed by a detailed presentation on Hellenic philosophy and its influence on the modern developments of materialism and scepticism. A chapter has been dedicated to Jewish and Moslem philosophical development during the Middle Ages, focusing on the critical role of figures such as Averroës and Moses Maimonides in introducing Christian thinkers to classical philosophy. Another chapter considers Renaissance philosophy and its seminal influence on the development of modern humanism and science. Turning to the modern era, contributors consider the importance of the Kaballah to Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton and the influence of popular philosophers like Moses Mendelssohn upon the work of Kant. This volume gives equal attention to both sides of the current rift in philosophy between continental and analytic schools, charting the development of each right up to the end of the 20th century. Each chapter includes an introductory essay, and Popkin provides notes that draw connections among the separate articles. The rich bibliographic information and the indexes of names and terms make the volume a valuable resource. Combining a broad scope and penetrating analysis with a keen sense of what is relevant for the modern reader, _The Columbia History of Western Philosophy_ will prove an accessible introduction for students and an informative overview for general readers. (shrink)

Richard Popkin has assembled 63 leading scholars to forge a highly approachable chronological account of the development of Western philosophical traditions. From Plato to Wittgenstein and from Aquinas to Heidegger, this volume provides lively, in-depth, and up-to-date historical analysis of all the key figures, schools, and movements of Western philosophy. The Columbia History significantly broadens the scope of Western philosophy to reveal the influence of Middle Eastern and Asian thought, the vital contributions of Jewish and Islamic philosophers, and the (...) role of women within the tradition. Along with a wealth of new scholarship, recently discovered works in 17th- and 18th-century philosophy are considered, such as previously unpublished works by Locke that inspire a new assessment of the evolution of his ideas. Popkin also emphasizes schools and developments that have traditionally been overlooked. Sections on Aristotle and Plato are followed by a detailed presentation on Hellenic philosophy and its influence on the modern developments of materialism and scepticism. A chapter has been dedicated to Jewish and Moslem philosophical development during the Middle Ages, focusing on the critical role of figures such as Averroës and Moses Maimonides in introducing Christian thinkers to classical philosophy. Another chapter considers Renaissance philosophy and its seminal influence on the development of modern humanism and science. Turning to the modern era, contributors consider the importance of the Kaballah to Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton and the influence of popular philosophers like Moses Mendelssohn upon the work of Kant. This volume gives equal attention to both sides of the current rift in philosophy between continental and analytic schools, charting the development of each right up to the end of the 20th century. Each chapter includes an introductory essay, and Popkin provides notes that draw connections among the separate articles. The rich bibliographic information and the indexes of names and terms make the volume a valuable resource. Combining a broad scope and penetrating analysis with a keen sense of what is relevant for the modern reader, _The Columbia History of Western Philosophy_ will prove an accessible introduction for students and an informative overview for general readers. (shrink)

The two vegetative cell types of the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum ‐ amoebae and plasmodia ‐ differ greatly in cellular organisation and behaviour as a result of differences in gene expression. The development of uninucleate amoebae into multinucleate, syncytial plasmodia is under the control of the mating‐type locus matA, which is a complex, multi‐functional locus. A key period during plasmodium development is the extended cell cycle, which occurs in the developing uninucleate cell. During this long cell cycle, many of (...) the changes in cellular organisation that accompany development into the multinucleate stage are initiated including, for example, alterations in microtubule organisation. Genes have been identified that show cell‐type specific expression in either amoebae or plasmodia and many of these genes alter their pattern of expression during the extended cell cycle. With the introduction of a DNA transformation system for P. polycephalum, it is now possible to investigate the functions of genes in the vegetative cell types and their roles in the cellular reorganisations accompanying development. (shrink)

This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed (...) by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man. (shrink)

This essay seeks to understand the complex response to the current Black Lives Matter protests against police violence, which pose deeper questions about the forms of politics that black citizens—who are experiencing a defining moment of racial terror in the United States in the twenty-first century—can and should pursue. When other citizens and state institutions betray a lack of care and concern for black suffering, which in turn makes it impossible for those wrongs to be redressed, is it fair to (...) ask blacks to enact “appropriate” democratic politics? These questions are explored via a reading of Danielle Allen and Ralph Ellison’s meditations on the problem of democratic loss and Hannah Arendt’s critique of school desegregation battles in the 1960s. I suggest that there is a conceptual trap in romantic historical narratives of black activism that recast peaceful acquiescence to loss as a form of democratic exemplarity. (shrink)

Singular they has emerged as a key term in contemporary gender politics, reflecting growing usage of they/them as nonbinary personal pronouns. Drawing on interviews with 54 progressive gender activists, we consider how singular they can be used to resist and redo aspects of the prevailing gender structure. We identify three distinct usages of singular they: as a nonbinary personal pronoun, as a universal gender-neutral pronoun, and as an indefinite pronoun when a person’s self-identified gender is unknown. While previous research on (...) singular they as a gender-inclusive language practice has focused primarily on its usage as a nonbinary personal pronoun, our findings point to the relevance for gender politics of all three usages. Our analysis offers new insight into how nonbinary they challenges dominant gender norms and practices beyond incorporating additional gender categories. Given our findings, we propose further investigation of how using gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in specific contexts can advance progressive activists’ goals. Finally, we argue that the longstanding usage of singular they as an indefinite pronoun has new importance today in affirming gender as a self-determined identity. (shrink)

We are witnessing a Europe in turmoil, tormented by the violence of ethnic and nationalist struggles which legitimate themselves in the name of identity. This anthology explores the assumptions of identity by disassembling old myths and fictions of unity in relation to the subject, politics and art. Other than identity offers the possibility of rethinking the concept and introducing instead notions of self and other, identity politics and aesthetics. Through theoretical and concrete examples, this study exemplifies the best of current (...) thinking concerning identity. It marks a new venture in multi-disciplinarity, bringing together writers identified with different discursive fields and visual artists to produce work specifically for this publication. Not only will each chapter be a contribution to particular specialist genres but the collection as a whole will offer new possibilities for rethinking identity. The multifarious approach will appeal to a wide spectrum of disciplines and discourses and to anyone with an interest in what is traditionally identified as culture. (shrink)