The purpose of the article is to evaluate Quine's arguments for the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. After formulation of the thesis, Quine's four main arguments are described and evaluated. The arguments are: (1) the argument from the underdeterminacy of physical theory, (2) the argument from the inscrutability of terms, (3) the argument from the conjunction of the Peircean notion of meaning and the Duhemian thesis about the interanimation of sentences, and (4-) the argument from the linguist's reliance on (...) sets of analytical hypothesis. It is contended that none of these arguments is successful in supporting the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, and that Quine has offered no reason to believe that the degree of determinacy of translation is different from that of physical theory. (shrink)

In the early chapters of Mind and the World Order, Lewis develops a theory of meaning which has interesting points of similarity with that mentalistic or propositional theory of meaning which has been rejected by Quine, in Word and Object and elsewhere. There are also interesting similarities, however, between Lewis’ theory and Quine's own naturalistic theory. In this paper, I shall concentrate on one such similarity: namely, the analogy, noticed by Quine, between the predicament formulated in his own thesis of (...) the indeterminacy of translation, and the “predicament of private worlds” in which Lewis’ theory of meaning is involved.These analogous predicaments have a bearing on the problems of the commensurability of scientific theories and of objectivity in science in general; in fact, my primary motivation in attempting to explicate the analogy between Quine's theory of meaning and Lewis’ theory is to clear the way for an assessment of Quine's position on the problem of the objectivity of theories in science. (shrink)

This paper reports a European Forum for Good Clinical Practice workshop held in 2011 to consider a research ethics committee training syllabus, subsequent training needs and resources. The syllabus that was developed was divided into four competencies: committee working; scientific method; ethical analysis and the regulatory framework. Appropriate training needs for each, with possible resources, were discussed. Lack of funding for training was reported as a major problem but affordable alternatives were debated. Strengths and weaknesses of this approach were discussed (...) and the resultant proposal will be disseminated through the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice and the research ethics committees of member states. (shrink)

In this book Fox and Miller define public administration theory and public management doctrine as an orthodoxy that is intellectually bankrupt and democratically unacceptable. Constitutionalism and communitarianism get similar treatment. Next, the authors construct a new theoretical position defined as constructivism and based on critical theory, phenomenology and structuration theory.

This paper will discuss the origin of the human mind, and the qualitative discontinuity between human and animal cognition. We locate the source of this discontinuity within the language faculty, and thus take the origin of the mind to depend on the origin of the language faculty. We will look at one such proposal put forward by Hauser et al. (Science 298:1569-1579, 2002), which takes the evolution of a Merge trait (recursion) to solely explain the differences between human and animal (...) cognition. We argue that the Merge-only hypothesis fails to account for various aspects of the human mind. Instead we propose that the process of lexicalisation is also unique to humans, and that this process is key to explaining the vast qualitative differences. We will argue that lexicalisation is a process through which concepts are reformatted to be able to take on semantic features and to take part in grammatical relations. These are both necessary conditions for a grammatical mind and the increased ability to express conceptual content. We therefore propose a possible explanans for the discontinuity between humans and animals, namely that merge with lexicalisation (and consequently semantic features and grammatical relations) is a minimal requirement for the human mind. (shrink)