The acquisition of syntactic categories is a crucial step in the process of acquiring syntax. At this stage, before a full grammar is available, only surface cues are available to the learner. Previous computational models have demonstrated that local contexts are informative for syntactic categorization. However, local contexts are affected by sentence-level structure. In this paper, we add sentence type as an observed feature to a model of syntactic category acquisition, based on experimental evidence showing that pre-syntactic children are able (...) to distinguish sentence type using prosody and other cues. The model, a Bayesian Hidden Markov Model, allows for adding sentence type in a few different ways; we find that sentence type can aid syntactic category acquisition if it is used to characterize the differences in word order between sentence types. In these models, knowledge of sentence type permits similar gains to those found by extending the local context. (shrink)

_Abstract_: In this paper, we argue that the recent debates and proclaimed crises in psychology are partly due to a reflection deficit and the reductionist understanding of psychology as exclusively a science. For this reason, we introduce Psychological Humanities as a novel interdisciplinary approach that defines psychology as its object of investigation and opens a field of reflection. Although the study of psychological topics with an orientation toward the humanities is not new, either within or outside of psychology, we argue (...) for the introduction of the collective term Psychological Humanities for four reasons: (1) the definition of Psychological Humanities does more justice to central psychological subject areas such as subjectivity, (2) it serves as a common term of interconnectedness and visibility, (3) it resonates with new reflective fields in related disciplines, such as the medical humanities, and (4) it is more consistent with intersubjective practice in applied psychology. In what follows, we present our approach to Psychological Humanities, developed at the University of Lübeck. Our model differentiates between two fundamental views: a view from the outside on the discipline of psychology and its contexts (e.g., through history, cultural studies, and ethics) and a view from the inside on psychology (e.g., through theoretical psychology, critical psychologies, or epistemology of psychology). _Keywords_: Interdisciplinary Research; Subjectivity; Epistemology of Psychology; Applied Psychology; Psychological Humanities _Guardare la psicologia attraverso una doppia lente: le Psychological Humanities come approccio integrato_ _Riassunto_: In questo articolo sosterremo che le discussioni recenti e le crisi proclamate in psicologia sono dovuti in parte a un deficit di riflessione e a una comprensione riduttiva della psicologia come disciplina esclusivamente scientifica. Per questo motivo presentiamo le _Psychological Humanities_ come nuovo approccio interdisciplinare che ha la psicologia come proprio oggetto di indagine e apre un campo d’indagine. Sebbene lo studio di argomenti psicologici con un orientamento verso le discipline umanistiche non sia nuovo, né all’interno né all’esterno della psicologia, sosterremo l’introduzione del termine collettivo _Psychological Humanities_ per quattro motivi: (1) la definizione di _Psychological Humanities_ rende maggiormente giustizia ad aree tematiche psicologiche centrali come la soggettività, (2) funge da termine comune di interconnessione e visibilità, (3) richiama altri ambiti di riflessione in discipline affini quali le _medical humanities_ ed (4) è più coerente con la pratica intersoggettiva in psicologia applicata. Nel lavoro che segue presenteremo l'approccio alle _Psychological Humanieties_ che abbiamo sviluppato presso l’Università di Lubecca. Il nostro modello differenzia tra due prospettive fondamentali: uno sguardo esterno alla psicologia come disciplina e ai suoi contesti (per esempio attraverso la storia, gli studi culturali e l’etica) e uno sguardo interno alla psicologia (per esempio attraverso la psicologia teoretica, le psicologie critiche o l’epistemologia della psicologia). _Parole chiave_: Ricerca interdisciplinare; Soggettività; Epistemologia della psicologia; Psicologia applicata; Psychological Humanities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 12.1 (2002) 103-113 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note Update Searching Across Boundaries: National Information Resource on Ethics and Human Genetics* While indeed an historical moment, the announcement of the mapping of the human genome has been treated in the literature as a beginning—a new way to think about biology and the ways in which biological concepts are applied to medicine. Issues of both (...) Science and Nature magazines celebrated the event by establishing interdisciplinary websites where readers can access essays on aspects of genome mapping and directly link to databases to search for more information on the topics (IV. Genome Gateway 2001; The Human Genome 2001). Since 1994, the National Information Resource on Ethics and Human Genetics (NIREHG), a special project of the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRC), has been providing such an integrated information service on ethics and genetics. Designed to enable a wide range of users to go from annotated bibliographies (Scope Notes) and brief essays (called "enotes") to database searching, NIREHG fosters an interdisciplinary approach to research on ethics and genetics. Links are provided between and among Scope Notes and enotes to information maintained on the NIREHG site as well as to sources found throughout the Internet. In providing the following annotations added to NIREHG materials since 1997, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (in its online presence through Project Muse) becomes an additional forum for NIREHG links. "It is a rare and wonderful moment when success teaches us humility, and this, I argue, is precisely the moment at which we find ourselves at the end of the twentieth century" (IV. Keller 2000, p. 7). It is with both joy and humility that we celebrate the mapping of the human genome. [End Page 103] I. Genetic Testing Andrews, Lori B. Future Perfect: Confronting Decisions About Genetics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 264 p.Noting the wide impact of genetic testing, Andrews discusses patient self concept, reproduction decisions, confidentiality, discriminations in health insurance and employment, the need for competent counseling, and the legal, ethical, and social regulations she deems important to help solve dilemmas arising from the tests and their ensuing ramifications. She describes three models, pointing out both advantages and problems: a medical model with physician gatekeepers, a public health model that could provide education as well some testing for those unable to afford tests, and a fundamental rights model that could give greater weight to individuals decisions about the use of health care services. The book has 85 pages of footnotes.American Society of Human Genetics. Social Issues Subcommittee on Familial Disclosure. Professional Disclosure of Familial Genetic Information. American Journal of Human Genetics 62 (2): 474-83, February 1998.The ASHG statement outlines points to consider: the general rule of confidentiality, exceptional circumstances that permit disclosure, and the ethical duty to inform patients about familial implications. Background discussion includes: ethical frameworks for disclosure of otherwise confidential information, the duty to warn under law, and international trends and positions.Boetzkes, Elisabeth. Genetic Knowledge and Third-Party Interests. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 8 (4): 386-92, Summer 1999.Protection from the interests of insurers or prospective employers are discussed from the point of view of the ethical basis of the professional obligation to confidentiality as well as the right to privacy of those tested. However, the author supports family members, saying that "first-party resistance to disclosure may be overcome by weighty third-party claims."Chadwick, Ruth; Shickle, Darren; ten Have, Henk; and Wiesing, Urban, eds. The Ethics of Genetic Screening. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. 255 p.Twenty-one chapters and 23 authors provide views of genetic testing/screening in different European countries and offer brief discussions of sociological perspectives, moral and philosophical issues, privacy, reconciling liberty and the common good, and questions raised in genetic testing of children.Clayton, Ellen Wright. Genetic Testing in Children. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 22 (3): 233-51, June 1997.Clayton argues that there is room for... (shrink)

The subtitle of this dissertation raises the expectation that at last here is a study which will offer up the “key” to Schleiermacher’s thought. Given the widely differing assessments of Schleiermacher, ranging from those who see him as a betrayer of theology à la Feuerbach, to those who see him as a pioneer in theological reconstruction from whom much is yet to be learned, it is clear that such a “key” to Schleiermacher’s thought would be very desirable. Moreover, given Schleiermacher’s (...) focus on theology as an account of religious consciousness, it seems promising to look for the “key” in his theory of consciousness. Many English speaking scholars will be interested that the place where Keller-Wentorf has chosen to look for the key is one of the most difficult and incomplete texts of Schleiermacher, namely his ethics, or as we would say today, his social theory and philosophy of history. To drain this bog of its intellectual treasures might indeed shed important light on Schleiermacher’s concept of consciousness. Unfortunately, the key to Schleiermacher has not been found: What Keller-Wentorf serves up instead is merely one more key to be added to the already rather heavy key ring containing keys which have been tried and found not to work. (shrink)

In this powerful critique, the esteemed historian and philosopher of science Evelyn Fox Keller addresses the nature-nurture debates, including the persistent disputes regarding the roles played by genes and the environment in determining individual traits and behavior. Keller is interested in both how an oppositional “versus” came to be inserted between nature and nurture, and how the distinction on which that opposition depends, the idea that nature and nurture are separable, came to be taken for granted. How, she (...) asks, did the illusion of a space between nature and nurture become entrenched in our thinking, and why is it so tenacious? Keller reveals that the assumption that the influences of nature and nurture can be separated is neither timeless nor universal, but rather a notion that emerged in Anglo-American culture in the late nineteenth century. She shows that the seemingly clear-cut nature-nurture debate is riddled with incoherence. It encompasses many disparate questions knitted together into an indissoluble tangle, and it is marked by a chronic ambiguity in language. There is little consensus about the meanings of terms such as nature, nurture, gene, and environment. Keller suggests that contemporary genetics can provide a more appropriate, precise, and useful vocabulary, one that might help put an end to the confusion surrounding the nature-nurture controversy. (shrink)

"-Barbara Ehrenreich, Mother Jones "This book represents the expression of a particular feminist perspective made all the more compelling by Keller's evident commitment to and understanding of science.

Culturally different connotations of basic concepts challenge the comparative study of religion. Do persons in Germany or in the United States refer to the same concepts when talking about ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’? Does it make a difference how they identify themselves? The Bielefeld-Chattanooga Cross-Cultural Study on ‘Spirituality’ includes a semantic differential approach for the comparison of self-identified “neither religious nor spiritual”, “religious”, and “spiritual” persons regarding semantic attributes attached to the concepts ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in each research context. Results show (...) that ‘spirituality’ is used as a broader concept than ‘religion’. Regarding religion, semantics attributed by self-identified religious persons differ significantly from those of the spiritual persons. The ‘spiritual’ and the ‘religious’ groups agree on semantics attributed to spirituality but differ from the ‘neither spiritual nor religious’ group. Qualifications of differences and agreements become visible from the comparison between the United States and Germany. It is argued for the semantically sensitive study of culturally situated ‘spiritualities’. (shrink)

Ensemble musicians play in synchrony despite expressively motivated irregularities in timing. We hypothesized that synchrony is achieved by each performer internally simulating the concurrent actions of other ensemble members, relying initially on how they would perform in their stead. Hence, musicians should be better at synchronizing with recordings of their own earlier performances than with others’ recordings. We required pianists to record one part from each of several piano duets, and later to play the complementary part in synchrony with their (...) own or others’ recordings. The pianists were also asked to identify their own recordings. The pianists were better at synchronizing with their own than with others’ performances, and they were able to recognize their own recordings. Furthermore, synchronization accuracy and recognition were correlated: Pianists who were relatively accurate at synchronizing with their own performances were also good at recognizing them. Thus, action simulation may underlie both synchronization and self-recognition. (shrink)

Simon Keller's The Limits of Loyalty makes an important and valuable contribution to a neglected area of moral psychology, both in presenting a clear and subtle account of loyalty in its various manifestations, and in challenging some assumptions about the role of loyalty in a morally decent life. Loyalty's domain is that of special relationships, and for some relationship types, Keller argues that these relationships rightly carry some motivational force, as in his analysis of filial duties. In other (...) cases, such as patriotism, ‘there is always something unfortunate about such loyalties’, for example, that they involve dispositions to ‘fall into bad faith’ or other confusions.Keller begins by examining diverse particular loyalties, then moves to more general questions about loyalty. He considers friendship patriotism, and the obligations of grown children to parents. He argues that loyalty tends to conflict with other values, such as epistemic integrity and draws the conclusion that loyalty as such should not …. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Scott Soames’ theory of naturalized cognitive propositions faces a serious objection: there are true propositions for which NCP cannot account. More carefully, NCP cannot account for certain truths of mathematics unless it is possible for there to be an infinite intellect. For those who reject the possibility of an infinite intellect, this constitutes a reductio of NCP.

I intend to argue that good friendship sometimes requires epistemic irresponsibility. To put it another way, it is not always possible to be both a good friend and a diligent believer.

Recent observations of power-law distributions in the connectivity of complex networks came as a big surprise to researchers steeped in the tradition of random networks. Even more surprising was the discovery that power-law distributions also characterize many biological and social networks. Many attributed a deep significance to this fact, inferring a “universal architecture” of complex systems. Closer examination, however, challenges the assumptions that (1) such distributions are special and (2) they signify a common architecture, independent of the system's specifics. The (...) real surprise, if any, is that power-law distributions are easy to generate, and by a variety of mechanisms. The architecture that results is not universal, but particular; it is determined by the actual constraints on the system in question. BioEssays 27:1060–1068, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Wittgensteinian readings of Being and Time, and of the source of the intelligibility of Dasein''s world, in terms of language and the average everyday public practices of das Man are partly right and partly wrong. They are right in correcting overly individualist and existentialist readings of Heidegger. But they are wrong in making Heidegger into a proponent of language or everydayness as the final word on intelligibility and the way the world is disclosed to us. The everydayness of das Man (...) and language are partial sources of intelligibility but only insofar as they are comprehended within the greater unitary structure of care and temporality. Care and temporality constitute the foundational underpinnings for disclosure and the intelligibility ofthat wherein Dasein dwells. (shrink)

I defend the view that an individual''s welfareis in one respect enhanced by the achievementof her goals, even when her goals are crazy,self-destructive, irrational or immoral. This``Unrestricted View'''' departs from familiartheories which take welfare to involve only theachievement of rational aims, or of goals whoseobjects are genuinely valuable, or of goalsthat are not grounded in bad reasons. I beginwith a series of examples, intended to showthat some of our intuitive judgments aboutwelfare incorporate distinctions that only theUnrestricted View can support. Then, (...) I show howthe view can be incorporated into a broadertheory of welfare in ways that do not produceimplausible consequences. This in hand, Ifinish by providing a more philosophicalstatement of the Unrestricted View and the casein its favor, and respond to some objections. (shrink)

There are at least three senses of sexual objectification: the moral sense of treating a person as if she were primarily a sexual object, the political sense in which women socially count as instruments for men’s sexual pleasure, and the epistemic sense of forming a belief that a person is as one sexually desires them to be. These different senses have been treated as rivals, competing about what the correct account of sexual objectification is, or they have been treated as (...) entirely different projects. I argue for a third relation between them: each sense grasps an aspect of the existing social phenomenon of sexual objectification. Each further points out a wrong involved in sexual objectification. And the three aspects interact—we cannot fully explain any one sense of sexual objectification without the other two. To properly understand this interrelation I lean on an analogy: commodity fetishism as described by Marx helps make sense of the complex social reality of sexual objectification. (shrink)

Este estudo tem como principal objetivo uma análise do conceito de determinação em Espinosa. Historicamente, o pensamento de Espinosa foi assimilado a uma filosofia acosmista, isto é, uma filosofia que nega a realidade das coisas finitas em um mundo onde apenas Deus ou a substância seria real. Tal interpretação se consolida a partir das considerações hegelianas em suas Lições sobre a História da Filosofia e na Ciência da Lógica, em que Hegel lê todo o sistema de Espinosa a partir do (...) princípio "omnis determinatio est negatio". Nosso estudo se desenvolve então, primeiramente, apresentando as consequências contemporâneas desta leitura hegeliana; em seguida analisamos a interpretação hegeliana e algumas contribuições de Deleuze a respeito do conceito de determinação em Espinosa; e, por fim, analisamos no texto espinosano a função que o conceito de determinação desempenha e como ela se distancia do consagrado marco de leitura hegeliano de que “omnis determinatio est negatio”. (shrink)

“Supervenience”, though a philosophers’ notion, has a venerable history. It was used by Leibniz to say that relations are nothing over and above the intrinsic properties of their relata, by Sidgwick to say that moral characteristics covary with non-moral ones, by Moore to say that the former are grounded in the latter, by Hare to say that they stand in some relation of strict implication and by Davidson to say that “mental characteristics are in some sense dependent, or supervenient, on (...) physical characteristics”. Here is what Robert Stal- naker says about the “intuitive ideas that motivate the attempts to articulate concepts of supervenience”: " To say that the A-properties or facts are supervenient on the B-properties or facts is to say that the A-facts are, in a sense, redundant, since they are already implicitly specified when one has specified all the B-facts. A-facts are not fact ‘over and above’ the B-facts, not something ‘separate’. To state an A-fact, or ascribe an A-property, is to describe the same reality in a different way, at a different level of abstraction, by carving the same world at different joints. " Kim identifies three key features of our concept of supervenience: covariance, depend- ency and nonreducibility. 1 Explanation, sometimes required for reducibility, is absent : supervenience claims state that some patterns of property covariation hold, without explaining why they hold. 2. (shrink)

We provide a study of Russell’s argument (in _An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth_) against naive realism in which we distinguish five different forms of the argument. We agree with McLendon’s (1956) criticism, that Russell’s premiss that naive realism _leads to physics_ (our emphasis) is ambiguous as between “leads historically or psychologically” and “leads logically”. However, physics does logically lead to naive realism, in the sense that it presupposes it. In that case it is physics that is false. There is (...) also the possibility that physics and naive realism are compatible, and that possibility obtains if phenomenalism is true. (shrink)

This book reconsiders the major current topics in the philosophy of perception using olfaction as the paradigm sense. The author reveals how many of the most basic concepts of philosophy of perception are based on peculiarities of visual perception not found in other modalities, and addresses how different the philosophy of perception would be if based on olfaction. The book addresses several aspects of olfaction, including perceptual qualities, percepts, olfaction and cognitive processes, and consciousness. The first part of the book (...) considers perception with respect to its ability to guide behaviors and to make information available to cognitive processes. The author continues by addressing the differences between conscious and non-conscious olfactory perception, and presents an argument for an important role of attention in conscious processes. The book concludes by discussing the function of conscious brain processes and their link to guiding behaviors in complex situations. (shrink)

Two decades of critique have sensitized historians and philosophers of science to the inadequacies of conventional dichotomies between theory and practice, thereby prompting the search for new ways of writing about science that are less beholden than the old ways to the epistemological mores of theoretical physics, and more faithful to the actual practices not only of physics but of all the natural sciences. The need for alternative descriptions seems particularly urgent if one is to understand the place of theory (...) (and, in parallel, the role of modeling) in contemporary molecular biology, a science where, until now, no division between theory and experiment has obtained, and where distinctions between representing and intervening, and more generally, between basic and applied science, are daily becoming more blurred. Indeed, the very division between theory and experiment threatens to slight the extensive and sophisticated theoretical analyses (and even modeling) on which experimental work in contemporary molecular biology so often depends. My aim in this paper is to find a way of talking about theoretical practices in biology that is directly rooted in the mix of conceptual and material work that biologists do. As an example of such theoretical practices, I choose for the focus of my analysis the development of a model for gene regulation out of the experimental work of Eric Davidson and his colleagues at Cal Tech. (shrink)

What do biologists want? If, unlike their counterparts in physics, biologists are generally wary of a grand, overarching theory, at what kinds of explanation do biologists aim? A history of the diverse and changing nature of biological explanation in a particularly charged field, "Making Sense of Life" draws our attention to the temporal, disciplinary, and cultural components of what biologists mean, and what they understand, when they propose to explain life.

What makes a friendship a good friendship? One way of answering that question, taken by Aristotle and many philosophers since, is to describe an ideal friendship, and then say that a friendship is a good friendship insofar as it resembles the ideal. An ideal of friendship, so presented, is intended to capture the qualities that all good friendships share, regardless of who the friends are and regardless of their circumstances. This approach to good friendship, I argue, fails to capture the (...) variety of good kinds of friendship and the role of friendship in real human lives. I propose an alternative approach, on which a good friendship is one that improves the lives of the friends by bringing to those lives some of the many disparate values especially associated with friendship. On this view, there are many forms of good friendship, often mutually incompatible; no single kind of friendship is a model for all others; and the point of friendship is to improve the lives of humans as they are, with all their distinguishing weaknesses, limitations, and needs. (shrink)

An ethical theory is self-effacing if it tells us that sometimes, we should not be motivated by the considerations that justify our acts. In his influential paper 'The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories' [1976], Michael Stocker argues that consequentialist and deontological ethical theories must be self-effacing, if they are to be at all plausible. Stocker's argument is often taken to provide a reason to give up consequentialism and deontology in favour of virtue ethics. I argue that this assessment is a (...) mistake. Virtue ethics is self-effacing in just the same way as are the theories that Stocker attacks. Or, at the very least: if there is a way for virtue ethics to avoid self-effacement then there are ways for its rivals to avoid self-effacement too. Therefore, considerations of self-effacement provide no reason to prefer virtue ethics to its major rivals. (shrink)

In Kant and the Demands of Self-Consciousness, Pierre Keller examines Kant's theory of self-consciousness and argues that it succeeds in explaining how both subjective and objective experience are possible. Previous interpretations of Kant's theory have held that he treats all self-consciousness as knowledge of objective states of affairs, and also that self-consciousness can be interpreted as knowledge of personal identity. By developing this striking new interpretation Keller is able to argue that transcendental self-consciousness underwrites a general theory of (...) objectivity and subjectivity at the same time. (shrink)

We prize loyalty in our friends, lovers and colleagues, but loyalty raises difficult questions. What is the point of loyalty? Should we be loyal to country, just as we are loyal to friends and family? Can the requirements of loyalty conflict with the requirements of morality? In this book, originally published in 2007, Simon Keller explores the varieties of loyalty and their psychological and ethical differences, and concludes that loyalty is an essential but fallible part of human life. He (...) argues that grown children can be obliged to be loyal to their parents, that good friendship can sometimes conflict with moral and epistemic standards, and that patriotism is intimately linked with certain dangers and delusions. He goes on to build an approach to the ethics of loyalty that differs from standard communitarian and universalist accounts. His book will interest a wide range of readers in ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

(Series copy) The new Oxford Readings in Feminism series maps the dramatic influence of feminist theory on every branch of academic knowledge. Offering feminist perspectives on disciplines from history to science, each book assembles the most important articles written on its field in the last ten to fifteen years. Old stereotypes are challenged and traditional attitudes upset in these lively-- and sometimes controversial--volumes, all of which are edited by feminists prominent in their particular field. Comprehensive, accessible, and intellectually daring, the (...) Oxford Readings in Feminism series is vital reading for anyone interested in the effects of feminist ideas within the academy. Can science be gender-neutral? In recent years, feminist critics have raised troubling questions about the practice and goals of traditional science, demonstrating the existence of a pervasive bias in the ways in which scientists conduct and discuss their work. This exciting volume gathers seventeen essays--by sociologists, scientists, historians, and philosophers--of seminal significance in the emerging field of feminist science studies. Analyzing topics from the stereotype of the "Man of Reason" to the "romantic" language of reproductive biology, these fascinating essays challenge readers to take a fresh look at the limitations--and possibilities--of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the problematic relation between sex and gender in parallel with the equally problematic relation between nature and science. I also offer a provisional analysis of the political dynamics that work to polarize both kinds of discourse, focusing especially on their intersection (i.e., on discussions of gender and science), and on that group most directly affected by all of the above considerations (i.e., women scientists).

Children have special duties to their parents: there are things that we ought to do for our parents, but not for just anyone. Three competing accounts of filial duty appear in the literature: the debt theory, the gratitude theory and the friendship theory. Each is unsatisfactory: each tries to assimilate the moral relationship between parent and child to some independently understood conception of duty, but this relationship is different in structure and content from any that we are likely to share (...) with anyone apart from a parent. A more promising account will concentrate on what is unique about the parent-child relationship. I articulate and defend the 'special goods theory', according to which filial duties arise from the distinctive kinds of goods that healthy parent-child relationships typically involve. (shrink)

Through a series of multidisciplinary readings, Environmental Ethics: The Big Questions contextualizes environmental ethics within the history of Western intellectual tradition and traces the development of theory since the 1970s. Includes an extended introduction that provides an historical and thematic introduction to the field of environmental ethics Features a selection of brief original essays on why to study environmental ethics by leaders in the field Contextualizes environmental ethics within the history of the Western intellectual tradition by exploring anthropocentric (human–centered) and (...) nonanthropocentric precedents Offers an interdisciplinary approach to the field by featuring seminal work from eminent philosophers, biologists, ecologists, historians, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, nature writers, business writers, and others Designed to be used with a web–site which contains a continuously updated archive of case studies: http://environmentalethics.info/. (shrink)

In a recent piece, Jon Bebb (2023) has argued that we have no reason to believe, contrary to what is often assumed, that ‘normal’ is ambiguous between a statistical and a normative sense. I argue that his case rests on two false premisses, and that we have very good reasons to believe that ‘normal’ is, in fact, ambiguous in this way. As part of my argument, I will go on to suggest that if ‘normal’ is ambiguous between a statistical and (...) a normative sense, that is because of the deep but seldom recognised connection between regularities and rules. This suggestion, if correct, will in turn help us elucidate three familiar thoughts about normality. (shrink)

Propositions are (generally taken to be) the semantic values of declarative sentences in context. There is a long history of thinking that an important reason for taking propositions to be structured stems from the fact that the semantic values of such sentences are (typically) compositionally determined. In this paper, I argue that compositionality does not entail, nor provide good evidence for, the claim that propositions are structured. I go on to argue that there is no additional feature of declarative sentences—for (...) example, that they are true or false—that, in conjunction with compositionality, entails or provides good evidence for the claim that the semantic values of those sentences are complex. (shrink)