This article contributes to the nascent field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics. In particular, we are interested in how usage-based cognitive linguistics and variationist sociolinguistics may enrich each other. We first discuss some of the ways in which variationist insights have led cognitive linguists such as Gries (e.g. Multifactorial analysis in corpus linguistics: A study of particle placement, Continuum, 2003) and Grondelaers et al. (e.g. National variation in the use of er “there”. Regional and diachronic constraints on cognitive explanations, Mouton de Gruyter, (...) 2008) to pay attention to language-external factors (such as medium, region, and register), thereby greatly enhancing the description and understanding of certain grammatical phenomena. The focus then shifts to cognitive linguistic work (by Hollmann and Siewierska, English Language and Linguistics 11: 407–424, 2007 and Clark and Trousdale, English Language and Linguistics 13: 33–55, 2009) which has implications for sociolinguistic theory. The two usage-based concepts that have proved especially relevant in this connection are frequency effects and schemas. The article explores and illustrates the role of these two factors in relation to linguistic variation by means of a new case study on definite article reduction (DAR) in Lancashire dialect, a variety spoken in the North West of England. A twofold conclusion is drawn: first, a symbiotic relation between cognitive and sociolinguistics seems possible, but second, in order for this relation to be truly mutually beneficial variationists should get involved in the Cognitive Sociolinguistic enterprise much more than is currently the case. (shrink)

What makes a measure of well-being valid? The dominant approach today, construct validation, uses psychometrics to ensure that questionnaires behave in accordance with background knowledge. Our first claim is interpretive—construct validation obeys a coherentist logic that seeks to balance diverse sources of evidence about the construct in question. Our second claim is critical—while in theory this logic is defensible, in practice it does not secure valid measures. We argue that the practice of construct validation in well-being research is theory avoidant, (...) favoring a narrow focus on statistical tests while largely ignoring relevant philosophical considerations. (shrink)

What sort of claims do scientific models make and how do these claims then underwrite empirical successes such as explanations and reliable policy interventions? In this paper I propose answers to these questions for the class of models used throughout the social and biological sciences, namely idealized deductive ones with a causal interpretation. I argue that the two main existing accounts misrepresent how these models are actually used, and propose a new account. *Received July 2006; revised August 2008. †To contact (...) the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri, St. Louis, 599 Lucas Hall (MC 73), One University Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63121-4400; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In Valuing Health, Dan Hausman argues that well-being is not measurable, at least not in the way that science and policy would require. His argument depends on a demanding conception of well-being and on a pessimistic verdict upon the existing measures of subjective well-being. Neither of these reasons, I argue, warrant as much skepticism as Hausman professes.

The burgeoning science of well-being makes no secret of being value laden: improvement of well-being is its explicit goal. But in order to achieve this goal its concepts and claims need to be value adequate; that is, they need, among other things, to adequately capture well-being. In this article I consider two ways of securing this adequacy—first, by relying on philosophical theory of prudential value and, second, by the psychometric approach. I argue that neither is fully adequate and explore an (...) alternative. This alternative requires thorough changes in the way philosophers theorize about well-being. (shrink)

Julian Reiss correctly identified a trilemma about economic models: we cannot maintain that they are false, but nevertheless explain and that only true accounts explain. In this reply we give reasons to reject the second premise ? that economic models explain. Intuitions to the contrary should be distrusted.

This paper develops an inference system for natural language within the ‘Natural Logic’ paradigm as advocated by van Benthem, Sánchez and others. The system that we propose is based on the Lambek calculus and works directly on the Curry-Howard counterparts for syntactic representations of natural language, with no intermediate translation to logical formulae. The Lambek -based system we propose extends the system by Fyodorov et~al., which is based on the Ajdukiewicz/Bar-Hillel calculus Bar Hillel,. This enables the system to deal with (...) new kinds of inferences, involving relative clauses, non-constituent coordination, and meaning postulates that involve complex expressions. Basing the system on the Lambek calculus leads to problems with non-normalized proof terms, which are treated by using normalization axioms. (shrink)

First-person reports are central to the study of subjective well-being in contemporary psychology, but there is much disagreement about exactly what sort of first-person reports should be used. This paper examines an influential proposal to replace all first-person reports of life satisfaction with introspective reports of affect. I argue against the reasoning behind this proposal, and propose instead a new strategy for deciding what measure is appropriate.

Can social phenomena be understood by analyzing their parts? Contemporary economic theory often assumes that they can. The methodology of constructing models which trace the behavior of perfectly rational agents in idealized environments rests on the premise that such models, while restricted, help us isolate tendencies, that is, the stable separate effects of economic causes that can be used to explain and predict economic phenomena. In this paper, I question both the claim that models in economics supply claims about tendencies (...) and also the view that economics, when successful, necessarily follows this method. When economics licenses successful policy interventions, as it did in the case of the Federal Communications Commission spectrum auctions, its method is not to study tendencies but rather to study the phenomenon as a whole. Key Words: economic models • tendencies • economic experiments • policy making • John Stuart Mill. (shrink)

This article is a mutual introduction of the science of well-being to philosophy of science and an explanation of how the two disciplines can benefit each other. In the process, I argue that the science of well-being is not helpfully viewed as a social or a natural, but rather as a mixed, science. Hence, its methodology will have to attend to its specific features. I discuss two of its methodological problems: justifying the role of values, and validating measures. I suggest (...) that tackling them calls for developing mid-level rather than high theories of well-being. (shrink)

_Levinas, Subjectivity, Education_ explores how the philosophical writings of Emmanuel Levinas lead us to reassess education and reveals the possibilities of a radical new understanding of ethical and political responsibility. Presents an original theoretical interpretation of Emmanuel Levinas that outlines the political significance of his work for contemporary debates on education Offers a clear analysis of Levinas’s central philosophical concepts, including the place of religion in his work, demonstrating their relevance for educational theorists Examines Alain Badiou’s critique of Levinas’s work (...) Considers the practical implications of Levinas’ theories for concrete educational practices and frameworks. (shrink)

Background: Ethics and dignity in prehospital emergency care are important due to vulnerability and suffering. Patients can lose control of their body and encounter unfamiliar faces in an emergency situation. Objective: To describe what specialist ambulance nurse students experienced as preserved and humiliated dignity in prehospital emergency care. Research design: The study had a qualitative approach. Method: Data were collected by Flanagan’s critical incident technique. The participants were 26 specialist ambulance nurse students who described two critical incidents of preserved and (...) humiliated dignity, from prehospital emergency care. Data consist of 52 critical incidents and were analyzed with interpretive content analysis. Ethical considerations: The study followed the ethical principles in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings: The result showed how human dignity in prehospital emergency care can be preserved by the ambulance nurse being there for the patient. The ambulance nurses meet the patient in the patient’s world and make professional decisions. The ambulance nurse respects the patient’s will and protects the patient’s body from the gaze of others. Humiliated dignity was described through the ambulance nurse abandoning the patient and by healthcare professionals failing, disrespecting, and ignoring the patient. Discussion: It is a unique situation when a nurse meets a patient face to face in a critical life or death moment. The discussion describes courage and the ethical vision to see another human. Conclusion: Dignity was preserved when the ambulance nurse showed respect and protected the patient in prehospital emergency care. The ambulance nurse students’ ethical obligation results in the courage to see when a patient’s dignity is in jeopardy of being humiliated. Humiliated dignity occurs when patients are ignored and left unprotected. This ethical dilemma affects the ambulance nurse students badly due to the fact that the morals and attitudes of ambulance nurses are reflected in their actions toward the patient. (shrink)

The French Convention on Bioethics (États généraux de la bioéthique, 2009) were a perfect spot to observe new methods of organizing the participants of public debates into a hierarchy. Indeed, a privileged place was given to the citizen, and quite often the expert and the politician were devoid of their usual roles. This article will focus on the analysis of the very role given to the expert and to the expertise, both in the definition of the general framework of the (...) series of meetings and in public debates that took place in (among others) Marseille and Paris. This analysis makes obvious the idea that the major result of those Conventions does not consist in putting forward some original thoughts on biomedicine and its problems, but rather in promoting a new model of governance. In consequence, and if I am right, this promotion is being made precisely by diminishing the role of the expert (the intellectual). (shrink)

Стаття присвячена історії становлення жіночого рабинату в іудаїзмі США. Оскільки сміха (звання рабина) надається в теологічних навчальних закладах, то авторка акцентує свою увагу саме на них. Розглянуто позицію представників ортодоксального іудаїзму, які, базуючись на Галасі, забороняють жінкам ставати рабинами. Далі розглядається, яким чином навчальні заклади різних напрямів сучасного іудаїзму (реформістського, реконструктивістського та консервативного) приймали рішення про дозвіл жінкам вступати до рабинських факультетів та отримувати сміху. Авторка пов'язує ці зміни з феміністським рухом 1960-70 рр. Виділено загальні проблеми жінок під час навчання (...) та після його закінчення: жінки мають менше шансів стати рабинами в громадах, аніж чоловіки; жінкам важче знайти баланс між обов'язками рабина та їхніми жіночими функціями в сім'ї. Показано, що жінки привносять до рабинату нові цінності та стилі управління громадою ("спів-рабинат"). Вони також створюють релігійні обряди, присвячені суто жіночим життєвим циклам. (shrink)

The present reflection draws upon a tradition of energetic, world-facing critical legal scholarship to interrogate the anthropos assumed by the terminology of ‘anthropocentrism’ and of the ‘Anthropocene’. The article concludes that any ethically responsible future engagement with ‘anthropocentrism’ and/or with the ‘Anthropocene’ must explicitly engage with the oppressive hierarchical structure of the anthropos itself—and should directly address its apotheosis in the corporate juridical subject that dominates the entire globalised order of the Anthropocene age.

Computational explanations focus on information processing required in specific cognitive capacities, such as perception, reasoning or decision-making. These explanations specify the nature of the information processing task, what information needs to be represented, and why it should be operated on in a particular manner. In this article, the focus is on three questions concerning the nature of computational explanations: What type of explanations they are, in what sense computational explanations are explanatory and to what extent they involve a special, “independent” (...) or “autonomous” level of explanation. In this paper, we defend the view computational explanations are genuine explanations, which track non-causal/formal dependencies. Specifically, we argue that they do not provide mere sketches for explanation, in contrast to what for example Piccinini and Craver :283–311, 2011) suggest. This view of computational explanations implies some degree of “autonomy” for the computational level. However, as we will demonstrate that does not make this view “computationally chauvinistic” in a way that Piccinini or Kaplan :339–373, 2011) have charged it to be. (shrink)

This study examines the presence of ethical climates in skilled nursing facilities and identifies their antecedents (work group, job position, tenure). A cross-sectional survey design was implemented. A total of 359 facilities were selected in the Midwestern United States. Responses were received from nurses representing 100 of those facilities (28%). A total of 656 usable questionnaires were returned of the 3060 distributed (21.4% response rate). Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis, and multivariate and univariate analyses of variance were used. The results (...) confirmed the presence of five ethical climates. Significant differences between registered and licensed practical nurses with regard to egoistic and independence ethical climates were found. Furthermore, nurses in management and non-management positions differed significantly in their perceptions of caring and egoistic climates. The results suggest incongruence in value perceptions and imply that researchers and practitioners have to direct efforts towards preventing and identifying reasons behind this. (shrink)

That there could be ontologically complex concrete particulars is self-evidently true. A reductio may however be formulated which contradicts this truth. In this paper I argue that all of the reasonable ways in which we might refute this reductio will require the existence of at least some tropes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:1 & 2 Thessalonians by Douglas FarrowAnna Silvas1 & 2 Thessalonians by Douglas Farrow (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2020), xx + 336 pp.1 and 2 Thessalonians are probably the very first written testimonies of early Christianity. When Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians in AD 50, Our Lord Jesus Christ had "accomplished his exodus in Jerusalem" (see Luke 9:31) not twenty years before. Here we find the paradosis of the (...) Mystery of Christ among the Gentiles, the first articulations of Trinitarian faith (see 1 Thess 1:2-5), expressions of longing for the coming Parousia of Christ, warnings of a strange lawlessness already at work ripening towards a great apostasy and the coming of the "man of lawlessness."Douglas Farrow has pondered 1 and 2 Thessalonians for many years, attested by his numerous expositions and essays over three decades. He brings to his task a ready command of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and a vast reading of historical commentary and controversy, an intense personal and ecclesial faith, and a sense of historical, prophetic, and pastoral urgency.Throughout the book are excurses on themes opened up by the words and phrases of St Paul's text: Satan (82-86); the sexual body and virtue in sex, divorce, and remarriage (95-114); the remedial pains of purgatory (beginning in this life); the reality of final retribution, the finality of hell; the untenability of so-called "universalism" (131-41,178-84,192-96); the imminency and the delay of the Parousia (199-204); the apostasy / man of lawlessness / Antichrist; the temple in which the Antichrist seats himself (205-42); the mystery of lawlessness at work, especially in undermining the Church (245-61).In studying Paul's eschatological themes, Farrow necessarily ponders other scriptural texts leading in the same direction: Dani 7-12; Jesus's Olivet Discourse in its most extensive form at Matt 24:1-25:46 (though it really begins at 23:23); 2 Pet 2:1-5, 3:3-15; much of the Rev 6:1 through 19:21; [End Page 398] Deut 32:1-43 (Farrow says the Song of Moses encapsulates the whole of human history); Psalms 97 (LXX 96); 110 (LXX 109); Wis 4-5, 10-19; Sirach 50; Joel; Zech 8-14; Mai 3-4; 2 Mace 5-9; Isa 66:5,14-16; and so on. Farrow holds that Paul worked from knowledge of Jesus's apocalyptic teachings in aversion closest to Matthew's (138,142,184, 189, 205).Farrow takes companions in his exegesis: Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Haimo, Anselm, Aquinas, and others. He knows Luther's hermeneutics and Calvinist disputes about supra- and infra-sessionism and double predestinationism. He consults more recent prophets, quoting at length from Newman's amazingly prescient 1838 discourses on the last times, Solovyovin 1899, and Fulton Sheen in 1948 and 1958. Another exegete is an artist: Luca Signorelli, whose Disputation of the Antichrist in Orvieto Cathedral Farrow refers to several times.Farrow shows his affinity with Irenaeus. That means cleaving to the visible and invisible truths of the Incarnation of God the Word, respecting concrete and embodied realities, keeping in view the transcendent goal ("The glory of God is a living man—and the life of man is in the vision of God"), instinctively flinching at gnosticizing tendencies—sophisticated re-interpretations of Scripture that elide the rule of faith and dissolve truth. It means a ruling sense of the Kingdom of God as an intervention from heaven rather than generating from man or from the earth. It means a spirit of obedience to the commandments, to the paradosis that descends to us from above in Christ, effected by the Spirit in the ecclesia, the company of brethren destined to "gather to Christ" at his coming (1 Thess 2:1), who practice that final gathering to Christ by participating in the Eucharist on the "Eighth Day," the Lord's Day.Farrow deplores the patchy reading of 1 and 2 Thessalonians in the lectionaries: "While 1 Thessalonians fares a little better, barely half of 2 Thessalonians is read in the Churches" (11). Missing is the eschatologically pivotal 2 Thess 2:3-15, where Paul, distinguishing... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 54, Issue 1, pp 1 - 21 Thomas Aquinas sees a sharp metaphysical distinction between artifacts and substances, but does not offer any explicit account of it. We argue that for Aquinas the contribution that an artisan makes to the generation of an artifact compromises the causal responsibility of the form of that artifact for what the artifact is; hence it compromises the metaphysical unity of the artifact to that of an accidental unity. By contrast, the metaphysical (...) unity of a substance is achieved by a process of generation whereby the substantial form is solely responsible for what each part and the whole of a substance are. This, we submit, is where the metaphysical difference between artifacts and substances lies for Aquinas. Here we offer on behalf of Aquinas a novel account of the causal process of generation of substances, in terms of _descending forms_, and we bring out its explanatory merits by contrasting it to other existing accounts in the literature. (shrink)

According to the restructuring hypothesis, insight problem solving typically progresses through consecutive stages of search, impasse, insight, and search again for someone, who solves the task. The order of these stages was determined through self-reports of problem solvers and has never been verified behaviorally. We asked whether individual analysis of problem solving attempts of participants revealed the same order of problem solving stages as defined by the theory and whether their subjective feelings corresponded to the problem solving stages they were (...) in. Our participants tried to solve the Five-Square problem in an online task, while we recorded the time and trajectory of their stick movements. After the task they were asked about their feelings related to insight and some of them also had the possibility of reporting impasse while working on the task. We found that the majority of participants did not follow the classic four-stage model of insight, but had more complex sequences of problem solving stages, with search and impasse recurring several times. This means that the classic four-stage model is not sufficient to describe variability on the individual level. We revised the classic model and we provide a new model that can generate all sequences found. Solvers reported insight more often than non-solvers and non-solvers reported impasse more often than solvers, as expected; but participants did not report impasse more often during behaviorally defined impasse stages than during other stages. This shows that impasse reports might be unreliable indicators of impasse. Our study highlights the importance of individual analysis of problem solving behavior to verify insight theory. (shrink)

In his book Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit suggests that people are not harmed by being conceived with a disease or disability if they could not have existed without suffering that particular condition. He nevertheless contends that entities can be harmed if the suffering they experience is sufficiently severe. By implication, there is a threshold which divides harmful from non-harmful conceptions. The assumption that such a threshold exists has come to play a part in UK policy making. I argue that (...) Parfit’s distinction between harmful and non-harmful conceptions is untenable. Drawing on Kant’s refutation of the ontological argument for God’s existence, I suggest that the act of creation cannot be identical with the act of harming—nor indeed of benefiting—however great the offspring’s suffering may be. I suggest that Parfit is right that bringing children into existence does not usually harm them, but I argue that this must be applied to all conceptions, since Parfit cannot show how the harm threshold can be operationalised. If we think certain conceptions are unethical or should be illegal, this must be on other grounds than that the child is harmed by them. I show that a Millian approach in this context fails to exemplify the empirical and epistemological advantages which are commonly associated with it, and that harm-based legislation would need to be based on broader harm considerations than those relating to the child who is conceived. (shrink)

A co-actor’s intentionality has been suggested to be a key modulating factor for joint action effects like the joint Simon effect (JSE). However, in previous studies intentionality has often been confounded with agency defined as perceiving the initiator of an action as being the causal source of the action. The aim of the present study was to disentangle the role of agency and intentionality as modulating factors of the JSE. In Experiment 1, participants performed a joint go/nogo Simon task next (...) to a co-actor who either intentionally controlled a response button with own finger movements (agency+/intentionality+) or who passively placed the hand on a response button that moved up and down on its own as triggered by computer signals (agency-/intentionality-). In Experiment 2, we included a condition in which participants believed that the co-actor intentionally controlled the response button with a Brain-Computer Interface while placing the response finger clearly besides the response button, so that the causal relationship between agent and action effect was perceptually disrupted (agency-/intentionality+). As a control condition, the response button was computer controlled while the co-actor placed the response finger besides the response button (agency-/intentionality-). We observed a JSE when the co-actor responded intentionally and the causal relationship between co-actor and action effect could be perceived, but not when the co-actor did not respond intentionally and the causal relationship was disrupted (Experiment 1). When the intentionality of the co-actor was maintained but the perception of the causal relationship between co-actor and action effect destroyed, the JSE was absent (Experiment 2). Our findings clearly indicate a vital role of a co-actor’s agency for the JSE and suggest that the ascription of agency is strongly perceptually grounded. (shrink)

In the literature, one finds two accounts of the normative status of rational belief: the ought account and the permissibility account. Both accounts have their advantages and shortcomings, making it difficult to favour one over the other. Imagine that there were two principles of rational belief or rational degrees of belief commonly considered plausible, but which, however, yielded a paradox together with one account, but not with the other. One of the accounts therefore requires us to give up one of (...) the plausible principles; whereas the other allows us to save them both. The fact that it allows us to save both of the plausible principles might well be considered a strong reason in favour of the relevant account. The permissibility-account-based resolution of the lottery paradox suggests that the permissibility account is a candidate for being supported in this way, since the account seems to save two plausible principles of rational belief and rational degrees of belief. I argue that even if the permissibility account were supported in this way the support would be defeated, since one cannot provide an analogous resolution of the preface paradox. The principles remain unsaved by the permissibility account. (shrink)

Empathy is commonly regarded as an essential attribute for doctors and there is a conviction that empathy must be taught to medical students. Yet it is not clear exactly what empathy is, from a philosophical or sociological point of view, or whether it can be taught. The meaning, role and relevance of empathy in medical education have tended to be unquestioningly assumed; there is a need to examine and contextualise these assumptions. This paper opens up that debate, arguing that ‘empathy’, (...) as it is commonly understood, is neither necessary nor sufficient to guarantee good medical or ethical practice. (shrink)

Paper responding to critique of Maurin (2002) presented by Herbert Hochberg in his “Relations, Properties and Particulars” (2004).

This paper considers the relationship between institutions and the “sexual imaginary,” understood as the set of affective and imaginative resources that produce certain forms of sexual subjectivity. Drawing on the work of Cornelius Castoriadis and Moira Gatens, I argue that institutions play an important role in shaping sexual imaginaries. Historically, institutions have been sites in which unjust sexual norms have been reinforced and legitimized. I analyse the growing trend of consent education at Australian universities to explore how institutions may also (...) represent potential sites for contesting and reimagining these norms. Feminist critiques of consent suggest that consent education may in fact reproduce a narrow and conservative vision of sexuality, one that aligns with the neoliberal politics of the contemporary university. This paper contributes to these critiques by exploring how both the neoliberal university and consent theory are premised on a distorted vision of the subject as a rational, disembodied being. I argue that transforming dominant sexual imaginaries requires recognizing and interrogating both how desire permeates institutional spaces and the role of desire in ethical sexual relations. (shrink)