We examine the problem of generating definite noun phrases that are appropriate referring expressions; that is, noun phrases that (a) successfully identify the intended referent to the hearer whilst (b) not conveying to him or her any false conversational implicatures (Grice, 1975). We review several possible computational interpretations of the conversational implicature maxims, with different computational costs, and argue that the simplest may be the best, because it seems to be closest to what human speakers do. We describe our recommended (...) algorithm in detail, along with a specification of the resources a host system must provide in order to make use of the algorithm, and an implementation used in the natural language generation component of the IDAS system. (shrink)

My question, which is central to the business of moral philosophy, is implicitly addressed by many philosophers, yet explicitly addressed by only a few. In this paper I address the question head-on, and propose a qualified affirmative answer.

The consistent formalization of Meinong's object theory in recent mathematical logic requires either plural modes of predication, or distinct categories of nuclear or constitutive and extranuclear or nonconstitutive properties. The plural modes of predication approach is rejected because it is reducible to the nuclear extranuclear property distinction, but not conversely, and because the nuclear extranuclear property distinction offers a more satisfactory solution to object theory paradoxes.

This paper explicates secular psychodynamic growth through the life time and meditation as routes to the transpersonal from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology, based around a multi-line model of growth. A multi-line model raises many significant points for a transpersonal audience. Such models have been pioneered by Hunt. When set on the footing of evolutionary developmental biology and nonlinear dynamics these kind of models become all the more cogent, penetrating and far reaching, validating plurality and diversity in both the (...) process and final form of transpersonal development. The "anecdotal" accounts which Hunt reports, and which this paper adds to, can thus be amalgamated with an established and sophisticated research program . Such developments are symptomatic of a general movement in the sciences towards a non-linear paradigm, to which the transpersonal movement might have been slow to respond. (shrink)

In classical Greek poetry there is a familiar distinction between verse which repeats line upon line, and that which forms patterns liable to closure at intervals, in stanzas or lyric sections. This is often equated with the distinction between spoken and sung verse, but the equation is only approximate. At an earlier stage all verse had some musical accompaniment—so much can be deduced from a number of passages in Homer, and is in any case implicit in the nature of quantitative (...) verse. By Hellenistic times it seems that, in new composition, the more complex lyric structures had died out, while of the simpler ones more and more were being taken over as spoken verse. In the fifth century—and this can probably be extended to at least the late sixth and most of the fourth—only two kinds of verse are known to have dispensed with music altogether in performance: the heroic hexameter and the iambic trimeter. (shrink)

What kind of Theory of Music and Theory of Metric was taught to the young Pindar or the young Sophocles? So far are we from an answer to this question that we do not even know how far extra study was necessary, or usual, for the professional poet as compared with the ordinary educated Greek citizen. The interdependence of music and metric in lyric poetry gave complexity to the word-rhythms but kept the study of music, the subordinate partner, theoretically simple. (...) Doubtless by the time the young poet had learnt by heart the words of past masters of lyric verse, sung or accompanied them on the lyre, and danced them in choir or κ⋯μος, he had absorbed by practice and somewhat rule-of-thumb methods of training a great deal of the τ⋯χενη which his calling would require. He would have to learn, in common with the χοροδιδ⋯σκαλος, how to read and write a simple score, and so he must know the symbols of pitch in such scales as were then in use. The notation of arsis and thesis may have been required too, and if we knew that this was so, and how he was taught to apply it, we might be in a much better position to assess the kind of theory he learnt. But of one thing we may be sure: genius apart, it was his practical training, as performer and spectator, rather than theoretical teaching which gave his ear its cunning and technical skill to compose new rhythms. (shrink)

In order that a degree-of-belief function be coherent it is necessary and sufficient that it satisfy the axioms of probability theory. This theorem relies heavily for its proof on the two-valued sentential calculus, which emerges as a limiting case of a continuous scale of truth-values. In this "continuum of certainty" a theorem analogous to that instanced above is proved.

This special issue is a refreshing contrast to the intuitively influential notion of language as an internal system. This internal approach to language is going strong in some segments of the cognitive sciences. As an assumption, internalism drives much empirical work on language, and it is the basis of prominent theories of language – its nature (e.g. an internalised computational system), its evolution (e.g. a single still-unknown mutation), and its function (e.g. thinking, not communication). -/- Radical fundamentalist versions of these (...) theories are no longer in the main stream, however, despite the attention they may garner by forceful exposition (e.g. Chomsky 2011a). A fuller canvassing of the cognitive sciences – obviously outside the scope of the current presentation – would probably reveal that most researchers, even those who study aspects of language isolated in individual participants, would allow for an intrinsic social characteristic to language. I would go so far as to guess that they would place this social character on explanatory par with other structural or information-processing features that are studied in the lab. And despite what is averred by Chomsky (2011a), this social character in human cognition has been proposed in many domains, from vision (Balcetis & Lassiter 2010) to memory (Barnier et al. 2008). Humans are intrinsically social in a way that distinguishes them from any other primate species, and this sociality seems to be weaved into many cognitive processes (Castiello et al. 2010; Tomasello 2009). -/- But “social” is not the same thing as “distributed,” by the content of this issue. The latter may subsume the former. The distributed approach discussed in this special issue is not “simply” social – it does not just propose an added static feature of any synchronic language context (as noted in Jennings & Thompson this issue). The approach instead regards this social characteristic as just one part of a broader dynamic distributed process that constitutes language, through different kinds of inter-individual coordination at many levels of spatial and temporal scale (Cowley this issue; Fusaroli & Tylén this issue). (shrink)

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are typically members of the transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) family with diverse roles in embryonic development. At least five genes with homology to BMPs are expressed during Xenopus development, along with their receptors and intracellular signalling pathways. The evidence suggests that BMPs have roles to play in both mesoderm induction and dorsoventral patterning. Studies in Xenopus have also identified a number of inhibitory binding proteins for the classical BMPs, encoded by genes such as chordin and (...) noggin. These proteins appear to be responsible for establishing a morphogen gradient of BMP4 activity, which specifies different dorsoventral fates in early gastrulae. An emerging theme is that inhibition of BMP signalling is an important mechanism regulating cell fate decisions in early development. BioEssays 21:751–760, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In recent years, researchers and theorists of music education have taken a stronger interest in questions of justice. Meanwhile, in educational research more broadly, there has been a simultaneous growth in efforts to bring deconstruction and the theories of Jacques Derrida to bear upon philosophies of education. One significant difficulty with the latter effort, however, has been Derrida’s insistence that justice, about which he wrote a great deal in his later years, is impossible. This article suggests that, nevertheless, music education (...) can perhaps present special opportunities for something like Derridean justice in the classroom. The author suggests that his own encouragement of DJing and MCing in his inner-city music classroom may have made possible precisely such a seeming impossibility. Given, however, that Derrida’s conception of justice is contingent upon aporia, any decision on this matter must be infinitely deferred. Despite this, the article suggests that elements of Derrida’s theoretical insistence upon aporia can remain valuable to teachers who would strive for an ethical classroom practice. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Marxist studies of schools have overlooked the power of intentional explanations to explain schooling practices and policies. This oversight is at least in part due to many radical analyses failing to distinguish between explaining the acquisition and persistence of beliefs and determining the social consequences that follow from acting on beliefs. I further contend that radical researchers examining schooling practices must develop a more rigorous and refined conception of capitalist class interests.

Ethical viewpoints for and against the use of supervised community treatment (SCT), also known as outpatient commitment and community treatment orders, are examined. The perspectives of writers on civil liberties are considered. This paper argues that while civil liberties are an important concern SCT is ethically justifiable in the circumscribed population of ‘revolving door’ patients it applies to. This is on the grounds that it enables individuals to actualise their positive liberty. The issue of insight into mental illness is also (...) considered and it is concluded that a further argument in favour of SCT comes from evidence that insight relates to neurobiological deficits. Limits to the ethical justifiability of SCT are considered with reference to individuals with substance dependency. The paper concludes that SCT is ethically permissible only in those with severe mental illness who have a history of losing capacity to consent to treatment and/or admission. (shrink)

Let A be the category of all reduced compact complex spaces, viewed as a multi-sorted first order structure, in the standard way. Let U be a sub-category of A, which is closed under the taking of products and analytic subsets, and whose morphisms include the projections. Under the assumption that Th(U) is unidimensional, we show that Morley rank is equal to Noetherian dimension, in any elementary extension of U. As a result, we are able to show that Morley degree is (...) definable in Th(U), when Th(U) is unidimensional. (shrink)

In his philosophy of culture, Joseph Margolis maintains that, although human beings and human societies have a history, there is no human nature in the sense of a fixed essence. I consider objections to Margolis's thesis, beginning with the possibility that nonhuman intelligent species might be in a position to study human behavior from its origins to its demise with the proper distance from our own situation in order to arrive at an understanding of what is essential to human nature, (...) perhaps as a Kantian regulative rather than constitutive principle, and involving abstractions from particular cases and idealizations, as in other branches of science. Finally, I examine the historical‐past orientation of Margolis's concept of humanity's self‐understanding and its dependence on the intentionality of human thought, and I conclude that it provides an inadequate reason for denying that there can be such a thing as human nature. (shrink)

Text, interpretation and metre present a tangled problem in this threnody, and the solutions of editors differ widely. The chief function of detailed metrical study in such corrupt passages of lyric is to weight the scales in favour of—or more often against—certain methods of handling the text. The positive results of this present attempt to apply metrical criteria are necessarily modest and tentative; negatively they are, I think, sometimes decisive.