The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind (...) through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed. (shrink)

The study argues that linguistic/communication dysfunctions present in disorganized schizophrenia may stem, at least in part, from an impaired theory of mind. Using pragmatics and systemic linguistic theory, the study examined speech samples of two disorganized schizophrenic patients and attempted to determine if their communicative failures are because they lack theory of mind in the sense that they do not take into account the interlocutor's mind, i.e., the interlocutor's intentions, dispositions, and knowledge; or because they have a hyper-theory of mind (...) through which they over-attribute mental states to their interlocutor, i.e., assume that their interlocutor has access to their intentions, dispositions, and knowledge. The study indicates that disorganized schizophrenics are unlikely to be characterized as lacking a theory of mind; rather they seem to have a hyper-theory of mind, to which the psychopathological symptoms of hallucinations, delusions of reference and incoherent speech can be attributed. (shrink)

In this case report, we describe a woman with advancing dementia who still retained decisional capacity and was able to clearly articulate her request for deactivation of her implanted cardiac pacemaker—a scenario that would result in her death. In this case, the patient had the autonomy to make her decision, but clinicians at an outside hospital refused to deactivate her pacemaker even though they were in unanimous agreement that the patient had capacity to make this decision, citing personal discomfort and (...) a belief that her decision seemed out of proportion to her suffering. We evaluated her at our hospital, found her to have decision-making capacity, and deactivated her pacer resulting in her death about 9 days later. While some clinicians may be comfortable discussing patient preferences for device deactivation in patients who are imminently dying, we can find no reports in the literature of requests for device deactivation from patients with terminal diagnoses who are not imminently dying. (shrink)

Che gli esseri umani siano i soli animali capaci di ridere e piangere può essere messo in dubbio, ma che siano gli unici a sviluppare degli strumenti a questo scopo, non può esserlo. Tragedia e commedia, i due fronti dell’arte drammatica codificati da Aristotele nella "Poetica", sono proprio questi strumenti. La difficoltà a conferire un significato univoco a questi due magmatici termini, è sintomatica. In questo breve scritto tento di identificare la ragione di questa difficoltà e proporre un’ipotesi di lavoro (...) per risolverla, o per lo meno approcciarla. (shrink)

The facts aboutsuch, then, indicate not just thatsuch is a pro-adjective, but also that binding conditions apply broadly to pro-ADJs and pro-CNs, as well as to a wide range of pro-arguments. If this is true, the CN binding process accomplished by rules (40) and (41) might better be expressed in a system that uses a Cooper (1979) store mechanism. In fact, Stump (p. 144) notes that this could easily be done. Meanings of the type of∨ P n could be stored, (...) just as NP meanings are, until an appropriate binding CN phrase was encountered. Binding conditions would simply require that a∨ P n meaning not come out of storage until the derivation had emerged from its governing category. The behavior of the pro-adjectivesuch suggests that an expression of any category, if it is legitimately translatable as a variable, may be a fullfledged proform; many principles and mechanisms described to account for the widely studied pronouns in fact apply to nonargument categories. (shrink)

When I agreed to lecture to-night I stipulated that I might be allowed to interpret the subject announced so as to let my treatment relate less to the subject in general than to some particular aspects which happen to have been interesting me lately. Professor Whitehead, Sir Arthur Eddington, and Sir James Jeans have given to the world brilliant accounts of the present position of physics in relation to mathematics and philosophy. What I have to say bears to their writings, (...) the humble relation of an example to a piece of book-work, or of an application of a theorem to the theorem itself. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a modified version of the notion of strong proof from hypotheses (definition D2), and to give three deduction theorems for the relevant logicsR (theoremsT1, andT2) andE (theoremT3).

To discuss Professor Lindsay's doctrine of ‘Breves Breviantes’ would involve writing a long article, for which there is no space in the April number of the Class. Quart. But it would be wrong in me to pass his treatment of Plaut. Bacch. 1106 by without comment. What he calls ‘a sane view of the law of B.B.’ involves the emendation of a number of lines which are in other respects quite above suspicion. In these circumstances would it not be the (...) wiser course to reconsider the supposed ‘sane law’ rather than to attempt to alter the text so as to make it fit a law which is not admitted by some of the most eminent of modern critics ? Emendation is particularly unfortunate in this instance, because the metre is anapaestic, and the suggestion of Professor Lindsay that the word Philoxene may be ‘a gloss to indicate the speaker or a misinterpretation of some marginal indication of a speaker’ is surely ill-considered; for the speaker is Nicobulus, and the speakers of adjacent lines are given correctly, so far as I see, in the MSS. Such a gloss would, then, be meaningless. Professor Lindsay's attempt at emendation of this line is, in fact, striking evidence of the bankruptcy of the ‘sane view‘ of iambic shortening to which he has unfortunately committed himself. (shrink)