Although institutional discourse is subject to a vast ensemble of constraints, its design is not fixed beforehand. On the contrary, optimizing the satisfaction of these constraints requires considerable discourse design skills from institutional agents. In this article, we analyze how Dutch banks’ mortgage advisors navigate their way through the consultations context. We focus on what we call discourse design explications, that is, stretches of talk in which participants refer to conflicting constraints in the discourse context, at the same time proposing (...) particular discourse designs for dealing with these conflicts. We start by discussing three forms of design explication. Then we will examine the various resolutions they propose for constraint conflicts and show how advisors seek customer consent or cooperation for the proposed designs. Thus our analysis reveals how institutional agents, while providing services, work on demonstrating how the design of these services is optimized and tailored to customers. (shrink)

(1983). HOE KRIJGT Mc 2,15–17 (NBG 1951) BETEKENIS? ANALYSE VAN DE NARRATIEVE SYNTAXIS VAN HET OPPERVLAKTE-NIVEAU. Bijdragen: Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 194-207.

This article explores the radical changes in the relationship between philosophy and the study of language in early modern Europe. It describes the context in which questions concerning language were approached in early modern Europe and outlines some aspects of the disciplines traditionally concerned with language, which include logic, grammar, and rhetoric. It discusses the views of language held by some of the most influential philosophers of the period including Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Thomas Hobbes.

An edition of the recently discovered notebook used in the seventeenth-century by John Wallis to teach language to the 'deaf mute' Alexander Popham, who could not inherit unless he could speak - one of the most famous cases in the history of deaf education. David Cram and Jaap Maat place the work in its personal, social, and scientific contexts.

This volume brings together the published and the previously unpublished works on language by the seventeenth-century thinker George Dalgarno. His 'Art of Signs' - the earliest seventeenth-century work to attempt a fully elaborated universal language scheme - is presented here for the first time with a full English translation alongside the Latin. Also included is a further book-length tract, broadsheets, and correspondence, all of which provide the modern reader with better access to the ideas of this original and stimulating thinker.

This volume brings together the published and the previously unpublished works on language by the seventeenth-century thinker George Dalgarno. His 'Art of Signs' - the earliest seventeenth-century work to attempt a fully elaborated universal language scheme - is presented here for the first time with a full English translation alongside the Latin. Also included is a further book-length tract, broadsheets, and correspondence, all of which provide the modern reader with better access to the ideas of this original and stimulating thinker.

The entrepreneurial element is one of the aspects emphasized in the primary school mathematics education curriculum in Malaysia. However, previous studies have found that application of entrepreneurial elements in mathematics teaching is still lacking. This study was therefore conducted to identify the real challenges that mathematics teachers face in applying the entrepreneurial element in mathematics teaching. This study is qualitative case study which involved six primary school mathematics teachers. Semi-structured interviews, observation, document analysis and field notes were used for the (...) data collection process in this study. The data obtained was analyzed using the constant comparative analysis method to determine themes and sub-themes. The findings were that a teacher’s knowledge, teaching style, limited time of teaching, and attitudes, and in-service courses and training are among the identified challenges in applying entrepreneurial elements in mathematics teaching. This study expands knowledge and the literature on the challenges faced by school mathematics teachers in applying entrepreneurial elements in mathematics teaching. Various initiatives need to be taken to ensure that all the challenges can be overcome, and ultimately enable the entrepreneurial elements to be applied to students more widely. (shrink)

In this paper we examine Ɔbenfo Mario H. Beatty’s chapter, ‘Maat the Cultural and Intellectual Allegiance of a Concept’ in terms of its articulation of MꜢꜤt ‘Maat’. This examination sets out to delineate how a return to the principles inherent in MꜢꜤt ‘Maat’ can serve to bring about the Wḥm Mswt ‘Rebirth/Renaissance’ of Kmt ‘Land of Black People’ and Kmt ‘Black People’ economically and politically. This research is significant in that it points us away from the semantically (...) vacuous and etymologically opaque terms “Africa” and “Africans” to terminology, principles and practices that restore our original identity as Kmt ‘Black People’. (shrink)

The ancient Egyptians and Dogon conceive that all elements of the universe operate in harmony. Therefore, the manner in which the Egyptians and Dogon express and experience their cosmologies must agree with this harmony. Using an African-centered approach, this study examines three key factors that define both cosmologies and allow for the full expression of harmony. The first key is Maat. Maat is the Egyptian principle of balance, order, justice, and harmony and is the fundamental descriptive characteristic of (...) the universe for the Egyptians and Dogon. The second key is myth. Myth discloses the sacred world. To the Dogon, myth represents the ultimate revelation of knowledge. In Egypt, creation narratives are told as myths. The third key is Nature. Nature provides the symbols, forms, images, behaviors, and objects used to express the cosmology. This study describes the place where these three factors converge. To do this, a multidisciplinary approach from philosophy, art, myth, and culture is used to provide context, because all have greatly influenced the perception of myth in culture. The articulation of Egyptian and Dogon stories of the universe is a feast for the tactile senses, challenging the mind, and able to be experienced through the simple activities of daily living. This study brings this to light. (shrink)

A review of the PRSA Code of Professional Standards reveals that despite the messianic strains of its originators, the code has become in part a public relations device to allow claims of adherence to virtue and in part a matter of constraining free competition. The author maintains that to date the code has not even helped the public relations of public relations. ?Responsibility to the public?; remains undefinable, but trust in individual ethical judgment becomes problematic when there is no common (...) sense of what such responsibility entails. An effective public relations code must include not only pious sentiments, but painful penalties. What is needed are more ?'public relations watchers,?; monitoring the publicity and communication channels and blowing whistles when necessary. News media and trade journals should expose and bring shame to bear on unscrupulous PR practitioners, the essay concludes. In addition, two deeper types of changes are suggested. First, clear distinctions must be made between what is public and what is private information, so the tendency to deceive will be decreased. Second, PR people should return to a different understanding of the word ?truth?; than is common in contemporary culture, and rely upon objective truth and honest service rather than pandering to public opinion. (shrink)

This essay attempts to recover the ancient Egyptian category of "maat" as a valuable resource for contemporary metaethics and particular attention is given to its affinity with versions of modern non-cognitivism.

Abstract In Politicians Don't Pander, Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Shapiro show that politicians follow public opinion much less slavishly than conventional wisdom suggests. However, the case studies they themselves rely on show that public opinion constrains policy makers more than they claim. Conversely, to the extent that political leaders are able to ignore the public's wishes, Jacobs and Shapiro do not adequately consider the possibility that this is due in large part to severe voter ignorance of public policy. In (...) urging greater obedience to the popular will, the authors also overlook the danger that increased adherence to the often internally contradictory wishes of the electorate may be impossible or undesirable. (shrink)

Cicero’s first speeches as consul, de lege agraria I and II, delivered to the senate and the people respectively, are virtually identical in outline and broad argument. That allows the rhetorical technique of individual sections to be compared closely. This article uses such comparisons to probe the tactics and ideology of the speeches. In both Cicero’s choice of word and phrase might suggest that he is simply addressing his audiences as suits their stations. But a consideration of the circumstances of (...) the speeches reveals instead that Cicero is directing his audiences to alternate ways of imagining their social and political positions; in effect, Cicero propounds distinct, principled, and communalist definitions of dignitas and libertas, core values of each audience – though sometimes at the price of distorting the intent of the bill. (shrink)

The Ethiosemitic verb hlw ‘to be present’ is strange in three regards: it shows an unusual alternation between -o and -awa in Classical Ethiopic; it is formally Perfect, but used in the present tense; and it has no verbal cognates in other branches of Semitic. This is because it is originally not a Perfect, but a presentative particle, to be connected with other Semitic presentatives reflecting *hallaw. Due to the leveling of the second-person object suffixes to the Perfect endings in (...) Ethiosemitic, suffixed presentative forms like hallo-ka could be reanalyzed as consisting of a verbal stem hallo- and a subject ending -ka. Other forms of the paradigm, including the 3M.SG Perfect hallaw-a, were then created by analogy with III-w 02-stem verbs like fannawa ‘to send’. (shrink)

In this article the author presents a comment on Ludwig Heyde’s last book. This book on autonomy, transcendence and mortality was published a few days before he died. Heyde analyses the concept of autonomy, transcendence and mortality from a philosophical point of view. He especially pays a lot of attention to the notion of mortality. Here, he tends to strengthen the Kantian postulate of immortality by giving it an ontological claim. But what kind of “being” can we ascribe to what (...) on the other side of death counts for the immortals? Isn’t this a question about the relation between philosophy and religion? Many philosophers tend to approach religion in a reductionistic way. By their point of departure they ignore beforehand the specific religious aspects of life. But isn't it the task for philosophy to approach religion in such a way that religion preserves its specificity? To achieve this, maybe it is also necessary to ascribe ontological claims to religious truth. With his concept of transcendence Heyde approaches religion not in a reductionistic way. However the question remains whether philosophy can do justice to religious truth. Since religion is, as Heyde says in the beginning of his study, sui generis, can philosophy ever do justice to it? Or is religion neutralised by philosophy beforehand? This book therefore, leaves us behind with the question: can philosophy do justice to religion? (shrink)

The purge of Second World War collaborators in Belgium has not been the subject of many serious scientific research sofar. However, progress in theorizing and in data handling make it now possible to clear away the major impediments to such scientific research.After the war, extracts of the judgements of the military courts, which were responsible for the trial of collaborators, were published in the government gazette, « Het Belgisch Staatsblad ». These extracts provide the empirical basis of the project, which (...) is put in the theoretical context known as « the ambivalence theory ». A brief look at the military judiciary system sheds some light on the processes behind the judging of collaborators. The article unveils some first results of the analysis of 5,000 court cases. The most important finding sofar is the absence of consistency - in time as well as in space - in the judging of collaborators in Belgium. (shrink)

The article offers an extensive interpretation of Human All Too Human I, 114: “The non-Greek element in Christianity”. The origin of this section goes back to 1875 when Nietzsche was preparing a course on “The Religion of the Greek”. It is pointed out that for Nietzsche the opposition as such and in general is much more important than this specific opposition between Greek and Christian religion or culture. Christianity is in Nietzsche's writings almost always presented in some sort of opposition, (...) but there are many different oppositions in which it appears. The nature of the opposition which is so highly valued by Nietzsche, is described as agon, and is shown to be very different from the metaphysical opposition as criticized by Nietzsche in Beyond Good and Evil § 2. Nietzsche attempts to put Christianity back into an agonistic relation with Greek culture. But whereas Greek culture recognizes the principle of the agon, it is denied and condemned in Christianity. Greek culture shows the agon to be a principle of measure. Christianity turns out to be a religion of excessiveness. (shrink)

Recent research questions the validity of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data to measure teaching and learning. Yet, there is extensive use of this instrument around the world, which arguably contributes to a decline in the rigor of college classes. This performance measurement has lead to both unethical grade inflation and coursework deflation as faculty try to entertain students rather than educating them. These unethical teaching techniques used by many faculties are on the same plane as the unethical practices of (...) executives “cooking their books.” Ethical and unethical SET management techniques of professors are discussed herein, along with incentive and structural pander pollution of administrators and universities. (shrink)

In The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield challenges the idea that photographs of political violence exploit their subjects and pander to the voyeuristic tendencies of their viewers. Instead she argues passionately that looking at such images—and learning to see the people in them—is an ethically and politically necessary act that connects us to our modern history of violence and probes the human capacity for cruelty. Grappling with critics from Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht to Susan Sontag and the postmoderns—and analyzing (...) photographs from such events as the Holocaust, China’s Cultural Revolution, and recent terrorist acts—Linfield explores the complex connection between photojournalism and the rise of human rights ideals. In the book’s concluding section, she examines the indispensable work of Robert Capa, James Nachtwey, and Gilles Peress and asks how photography should respond to the increasingly nihilistic trajectory of modern warfare. A bracing and unsettling book, The Cruel Radiance convincingly demonstrates that if we hope to alleviate political violence, we must first truly understand it—and to do that, we must begin to look. (shrink)

In an article recently published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, the legal scholar Helen Reece argues that the prevalence and effects of rape myths have been overstated and the designation of certain beliefs and attitudes as myths is simply wrong. Feminist researchers, she argues, are engaged ‘in a process of creating myths about myths’ in a way that serves to close down and limit productive debate in this ‘vexed’ area. In this article we argue that Reece’s analysis is (...) methodologically flawed, crudely reductionist and rhetorically unyielding. We locate Reece’s analysis within the wider theoretical field to show how her failure to engage with feminist literature on rape other than in the narrowest, most exclusionary terms, yields an approach which impedes rather than advances public understanding and panders to a kind of simplistic thinking which cannot begin to grapple with the complexity of the phenomenon that is rape. We conclude by emphasizing the continuing commitment of feminist researchers carefully to theorize and map the fraught field of progressive legal strategizing in order to identify and counter the kinds of risks and shortcomings of political activism with which Reece is rightly concerned. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.2 (2000) 3-24 [Access article in PDF] Agamben's Potential Leland Deladurantaye Giorgio Agamben. Potentialities: Collected Essays In Philosophy. Ed., trans., and intro. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1999. [P] It is only after a long and arduous frequenting of names, definitions, and facts that the spark is lit in the soul which, in enflaming it, marks the passage from passion to accomplishment.--Giorgio Agamben, The Idea of ProseIn (...) a preface written for the French translation of his Infancy and History: The Destruction of Experience, Giorgio Agamben states that"every written work can be regarded as the prologue (or rather, the broken cast) of a work never penned, and destined to remain so, because later works, which in turn will be the prologues or the moulds for other absent works, represent only sketches or death masks." 1 This remark, which describes every work of art as a preface, does not simply refer to the impossibility of translating the all of life into a single work. Nor does it simply refer to those purely empirical obstacles which stand in the way of creation, preventing the work of art from attaining the plenitude it might have hoped for had not greedy wine-merchants, harrying tailors, and eloquent panderers distracted the Great Minds from their tasks. Instead, in returning every work of art to its originary hesitation, in evoking the oscillation between work and draft, effort and accomplishment, Agamben invokes a much richer and darker potentiality lying at the heart of the work. It is this richer and darker potentiality that constitutes the central concern of Agamben's thought and that gives its name to this collection. Yet what is named in this potentiality? What is the nature of the potentiality of which Agamben speaks? What is this potentiality the potential for?Before advancing in the investigation of this question, let us look briefly at what is gathered together under its name. In this collection of essays by a thinker of unquestionable brilliance one finds a number of axes. The first of these is that of chronology: the essays presented in this volume stretch from 1975 to 1996 and thus cover the period during which works such as Stanzas, Infancy and History, The Idea of Prose, and The Coming Community were prepared and published. The second axis--the one that dictates the ordering of the texts found in this volume and which is the choice of the editor and not the author--is a thematic one: the book is divided into four sections entitled respectively, "Language," "History," "Potentiality," and "Contingency." 2 One notes the presence of other, more fugitive axes such as those which can be found in connections between different essays in the collection (as in the case of the remark from a late Byzantine lexicon cited in the closing paragraphs of the first essay, which receives a magisterial, thirty-page gloss in the last, richest essay in the collection) and between the essays gathered together in this volume and Agamben's other written works (the question [End Page 3] of the genealogy of the sacred, which lies at the heart of Agamben's most recent works, is evoked here in the closing lines of the eighth essay in this collection; the question of a philosophy of life as the coming philosophy in the chronologically final essay in this volume [chapter 14] thus announces Agamben's more recent studies on the politico-philosophical concept of life). These last two axes confront the reader with all the more urgency, as no major thinker since Walter Benjamin has occupied himself with such a tensely, densely interconnected constellation of concerns at the heart of such seeming diversity of subject. At the hub of these axes, which accelerate and blur in the reading of the work, lies the animating, abiding concern of Agamben's thought: potentiality. The Potentiality of Language, or Matter 1.1 This preface with which we began, and which finds itself near the chronological midpoint of the essays gathered together in this volume, contains a singular profession de foi. After suggesting that, "if for every author there exists a... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Problem Method The Question of Ancient Egypt Ancient Egyptian Concepts of “Philosophy” The First Definition of a “Philosopher” in World History Hieroglyphic Signs and Philosophy The Dynamic Character of Egyptian Thinking on “Existence” The Egyptian Conception of the Universe Egyptian Logic The Being and Essence of the Cosmos and of Humans The Metaphysical Problem of “Evil” Maat, the Keystone of Egyptian Philosophy Conclusion.