There are many mean and nasty things to say about mean and nasty talk, but I don't plan on saying any of them. There's a specific problem about slurring words that I want to address. This is a semantic problem. It's not very important compared to the real-world problems presented by bigotry, racism, discrimination, and worse. It's important only to linguistics and the philosophy of language.

Once upon a time it was assumed that speaking literally and directly is the norm and that speaking nonliterally or indirectly is the exception. The assumption was that normally what a speaker means can be read off of the meaning of the sentence he utters, and that departures from this, if not uncommon, are at least easily distinguished from normal utterances and explainable along Gricean lines. The departures were thought to be limited to obvious cases like figurative speech and conversational (...) implicature. However, people have come to appreciate that the meaning of a typical sentence, at least one we are at all likely to use, is impoverished, at least relative to what we are likely to mean in uttering it. In other words, what a speaker normally means in uttering a sentence, even without speaking figuratively or obliquely, is an enriched version of what could be predicted from the meaning of the sentence alone. This can be because the sentence expresses a “minimal” (or “skeletal”) proposition or even because it fails to express a complete proposition at all.1 Indeed, it is now a platitude that linguistic meaning generally underdetermines speaker meaning. That is, generally what a speaker means in uttering a sentence, even if the sentence is devoid of ambiguity, vagueness, or indexicality, goes beyond what the sentence means. The question is what to make of this Contextualist Platitude, as I’ll call it. It may be a truism, but does it require a radical revision of the older conception of the relation between what sentences mean and what speakers mean in uttering them? Does it lead to a major modification, or perhaps even outright rejection, of the semantic-pragmatic distinction? I think.. (shrink)

This manuscript explores the argument for lower student-to-school counselor ratios in U.S. public education. Drawing upon a comprehensive historical review and existing research, we establish the integral role of school counselors and the notable benefits of reduced student-to-counselor ratios. Our analysis of national data exposes marked disparities across states and districts, with the most underfunded often serving higher percentages of low-income students and students of color. This situation raises significant ethical concerns, prompting a call for conscientious policy reform and targeted (...) investment. Informed by emerging best practices, we propose recommendations for enhancing counselor staffing and ultimately student outcomes. This ethical argument underscores the need for proactive actions and provides a basis for future research to further delineate the impact of school counselor ratios on educational equity and student success. (shrink)

Without doubt,veni vidi viciis one of the most famous quotations from Antiquity. It is well known that it was Julius Caesar who coined the renowned expression. Less frequently discussed is the fact that ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ was announced as written text. According to Suetonius, Caesar paraded a placard displaying the wordsveni vidi viciin his triumph held over Pontus in 46b.c.(Suet.Iul. 37.2):Pontico triumpho inter pompae fercula trium verborum praetulit titulum VENI VIDI VICI non acta belli significantem sicut ceteris, (...) sed celeriter confecti notam.In his Pontic triumph he exhibited among the biers of the procession a placard (titulus) with three words VENI VIDI VICI, not to show the deeds performed in the war, as in the others, but to mark out how fast the war had been concluded. (shrink)

Relations between J. A. C. Chaptal, pioneer of heavy chemical industry in France, and A. L. Lavoisier, reformer of chemical theory, are examined in the light of unpublished correspondence they exchanged in the period 1784–1790. The letters, together with Chaptal's early publications, allow a reconstruction of his conversion to Lavoisier's antiphlogistic chemistry. They also reveal a series of petitions that Chaptal made to Lavoisier, in the latter's official capacity as a director of the Régie des poudres et salpêtres, for relief (...) from the controlled price of saltpetre for his acid works in Languedoc. Finally, the relationship is explored as a window on the interplay between chemical theory and industrial practice during the period of the Industrial Revolution. (shrink)

This article makes a number of points about reference, both speaker reference and linguistic reference. The bottom line is simple: reference ain't easy — at least not nearly as easy as commonly supposed. Much of what speakers do that passes for reference is really something else, and much of what passes for linguistic reference is really nothing more than speaker reference. Referring is one of the basic things we do with words, and it would be a good idea to understand (...) what that involves and requires before worrying about the linguistic means by which this is done. (shrink)

Think of linguistification by analogy with personification: attributing linguistic properties to nonlinguistic phenomena. For my purposes, it also includes attributing nonlinguistic properties to linguistic items, i.e., treating nonlinguistic properties as linguistic. Linguistification is widespread. It has reached epidemic proportions. It needs to be eradicated. That’s important because the process of communication is not simply a matter of one person putting a thought into words and another decoding them back into the same thought. Much of what a speaker means cannot be (...) traced to what his words mean or to their possibly context-sensitive semantic contents. Words carry information all right, but that information hardly determines what speakers mean in uttering them. They leave plenty of pragmatic gaps and sometimes even semantic slack. I’ll mention various reasons for that, but the important thing is to recognize how much people exploit extralinguistic information in communicating and to avoid confusing this process with semantic context sensitivity. To appreciate the limitations of semantics, we shouldn’t fall for the fallacy of misplaced information or for the more specific fallacies enumerated below. (shrink)

Religion: A Study in Beauty, Truth, and Goodness covers the wide array of elements, including the concepts of ultimate being, scripture, ritual, morality, and beauty, which make up the fascinating entity known as religion. Taking a phenomenological approach that emphasizes the standpoint of the religious believer--a view from the inside of religion--Kent Richter uses the categories of experience, belief, and behavior ("Beauty, Truth, and Goodness") as a way to think about religion in general. This approach helps students understand both (...) the great variety in religious traditions and the internal coherence that religion holds for its practitioners. (shrink)

a comprehensive, somewhat Gricean theory of speech acts, including an account of communicative intentions and inferences, a taxonomy of speech acts, and coverage of many topics in pragmatics -/- .

Where does normal brain or psychological function end, and pathology begin? The line can be hard to discern, making disease sometimes a tricky word. In addiction, normal ‘wanting’ processes become distorted and excessive, according to the incentive-sensitization theory. Excessive ‘wanting’ results from drug-induced neural sensitization changes in underlying brain mesolimbic systems of incentive. ‘Brain disease’ was never used by the theory, but neural sensitization changes are arguably extreme enough and problematic enough to be called pathological. This implies that ‘brain disease’ (...) can be a legitimate description of addiction, though caveats are needed to acknowledge roles for choice and active agency by the addict. Finally, arguments over ‘brain disease’ should be put behind us. Our real challenge is to understand addiction and devise better ways to help. Arguments over descriptive words only distract from that challenge. (shrink)

Powerful emotion and pursuit of self-interest have many times led people to break the law with the belief that they are doing so with sound moral reasons. This study is a comprehensive philosophical and legal analysis of the gray area in which the foundations of law and morality clash. This objective book views these oblique circumstances from two perspectives: that of the person who faces a possible conflict between the claims of morality and law and must choose whether or not (...) to obey the penal code; and that of the people who make and uphold laws and must decide whether to treat someone with a moral claim to disobey differently from ordinary lawbreakers. In examining the extent of the obligations owed by citizens to their government, Greenawalt concentrates on the possible existence of a single source of obligation that reaches all citizens and all laws. He also discusses techniques of amelioration of punishment for conscientious lawbreakers, asking how far legal systems should go to accomodate individuals who break the law for reason of conscience. Drawing from numerous examples of conflicts between law and morality, Greenawalt illustrates in detail the positions and predicaments of potential lawbreakers and lawmakers alike. (shrink)

FOR AT LEAST THE LAST TWENTY YEARS, Anglo-American philosophers have displayed two interrelated tendencies in their efforts to make sense of Martin Heidegger. First, they have frequently mapped Heidegger onto debates and problems within contemporary cognitive science and North American philosophy of psychology. Second, they have often attempted to discern deep identities and affinities with more familiar philosophers and traditions, in particular, with Wittgenstein and American pragmatism. That these twin strategies of interpretation are so popular is in large part due (...) to the work of Hubert L. Dreyfus. Dreyfus has pursued both lines of hermeneutic attack with a vengeance, and in so doing has devised an interpretation of Heidegger which makes him appear as a theoretical philosopher whom even hard-nosed cognitive scientists and analytical philosophers of mind can take seriously. (shrink)

Different brain mechanisms seem to mediate wanting and liking for the same reward. This may have implications for the modular nature of mental processes, and for understanding addictions, compulsions, free will and other aspects of desire. A few wanting and liking phenomena are presented here, together with discussion of some of these implications.

With its practical, hands-on approach to legal ethics, the third edition of LEGAL ETHICS is designed to ensure that readers have a solid grasp of the ethical rules that apply in the legal setting. Comprehensive yet easy to understand, this engaging book provides a thorough and substantive analysis of the major principles that affect how the practice of law is regulated. Filled with real-life examples of lawyer and non-lawyer instances of misconduct, current and classic case law, and discussions of famous (...) (and infamous) people, this straightforward book brings the material to life and demonstrates how courts interpret and apply ethical rules to lawyers and their non-lawyer employees. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version. (shrink)

For some fifteen years in his chemistry lectures in Edinburgh, Joseph Black taught that phlogiston possesses absolute levity. It was not an aberration on Black's part: he justified the notion on experimental grounds. Moreover, the existence of a nongravitating substance capable of entering the composition of bodies raised intriguing possibilities for uniting physical and chemical phenomena. The doctrine became something of a tradition in Edinburgh, but was subject to growing criticism, particulary with the growth of pneumatic chemistry. By the early (...) 1780s, Black found the hypothesis was no longer tenable and quietly dropped it, leaving a void in the explanation of weight relations in combustion which his students were quick to fill with Lavoisier's oxygen theory. (shrink)

Confusion in terms inspires confusion in concepts. When a relevant distinction is not clearly marked or not marked at all, it is apt to be blurred or even missed altogether in our thinking. This is true in any area of inquiry, pragmatics in particular. No one disputes that there are various ways in which what is communicated in an utterance can go beyond sentence meaning. The problem is to catalog the ways. It is generally recognized that linguistic meaning underdetermines speaker (...) meaning because of the need for disambiguation and reference assignment and because people can speak figuratively or indirectly. But philosophers and linguists are coming to recognize that these are not the only ways. The situation may be described in Gricean terms: the distinction between what is said and what is implicated is not exhaustive. Charting the middle ground between the two will require attending to specific examples, noting their distinctive features, and articulating the relevant concepts. That is what I aim to do here. The basic idea will be to distinguish not only the implied from the explicit but the implicit from the implied. (shrink)

Self-discipline, ethics, character, and philosophy in Hindu poetry; criticism to Bhagavad Gita, Nītīśāstra, Sāra-samuccaya, etc.

Psychopaths constitute less than 1% of the general population, but they commit a much larger proportion of crime and violence in society. This volume chronicles the latest science of psychopathy, various ways that psychopaths challenge the criminal justice system, and the major ethical issues arising from this fascinating condition.

He notes that parallel to this phenomenon have been developments in the common law of malpractice that give patients a better chance than ever of winning compensation. While these developments benefit patients, Dr. Chapman describes how they have also pointed out a major flaw in malpractice law: the enormous amounts of time and money it takes to bring such cases to court. To overcome these difficulties, Dr. Chapman maintains, the medical profession needs to reconsider the basic concepts on which its (...) ethics rest. No less important is a revision of malpractice law so that it finally begins to serve, fairly and equitably, the purposes for which it originally came into being. Literate, thoughtful, and thought-provoking, Physicians, Law, and Ethics is an important contribution to today's medical care debate. (shrink)

China is the world’s second largest economy and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet we know little about environmental proactivity in the most populated country in the world. We address this gap through a survey of 161 Chinese companies with two respondents per firm (N = 322), where we seek to identify the antecedents and consequences of environmental proactivity. We identify two categorizations of environmental proactivity: Environmental operational improvements and environmental reporting. We find that ecological motivations and regulatory stakeholder (...) pressure are positively related to both types of environmental proactivity, and external stakeholder pressure is negatively related to environmental reporting. Furthermore, we find that (1) if a firm is environmentally proactive (as it relates to either measure) and they are ecologically motivated, there is a positive and significant cost advantage, and (2) if a firm makes use of environmental operational improvement and they are competitively motivated, there is a positive and significant reputation advantage. Implications for researchers, managers, and policy-makers in China are discussed. (shrink)

Introduction: dimensions of inquiry -- Speaker intent and convention; linguistic meaning and pragmatics; Vagueness and indeterminacy: three topics in the philosophy of language -- Literary interpretation, performance art, and related subjects -- Religious interpretation -- General theories of interpretation -- Starting from the bottom: informal instructions -- The law of agency -- Wills -- Contracts -- Judicial alterations of textual provisions: Cy Pres and relatives -- Conclusion and a comparison.

Uncertainty and affect are fundamental and interrelated aspects of the human condition. Uncertainty is often associated with negative affect, but in some circumstances it is associated with positive affect. In this paper, we review different explanations for the varying relationship between uncertainty and affect. We identify “mental simulation” as a key process that links uncertainty to affective states. We suggest that people have a propensity to simulate negative outcomes, which results in a propensity towards negative affective responses to uncertainty. We (...) also propose the existence of several important moderators of this process, including context and individual differences such as uncertainty tolerance, as well as emotion regulation strategies. Finally, we highlight important knowledge gaps and promising areas for future research, both empirical and conceptual, to further elucidate the relationship between uncertainty and affect. (shrink)

From the desire to find support and confirmation for our personal sensory observations, and from the human interest in sharing our experiences with others, there emerges a basic principle of scientific method: We demand the possibility of intelligible communication and agreement concerning individuals' sensory perceptions in particular and their experiences in general. This requirement is made both for the natural and social sciences. The raw material offered for logical organization must be capable of exhibiting an inter-subjective character—such material, or protocols, (...) must be acceptable in common to all concerned. And it must be acceptable for logical organization or systematization in some science. (shrink)