In this paper we bring together the results of our research into agreement in copular clauses in 4 four different Germanic languages—Dutch, German, Faroese, Icelandic—in order to provide an 5 overview of the results. These cases present a particularly interesting window into how verbal 6 agreement operates, since there are two potential controllers of agreement, which may disagree 7 in person and/or number (The source of the rumour BE the neighbours / you-SG / you-PL). We 8 will show that there (...) is variation at all levels in which nominal controls agreement: cross-linguistic, 9 inter-speaker within a single language, and intra-speaker. We argue that our data support the 10 following claims: (1) “Downward” agreement for person, as well as number, with a nominal that is 11 not in the canonical subject position is possible and in some cases preferred; (2) The agreement 12 patterns observed in Icelandic and Faroese support the hypothesis that in these languages there 13 are distinct Number and Person heads; (3) “Downward” agreement from a high position in the 14 left-periphery is a grammatically distinct phenomenon from agreement when the verb remains 15 in a lower position in the clause; (4) In some languages and some configurations, speakers 16 show a significant degree of indeterminacy in their judgments and production suggesting that 17 speakers use more than one grammar. We relate our findings to current discussions in the 18 generative literature on subject agreement and in particular differences between number and 19 person agreement, and possible connections to restrictions on object clitics, and we also discuss 20 questions that remain open, and invite new, cross-disciplinary research. (shrink)

Exploring the concepts of Freezing: Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Theoretical advancement. Ur Shlonsky and Luigi Rizzi: Criterial Freezing in small clauses and the cartography of copular constructions -- Angel J. Gallego: Freezing Effects in a free-Merge System -- Gereon Maller: Freezing in complex prefields. Empirical domains. Norbert Corver: The Freezing points of the (Dutch) adjectival system -- Jutta M. Hartmann: Freezing in it-clefts: Movement and focus -- Josef Bayer: Criterial Freezing in the syntax of particles -- Michael S. (...) Rochemont: Only syntax -- Maria Polinsky: Freezing and phi-feature agreement: On the role of [PERSON] -- BalÃízs SurÃínyi and Gerg Turi: Freezing, Topic Opacity and Phase-based Cyclicity in Subject Islands. Interface extensions. Peter W. Culicover and Susanne Winkler: Freezing: Between grammar and processing -- Andreas Konietzko: Heavy NP shift in context: On the interaction of information structure and subextraction from shifted constituents -- Rui P. Chaves: Freezing as a probabilistic phenomenon -- Marion Jaeger: An experimental study on freezing and topicalization in English. (shrink)

Inductive Logic is number ten in the 11-volume Handbook of the History of Logic. While there are many examples were a science split from philosophy and became autonomous (such as physics with Newton and biology with Darwin), and while there are, perhaps, topics that are of exclusively philosophical interest, inductive logic — as this handbook attests — is a research field where philosophers and scientists fruitfully and constructively interact. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific turning points in Inductive (...) Logic, including probability theory and decision theory. Written by leading researchers in the field, both this volume and the Handbook as a whole are definitive reference tools for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in the history of logic, the history of philosophy, and any discipline, such as mathematics, computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for whom the historical background of his or her work is a salient consideration. (shrink)

Inductive Logic is number ten in the 11-volume Handbook of the History of Logic. While there are many examples were a science split from philosophy and became autonomous (such as physics with Newton and biology with Darwin), and while there are, perhaps, topics that are of exclusively philosophical interest, inductive logic — as this handbook attests — is a research field where philosophers and scientists fruitfully and constructively interact. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific turning points in Inductive (...) Logic, including probability theory and decision theory. Written by leading researchers in the field, both this volume and the Handbook as a whole are definitive reference tools for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in the history of logic, the history of philosophy, and any discipline, such as mathematics, computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for whom the historical background of his or her work is a salient consideration. (shrink)

Mueller et al. discuss the role of acoustic cues in detecting language structure more generally. Across languages, there are clear links between acoustic cues and syntactic structure. They show that AGL experiments implementing analogous links demonstrate that prosodic cues, as well as various auditory biases, facilitate the learning of structural rules. Some of these biases, e.g. for auditory grouping, are also present in other species.

Investigating the causes of unethical behaviors in academia, such as scientific misconduct, has become a highly important research subject. The current performance measurement practices (e.g., equating research performance with the number of publications in top-tier journals) are frequently referred to as being responsible for scientists’ unethical behaviors. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders of the higher education system (e.g., professors and policy makers; N = 43) to analyze the influence of performance measurement on scientists’ behavior. We followed a (...) three-step coding procedure and found (1) that the participants described a variety of positive behavioral consequences (e.g., higher productivity) but mainly negative behavioral consequences (e.g., questionable publishing practices) of current performance measurement practices in academia; (2) that scientists’ behavior can be described as gaming performance measurement (i.e., achieving performance goals by reducing performance quality and focusing on those tasks that are measured); and (3) that gaming performance measurement shares the same characteristics as deviant workplace behavior (i.e., a voluntary violation of organizational norms that harms the university). We discuss that gaming performance measurement has not been considered as a type of deviant workplace behavior in the previous literature. Furthermore, we draw from research on deviant workplace behavior and goal setting to discuss psychological processes that may underlie gaming performance measurement. Our results indicate the importance of connecting literature on deviant workplace behavior and goal setting to advance our understanding of gaming performance measurement. (shrink)

Nicolai Hartmann, along with Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, was instrumental in restoring metaphysics to the study of philosophy. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Hartmann was clearly influenced by Plato. His tour-de-force, Ethik, published in English in 1932 as Ethics, may be the most outstanding work on moral philosophy produced in the twentieth century. In the first part of Ethics, Hartmann was concerned with the structure of ethical phenomena, and criticized utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism as misleading approaches. In (...) the second part, Moral Values, the author describes all values as forming a complex and as yet imperfectly known system. The actualization of the non-moral and elementary moral values is a necessary condition for the actualization of the higher values. It is on this account that rudimentary values have a prior claim. Hartmann outlines the main features of the chief virtues, and shows that the moral disposition required in any exigency is always a specific synthesis of various and often conflicting values. Specifically describing fundamental moral values-such as goodness, nobility, and vitality-and special moral values-such as justice, wisdom, courage, self-control, trustworthiness, and modesty-Hartmann takes theoretical philosophy and brings it very much into the realm of the practical. A compelling and insightful volume, Moral Values remains an essential contribution to the moral and ethical literature of the twentieth century. Hartmann offers a self-contained system of ethics that yet offers a conservative outlook on social life. (shrink)

The Finalistic Difficulty in Freedom and Its Solution -- Chapter XVIII: Solution of the Ought-Antinomy -- The Inner Conflict in Free Will as the Moral Will -- Solution of the Conflict. Exposure of Equivocations -- The Conflict of the Two Factors in Moral Freedom -- The Complementary Relation behind the Apparent Conflict -- The Recurrence of "Negative Freedom" in the Ought-Antinomy -- The Scope of " Negative" Freedom and its True Relation to " Positive" Freedom -- Reciprocal Conditionality of Positive (...) and Negative Freedom with Regard to Values -- Two-sided Freedom in the Self-Determination of the Person -- Chapter XIX: Problems Still Unsolved -- The Difficulty Concerning Individuality in Moral Freedom -- The Positive Relation between Universal and Individual Autonomy -- The Question as to the Nature of the Individual Determinant -- Personal Teleology as a Determinational Mode of Positive Freedom -- The Ontological Difficulty in Personal Freedom -- The Categorial Structure of the Complex Conditioning-Relationship -- Moral and Categorial Freedom -- The Limit to the Problem -- Section VI: Appendix to the Doctrine of Freedom -- Chapter XX: Apparent and Real Defects of the Theory -- Chapter XXI: Ethical and Religious Freedom -- Index. (shrink)

Communication campaigns often highlight environmental progress to encourage further pro-environmental behaviour. Consequently, the drop in carbon emissions caused by the COVID-19 restrictions has been framed as a positive environmental outcome of the pandemic. We conducted an experimental study with a US-representative sample (N = 500) to show that raising awareness of emissions reduction has the contrary effect: an increase in moral self-concept facilitated a negative spillover, namely, it reduced climate-friendly behavioural intentions. Normative influence was able to prevent this negative spillover (...) because activating environmental norms inhibited compensatory feelings. Besides, awareness of recent emissions reduction was less likely to increase the moral self-concept of participants with a strong environmental self-identity. Our findings demonstrate that environmental progress increases moral self-concept which, in turn, could cause a negative spillover (i.e., reduce climate-friendly low-carbon behaviour and increase climate-harmful high-carbon behaviour). Normative influences and environmental self-identity can inhibit this negative spillover. (shrink)

This commentary reviews a novel model of learned helplessness proposed by Boddez et al. in this issue of Cognition and Emotion. Combining operant and goal-directed perspectives, Boddez et al. suggest that helplessness stems from a lack of reinforcement when striving toward a goal, with the degree of generalisation dependent on subjective perceptions of goal similarity. We begin by reviewing the theoretical model, describe possible expansions from a cognitive perspective, and discuss several considerations. We finish with a brief discussion of possible (...) directions for future work. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, moral philosophy in the Western world has been dominated by utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism. Only a few philosophers have been able to escape from this Procrustean bed. Foremost among these few is Nicolai Hartmann. Together with Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger, Hartmann was instrumental in restoring metaphysics. Hartmann's metaphysics differs markedly from that of both Bergson and Heidegger, in his indebtedness to Plato. In 1926, Hartmann published a massive treatise, Ethik, which was (...) translated into English by Stanton Coit and published as Ethics in 1932. Ethics is probably the most outstanding treatise on moral philosophy in the twentieth century. The central concept of the book is "value." Drawing upon the pre-modern view of ethics, Hartmann maintains that values are objectively given, part and parcel of the order of being. We cannot invent values, we can merely discover them. The first part of Ethics is concerned with the structure of ethical phenomena and criticizes utilitarianism, Kantianism, and relativism as misleading approaches. After some introductory thoughts concerning the competence of practical philosophy, Hartmann discusses the essence of moral values, including their absoluteness and ideal being, and the essence of the "ought." Hartmann is both controversial and compelling. He provides a moral philosophy that rejects the subjectivism of the ruling approaches, without taking recourse to older theological notions on the foundation of the ethical. In sum: Hartmann's Ethics constitutes an impressive and preeminent contribution to moral philosophy. (shrink)

This conception of natural kinds might be dubbed a 'structural kinds' view. It is the conception of kinds offered by ExtOSR within a Humean framework. To invoke structural kinds also means to invoke structural laws. For laws generalize over ...

Name der Zeitschrift: Das Mittelalter Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-10.

Individuals with social anxiety disorder engage in post-event processing, a form of perseverative thinking. Given that deficits in working memory might underlie perseverative thinking, we examined working memory in SAD with a particular focus on the effects of stimulus valence. SAD and healthy control participants either maintained or reversed in working memory the order of four emotional or four neutral pictures, and we examined sorting costs, which reflect the extent to which performance deteriorated on the backward trials compared to the (...) forward trials. Emotionality of stimuli affected performance of the two groups differently. Whereas control participants exhibited higher sorting costs for emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, SAD participants exhibited the opposite pattern. Greater attention to emotional stimuli in SAD might facilitate the processing of emotional stimuli in working memory. (shrink)

We study the fluted fragment, a decidable fragment of first-order logic with an unbounded number of variables, motivated by the work of W. V. Quine. We show that the satisfiability problem for this fragment has nonelementary complexity, thus refuting an earlier published claim by W. C. Purdy that it is in NExpTime. More precisely, we consider ${\cal F}{{\cal L}^m}$, the intersection of the fluted fragment and the m-variable fragment of first-order logic, for all $m \ge 1$. We show that, for (...) $m \ge 2$, this subfragment forces $\left\lfloor {m/2} \right\rfloor$-tuply exponentially large models, and that its satisfiability problem is $\left\lfloor {m/2} \right\rfloor$-NExpTime-hard. We further establish that, for $m \ge 3$, any satisfiable ${\cal F}{{\cal L}^m}$-formula has a model of at most -tuply exponential size, whence the satisfiability problem for this fragment is in -NExpTime. Together with other, known, complexity results, this provides tight complexity bounds for ${\cal F}{{\cal L}^m}$ for all $m \le 4$. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit widmet sich die Autorin dem in theodosianischer Zeit entstandenen Elfenbeinkästchen von Brescia („Lipsanothek von Brescia“), das wegen der Qualität seiner Reliefs und der Vielfalt seiner Darstellungen in keiner Darstellung frühchristlicher Kunst fehlt. Die oft großformatigen Abbildungen täuschen über die Maße von 0,22 × 0,24 × 0,32 m hinweg. Da das Kästchen sich seit unbestimmter Zeit im Besitz der 1798 aufgehobenen Kirche S. Giulia in Brescia befindet, nimmt man an, dass es auch in Norditalien hergestellt wurde (S. (...) 21f.). Als Funktion des Kästchens gilt in der Regel die eines Reliquiars (S. 18); das Elfenbeinkästchens von Brescia würde damit zusammen mit dem Silberkästchen von S. Nazaro in Mailand zu den ältesten erhaltenen Reliquiaren gehören. Allerdings kann auch eine profane Nutzung des Kästchens – etwa als Schmuckkästchen einer wohlhabenden Frau – nicht ausgeschlossen werden, da Alltagsgegenstände bekanntlich häufig mit christlichen Szenen geschmückt waren. Im einen wie im anderen Fall war die Öffentlichkeit der Bilder des Kästchens beschränkt: Sollte es Reliquien enthalten haben, muss das Kästchen nicht zuletzt wegen seines begehrten, diebstahlsgefährdeten Inhalts an einem sicheren Ort aufbewahrt worden und nur selten sichtbar gewesen sein; im Falle einer Verwendung als Schmuckkästchens hätte es sich in den Privatgemächern eines vornehmen Hauses befunden. (shrink)

forthcoming in M.C. Galavotti, R. Scazzieri and P. Suppes (eds.), Reasoning, Rationality and Probability, Stanford: CSLI Publications 2006.

The goal of the following study is to investigate whether first-year students in STEM fields that have a low proportion of females (STEM-L) show vocational interests that fit their vocational aspirations. To place our investigation into a broader context, we compared students in STEM-L with students of STEM subjects with a medium proportion of women (STEM-M) as well as with other subjects with a medium or a high proportion of females. We analyzed their vocational interests, vocational aspirations and their interest (...) congruence. In both the comparison regarding interest profiles and the comparison of vocational aspirations, we focused on the things-orientation and people-orientation, all while taking respective gender differences into account. Following the suggestion from previous studies, in a further step we differentiated between subjects within STEM-L. Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), we analyzed the interest congruence of 5530 male and 7406 female students in STEM majors (with a low or medium proportion of women) and non-STEM majors (with a medium or high proportion of women). Students from different subjects showed different magnitudes regarding their things- and people-orientation. STEM-L students had a high things-orientation and a low people-orientation regarding both their interests and aspired occupations. Students of STEM-L and STEM-M showed a lower interest congruence than students from other subjects. With the exception of education, gender differences regarding the people- and things-orientation also existed within most of the subjects. Gender differences partly remain when distinguishing between the different subjects within STEM-L. And so, the result that not all STEM-L subjects are “created equal” is discussed in the context of their theoretical and methodological aspects. (shrink)

My job has been made easier tonight, given that Larry Hickman has already done most of the ‘heavy lifting’ for me. I think his paper is an excellent and convincing intervention into this debate, and one of the problems for me in constructing my talk has been that our discussions have forced me to rethink what I wanted to say. Given my Continental biases, I had expected to come out on Rorty’s side; in writing this paper, however, things have become (...) more complicated. So let me here thank Larry for both at once making my job tonight easier, and much to my chagrin, surprisingly difficult. What I want to suggest, in contrast to what you’ve just heard, is that the neopragmatism of Richard Rorty is not wholly inconsistent with Dewey’s pragmatism – or, at least, with a ‘thin’ version of Deweyian pragmatism. As we shall see, while the differences between Dewey and Rorty on the status of metaphysics are in all probability irreconcilable, Rorty’s reclamation of a ‘thin’ Dewey can be read as consistent with at least the spirit of Dewey’s work. I will try to make the stronger case that this reconciliation is possible according to the letter of Dewey’s philosophy as well, and the interrelated issues of method and social hope will serve as the avenues for this investigation. Given my audience, I imagine that what I’m about to say will be fodder for some interesting conversation, and so, in the spirit of Rorty’s thought, let me get on with my paper. (shrink)