The paper proposes the first unified account of deictic/sentence-external and sentence-internal readings of singular different . The empirical motivation for such an account is provided by a cross-linguistic survey and an analysis of the differences in distribution and interpretation between singular different , plural different and same (singular or plural) in English. The main proposal is that distributive quantification temporarily makes available two discourse referents within its nuclear scope, the values of which are required by (...) class='Hi'>sentence-internal uses of singular different to be distinct, much as its deictic uses require the values of two discourse referents to be distinct. Thus, we take sentence-internal readings to be a form of ‘association with distributivity’ that is similar to association with focus. The contrast between singular different , plural different and same is explained in terms of several kinds of quantificational distributors that license their internal readings. The analysis is executed in a stack-based dynamic system couched in type logic, so we get compositionality in the usual Montagovian way. Quantificational subordination and dependent indefinites in various languages provide additional motivation for the account. Investigating the connections between items with sentence-internal readings and the quantificational licensors of these readings opens up a larger project of formally investigating (i) the typology of quantificational distributors and distributivity-dependent items and (ii) the fine-grained contexts of evaluation needed to capture this typological variation. (shrink)

I draw together some recent literature on the debate between dynamical versus geometrical approaches to spacetime theories, in order to argue that there exist defensible versions of the geometr...

Since the mid-1800s, clergy, doctors, other clinicians, and military personnel who specifically facilitate their work have been designated “non-combatants”, protected from being targeted in return for providing care on the basis of clinical need alone. While permitted to use weapons to protect themselves and their patients, they may not attempt to gain military advantage over an adversary. The rationale for these regulations is based on sound arguments aimed both at reducing human suffering, but also the ultimate advantage of the nation-state (...) fielding non-combatant staff. However, this is sometimes not immediately apparent to combatant colleagues. Clinicians in the armed force are also military officers, owing a “dual loyalty” that can create conflict if their non-combatant status is not well understood. Historical examples of doctors breaching their responsibilities include prioritisation of combat capability over the rights of individual soldiers (as occurred when scarce medical resources were allocated to soldiers more likely to return to battle in preference to those most likely to die without them), use of physicians to facilitate prisoner interrogation, medical research or treatment to enhance physical performance at the expense of health, application of Medical Rules of Eligibility according to factors other than clinical need, provision of treatment contingent upon support for military objectives, and use of medical knowledge to enhance weapons. However, not being a combatant party to a conflict does not imply that the non-combatant clinician cannot act in the national interest. Indeed, by adhering to the same universal ethics as their civilian colleagues, military clinicians provide optimal care to their own troops, facilitate freedom of action in host nations, and build positive international relationships during the conflict and in the post-conflict state. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 135-141 [Access article in PDF] On Delusions of Sense:A Response to Coetzee and Sass Rupert Read Keywords schizophrenia, Wittgenstein, Schreber, Faulkner, Benjy, grammar, madness, Cogito The great writings on and of severe mental affliction—those for instance of Schreber, 'Renee', Donna Williams, Artaud, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Coetzee's In the Heart of the Country, Kafka's "Description of a struggle," and even (I (...) would add) key parts of The Lord of the Rings—present us with something deeply enigmatic. They have, we might say, a strong grammar, a grammar—a mode of hanging together, and (in this case) of linguistically seeming to make a sense that is not our sense and that we cannot make sense of—... they have a grammar all of their own, and all of its own, a grammar that resists and rejects interpretation even as it sometimes seems to offer interpretations. 1It was Wittgenstein's view that to make mental illness unpuzzling was a mistake, or (better, perhaps) a mythologically problematic move. Wittgenstein's aim in his philosophizing was to understand what was enigmatic when it could be understood without unwisely turning it into something altogether unpuzzling... and then to acknowledge that there are some things that may remain forever puzzling, without committing oneself to the metaphysically disastrous claim that the reason they are endlessly puzzling is that they lie outside the boundaries of human life, language, or reason, as though we could peek outside those alleged boundaries to see what was there, but never truly say anything about it.There simply may be places where our understanding—phenomenological understanding, understanding of what it is like—gives out, and not because it is (or we are) merely human. For instance, perhaps one cannot capture some mental illness by intellection alone, or even perhaps at all. Perhaps the best understanding one can have of mental illness is purely negative (in a sense at least as strong as that involved in negative theology, wherein God is only defined by what it is not).Louis Sass (2003) writes I am not sure whether or not Read would accept that a philosophical position can be understandable despite its containing deep, internal logical tensions (perhaps he would not). If such understanding is possible, however, it does seem to open the way for a similar understanding of conditions like that of Schreber. (p. 127) Unfortunately, however, it is indeed not possible—that is, this notion is merely a fantasy—by my lights. Philosophical positions, all of which turn out to contain such inexorable tensions, cannot be understood: they are mirages. Solipsism, as a position, is not any better (or worse) off [End Page 135] than (say) (Metaphysical) Realism. They are both mirages, just different aspects of the same nothing. 2 Considered as positions, they are in the end literally—when one understands their logic—one and the same nothing. Wittgenstein already made this quite clear in his Tractatus. Perhaps in contrast to Sass, there is then nothing special about solipsism: it is just one mode of presentation rather than another of the illusion that there can be philosophical positions.Sass claims that in saying this kind of thing I am committed to ruling out that some mental illness can be understood or can even exist, on abstract intellectual grounds. I am not. I am simply wishing to leave open the possibility that there may be things that some people utter or seem to experience which intellection gives us little or no assistance with. If Sass wishes to deny this, then I suggest that it is he and not I who is the absolutist intellectualist here, in insisting that rewriting something deeply strange in a weaker grammar is furthering our grasp of it.My suggestion concerning Faulkner's presentation of Benjy, in my original paper, was that it is a mythological mistake to think that Faulkner provides us with the tools for giving an unpuzzling rendition of what had perhaps appeared to be "another country," inaccessible to us. Rather, Faulkner's representation... (shrink)

The evolutionary trajectory from non-human to human forms of social organization involves change from experiential- to relational-based systems of social interaction. Social organization derived from biologically and experientially grounded social interaction reached a hiatus with the great apes due to an expansion of individualization of behaviour. The hiatus ended with the introduction of relational-based social interaction, culminating in social organization based on cultural kinship. This evolutionary trajectory links biological origins to cultural outcomes and makes evident the centrality of distributed forms (...) of information for both the boundary and internal structure of human societies as these evolved from prior forms of social organization. (shrink)

One of the major impediments to understanding the concept of information is that the term is used to describe a number of disparate things, including a property of organized matter and messages sent from a sender to a receiver. Information is essentially an attribute of the form that matter and energy take, not of matter and energy themselves. Intrinsic information is a theoretical measure of the degree to which an entity is organized, the opposite of entropy. Meaningful information, however, involves (...) the detection of a pattern of organized matter or energy by an animate or a man-made receptor, which triggers a change in the behavior, function, or organizational structure of the receiving entity. The ability to detect and respond to meaningful information is one of the defining characteristics of living entities; the process that enables cells and organisms to receive their genetic heritage, regulate their internal milieu, and respond to changes in their environment. Although energy and information are the two fundamental causal agents in the natural world, they bring about change through completely different mechanisms. The energy involved in physical interactions is supplied by the originating entity, while the energy involved in informational interactions is provided by the recipient. There is no predictable relationship between the nature of the informational stimulus and the response it engenders, for this is primarily determined by the pattern of connections between the involved receptors and effectors that evolution and learning have fashioned. As a result, a living entity’s response to information cannot be predicted on a purely mechanical basis. The laws that describe the physical interaction of organized matter apply to the transfer of energy, not to the transfer of information. This is why biology cannot be reduced to physics. (shrink)

Bradwardine’s solution to the the logical paradoxes depends on the idea that every sentence signifies many things, and its truth depends on things’ being wholly as it signifies. This idea is underpinned by his claim that a sentence signifies everything that follows from what it signifies. But the idea that signification is closed under entailment appears too strong, just as logical omniscience is unacceptable in the logic of knowledge. What is needed is a more restricted closure principle. A (...) clue can be found in speech act pluralism, whereby indirect speech reports are closed under intersubstitutivity of co-referential terms. The conclusion is that solving the semantic paradoxes does not require revision of logic, thus saving logic from paradox. (shrink)

Desde que Tarski publicó su estudio sobreel concepto de verdad en los años 30, hasido una práctica ortodoxa el considerarque t oda i nst anci a del esquema T esverdadera. Sin embargo, algunas instanciasdel esquema son falsas. Éstas incluyen lasi nst anci as paradój i cas ej empl i f i cadaspor la oración del mentiroso. Aquí sedemuestra que un esquema mejor permiteun tratamiento uniforme de la verdad enel que las paradojas semánticas resultanser simplemente falsas.Si nc e Ta r s (...) ki publ i s he d hi s s t udy ofthe concept of truth in the 1930s, it hasbeen orthodox practice to suppose thatevery instance of the T-schema is true.However, some instances of the schemaare false. These include the paradoxicalinstances exemplified by the Liar sentence.It is shown that a better schema allows auniform treatment of truth in which thesemantic paradoxes turn out to be simplyfalse. (shrink)

Gillett argues that there are unexpected confluences between the tradition of Frege and Wittgenstein and that of Freud and Lacan. I counter that that the substance of the exegeses of Frege and Wittgenstein in Gillett's paper are flawed, and that these mistakes in turn tellingly point to unclarities in the Lacanian picture of language, unclarities left unresolved by Gillett. Lacan on language is simply a kind of enlarged/distorted mirror image of the Anglo-American psychosemanticists: where they emphasize information and representation, he (...) emphasizes evocation and connotation. Neither contrasting emphasis is remotely adequate to linguistic action-in-the-world. Is "the unconscious", as Lacan claims, a "network of signifiers"? Arguably, yes; but most ordinary / actual language does not involve such "signification". Words primarily "signify" concepts or things only in exceptional circumstances; normally, words are transparent, and nothing at all is meant by them except in an actual situation of use of a sentence. Second, is "the unconscious" structured like a language? Again, yes-- if we understand by "language" what Lacan asks us to. "The unconscious" arguably is structured like a language--as Lacan (inadequately) understands language. (shrink)

Utilitarianism would allow any degree of inequality whatsoever productive of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. But it does not guide political action, because determining what level of inequality would produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number is opaque due to well-known psychological coordination problems. Does Rawlsian liberalism, as is generally assumed, have some superiority to Utilitarianism in this regard? This paper argues not; for Rawls’s ‘difference principle’ would allow any degree of inequality whatsoever that best raises up (...) the worst off, and similar psychological coordination problems apply. It concludes that Rawlsian liberalism, designed to solve the problem that Utilitarianism will not give us stable rules and will counsel their violation, and giving us in the process a contract and rights within a semi-consequentialist framework, repeats (in the difference principle) that very problem of Utilitarianism. It fails substantively to guide the level of inequalities permitted in such a framework. (shrink)

Much has been written on the relative merits of different readings of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The recent renewal of the debate has almost exclusively been concerned with variants of the ineffabilist (metaphysical) reading of TL-P - notable such readings have been advanced by Elizabeth Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and H. O. Mounce - and the recently advanced variants of therapeutic (resolute) readings - notable advocates of which are James Conant, Cora Diamond, Juliet Floyd and Michael Kremer. (...) During this debate, there have been a number of writers who have tried to develop a third way, incorporating what they see as insights and avoiding what they see as flaws in both the ineffabilist and resolute readings. The most prominent advocates of these elucidatory readings of TL-P are Dan Hutto (2003) and Marie McGinn (1999). In this paper we subject Hutto's and McGinn's readings of TL-P to critical scrutiny. We find that in seeking to occupy the middle ground they ultimately find themselves committed to (and in the process commit Wittgenstein to) the very ineffabilism they (and Wittgenstein) are seeking to overcome. (shrink)

Thomas Reid was one of the greatest philosophers of the eighteenth century and a contemporary of Kant's. This volume is part of a new wave of international interest in Reid from a new generation of scholars. The volume opens with an introduction to Reid's life and work, including biographical material previously little known. A classic essay by Reid himself - 'Of Power' - is then reproduced, in which he sets out his distinctive account of causality and agency. This is followed (...) by ten original essays exploring different aspects of Reid's philosophy, as well as his relation to other thinkers, such as Kant, Priestley, and Moore. (shrink)

The authors had been using a system for stimulating discussion and debate among professionals as part of their education and continuing professional development. Hand-held technology for gathering and reflecting upon individual judgements had been shown to work, and the participants liked it. But a theoretical foundation of why and how it worked appeared to be lacking. The authors find the work of Vygotsky extremely helpful in explaining why student-student conversations can be a positive support to the learning process. In this (...) paper they present a description of one of the professional settings in which student-student conversations have been used in stimulating learning. They relate this to a theoretical framework of conversations in intellectual development drawn from Vygotsky, and contrast it with alternative frameworks that place greater emphasis upon the role of the tutor who knows the ‘right’ answers and ‘corrects’ the learners. (shrink)

Retributivism is currently a keenly debated theory of punishment. In this volume, the contributors explore its various dimensions including its implications for sentencing and evaluate it against utilitarian options. Content: Jean Hampton: An Expressive Theory of Retribution u Brian Slattery: The Myth of Retributive Justice u Tim Dare: Retributivism, Punishment and Public Values u Anthony Duff: Alternatives to Punishment - or Alternative Punishments u Jerome Bickenbach: Duff on Non-Custodial Punishment u Sandra Marshall: Harm and Punishment in the Community. (Franz Steiner (...) 1992). (shrink)

The papers in this volume reflect much of the current unease of a world that perceives itself once more at the edge of chaos. The authors present different vistas of that experience and their inherent dialectic, expressed in numerous and ceaseless conflicts between ordering and disordering processes. They can be read as comments on the ongoing processes that lead toward greater complexity.

The adversary system and the practice of law -- The rule of law -- The moral force of law -- Statutes -- Precedents -- Constitutional interpretation -- Natural law and legal positivism: classical perspectives -- Formalism and legal realism -- Morality and the law -- International law -- Law and economics -- The justification of punishment -- The rights of defendants -- Sentencing -- Criminal responsibility -- Compensating for private harms: the law of torts -- Private ownership: the law of (...) property -- Private agreements: the law of contract -- Church and state -- Personal liberty and privacy -- Freedom of speech -- Equality. (shrink)

I argue for a new reading of Pyrrhonian beliefs inspired by representationalism (the content view) in recent philosophy of mind. I shall argue that there are two senses of acceptance or “acquiescence in something” (eudokein tini pragmati) rather than two senses of belief (doxa). For this reason, we can maintain along with Sextus that the Pyrrhonian skeptic behaves intentionally and can live his life in society adoxastôs without any proper beliefs whatsoever. However, the skeptical sense of acceptance is not the (...) mere avowal of a feeling or a mere report or register of the way things appear to me. I want to suggest the following reading. Acceptance without belief is an anti-predicative passive and involuntary acceptance of content by means of an indicator function (pathos or phainomenon) in virtue of the past regular connection between the representational content and the indicator function. The pathos (as a present state of mind) or the phainomenon “means” (that is, indicates) passively and involuntarily a content in virtue of its regular connection with this content through time. For example, the Pyrrhonian’s acceptance of the content of the sentence “there is fire” is based on the fact that he here and now perceives smoke and that pathos passively and involuntarily means (represents) the content that there is fire. There is no judgment involved at all: even when the skeptic suspends his judgment (epochê) about whether there is fire, his pathos makes him involuntarily accept that there is fire. That is what Sextus, following the Stoic tradition, calls “commemorative signs” (hupomnêstikon) in opposition to the so-called “indicative signs” (endeiktikon), namely the “internal assertion” of the content as a belief (as a propositional attitude). As I do not believe that any reasonable reading of the skeptical acceptance may be defended only by means of philological analysis and by the research of the huge doxography, my arguments deliberately mix historical evidence with reasons of a systematic nature. In this way, the defense of my alternative reading is abductive, namely as the inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

continent. 1.4 (2011): 230—233. A word about the quotation marks. People ask about them, in the beginning; in the process of giving themselves up to reading the poem, they become comfortable with them, without necessarily thinking precisely about why they’re there. But they’re there, mostly to measure the poem. The phrases they enclose are poetic feet. If I had simply left white spaces between the phrases, the phrases would be read too fast for my musical intention. The quotation marks make (...) the reader slow down and silently articulate—not slur over mentally—the phrases at the pace, and with the stresses, I intend. They also distance the narrative form myself. I am not Alette. Finally they may remind the reader that each phrase is a thing said by a voice: this is not a thought, or a record of thought process, this is a story, told.(1) We read (reread) the poems that keep the discourse with ourselves going. —Wallace Stevens We have to break open words or sentences, too, and find what’s uttered in them. —Gilles Deleuze “The Descent of Alette” “is an allegorical poem” “in four books” “first published” “in 1992” “by Alice Notley.” “In the Descent of Alette,” “the double quotation mark” “is wrapped around” “words, phrases, sometimes whole sentences, and utilized as bones for structure and tonality.” “The winged” “dbl quotation” “like angels or devils” “descending from elsewhere” “function as” “poetic feet.” “Distance” “in the text through the use of dbl quotes,” “according to Notley,” “was a way to distance” “her self” “from the narrative.” I know someone who tattooed double quotes on her shoulder blades. In other words, the body is quotable. To be able to say that one is quotable. A body filled with other’s sayings. I never asked her what for, what is the double quote tattoo for and why on the shoulder blades? I prefer my own interpretation that keeps shifting every time I see her. First words of every poem in every book: Book One One ... On ... A ... There ... I ... We ... An ... A ... A ... I ... At ... A ... When ... When ... There ... I ... In ... At ... I ... Once ... A ... A ... In ... A ... A ... Two ... I ... I ... Eyeball ... In ... I... A ... I ... I ... On ... I ... There ... What ... As ... As Book Two I ... When ... I ... I ... As ... I ... I ... There ... I ... There ... I ... A ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I ... I Book Three The ... Presently ... I ... I’m ... I ... We ... What ... My ... I ... Who ... But ... Lay ... My ... I ... The ... Your ... The ... I ... It’s ... As ... The ... Talon’s ... When ... We ... I ... Slowly ... I ... I ... The ... How ... The Book Four I ... I ... You ... The ... Now ... She ... The ... There ... As ... Then ... The ... All ... Let’s I ... You ... The ... Thus ... The ... I ... The ... I ... There ... Have ... The ... As ... The Defamiliar Object “Poetry is a defamiliarized language, whose formations, so far from being simply formations of meaning, are aesthetic structures...”(2) “The same can be” “irresponsibly associated” “with the use of punctuation.” “The dbl quotation as a measure” “of poetic feet” “is treated as such” “because the author” “injects artfulness into it.” “The dbl quote is an object—” “a joystick” “to control breadth” “(of breath.)” “To de-familiarize” “said sign” “is also to” “impart the sensation of [it] as [it is] perceived and not as they are known.”(3) “The dbl quote” “nests previous words, phrasings and sayings.” “How many have come and gone” “through the doorway of this punctuation sign.” “There are also air quotes and virtual quotes.” “There is emphasis and there’s irony.” “It would be aggravating” “or interesting” “to watch a reading of” “The Descent of Alette” “with someone” “raising and curling” “fingers” “bent out of shape” “in what could be used as” “peace signs.” “I am trying to avoid” “scare quotes.” “I looked up” “what they are” “and supposedly they arose” “in the early 20th century.” “The scare quote” “is a mark around a word or phrase to indicate that it doesn’t signify conventional or literal meaning.” “This isn’t how Notley” “intended to use them” “in The Descent of Alette.” “The characters, places, and things” “signify nothing” “beyond” “their literal meaning” “ within the allegory .” “I’d like to stress” “within the allegory;” “that’s why its” “italicized.” “It is told through” “the main character/voice of” “Alette.” “The author reminds us she is not Alette.” “The author marvelously found a way” “to distance” “her self” “from the narrative.” “This was attempted” “by tonal and intimate” “affect of the dbl quote” “used as poetic feet.” “Its as though” “punctuation in this regard” “becomes a magical toy.” “Arguably, punctuation” “(as perceived)” “undergoes a kind of” “ defamiliar ” “make-over.” “The text” gently forces the reader” “to slow down,” “read slowly.” “At some point” “one begins to sense” “lines of text” “moving on its own.” “Broken words, phrases, and sentences” “shuttling left to right” “like a subway” “that stops” “from station to station;” “open quote to end quote.” Double Quote Occupied “There are two worlds; one above ground” “and one underground.” “The world above ground is where,” “the tyrant” “with a capital t” “lives.” “(The “T” gets tangled in the claws of the dbl quote.)” “Alette becomes an owl and kills him.” “In the last book the tyrant dies.” “ “...the tyrant” “a man in charge of” “the fact” “that we were” “below the ground” “endlessly riding” “our trains, never surfacing” “A man who” “would make you pay” “so much” “to leave the subway” “that you don’t” “ever ask” “how much it is” “It is, in effect,” “all of you & more” “Most of which you already” “pay to live below” “But he would literally” “take your soul” “Which is what you are” “below the ground” “Your soul” “your soul rides” “this subway” “I saw” “on the subway a” “world of souls” ”(4) “New York;” “the city of cities” “and its subways—” “worlds underground,” “above ground,” “& above the above ground.” “Skyscrapers,” “Wall Street,” “old money,” “new money,” “and falling further down a cleavage;” “the middle class” “slipping away.” “Contemporary artist ” “Ligorano Reece” “recently made” “a sculpture of ice ” “a block of ice” “carved to read” “middle class” “(in all upper case letters)” “and let it melt” “naturally” “for however long—” “hours,” “days.” “It didn’t take very long to melt.” A global uprise of mass demonstrations; a cacophony of bodies on the street, in parks and universities, on City Hall lawns, coastal ports, neighborhoods, etc., and for what? The reasons are endless and finite. Not a single body is unaffected by the movement even when not “occupying.” “Occupiers” “stormed into a Sotheby’s auction” “protesting” “via human microphone” “that the CEO takes home” “about” “six thousand dollars” “a day.” “(The a/Art market” “is not a reflection” “of a desire” “for a/Art” “but a reflection” “of a desire” “for money” “confused with a/Art.)” What could it mean to occupy that which has been written or said? Someone with double quotes tattooed on both shoulders attempts to reclaim the sign; re-invent it privately-publicly since the body is always split between both spheres. A genre of hide-and-seek; the speaking and silent body which can never mean what it says even while it so desires to mean something. To nest (and hold hostage) someone in double quotes is an act of violence; a gesture of displacement where one is arrested, dislocated, and scrutinized under a distant gaze. “The air quote” “also known as” “finger quote or ersatz quote” “supposedly” “harks back to” “1927.” “The brevity of this gesture” “ as something invisible” “like virtual money or credit” “doesn’t really exist” “though it take up space;” “its the ghostliest of all punctuation signs” “and one that requires the presence and appearance of a body.” “ “she made a form” “in her mind” “an imaginary” “form” “to settle” “in her arms where” “the baby” “had been” “We saw her fiery arms” “cradle air” “She cradled air...” ”(5) “The air” “gets occupied” “by one or two hands” “with thumb, forefinger, and middle finger” “which alternately could be used” “to shoot rubber bullets,” “pepper spray,” “tear gas.” “How three fingers” “could be responsible for so much:” “satire, sarcasm, irony” “and ultimately” “bruises, blood, death.” (“The violence of the dbl quote is to eagerly to place oneself inside a tornado.)” “The violence of this” “embodied punctuation mark” “stems from a discordance with others.” “Is the name, word, or phrase” “placed in dbl quotes” “heroic” “ or brave?” “An act of displacement;” “must there always be” “bright or negative lights—” “a leaderless act” “to inhabit, to occupy” “space removed” “from normative use.” “Of course” “I’m also wondering” “what it means to re-occupy” “public/private space—the street, neighborhood or page” “policed” “by laws, limits, and” “to some extent” “punctuation.” Echo, Mirror “There are first, second, and third voices interwoven.” “ “Braid of voices,”(6) ” “Some lines read as internal thoughts,” “dialogues,” “and scene descriptions,” “all of which make up the allegory.” “It seems appropriate” “for the word” “allegory” “to nest in dbl quotes” “for perhaps it might be” “a gesture to echo on and on” “eternally referencing” “whatever came before.” I notice the first tooth of the double quote, when paying too close attention, gets caught in the hook of the “f”. I space bar to untangle them; the f does not resist the closed bite of “deaf” and I resist to know what it could mean, because it could doubly mean nothing. “ “He looked” “so familiar” “to me...”(7) ” “The second-person” “echoes in one of two directions:” “further into” “or farther from” “me.” “Its as though” “the second-person amplifies” “or else the opposite” “in which he,” “who looks so familiar,” “retreats further” “like stars in a telescope.” “The dbl quote” “has this kind of affect” “concerning distance and dimension” “as also illusory” “as something twice removed” “and unreal” “in a similar way” “movie stars are unreal and far away.” “ “I entered” “a car” “in which I seemed” “to see double” “Each person I” “looked at seemed” “spread out” “as if doubled” “Gradually” “I perceived that” “each person” “was surrounded by a ghostly” “second image” “was encased in it” “& each” / “of those images,” “those encasings,” “was exactly the same” “each was in fact” “the tyrant...” ”(8) A daydream of a mirror-less world while staring through window blinds; a palm tree behind. It was dark with nothing there. A world with no mirrors “in my mind,” though my mind could only reflect what it knew: a palm tree. Naturally then, palm trees multiplied; a world of palm trees reflected the daydream with no mirror in sight. “The mirror” “(prior to obsidian manufacturing ca. 6000 B.C)” “was wherever water” “could be found.” “Its interesting” “mirrors have been around” “before humans—its funny” “animals and humans” “get born into” “a world of mirrors,” “therefore, simulation” “is always already” “a given—” “a sparkly consequence to be born with a dbl.” NOTES 1. Notley, Alice. “Author’s Note” in The Descent of Alette (New York, 1996) 2. Bruns, Gerald L. “ From Intransitive Speech to the Universe of Discourse” in Modern Poetry And The Idea of Language (New Haven & London, 1974), p.75 3. Ibid. p.77 4. Notley, Alice. The Descent of Alette (New York, 1996). p.3 5. Ibid. p.10 6. Ibid i. p.9 7. Ibid ii. p.16 8. Ibid iii. p.12. (shrink)

Besides their ordinary cardinal and proportional meanings, many and few have been argued to allow for a ‘reverse proportional’ reading. This reading has later been characterised in two opposite directions: Cohen’s reading where the proportion \ matters and Herburger’s where it does not. We develop a compositional analysis that derives the correct truth conditions for both characterisations of Westerståhl-style sentences while maintaining conservativity, assuming a standard syntax/semantics mapping and reducing their context-dependence to mechanisms independently needed for degree constructions in general. (...) In a nutshell, mirroring the decomposition of other degree expressions like tall, many is decomposed into the parametrized determiner many and the operator POS, where POS combines with a contextually salient comparison class C matching the alternatives triggered by some element X\ in the sentence. Non-reverse readings obtain when X\ is external to the original host NP and reverse readings when X\ is internal to the host NP. Cohen’s truth conditions for Westerståhl-style sentences are derived as a reverse proportional reading and Herburger’s interpretation as a sub-case of the non-reverse cardinal reading. (shrink)

The persistent struggle waged by the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries for peaceful coexistence among states with differing social systems has greatly increased the authority of this humanitarian policy in the eyes of the peoples of the world. Belligerent appeals for an outright rejection of peaceful coexistence are heard less and less frequently, even among the ideologists of imperialism. They are compelled to adapt themselves to the situation and to camouflage themselves with the masks of the peacemaker. Bourgeois (...) professors of social science say they are for peace and peaceful coexistence. However, these concepts are sometimes given such a distorted interpretation that all real content evaporates. "Peaceful coexistence and the cold war," we read, for example, in the words of the British professor, Hugh Seton-Watson, "are literally the same thing." [All quotations from non-Russian sources are retranslated from the Russian.] Thus, a single sentence suffices, by an act of sophistry, to transform peaceful coexistence into a state of international tension and intensive war preparations. The ideologists of imperialism deny, in essence, the possibility of cooperation between the socialist and capitalist countries in the process of peaceful coexistence. (shrink)

This text is a translation of two extracts from Vincent Descombes' 2014 book Le parler de soi. The majority of the translation consists of the chapter that Descombes dedicates to discussing Descartes extensively. In this text, Descombes analyzes “egotistical sentences,” or I-statements, beginning with the infamous example from Descartes. From here, he develops a substantial meditation on the nature of the self and its inherent philosophical paradoxes. The “radical question” guiding Descombes is whether or not an egotistical sentence has (...) or implies a subject in the metaphysical sense. The conclusion, ultimately supported in part by Anscombe’s work on “I-thoughts,” explains how it could be that a subject is not implied by an egotistical sentence. (shrink)

Unit 1. Realist readings -- Unit 2. Liberal readings -- Unit 3. Marxist readings -- Unit 4. Constructivist readings.

In this paper, I show that the availability of what some authors have called the weak reading and the strong reading of donkey sentences with relative clauses is systematically related to monotonicity properties of the determiner. The correlation is different from what has been observed in the literature in that it concerns not only right monotonicity, but also left monotonicity (persistence/antipersistence). I claim that the reading selected by a donkey sentence with a double monotone determiner is in fact the (...) one that validates inference based on the left monotonicity of the determiner. This accounts for the lack of strong reading in donkey sentences with MON determiners, which have been neglected in the literature. I consider the relevance of other natural forms of inference as well, but also suggest how monotonicity inference might play a central role in the actual process of interpretation. The formal theory is couched in dynamic predicate logic with generalized quantifiers. (shrink)

Contrary to received opinion, Marx’s analysis inCapitaldoes not start from the commodity, it starts from wealth. This has enormous theoretical and political implications.