In providing a good foundation for mathematics, set theorists often aim to develop the strongest theories possible and avoid those theories that place undue restrictions on the capacity to possess strength. For example, adding a measurable cardinal to $ZFC$ is thought to give a stronger theory than adding $V=L$ and the latter is thought to be more restrictive than the former. The two main proponents of this style of account are Penelope Maddy and John Steel. In this paper, I’ll offer (...) a third account that is intended to provide a simple analysis of restrictiveness based on the algebraic concept of retraction in the category of theories. I will also deliver some results and arguments that suggest some plausible alternative approaches to analyzing restrictiveness do not live up to their intuitive motivation. (shrink)

This is a personal development book that teaches a powerful tool for self-inquiry embodied through a practice of yoga. This book solves the problem of feeling stuck, lost, or confused. The solution is a powerful inner navigation technique that will help readers find their way.

How does sign language compare with gesture, on the one hand, and spoken language on the other? Sign was once viewed as nothing more than a system of pictorial gestures without linguistic structure. More recently, researchers have argued that sign is no different from spoken language, with all of the same linguistic structures. The pendulum is currently swinging back toward the view that sign is gestural, or at least has gestural components. The goal of this review is to elucidate the (...) relationships among sign language, gesture, and spoken language. We do so by taking a close look not only at how sign has been studied over the past 50 years, but also at how the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech have been studied. We conclude that signers gesture just as speakers do. Both produce imagistic gestures along with more categorical signs or words. Because at present it is difficult to tell where sign stops and gesture begins, we suggest that sign should not be compared with speech alone but should be compared with speech-plus-gesture. Although it might be easier to blur the distinction between sign and gesture, we argue that distinguishing between sign and gesture is essential to predict certain types of learning and allows us to understand the conditions under which gesture takes on properties of sign, and speech takes on properties of gesture. We end by calling for new technology that may help us better calibrate the borders between sign and gesture. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Steel’s multiverse project in his ‘Gödel’s program’ (Steel [2014]), first by comparing it to those of Hamkins [2012] and Woodin [2011], then by detailed analysis what’s presented in Steel’s brief text. In particular, we reconstruct his notion of a ‘natural’ theory, describe his multiverse axioms and his translation function, and assess the resulting status of the Continuum Hypothesis. In the end, we reconceptualize the defect that Steel thinks CH might suffer from and isolate what it would take (...) to remove it while working within his framework. As our goal is to present as coherent and compelling a philosophical and mathematical story as we can, we allow ourselves to augment Steel’s story in places (e.g., in the treatment of Amalgamation) and to depart from it in others (e.g., the removal of ‘meaning’ from the account). The relevant mathematics is laid out in the appendices. (shrink)

True stories about people who triumphed over seemingly impossible medical diagnoses using untraditional, inventive therapies and perseverance--and about what scientists are discovering on the psychology of healing and the mind-body connection--from the author of theNew York TimesMagazinearticle about her own son, "The Boy with the Thorn in his Joints," which led to this book about other families.

All languages, both spoken and signed, make a formal distinction between two types of terms in a proposition – terms that identify what is to be talked about (nominals) and terms that say something about this topic (predicates). Here we explore conditions that could lead to this property by charting its development in a newly emerging language – Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). We examine how handshape is used in nominals vs. predicates in three Nicaraguan groups: (1) homesigners who are not (...) part of the Deaf com- munity and use their own gestures, called homesigns, to communicate; (2) NSL cohort 1 signers who fashioned the first stage of NSL; (3) NSL cohort 2 signers who learned NSL from cohort 1. We compare these three groups to a fourth: (4) native signers of American Sign Language (ASL), an established sign language. We focus on handshape in predicates that are part of a productive classifier system in ASL; handshape in these predicates varies sys- tematically across agent vs. no-agent contexts, unlike handshape in the nominals we study, which does not vary across these contexts. We found that all four groups, including home- signers, used handshape differently in nominals vs. predicates – they displayed variability in handshape form across agent vs. no-agent contexts in predicates, but not in nominals. Variability thus differed in predicates and nominals: (1) In predicates, the variability across grammatical contexts (agent vs. no-agent) was systematic in all four groups, suggesting that handshape functioned as a productive morphological marker on predicate signs, even in homesign. This grammatical use of handshape can thus appear in the earliest stages of an emerging language. (2) In nominals, there was no variability across grammatical con- texts (agent vs. no-agent), but there was variability within- and across-individuals in the handshape used in the nominal for a particular object. This variability was striking in homesigners (an individual homesigner did not necessarily use the same handshape in every nominal he produced for a particular object), but decreased in the first cohort of NSL and remained relatively constant in the second cohort. Stability in the lexical use of handshape in nominals thus does not seem to emerge unless there is pressure from a peer linguistic community. Taken together, our findings argue that a community of users is essential to arrive at a stable nominal lexicon, but not to establish a productive morpholog- ical marker in predicates. Examining the steps a manual communication system takes as it moves toward becoming a fully-fledged language offers a unique window onto factors that have made human language what it is. (shrink)

It is difficult to create spoken forms that can be understood on the spot. But the manual modality, in large part because of its iconic potential, allows us to construct forms that are immediately understood, thus requiring essentially no time to develop. This paper contrasts manual forms for actions produced over three time spans—by silent gesturers who are asked to invent gestures on the spot; by homesigners who have created gesture systems over their life spans; and by signers who have (...) learned a conventional sign language from other signers—and finds that properties of the predicate differ across these time spans. Silent gesturers use location to establish co-reference in the way established sign languages do, but they show little evidence of the segmentation sign languages display in motion forms for manner and path, and little evidence of the finger complexity sign languages display in handshapes in predicates representing events. Homesigners, in contrast, not only use location to establish co-reference but also display segmentation in their motion forms for manner and path and finger complexity in their object handshapes, although they have not yet decreased finger complexity to the levels found in sign languages in their handling handshapes. The manual modality thus allows us to watch language as it grows, offering insight into factors that may have shaped and may continue to shape human language. (shrink)

Courts play a central role in legal and political processes in many countries in the common law world. Legal actors have a stake in making sure that legal processes and procedures are perceived as legitimate, both by the general population and professionals. Civil procedure, in both common law and civilian legal systems, has been historically known for its complexity. This article presents a body of empirical research about courts and procedural rules, and their role in different societies. It also analyzes (...) research and states how it has been used in policy debates and reforms. In addition, it discusses the question of the demand and supply for empirical research about rules of procedure and courts, and explores the difficulty of carrying out empirical research that goes beyond a focus on the institutional needs of the courts themselves and the reformers interested in their own court-reform agendas. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of alternate dispute resolution, and discusses its baseline measure and comparison process. Empirical research on ADR falls into two categories, empirically descriptive work and empirically comparative work. Litigation varies across legal systems and changes through time, just as does ADR. Many studies have documented and described patterns of uses of particular forms of dispute resolution. These studies are designed to explore variations of behavior or outcomes within a particular process. Several commentators have observed that formal (...) litigation and various forms of ADR, such as, mediation, private adjudication-arbitration, and other hybrid forms compete with and affect each other. Recent extensions of ADR suggest that the domain of dispute-resolution research is far more capacious than assessing how disputes are managed in lawsuits or courts. (shrink)

The transition to a low carbon economy demands new strategies to enable organizations to take advantage of the potential for “green” growth. An organization's environmental stakeholders can provide opportunities for growth and support the success of its low carbon strategies, as well as potentially acting as a constraint on new initiatives. Building environmental capabilities through engagement with environmental stakeholders is conceptualized as an important aspect for the success of organizational low carbon strategies. We examine capability building across a range of (...) sectors affected by the sustainability agenda, including construction, rail, water, and health care. We identify a number of emergent environmental stakeholders and explore their engagement with the development of environmental capabilities in the context of the transition toward a low carbon economy. Our conceptual framework offers a categorization of environmental stakeholders based on their position in relation to a focal organization and the potential for the development of environmental capabilities. (shrink)

The commentaries have led us to entertain expansions of our paradigm to include new theoretical questions, new criteria for what counts as a gesture, and new data and populations to study. The expansions further reinforce the approach we took in the target article: namely, that linguistic and gestural components are two distinct yet integral sides of communication, which need to be studied together.

We examined the effects of three different training conditions, all of which involve the motor system, on kindergarteners’ mental transformation skill. We focused on three main questions. First, we asked whether training that involves making a motor movement that is relevant to the mental transformation—either concretely through action or more abstractly through gestural movements that represent the action —resulted in greater gains than training using motor movements irrelevant to the mental transformation. We tested children prior to training, immediately after training, (...) and 1 week after training, and we found greater improvement in mental transformation skill in both the action and move-gesture training conditions than in the point-gesture condition, at both posttest and retest. Second, we asked whether the total gain made by retest differed depending on the abstractness of the movement-relevant training, and we found that it did not. Finally, we asked whether the time course of improvement differed for the two movement-relevant conditions, and we found that it did—gains in the action condition were realized immediately at posttest, with no further gains at retest; gains in the move-gesture condition were realized throughout, with comparable gains from pretest-to-posttest and from posttest-to-retest. Training that involves movement, whether concrete or abstract, can thus benefit children's mental transformation skill. However, the benefits unfold differently over time—the benefits of concrete training unfold immediately after training ; the benefits of more abstract training unfold in equal steps immediately after training and during the intervening week with no additional training. These findings have implications for the kinds of instruction that can best support spatial learning. (shrink)

Most bioethicists and professional medical societies condemn the practice of ?slow codes.? The American College of Physicians ethics manual states, ?Because it is deceptive, physicians or nurses should not perform half-hearted resuscitation efforts (?slow codes?).? A leading textbook calls slow codes ?dishonest, crass dissimulation, and unethical.? A medical sociologist describes them as ?deplorable, dishonest and inconsistent with established ethical principles.? Nevertheless, we believe that slow codes may be appropriate and ethically defensible in situations in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is likely (...) to be ineffective, the family decision makers understand and accept that death is inevitable, and those family members cannot bring themselves to consent or even assent to a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. In such cases, we argue, physicians may best serve both the patient and the family by having a carefully ambiguous discussion about end-of-life options and then providing resuscitation efforts that are less vigorous or prolonged than usual. (shrink)

Gesture does not have a fixed position in the Dienes & Perner framework. Its status depends on the way knowledge is expressed. Knowledge reflected in gesture can be fully implicit (neither factuality nor predication is explicit) if the goal is simply to move a pointing hand to a target. Knowledge reflected in gesture can be explicit (both factuality and predication are explicit) if the goal is to indicate an object. However, gesture is not restricted to these two extreme positions. When (...) gestures are unconscious accompaniments to speech and represent information that is distinct from speech, the knowledge they convey is factuality-implicit but predication-explicit. (shrink)

Developmental psychologists have long recognized the extraordinary influence of action on learning (Held & Hein, 1963; Piaget, 1952). Action experiences begin to shape our perception of the world during infancy (e.g., as infants gain an understanding of others’ goal-directed actions; Woodward, 2009) and these effects persist into adulthood (e.g., as adults learn about complex concepts in the physical sciences; Kontra, Lyons, Fischer, & Beilock, 2012). Theories of embodied cognition provide a structure within which we can investigate the mechanisms underlying action’s (...) impact on thinking and reasoning. We argue that theories of embodiment can shed light on the role of action experience in early learning contexts, and further that these theories hold promise for using action to scaffold learning in more formal educational settings later in development. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that the thought of Aristotle can shed much light on the irksome problems that lurk around the philosophical foundations of neuroscience. First, we will explore the ramifications of Aristotle’s mereological principle, namely, that it is not the eye that sees, but the human person that sees by the eye. Next, we shall draw upon the riches of Maxwell Bennett’s and Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience in order to elucidate how Aristotle’s mereological principle can be (...) of service to contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. In the third and fourth parts we aim to complement the project of PFN by showing how Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology and doctrine of pros hen equivocation can strengthen PFN’s response to eliminativists, reductionists, and other critics of “folk psychology.” Finally, our last section will investigate the kinds of correlations involved in brain scanning techniques, such as fMRI, so as to determine whether the most recent empirical discoveries do in fact support various critics’ rejection of “folk psychology.” We will show that the empirical evidence does not in fact favor eliminativist or reductionist views, and that we would do well to turn to the more Aristotelian approaches to neuroscience adopted by PFN and ourselves. (shrink)

When asked to explain their solutions to a problem, both adults and children gesture as they talk. These gestures at times convey information that is not conveyed in speech and thus reveal thoughts that are distinct from those revealed in speech. In this study, we use the classic Tower of Hanoi puzzle to validate the claim that gesture and speech taken together can reflect the activation of two cognitive strategies within a single response. The Tower of Hanoi is a well‐studied (...) puzzle, known to be most efficiently solved by activating subroutines at theoretically defined choice points. When asked to explain how they solved the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, both adults and children produced significantly more gesture‐speech mismatches—explanations in which speech conveyed one path and gesture another—at these theoretically defined choice points than they produced at non‐choice points. Even when the participants did not solve the problem efficiently, gesture could be used to indicate where the participants were deciding between alternative paths. Gesture can, thus, serve as a useful adjunct to speech when attempting to discover cognitive processes in problem‐solving. (shrink)

Analogy researchers do not often examine gesture, and gesture researchers do not often borrow ideas from the study of analogy. One borrowable idea from the world of analogy is the importance of distinguishing between attributes and relations. Gentner observed that some metaphors highlight attributes and others highlight relations, and called the latter analogies. Mirroring this logic, we observe that some metaphoric gestures represent attributes and others represent relations, and propose to call the latter analogical gestures. We provide examples of such (...) analogical gestures and show how they relate to the categories of iconic and metaphoric gestures described previously. Analogical gestures represent different types of relations and different degrees of relational complexity, and sometimes cohere into larger analogical models. Treating analogical gestures as a distinct phenomenon prompts new questions and predictions, and illustrates one way that the study of gesture and the study of analogy can be mutually informative. (shrink)

The sizeable theoretical and empirical literature on corporate social responsibility and business ethics in Western, developed economies indicates that the topic has attracted significant interest from academics and practitioners. There is, however, less evidence of the practice of CSR and business ethics in non-Western, transition economies, as insufficient attention is paid to the contextual specifications and underlying processes that may lead to different versions of CSR. Therefore, this paper examines the practice and sense-making of CSR and business ethics from the (...) perspective of the fertile and under researched post-communist context of Central and Eastern Europe, to join the growing academic debate about the impact of cultural and historical traditions on the practice and sense-making of CSR and business ethics in non-Western contexts. The study adopts a particular focus on the post-communist and under researched context of Bulgaria where CSR is still a relatively new phenomenon. By following an exploratory research design and by collecting qualitative data from 34 executives employed by public and private sector organisations in Bulgaria, the study finds that the local business environment is composed of a complex mix of various institutionalised pressures and challenges that predispose organisations to adopt a particular approach to CSR, ethical misconduct and CSR-washing. Apart from the significant contributions related to the practice, understanding and contextualisation of CSR in non-Western countries, the study also identifies challenges of business ethics in transition economies and adds depth to the emerging literature on CSR-washing by proposing a model for neo-communist CSR-washing. The study also offers contributions for practitioners and policy-makers. (shrink)

This paper expands upon a way in which we might rationally doubt that there are multiple sizes of infinity. The argument draws its inspiration from recent work in the philosophy of truth and philosophy of set theory. More specifically, elements of contextualist theories of truth and multiverse accounts of set theory are brought together in an effort to make sense of Cantor’s troubling theorem. The resultant theory provides an alternative philosophical perspective on the transfinite, but has limited impact on everyday (...) mathematical practice. (shrink)

There is a paucity of research into the prevalence of academic dishonesty within Canada compared to other countries. Recently, there has been a call for a better understanding of the particular characteristics of educational integrity in Canada so that Canada can more meaningfully contribute to current discussions surrounding academic integrity. Here, we present findings from student and faculty surveys conducted within a medium-sized Canadian university. These surveys probed perceptions towards, and experiences with, academic dishonesty, in which we aimed to understand (...) how students and faculty regarded academically dishonest practices during their postsecondary careers. We also aimed to understand how often students engaged in, and faculty had witnessed, academic dishonesty, whether or not witnessing incidents of academic dishonesty corresponded with gender, year of experience, highest level of educational attainment, discipline, or their personal perceptions towards the importance of academic honesty, and whether students had been adequately taught what constitutes academic dishonesty. We found that an overwhelming majority of students viewed academic honesty as important, and that most students reported not engaging in academic dishonesty themselves despite 45.8% reporting that they had witnessed others engage in academic dishonesty. We also found that students were more likely to witness cheating as their postsecondary experience increased, that witnessing varied across disciplines and educational attainment, and that witnessing varied with student perceptions. However, we found no such patterns in faculty responses, but found that faculty are split on whether or not they believe incidents of academic honesty are increasing. (shrink)

In J Philos Logic 34:155–192, 2005, Leitgeb provides a theory of truth which is based on a theory of semantic dependence. We argue here that the conceptual thrust of this approach provides us with the best way of dealing with semantic paradoxes in a manner that is acceptable to a classical logician. However, in investigating a problem that was raised at the end of J Philos Logic 34:155–192, 2005, we discover that something is missing from Leitgeb’s original definition. Moreover, we (...) show that once the appropriate repairs have been made, the resultant definition is equivalent to a version of the supervaluation definition suggested in J Philos 72:690–716, 1975 and discussed in detail in J Symb Log 51(3):663–681, 1986. The upshot of this is a philosophical justification for the simple supervaluation approach and fresh insight into its workings. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the nature of sound, there is an emerging consensus rejection of what might be thought of as the scientifically informed commonsense position: that sounds, whatever else they may be, must be entities that mediate between the source of the sound and the subject hearing it. This paper offers an argument for such "medial" theories of sound. This argument is intended to shift attention from the two considerations that have dominated the debate thus far: the relevant (...) scientific facts about audition and the spatial phenomenology of auditory experience. (shrink)

The Church-Turing Thesis is widely regarded as true, because of evidence that there is only one genuine notion of computation. By contrast, there are nowadays many different formal logics, and different corresponding foundational frameworks. Which ones can deliver a theory of computability? This question sets up a difficult challenge: the meanings of basic mathematical terms are not stable across frameworks. While it is easy to compare what different frameworks say, it is not so easy to compare what they mean. We (...) argue for some minimal conditions that must be met if two frameworks are to be compared; if frameworks are radical enough, comparison becomes hopeless. Our aim is to clarify the dialectical situation in this bourgeoning area of research, shedding light on the nature of non-classical logic and the notion of computation alike. (shrink)

Gender is perhaps the most pervasive, fundamental, and universally accepted way we separate and categorize human beings. Yet in recent years, U.S. courts and administrative state agencies have confronted a growing challenge from individuals demanding to have their gender reclassified. Transgender people create a profound category crisis for social institutions built on the idea that biological sex is both immutable and dichotomous. During the past four decades, the central legal question shifted from how to allocate specific individuals to categories to (...) the permeability of gender categories themselves. This analysis of 38 judicial gender determinations provides a glimpse of the literal construction of the gender order and of the ways institutions gender individuals. It also provides powerful evidence that cultural anxieties about reproduction and the heterosexual, conjugal family underscore institutional efforts to manage the uncertainty of postmodern gender identities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that holes are not objects, but should instead be construed as properties or relations. The argument proceeds by first establishing a claim about angles: that angles are not objects, but properties or relations. It is then argued that holes and angles belong to the same category, on the grounds that they share distinctive existence and identity conditions. This provides an argument in favour of categorizing holes as one categorizes angles. I then argue that a commitment (...) to the existence of properties to be identified with holes provides sufficient resources to account for true claims about holes. (shrink)