Research Articles Thomas G. West, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

We show that certain classes of modules have universal models with respect to pure embeddings: Let R be a ring, T a first‐order theory with an infinite model extending the theory of R‐modules and (where ⩽pp stands for “pure submodule”). Assume has the joint embedding and amalgamation properties. If or, then has a universal model of cardinality λ. As a special case, we get a recent result of Shelah [28, 1.2] concerning the existence of universal reduced torsion‐free abelian groups with (...) respect to pure embeddings.We begin the study of limit models for classes of R‐modules with joint embedding and amalgamation. We show that limit models with chains of long cofinality are pure‐injective and we characterize limit models with chains of countable cofinality. This can be used to answer [18, Question 4.25].As this paper is aimed at model theorists and algebraists an effort was made to provide the background for both. (shrink)

Quine takes physics to be the ultimate arbiter of what there is. [AL 1/29/2004].

Why and how have supply chain codes of conduct diffused among lead firms around the globe? Prior research has drawn on both institutional and stakeholder theories to explain the adoption of codes, but no study has modeled adoption as a temporally dynamic process of diffusion. We propose that the drivers of adoption shift over time, from exclusively nonmarket to eventually market-based mechanisms as well. In an analysis of an original data set of more than 1,800 firms between the years 2006 (...) and 2015, we find that strong nonmarket labor institutions in a firm’s home country are critical to initiating and sustaining the diffusion process. Market mechanisms, such as investor scrutiny and brand risk, emerge as important later. Contrary to prior research, we did not find a significant effect from nongovernmental organization (NGO) pressure. We conclude that markets for corporate social responsibility can and do arise, but only after they are effectuated by nonmarket institutions. (shrink)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Nero's tutor and advisor, wrote philosophical essays, some of them in the form of letters, and dramas on Greek mythological topics, which since the early Renaissance have exercised a powerful influence on the European theater. Because in his essays Seneca, in his own eclectic way, subscribes to the philosophy of the Stoic school, scholars and critics have long been asking the question whether the plays, also, could be regarded as transmitters of Stoic thought. Various answers, ranging from (...) a categorical no to an uneasy yes, have been given. With few exceptions, the students who have concerned themselves with this question have looked for their enlightenment in Stoic psychology and Stoic ethics. In this book, Thomas G. Rosenmeyer proposes instead to look at the Stoic science of nature, of the world and human beings in the world, as a more plausible grounding for the difference between Senecan drama and its Greek predecessors. In the process of looking at what the Stoics, especially the early Stoics, had to say about the forces determining natural phenomena, the author uncovers a deeply pessimistic strain in Stoic cosmology, and an interest in physicality and environmental tension, that he finds replicated in the theater, not only of Seneca, but also of the later European tradition indebted to him. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Nero's tutor and advisor, wrote philosophical essays, some of them in the form of letters, and dramas on Greek mythological topics, which since the early Renaissance have exercised a powerful influence on the European theater. Because in his essays Seneca, in his own eclectic way, subscribes to the philosophy of the Stoic school, scholars and critics have long been asking the question whether the plays, also, could be regarded as transmitters of Stoic thought. Various answers, ranging from a categorical no to an uneasy yes, have been given. With few exceptions, the students who have concerned themselves with this question have looked for their enlightenment in Stoic psychology and Stoic ethics. In this book, Thomas G. Rosenmeyer proposes instead to look at the Stoic science of nature, of the world and human beings in the world, as a more plausible grounding for the difference between Senecan drama and its Greek predecessors. In the process of looking at what the Stoics, especially the early Stoics, had to say about the forces determining natural phenomena, the author uncovers a deeply pessimistic strain in Stoic cosmology, and an interest in physicality and environmental tension, that he finds replicated in the theater, not only of Seneca, but also of the later European tradition indebted to him. (shrink)

If the Libyan intervention goes well, it will put teeth in the fledgling RtoP doctrine. Yet, if it goes badly, critics will redouble their opposition, and future decisions will be made more difficult. Libya suggests that we can say no more Holocausts, Cambodias, and Rwandas--and occasionally mean it.

These essays by some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, artificial intelligence, and psychology explore the problems involved in creating a general cognitive science that will treat language, thought, and behavior in an integrated fashion. They address the fundamental questions of the relations between linguistic structures and cognitive processes, between cognitive processes and language behavior, and between language behavior and linguistic structure. Contents: Introduction, Thomas G. Bever (Columbia University), John M. Carroll and Lance A. Miller (IBM Thomas (...) J. Watson Research Center). "Philosophy and "Linguistics: An Outline of Platonist Grammar, Jerrold J. Katz (CUNY). Sense and Reference in a Psychologically Based Semantics, Ray Jackendoff (Brandeis University). Some Thoughts on the Boundaries and Components of Linguistics, Charles J. Fillmore (University of California, Berkeley). Psychology: Approaches to the Study of the Psychology of Language, Walter Kintsch (University of Colorado). Toward An Abstract Performance Grammar, Charles E. Osgood (University of Illinois). Upgrading a Mind, David Premack (University of Pennsylvania). Computational "Models: "Memory, Meaning, and Syntax, Roger Schank (Yale University) and Lawrence Birnbaum (Yale University). Some Inadequate Theories of Human Language Processing, Mitchell P. Marcus (AT&T Bell Laboratories). (shrink)

Why, despite well-established and well-publicized intergovernmental processes that date back to the early 1970s, have we been unable to put in place effective mechanisms to combat climate change? Why, despite the existence of extensive global human rights machinery, do we live in a world where mass kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder continue to blight the lives of so many? Why, despite a great deal of effort on the part of intergovernmental organizations and nonstate actors, have we been unable to make (...) much of a difference to the lives of the ultra-poor and attenuate the very worst aspects of growing global inequalities? Most fundamentally, why have the current international system and the outcomes that it has produced remained so inadequate in the postwar period? (shrink)

Given a Δ1 ultrapower ℱ/[MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL U], let ℒU denote the set of all Π2-correct substructures of ℱ/[MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL U]; i.e., ℒU is the collection of all those subsets of |ℱ/[MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL U]| that are closed under computable functions. Defining in the obvious way the lattice ℒ) with domain ℒU, we obtain some preliminary results about lattice embeddings into – or realization as – an ℒ. The basis for these results, as far as we take the matter, (...) consists of the well-known class of minimal ℱ/[MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL U]'s, which function as atoms, and the class of minimalfree ℱ/[MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL U]'s, to whose nonemptiness a substantial section of the paper is devoted. It is shown that an infinite, convergent monotone sequence together with its limit point is embeddable in an ℒ, and that the initial segment lattices {0, 1,…, n } are not just embeddable in , but in fact realizable as, lattices ℒ. Finally, the diamond is embeddable; and if it is not realizable, then either the 1 - 3 - 1 lattice or the pentagon is at least embeddable. (shrink)

The author attends to various ways students can become involved participants in philosophical activity within courses. Instead of students taking on the role of passive spectators of ideas in introductory courses, the author proposes that instructors treat students as “public learners.” The author utilizes past experiences in combination with guided reflections on the beginnings of the philosophical tradition, particularly the figure of Socrates, to compile a classroom curriculum based upon the Apprentice model. The author proposes a teaching method that assimilates (...) philosophical activities to a “public model” in which students are seen as apprentices, which is an individualized approach to teaching. This teaching model also prescribes a way that apprenticeships can be implemented in the curriculum without consuming an excessive amount of the instructor’s time. (shrink)

Reality is two-fold, composed of the lighted world as revealed in Genesis, and the darker primordiality which preceded it. The illuminated represents that which the human mind can comprehend, manipulate and re-order to its will: a “designed” and mechanical universe of parts. But behind it, in the backspace of reality, remains the darkness. A formless state of pre-creation, the darkness exists as an endless series of intertwining “signatures” – single possibilities waiting to be created in the illuminated forefront of reality. (...) Permitting each and every part of the lighted world to be connected to the rest, it possesses a “design” all of its own. The question is, if we are blind in the dark, how could we ever come to know it? (shrink)

Life is a battlefield onto which we are thrown at birth, with only fate and fortune settling upon where we land. Wherever we land, whether it's on the front lines or surrounded by a network of defenses, we are all asking the same question: why are we here? The problem with this question, however, is that we tend to answer it from our own relative positions, and so we all arrive at different conclusions. The many answers we've created have filled (...) the field. They have become banners that are raised high so that we can see and follow them. These banners are always at risk of being toppled though; always at risk of losing their capacity for belief. But then, what if belief is more than a mere by-product of our universal search? What if belief can change the very fabric of this field? That is, what if truth is actually irrelevant, and the only real thing that makes up this battlefield is the belief, and consequently the collective will, which we invest in our answers? (shrink)

Among the national scientific groups, it was the Prague Linguistic Circle that had the most decisive affinity to the work of the Moscow-Tartu school. This paper examines the work of one of the most tireless contemporary Czech interpreters of the Lutman school, Vladimir Macura (1945-1999), whose work on Czech literary and historical texts are outstanding examples of the reverberation of Lotmanian semiotics of culture in the Czech Republic. This is particularly the case in Macura's reevaluations of the texts of the (...) Czech National Revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in two books, Znamení zrodu (Signs of Birth) (1995) and Český sen (The Czech Dream) (1998). In these works Macura looked at this critical period in Czech national history as a multi-layered semiotic text in both the verbal and visual spheres. The present paper is an attempt at an exploration of Macura's treatment in this manner of the following: the Czech language, the city of Prague, the question of Czech national self-identification in general and as part of a larger category, the world of the Slavs. An important aspect of this project is an examination of Macura's exploration of the value functions of symbolic animals and plants in Czech Revival culture, and its relation to the axiology of Czech (Slavic) cultural identity. The paper is dedicated to Macura's memory. (shrink)

Among the national scientific groups, it was the Prague Linguistic Circle that had the most decisive affinity to the work of the Moscow-Tartu school. This paper examines the work of one of the most tireless contemporary Czech interpreters of the Lutman school, Vladimir Macura (1945-1999), whose work on Czech literary and historical texts are outstanding examples of the reverberation of Lotmanian semiotics of culture in the Czech Republic. This is particularly the case in Macura's reevaluations of the texts of the (...) Czech National Revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in two books, Znamení zrodu (Signs of Birth) (1995) and Český sen (The Czech Dream) (1998). In these works Macura looked at this critical period in Czech national history as a multi-layered semiotic text in both the verbal and visual spheres. The present paper is an attempt at an exploration of Macura's treatment in this manner of the following: the Czech language, the city of Prague, the question of Czech national self-identification in general and as part of a larger category, the world of the Slavs. An important aspect of this project is an examination of Macura's exploration of the value functions of symbolic animals and plants in Czech Revival culture, and its relation to the axiology of Czech (Slavic) cultural identity. The paper is dedicated to Macura's memory. (shrink)

Macromarketing attempts to address issues that engage marketing and society and previous ethical scholarship has focused on distributive justice and on exchanges that occur in conventional markets. As our research highlights, however, the distributive justice approach alone is insufficient for managing the complexities, ethical paradoxes, and out-of-market conditions associated with wicked, cross-national social concerns. In this article, we integrate macromarketing with the theory of the common good in order to provide a foundation for framing societal change that can encompass nonmarket (...) value, stakeholder rights, collective social priorities, organizational responsibilities, and political action. (shrink)

We recognize today's deep neural network (DNN) models of language behaviors as engineering achievements. However, what we know intuitively and scientifically about language shows that what DNNs are and how they are trained on bare texts, makes them poor models of mind and brain for language organization, as it interacts with infant biology, maturation, experience, unique principles, and natural law.