The scalar approach to negative polarity item (NPI) licensing assumes that NPIs are allowable in contexts in which the introduction of the NPI leads to proposition strengthening (e.g., Kadmon & Landman 1993, Krifka 1995, Lahiri 1997, Chierchia 2006). A straightforward processing prediction from such a theory is that NPI’s facilitate inference verification from sets to subsets. Three experiments are reported that test this proposal. In each experiment, participants evaluated whether inferences from sets to subsets were valid. Crucially, we manipulated whether (...) the premises contained an NPI. In Experiment 1, participants completed a metalinguistic reasoning task, and Experiments 2 and 3 tested reading times using a self-paced reading task. Contrary to expectations, no facilitation was observed when the NPI was present in the premise compared to when it was absent. In fact, the NPI significantly slowed down reading times in the inference region. Our results therefore favor those scalar theories that predict that the NPI is costly to process (Chierchia 2006), or other, nonscalar theories (Giannakidou 1998, Ladusaw 1992, Postal 2005, Szabolcsi 2004) that likewise predict NPI processing cost but, unlike Chierchia (2006), expect the magnitude of the processing cost to vary with the actual pragmatics of the NPI. (shrink)

Structural priming is a useful tool for investigating linguistics representations. We argue that structural priming can be extended to the investigation of pragmatic representations such as Gricean enrichments. That is not to say priming is without its limitations, however. Interpreting a failure to observe priming may not be as simple as Branigan & Pickering imply.

In some practical uncertain situations decision makers are presented with described events that are out of sequence when having to make a causal attribution. A theoretical perspective concerning the causal coherence of the explanation is developed to predict the effect of this on causal attribution. Three experiments investigated the effect on causal judgement when the described order of events did not correspond to their causal order. Participants had to judge the relative probability of two possible causes of an outcome in (...) scenarios in which presentation order varied. All three experiments found that there was a preference to judge that the cause associated with events described in causal order was more responsible for the outcome when events associated with one cause were interleaved in their presentation order with those from a second cause. This occurred when there was a strong causal relationship between events. The results were consistent with the causal coherence explanation. (shrink)

The Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) was developed over the last two decades by consistently putting together theories from areas such as formal ontology in philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophical logics. It comprises a number of micro-theories addressing fundamental conceptual modeling notions, including entity types and relationship types. The aim of this paper is to summarize the current state of UFO, presenting a formalization of the ontology, along with the analysis of a number of cases to illustrate the application of (...) UFO and facilitate its comparison with other foundational ontologies in this special issue. (The cases originate from the First FOUST Workshop – the Foundational Stance, an international forum dedicated to Foundational Ontology research.). (shrink)

This research note is meant to introduce into philosophical discussion the preliminary results of an empirical study on the state of blacks in philosophy, which is a joint effort of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers (APA CSBP) and the Society of Young Black Philosophers (SYBP). The study is intended to settle factual issues in furtherance of contributing to dialogues surrounding at least two philosophical questions: What, if anything, is the philosophical value of demographic diversity (...) in professional philosophy? And what is philosophy? The empirical goals of the study are (1) to identify and enumerate U.S. blacks in philosophy, (2) to determine the distribution of blacks in philosophy across career stages, (3) to determine correlates to the success of blacks in philosophy at different career stages, and (4) to compare and contrast results internally and externally to explain any career stage gaps and determine any other disparities. (shrink)

Legal Hermeneutics The question of how best to determine the meaning of a given text has always been the chief concern of the general field of inquiry known as hermeneutics. Legal hermeneutics is rooted in philosophical hermeneutics and takes as its subject matter the nature of legal meaning. Legal hermeneutics asks the … Continue reading Hermeneutics, Legal →.

We report two experiments which tested whether cognitive capacities are limited to those functions that are computationally tractable (PTIME-Cognition Hypothesis). In particular, we investigated the semantic processing of reciprocal sentences with generalized quantifiers, i.e., sentences of the form Q dots are directly connected to each other, where Q stands for a generalized quantifier, e.g. all or most. Sentences of this type are notoriously ambiguous and it has been claimed in the semantic literature that the logically strongest reading is preferred (Strongest (...) Meaning Hypothesis). Depending on the quantifier, the verification of their strongest interpretations is computationally intractable whereas the verification of the weaker readings is tractable. We conducted a picture completion experiment and a picture verification experiment to investigate whether comprehenders shift from an intractable reading to a tractable reading which should be dispreferred according to the Strongest Meaning Hypothesis. The results from the picture completion experiment suggest that intractable readings occur in language comprehension. Their verification, however, rapidly exceeds cognitive capacities in case the verification problem cannot be solved using simple heuristics. In particular, we argue that during verification, guessing strategies are used to reduce computational complexity. (shrink)

This book is a defense of modal realism; the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds. Lewis argues that the philosophical utility of modal realism is a good reason for believing that it is true.

Methodological tools for doing philosophy that take into account the historical context of the phenomenon under consideration are arguably better suited for examining questions of race and gender than acontextual or ahistorical methodological tools. Accordingly, Rebecca Tuvel’s “defense” of so-called transracialism arguably veers off track to the extent that it relies on acontextual and ahistorical tools. While Tuvel argues, largely relying on such tools, that so-called transracialism is both metaphysically possible and ethically permissible, from a perspective that factors in context (...) and history, so-called transracialism is arguably neither. Nonetheless, Tuvel’s ethical call to the effect that an individual right to racial self-definition should be acknowledged has its appeal. However, the lesson to be learned from the Tuvel affair arguably has less to do with the metaphysical or ethical status of so-called transracialism than with changes that arguably need to be made in the way mainstream/analytic professional philosophy goes about its business, particularly with regard to non-ideal topics like race and gender. (shrink)

(Citation/Reference) Williams, S. H. Lewis Carroll handbook.

(Statement of Responsibility) by Lewis Carroll ; with illustrations in colors.

The present study investigates whether quantifier scope is computed incrementally during online sentence processing. We exploited the free word order in German to manipulate whether the verbal predicate preceded or followed the second quantifier in doubly quantified sentences that required the computation of inverse scope. A possessive pronoun in the first quantifier that had to be bound by the second quantifier was used to enforce scope inversion. We tested whether scope inversion causes difficulty and whether this difficulty emerges even at (...) a point before comprehenders have encountered the main verb. We report three pretests and two reading time experiments. The first two pretests were offline tests that established (1) that the sentences exhibited the assumed scope preferences and (2) that variable binding forced scope inversion. The third pretest employed self-paced reading to show that interpreting a bound variable is not difficult per se and that difficulty in the critical construction must thus be due to inverting scope. Incremental processing of quantifier scope was investigated in a self-paced reading experiment. We observed difficulty right after the second quantifier, but only if it appeared after the main verb, that is, after the predication was complete. Further evidence for late scope inversion comes from an eyetracking experiment. Again, a scope inversion effect could only be observed at the end of the sentence. Taken together, our study demonstrates that in German inverse scope is only computed at the sentence boundary. (shrink)

The two works reprinted in this volume are a unique fusion of logical thought and inimitable whimsy. Written by the 19th-century mathematician who also gave us "Alive in Wonderland", they are among the most entertaining logical works ever written, and contain some of the most thought-provoking puzzles ever devised.

David Lewis (1941-2001) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. His contributions spanned philosophical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology. In On the Plurality of Worlds, he defended his challenging metaphysical position, "modal realism." He was also the author of the books Convention, Counterfactuals, Parts of Classes, and several volumes of collected papers.

Betty Joseph's work has become an outstanding influence in the development and theory of psychoanalytic technique in the Kleinian tradition. This collection of her most important papers examines the development of her thought and shows why a crucial part of her theory and practice is concerned with the detailed, sensitive scrutiny of the therapeutic process itself. Fundamental and controversial topics explored and discussed include projective identification, transference and countertransference, unconscious phantasy, and Kleinian views on envy and the death instinct.

Transracialism, defined as both experiencing oneself as, and being, a race other than the race assigned to one by society, does not exist. Translated into hermeneutics, transracialism is an unintelligible phenomenon in the specific sociocultural context of the United States in the early twenty-first century. Within this context, race is a function of ancestry, and is therefore defined in terms of something that is external to the self and unchangeable. Since transracialism does not exist, the question of whether transracialism would (...) be ethically advisable if it did exist is inapposite. Nonetheless, at a minimum we can say that racial transition (defined as attempting to change one’s race through artificial and/or associative changes, and living life as a race other than the race assigned to one by society, etc.) is possible, but is very likely unethical, since it is the same as racial passing. (shrink)

(Statement of Responsibility) by Lewis Carroll ; with ninety-two illustrations by John Tenniel.

Transracialism, defined as both experiencing oneself as, and being, a race other than the race assigned to one by society, does not exist. Translated into hermeneutics, transracialism is an unintelligible phenomenon in the specific sociocultural context of the United States in the early twenty-first century. Within this context, race is a function of ancestry, and is therefore defined in terms of something that is external to the self and unchangeable. Since transracialism does not exist, the question of whether transracialism would (...) be ethically advisable if it did exist is inapposite. Nonetheless, at a minimum we can say that racial transition (defined as attempting to change one’s race through artificial and/or associative changes, and living life as a race other than the race assigned to one by society, etc.) is possible, but is very likely unethical, since it is the same as racial passing. (shrink)

George Yancy's Backlash is a book about American racism. It is the story of what often happens when blacks dare to challenge whiteness on its hubris, or on its appallingly obvious hypocrisy. It is the story of the anger and violence that often arises in the white American in the aftermath of such a challenge, generating in him or her a need to humiliate and destroy the source of the diminished (and fragile) white sense of self. Racism is not personal, (...) Backlash evidences. It is a manifestation of a deeply racist society. Backlash succeeds as a powerful phenomenological account of what racism (still) looks (and feels) like in The Land of the Free. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Can Satan Cast Out Satan? Violence and the Birth of the Sacred in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight1Nicholas Bott (bio)Last Summer, Christopher Nolan’s final installment of the Batman trilogy hit theaters. The Dark Knight Rises promised to be the epic conclusion of a hero’s journey, a journey of a man’s transformation into a legend. Little was revealed in the official trailers, except that evil was rising in (...) Gotham City, and so too must The Batman. But in this essay I’d like to suggest that we didn’t need to view The Dark Knight Rises before seeing either evil, or Batman rise; by the end of the second film, evil and Batman have already risen—and together—in the sacred form of The Dark Knight.This essay first elucidates how Bruce Wayne’s strategy to inspire good among the citizens of Gotham, first articulated in Batman Begins, encompasses the hallmarks of Girard’s mimetic theory, including: mimesis, rivalry, scandal, and, finally, the outworking of the mimetic mechanism of the surrogate victim—the scapegoat. Next, this essay takes a closer look at the goodness, or lack thereof, of Batman’s climactic self-sacrifice with its attendant resolution. Finally, this essay demonstrates that interpretations [End Page 239] of Batman’s self-sacrifice in the movie have mirrored the disparate interpretations of Christ’s self-sacrifice, in relation to the climax and resolution of the Passion accounts.Mimetic Structure in Bruce Wayne’s StrategyBeginning With the EndThe final visual the audience is given in The Dark Knight is of Batman escaping on his Batpod. The screenplay’s description of this final scene reads: “The batpod streaks through Gotham’s underground streets, the Batman’s cape fluttering behind. A wraith...”; (TDK, 140).2 Commissioner Gordon’s voice is overheard saying, “... He’s not our hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight” (TDK, 140). Bruce Wayne has sacrificed himself for the sake of Gotham. But what kind of sacrifice has he made?3 In the words of Alfred, “The sacrifice he’s making [is]—to not be a hero. To be something more” (TDK, 73). And Batman has become something more. No longer a hero, the language Commissioner Gordon uses to describe Batman on behalf of Gotham is mythical and sacred. Girard understands this sacralization to be the completion of the surrogate victim mechanism, the satanic process whereby the sacrifice of an innocent scapegoat reconciles a community in the midst of crisis and violent upheaval.4 This sacred vision of Batman represents the final stage of the surrogate victim mechanism, providing evidence that the satanic has been at work. But if this is the case, something has gone terribly awry in Bruce Wayne’s strategy to inspire good. With this conclusion in mind, the flaws in Wayne’s strategy as it develops throughout Batman Begins and The Dark Knight become apparent, and correspond with each step in the mimetic process.Mimesis as PlotMimesis, or imitation, stands at the heart of The Dark Knight’s plot because it stands at the heart of Bruce Wayne’s strategy to inspire good. We encounter this strategy in Nolan’s first film, Batman Begins, as Wayne explains to Alfred his reasons for returning to Gotham City:Alfred:Are you coming back to Gotham for long, sir? [End Page 240]Bruce:As long as it takes. I want to show the people their city doesn’t belong to the criminals and the corrupt.Alfred:In the depression, your father nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises combating poverty. He believed his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city.Bruce:Did it?Alfred:In a way. Their murder shocked the wealthy and the powerful into action.Bruce:People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy. I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man... I’m flesh and blood, I can be ignored, destroyed. But as a symbol... As a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.Alfred:What symbol?Bruce:Something elemental, something terrifying.(Batman Begins)5By invoking the symbolic, Bruce Wayne believes Batman will be... (shrink)

This book explores the experiences and philosophical work product of mixed race philosophers, as well as possible links between the two. Some books address mixed-race identity, and some anthologies focus on mixed-race identity, but this is the first anthology on the philosophy of mixed-race, and the first anthology by mixed-race philosophers.

L’auteur utilise la procédure des obligations réelles environnementales instituée en 2016 pour expérimenter à partir de deux entreprises qu’il a créées l’idée de revenu de pollinisation humaine proposée par Multitudes.

This book philosophically explores changing conceptions of race and equality in Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause since the enactment of the 14th Amendment. It traces these changing conceptions alongside the gradual elimination of the social equality of racialized persons from the Supreme Court’s list of priorities.

In three experiments, we investigated the computational complexity of German reciprocal sentences with different quantificational antecedents. Building upon the tractable cognition thesis (van Rooij, 2008) and its application to the verification of quantifiers (Szymanik, 2010) we predicted complexity differences among these sentences. Reciprocals with all-antecedents are expected to preferably receive a strong interpretation (Dalrymple et al., 1998), but reciprocals with proportional or numerical quantifier antecedents should be interpreted weakly. Experiment 1, where participants completed pictures according to their preferred interpretation, provides (...) evidence for these predictions. Experiment 2 was a picture verification task. The results show that the strong interpretation was in fact possible for tractable all but one-reciprocals, but not for exactly n. The last experiment manipulated monotonicity of the quantifier antecedents. (shrink)

In three experiments, we investigated the computational complexity of German reciprocal sentences with different quantificational antecedents. Building upon the tractable cognition thesis (van Rooij, 2008) and its application to the verification of quantifiers (Szymanik, 2010) we predicted complexity differences among these sentences. Reciprocals with all-antecedents are expected to preferably receive a strong interpretation (Dalrymple et al., 1998), but reciprocals with proportional or numerical quantifier antecedents should be interpreted weakly. Experiment 1, where participants completed pictures according to their preferred interpretation, provides (...) evidence for these predictions. Experiment 2 was a picture verification task. The results show that the strong interpretation was in fact possible for tractable all but one-reciprocals, but not for exactly n. The last experiment manipulated monotonicity of the quantifier antecedents. (shrink)

This paper explores the motivations and experiences of British women working as lap dancers in the tourist resorts of southern Tenerife, with a particular focus on the subjective choices and processes undertaken by working-class women in the embodiment of positively evaluated identities. It uses Skeggs’ theoretical framework of ‘becoming respectable’ (1997) alongside other debates on ‘identity management’ in order to begin mapping the ways in which migrant British lap dancers produce themselves, negotiate gender and class, and seek forms of respectability, (...) reputability and honour through their work. Drawing on empirical data, it will discuss how strong disassociations with the Other are formed, and how and why important binaries, particularly distinctions between lap dancing and prostitution and lap dancing and other ‘degraded’ forms of work and lifestyle are drawn in the dancers’ own stories of themselves. It will look at notions and processes of gaining ‘respectability’ through part of a wider migrant discourse, exploring how being a migrant lap dancer can serve as a vehicle for reproducing a ‘respectable’ and otherwise positively evaluated self on several levels. (shrink)