All accounts of language acquisition agree that, by around age 4, children’s knowledge of grammatical constructions is abstract, rather than tied solely to individual lexical items. The aim of the present research was to investigate, focusing on the passive, whether children’s and adults’ performance is additionally semantically constrained, varying according to the distance between the semantics of the verb and those of the construction. In a forced‐choice pointing study (Experiment 1), both 4‐ to 6‐year olds (N = 60) and adults (...) (N = 60) showed support for the prediction of this semantic construction prototype account of an interaction such that the observed disadvantage for passives as compared to actives (i.e., fewer correct points/longer reaction time) was greater for experiencer‐theme verbs than for agent‐patient and theme‐experiencer verbs (e.g., Bob was seen/hit/frightened by Wendy). Similarly, in a production/priming study (Experiment 2), both 4‐ to 6‐year olds (N = 60) and adults (N = 60) produced fewer passives for experiencer‐theme verbs than for agent‐patient/theme‐experiencer verbs. We conclude that these findings are difficult to explain under accounts based on the notion of A(rgument) movement or of a monostratal, semantics‐free, level of syntax, and instead necessitate some form of semantic construction prototype account. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that children retreat from argument‐structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., *Don’t giggle me) by inferring that frequently encountered verbs are unlikely to be grammatical in unattested constructions, and by making use of syntax‐semantics correspondences (e.g., verbs denoting internally caused actions such as giggling cannot normally be used causatively). The present study tested a new account based on a unitary learning mechanism that combines both of these processes. Seventy‐two participants (ages 5–6, 9–10, and adults) rated overgeneralization errors with higher (...) (*The funny man’s joke giggled Bart) and lower (*The funny man giggled Bart) degrees of direct external causation. The errors with more‐direct causation were rated as less unacceptable than those with less‐direct causation. This finding is consistent with the new account, under which children acquire—in an incremental and probabilistic fashion—the meaning of particular constructions (e.g., transitive causative = direct external causation) and particular verbs, rejecting generalizations where the incompatibility between the two is too great. (shrink)

Whilst certain verbs may appear in both the intransitive inchoative and the transitive causative constructions (The ball rolled/The man rolled the ball), others may appear in only the former (The man laughed/*The joke laughed the man). Some accounts argue that children acquire these restrictions using only (or mainly) statistical learning mechanisms such as entrenchment and pre-emption. Others have argued that verb semantics are also important. To test these competing accounts, adults (Experiment 1) and children aged 5–6 and 9–10 (Experiment 2) (...) were taught novel verbs designed to be construed — on the basis of their semantics — as either intransitive-only or alternating. In support of the latter claim, participants' grammaticality judgments revealed that even the youngest group respected these semantic constraints. Frequency (entrenchment) effects were observed for familiar, but not novel, verbs (Experiment 1). We interpret these findings in the light of a new theoretical account designed to yield effects of both verb semantics and entrenchment/pre-emption. (shrink)

This study examined patterns of auxiliary provision and omission for the auxiliaries BE and HAVE in a longitudinal data set from 11 children between the ages of two and three years. Four possible explanations for auxiliary omission—a lack of lexical knowledge, performance limitations in production, the Optional Infinitive hypothesis, and patterns of auxiliary use in the input—were examined. The data suggest that although none of these accounts provides a full explanation for the pattern of auxiliary use and nonuse observed in (...) children's early speech, integrating input-based and lexical learning-based accounts of early language acquisition within a constructivist approach appears to provide a possible framework in which to understand the patterns of auxiliary use found in the children's speech. The implications of these findings for models of children's early language acquisition are discussed. (shrink)

To explain the phenomenon that certain English verbs resist passivization, Pinker proposed a semantic constraint on the passive in the adult grammar: The greater the extent to which a verb denotes an action where a patient is affected or acted upon, the greater the extent to which it is compatible with the passive. However, a number of comprehension and production priming studies have cast doubt upon this claim, finding no difference between highly affecting agent-patient/theme-experiencer passives and non-actional experiencer theme passives. (...) The present study provides evidence that a semantic constraint is psychologically real, and is readily observed when more fine-grained independent and dependent measures are used. We conclude that a semantic constraint on the passive must be incorporated into accounts of the adult grammar. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), who died at the stake, is one of the best-known symbols of anti-establishment thought. The theme of this volume, which is offered as a collection of essays to honor the distinguished Bruno scholar Hilary Gatti, reflects her constant concern for the principles of cultural freedom and independent thinking. Several essays deal with Bruno himself, including an analysis of the Eroici furori, a study of his reception in relation to the group known as the Novatores, and discussions of (...) several important aspects of his stay in England. The authors and texts discussed here are linked by a relentless interest in the question of authority and originality, and they range from literary figures such as Alberti (1404-72), Vasari (1511-74) and the proponents of quantitative verse in sixteenth-century England to controversial philosophers who, like Bruno, were condemned by the Church, such as Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) and Giulio Cesare Vanini (1585-1619). Taken together, these chapters show how much that was new and revolutionary in early modern culture came from its confrontation with the past. Martin McLaughlin is Agnelli-Serena Professor of Italian at Oxford. Elisabetta Tarantino is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Italian at the University of Warwick. (shrink)

Research using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm (IPLP) has consistently shown that English‐learning children aged 2 can associate transitive argument structure with causal events. However, studies using the same methodology investigating 2‐year‐old children’s knowledge of the conjoined agent intransitive and semantic role assignment have reported inconsistent findings. The aim of the present study was to establish at what age English‐learning children have verb‐general knowledge of both transitive and intransitive argument structure using a new method: the forced‐choice pointing paradigm. The results (...) suggest that young 2‐year‐olds can associate transitive structures with causal (or externally caused) events and can use transitive structure to assign agent and patient roles correctly. However, the children were unable to associate the conjoined agent intransitive with noncausal events until aged 3;4. The results confirm the pattern from previous IPLP studies and indicate that children may develop the ability to comprehend different aspects of argument structure at different ages. The implications for theories of language acquisition and the nature of the language acquisition mechanism are discussed. (shrink)

Eye gaze is a ubiquitous cue in child–caregiver interactions, and infants are highly attentive to eye gaze from very early on. However, the question of why infants show gaze-sensitive behavior, and what role this sensitivity to gaze plays in their language development, is not yet well-understood. To gain a better understanding of the role of eye gaze in infants' language learning, we conducted a broad systematic review of the developmental literature for all studies that investigate the role of eye gaze (...) in infants' language development. Across 77 peer-reviewed articles containing data from typically developing human infants in the domain of language development, we identified two broad themes. The first tracked the effect of eye gaze on four developmental domains: vocabulary development, word–object mapping, object processing, and speech processing. Overall, there is considerable evidence that infants learn more about objects and are more likely to form word–object mappings in the presence of eye gaze cues, both of which are necessary for learning words. In addition, there is good evidence for longitudinal relationships between infants' gaze following abilities and later receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, many domains are understudied; further work is needed to decide whether gaze effects are specific to tasks, such as word–object mapping or whether they reflect a general learning enhancement mechanism. The second theme explored the reasons why eye gaze might be facilitative for learning, addressing the question of whether eye gaze is treated by infants as a specialized socio-cognitive cue. We concluded that the balance of evidence supports the idea that eye gaze facilitates infants' learning by enhancing their arousal, memory, and attentional capacities to a greater extent than other low-level attentional cues. However, as yet, there are too few studies that directly compare the effect of eye gaze cues and non-social, attentional cues for strong conclusions to be drawn. We also suggest that there might be a developmental effect, with eye gaze, over the course of the first 2 years of life, developing into a truly ostensive cue that enhances language learning across the board. (shrink)

This paper argues that consciousness can, and often does, extend beyond the confines of the skull and skin. Conscious acts can extend to the extent they are intentional. Intentionality is revealing activity, and revealing activity often straddles processes occurring both inside and outside the subject’s body. What makes a conscious act extended is identical with what makes it intentional.

One barrier to optimal pain management in the neonatal intensive care unit is how the healthcare community perceives, and therefore manages, neonatal pain. In this paper, we emphasise that healthcare professionals not only have a professional obligation to care for neonates in the NICU, but that these patients are intrinsically worthy of care. We discuss the conditions that make neonates worthy recipients of pain management by highlighting how neonates are vulnerable to pain and harm, and completely dependent on others for (...) pain management. We argue for a relational account of ethical decision-making in the NICU by demonstrating how an increase in vulnerability and dependence may be experienced by the healthcare community and the neonate’s family. Finally, an ethical framework for decisions around neonatal pain management is proposed, focussing on surrogate decision-making and the importance of compassionate action through both a reflective and an affective empathy. As empathy can be highly motivating against pain, we propose that, in addition to educational programs that raise awareness and knowledge of neonatal pain and pain management, healthcare professionals must cultivate empathy in a collective manner, where all members of the NICU team, including parents, are compassionate decision-makers. (shrink)

The train has stopped in the night. It is the end of winter, 1920; it is very cold, about 25 degress below zero, some hundred kilometers west of Irkutsk. Along the train soldiers mount guard; ahead, a party of the detachment is clearing the track. Many of the soldiers have makeshift bandages around their wrists and feet: the Siberian frost has taken its toll. There is no question, however, of withdrawing the guard or stopping the work. This train is the (...) most precious treasure of the Soviet. Republic, transporting the greater part of the State gold reserves: 355 m. tons. Previously housed in the vaults of the Kazan Bank in Tartary by the Tsarist government, it was removed in 1918 by admiral Kolchak; the greatest coup in history! Not that it brought the admiral any good luck: in Siberia, at the height of the civil war, the richest man in the world was only able to get a few shipments of gold through to Vladivostok, to pay his debts to the Americans and buy arms from them. And then Kolchak died: he was shot on February 7th, the gold now returning to Kazan. (shrink)

The ability to explain the occurrence of errors in children's speech is an essential component of successful theories of language acquisition. The present study tested some generativist and constructivist predictions about error on the questions produced by ten English-learning children between 2 and 5 years of age. The analyses demonstrated that, as predicted by some generativist theories [e.g. Santelmann, L., Berk, S., Austin, J., Somashekar, S. & Lust. B. (2002). Continuity and development in the acquisition of inversion in yes/no questions: (...) dissociating movement and inflection, Journal of Child Language, 29, 813-842], questions with auxiliary DO attracted higher error rates than those with modal auxiliaries. However, in wh-questions, questions with modals and DO attracted equally high error rates, and these findings could not be explained in terms of problems forming questions with why or negated auxiliaries. It was concluded that the data might be better explained in terms of a constructivist account that suggests that entrenched item-based constructions may be protected from error in children's speech, and that errors occur when children resort to other operations to produce questions [e.g. Dabrowska, E. (2000). From formula to schema: the acquisition of English questions. Cognitive Liguistics, 11, 83-102; Rowland, C. F. & Pine, J. M. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question acquisition: What children do know? Journal of Child Language, 27, 157-181; Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press]. However, further work on constructivist theory development is required to allow researchers to make predictions about the nature of these operations. (shrink)

Teleological theories of content are thought to suffer from two related difficulties. According to the problem of indeterminacy, biological function is indeterminate in the sense that, in the case of two competing interpretations of the function of an evolved mechanism, there is often no fact of the matter capable of determining which function is the correct one. Therefore, any attempts to construct content out of biological function entail the indeterminacy of content. According to the problem of transparency, statements of biological (...) function are transparent in that a statement of the form 'the function of evolved mechanism M is to represent Fs' can be substituted salva veritate by a statement of the form 'the function of evolved mechanism M is to represent Gs' provided that the statement 'F iff G' is counterfactual supporting. Therefore, any attempt to construct content out of biological function must fail to capture the intensionality of psychological ascriptions. This paper argues that the teleological account is undermined by neither of these problems. Failure to appreciate this point stems from a conflation of two types of proper function - organismic and algorithmic - possessed by an evolved mechanism. These functions underwrite attributions of content to distinct objects. The algorithmic proper function of a mechanism underwrites attributions of content to the mechanism itself, while the organismic proper function of a mechanism underwrites attribution of content to the organism that possesses the mechanism. However the problems of indeterminacy and transparency arise only if the attributions of content attach to the same object. (shrink)

In this insightful study, Barbara M. Rowland analyses and critiques Friedrich Hayek's political philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of Hayek's sceptical epistemology and critical rationalism, the author explores his view of the evolution of civilization, his pessimism about human agency and an accompanying faith in the forces of cultural evolution. She goes on to offer a detailed examination of the inconsistencies in Hayek's philosophy with regard to individual liberty. She then argues for an expanded understanding of liberty and suggests new (...) directions for a philosophy of individual liberty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Search of FaithKate RowlandSometimes I’m jealous of my patients’ faith. As a former happily religious person I miss the benefits I used to get from an active faith. I know that some of my patients must struggle with their faith, and I know the struggle probably affects their well–being. For those who simply believe or those who simply don’t believe, it’s easy. And for those who do believe, (...) there can be so much serenity and so much reward.As a doctor, I spend a lot of time reading science, weighing evidence, and making recommendations. Religion has been a respite from this. Faith, for me, has never been a series of decisions based on the best available evidence. I could analyze it as much as I wanted, peel its layers apart, question it, but in the end, it was just faith, not a hypothesis. It has always been something that I believe (or don’t), and practicing my faith had always been a relatively pleasant decision of figuring out what kind of community I want to share in.My faith life has been in shambles for the past several years. I feel distant from and unwelcome in the church where I was raised, and I haven’t found anywhere else to land. I cannot decide how to raise my own small children. I want them to have grounding in God, but I can’t decide how much I believe in God anymore, and I am fixated on the idea that I don’t want to be hypocritical or lie to [End Page 210] them. I don’t want them to see me worshipping in a way that is not really authentic to me.My husband is agnostic—literally—on the issue. He is open to introducing a loving, kind, forgiving God, but unsure about a God incarnate. We both worry about the identity with a particular religion usurping the actual relationship with God: I am [religion], therefore I believe [this], therefore my God does [this] or is [this].And so all of these fears and doubts have led us to live with no religion, and no outward faith. Our children attend a parochial nursery school run by a religion other than one where we were raised, and they have an apparently happy but neutral opinion of religion and God. They understand ceremonies. At age four, they have a more active faith life than I do, since they attend weekly services at school. But then, they have fewer choices than I do. They do what the teachers tell them. They would do what I told them to do, if I could ever decide what I believed in.I spend so many hours a week with my patients that they have become my main source of demonstration of active, living faith. I know that they share mostly good parts with me. I see so much of the good because I mostly see patients who get to choose how to practice their own religions; they don’t feel oppressed by religious or culturo–religious demands or expectations. It’s interesting that I see the positive sides of their faith, not the struggle, because I otherwise see a lot of the struggling parts of their lives. I see the flinty, edgy woman, the patient who has spent more time in the hospital in the past month than I have, the woman who is sick of her low platelet count that keeps her from living a normal life. And every day she has some message of faith: she tells our medical team what Bible passage is keeping her strong, she tells us how God watches over her when we tell her that her counts are better, she tells us to have a blessed day. Sometimes she curses at the hospital or her condition or at her medications, sometimes at us. So far her faith is unshaken.I take care of a woman who has burning mouth syndrome, a chronic condition that causes her lips, her tongue, and her palate to feel as though they are on fire. Eating makes it worse, drinking makes it worse, breathing makes it worse... (shrink)

Mark Rowlands develops a novel account of remembering in which episodic memories survive in a mutated form after their content has been long forgotten. He dubs this account “Rilkean memories.” I draw from this account to argue that episodic memories of past epistemic harms resulting from Miranda Fricker’s account of testimonial injustice, can persist as embodied behavioral or bodily dispositions that have negative epistemic and practical consequences long after these episodic memories have been forgotten. The way that others judge (...) us as epistemic agents—as people with the capacity to know or the ability to contribute to the pool of knowledge—and following this judgment, treat or fail to treat us as epistemic agents can cause us to adopt attitudes or behaviors with consequences to our epistemic agency. When embodied as Rilkean memories, these attitudes or behaviors raise new difficulties and become quite difficult to eradicate. (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article: Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament. By Carole R. Fontaine. Pp. viii, 279, Sheffield, The Almond Press, 1982, £17.95, £8.95. The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith. By Vesilin Keisch. Pp.206, Crestwood, New York, St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1982, £6.25. The First Day of the New Creation: The Resurrection and the Christian Faith. By Vesilin Keisch. Pp.206, Crestwood, New York, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1982, £6.25. The Resurrection of Jesus: (...) A Jewish Perspective. By Pinchas Lapide. Pp.160, London, SPCK, 1983, 4.95. Easter Enigma. By John Wenham. Pp.162, Exeter, Paternoster Press, 1984, £2.95. The Anastasis: the Resurrection of Jesus as an Historical Event. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. Pp.xiv, 166, Shipston‐on‐Stour, P. Drinkwater, 1982, £5.00. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity. By Christopher Rowland. Pp. xii, 562, London, SPCK, 1982, £22.50. Christianity Rediscovered: An Epistle from the Masai. By Vincent J. Donovan. Pp. viii, 200, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.50. Basics of a Roman Catholic Theology. By William A. Van Roo, S.J. Pp.387, Rome, Gregorian University Press, 1982, $21.00. Charisms and Charismatic Renewal: a Biblical and Theological Study. By Francis A. Sullivan. Pp.184, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1982, £5.95. Holiness and Politics. By Peter Hinchliff. Pp.214, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £8.95. Rational Theology and the Creativity of God. By Keith Ward. Pp.240, Oxford, Blackwell, 1982, £14.00. The Point of Christology. By S.M. Ogden. Pp.xii, 193, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Fullness of Humanity: Christ's Humanness and Ours. By T.E. Pollard. Pp.126, Sheffield, The Almond Press, 1982, £9.95, £5.95. Milton's Good God: A Study in Literary Theodicy. By Dennis Richard Danielson. Pp.xi, 292, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £20.00. Biblical Tradition in Blake's Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art. By Leslie Tannenbaum. Pp.xiii, 373, Princeton University Press, 1982, £17.60. The Inner Journey of the Poet and Other Papers. By Kathleen Raine, edited by Brian Keeble. Pp.xii, 208, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1982, £9.95.iVol. 34: Horayot and Niddah. Translated by Jacob Neusner. Pp.xiii, 243, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1982, £17.50. Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire A.D. 312–460. By Ed. Hunt. Pp. £+ 269, Oxford University Press, 1982, £16.50. Constantine versus Christ: The Triumph of Ideology. By Alistair Kee. Pp.186, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. By Peter Brown. Pp.347, London, Faber and Faber, 1982, £10.50. Elishe: History of Vardan and the Armenian War. Translation and commentary by Robert W. Thomson. Pp.x, 353, 1 map, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £21.00. Ireland in Early Mediaeval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes. Edited by Dorothy Whitelock, Rosamond McKitterick and David Dumville. Pp.x, 406, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £39.00. Letters from Ireland 1228–1229 by Stephen of Lexington. Translated with an introduction by B.W. O'Dwyer. Pp.vii, 292, Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1982, $24.95. The Occupation of Celtic Sites in Ireland by the Canons Regular of St Augustine and the Cistercians. By Geraldine Carville. Pp.ix, 158, Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1982, $13.95. Chartres: The Masons who built a Legend. By John James. Pp.200, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £17.50. Temples, Churches and Mosques: A Guide to the Appreciation of Religious Architecture. By J.G. Davies. Pp.x, 262, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50. The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and their Myth. By Peter Partner. Pp.xxi, 209. Oxford University Press, 1982, £12.95. The Italian Crusades: The Papal‐Angevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343. By Norman Housley. Pp.xi, 293, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1982, £17.50. The Westminster Chronicle, 1381–1394. Edited and Translated by L.C. Hector and Barbara F. Harvey. Pp.lxxvii, 563. Oxford, the Clarendon Press, 1982, £42.00. Frömmigkeitstheologie am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts. By Berndt Hamm. Pp.xv, 378, Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1982, 168 DM. Erasmi Opera omnia, IX, 2: Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Apologia respondens ad ea quae Iambus Lopis Stunica taxavrat in prima duntaxat Novi Testamenti aeditione. Edited by Henk Jan de Jonge. Pp.292, Amsterdam, North‐Holland Publishing Company, 1983, 280 guilders. The Christian Polity of John Calvin. By Harro Höpfl. Pp.x, 303, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £27.50. Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God. By John Calvin, translated with an Introduction by J.K.S. Reid. Pp.191, Cambridge, James Clarke & Co., 1982, £5.95. Spanish Protestants and Reformers in the Sixteenth Century: A Bibliography. By A. Gordon Kinder. Pp.108, London, Grant & Cutler, 1983, £6.80. Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. By Peter Lake. Pp.viii, 357, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £27.50. Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of Elizabethan Catholics. By Peter Holmes. Pp.viii, 279, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £22.50. Dutch Puritanism: A History of English and Scottish Churches of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. By Keith L. Sprunger. Pp.xiii, 485, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1982, 172 guilders. John Toland and the Deist Controversy. By Robert E. Sullivan. Pp.viii, 355, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £19.95. Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England. By Stephen A. Marini. Pp. 213, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £11.55. Religion and Society in North America: An Annotated Bibliography. Edited by Robert deV: Brunkow. Pp.xi, 515, Santa Barbara, ABC‐Clio; Oxford, EBC‐Clio, 1983, £57.75. Charles Lowder and the Ritualist Movement. By Lida Ellsworth. Pp.vi, 234, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1982, £17.95. How the Pope became Infallible: Pius IX and the Politics of Persuasion. By August Bernhard Hasler. Pp.xi, 383, New York, Doubleday, 1981, $14.95; London, Sheldon Pres, 1982, £15.00. Hauptsache der Papst ist katholisch. Edited by Bruno Nies. Pp.104, Salzburg, Otto Müller, 1982, öS 140. Religious Change in Contemporary Poland: Secularization and Politics. By Maciej Pomian‐Srednicki. Pp.227, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £12.50. World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Survey of Churches and Religions in the Modern World. Edited by David B. Barrett. Pp.1010, Nairobi, Oxford University Press, 1982, £55.00. Probability and Evidence. By Paul Horwich. Pp.vii, 146, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £15.00. Philosophical Foundations of Probability Theory. By Roy Weatherford. Pp.xi, 282, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £15.00. The Origins of Greek Thought. By Jean‐Pierre Vernant. Pp.144, London, Methuen, 1982, £9.95. Portraying Analogy. By J.F. Ross. Pp.xi, 244, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £20.00. The Marriage of East and West. By Bede Griffiths. Pp.224, London, Collins, 1982, £5.95. The Religious Experience: A Socio‐Psychological Perspective. By C.D. Batson & W.L. Ventis Pp.ix, 356, New York, Oxford University Press, 1982, £18.50,£9.95. (shrink)

The Bible has influenced contemporary culture both positively and negatively. The present volume is a collection of papers that were discussed at an international colloquium on the use of the Bible in Ethics in the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield in April 1995. Participants came from many parts of the world and from different backgrounds, and the papers reflect their varied interests and the contexts in which they work. The contributors, in addition to the three editors, (...) are John Barton, Bruce Birch, Mark Brett, Mark Chapman, David Clines, Philip Davies, Cheryl Exum, Stephen Fowl, Norman Gottwald, John Haldane, Walter Houston, Sharon Ringe, Chrisopher Rowland, Lisa Sowle Cahill and Gerald West. (shrink)

Remarkably, Mark Rowlands’ new book does something new in the internal- ism/externalism debate. It places the thesis of externalism within a larger, more comprehensive philosophical outlook. The issue has often been debated in what is bound to appear to the non-philosopher as a technical, almost stale fashion. But the issue would not stay with us for so long if it was not pregnant with deeper philosophical significance. Rowlands brings out that significance. He defends the externalist thesis within a (...) more general outlook on mind and reality, thought and world. (shrink)

To adopt a first-person perspective on consciousness is typically understood as a matter of inwardly engaging one's awareness in such a way as to make one's conscious states and their properties into objects of awareness. When awareness is thus inwardly engaged, experience functions as both act and object of awareness. As objects of awareness, an experience-token and its various properties are items of which a subject is aware. As an act of awareness, an experience-token is that in virtue of which (...) items - in this case, other experience-tokens and their properties - can appear, to a subject, as objects of awareness. The precise nature of the relation between experience functioning as act and as object is a matter of dispute. However, two broad possibilities can be distinguished: (1) as acts of awareness, experiences reveal other experiences to subjects by way of a form of direct, unmediated, acquaintance, (2) as acts of awareness experiences reveal other experiences to subjects by way of modes of presentation of those experiences. I shall argue against (1). Possibility (2), I shall argue, entails a form of representationalism about experiences: experiences are defined by their representational role. However, (2) also yields a crucial but largely neglected consequence of representationalism: necessarily, in any given experience, there is an aspect of this experience that must be understood in terms of its representational role but cannot be understood in terms of its representational content. I shall call this the ineliminable intentional core of the experience. The ineliminable intentional core of the experience is, necessarily, not an object of inwardly engaged awareness. This entails a significant revision in the way we think about the concept of the first-person perspective, and of what it is to study consciousness from the inside. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer or as another gender. Trans people have a gender identity that is different from.

It is tempting to think that all of normativity, such as our reasons for action, what we ought to do, and the attitudes that it is fitting for us to have, derives from what is valuable. But value-first approaches to normativity have fallen out of favour as the virtues of reasons- and fittingness-first approaches to normativity have become clear. On these views, value is not explanatorily prior to reasons and fit; rather the value of things is understood in terms of (...) the pro-attitudes it is fitting to have, or that we have reasons to have, towards these things. The value-first accounts of reasons and fit that have been proposed have been direct accounts of reasons and fit. On these views, the fittingness of an attitude is explained in terms of the value of having it or the value of the object of that attitude. This chapter details and surveys these problems, explaining which are yet to be overcome, and explaining which problems direct value-first accounts can overcome. This chapter then explores the prospects of an indirect value-first account of reasons and fit. It argues that it avoids the problems that direct value-first accounts face and may be as explanatorily powerful as fittingness- and reasons-first accounts of value and normativity more generally. (shrink)

By focusing on the idea that agency involves causal sensitivity to reasons, Rowland Stout shows how agency is one of the most useful ways into the philosophy of mind: if one can understand what it is to be a free and rational agent, then one can understand what it is to be a conscious subject of experience. Some of the questions considered include: Is all action intentional action? Is intentional action characterized by its relation with possible justification? Do beliefs motivate (...) actions or do facts? What is the nature of the causal process of acting? Are intentions independent components in the explanation of action? (shrink)

Most of the serious thinking I have done over the past twenty years has been done while running.'Mark Rowlands has run for most of his life. He has also been a professional philosopher. And for him the two - running and philosophising - are inextricably connected. In Running with the Pack he tells us about the most significant runs of his life - from the entire day he spent running as a boy in Wales, to the runs along French (...) beaches and up Irish mountains with his beloved wolf Brenin, and through Florida swamps more recently with his dog Nina. Intertwined with this honest, passionate and witty memoir are the fascinating meditations that those runs triggered. He ends by describing running a mid-life marathon with absolutely no training. Woven throughout the book are profound meditations on mortality, midlife and the meaning of life. This is a highly original and moving book that will make the philosophically inclined want to run, and those who love running become intoxicated by philosophical ideas. (shrink)

In recent years the ways in which humans treat animals has come to hold a central place in contemporary ethics, encapsulating, as it does, our increasingly strained relationship with our environment as well as overlapping with other global issues such as overpopulation and hunger. Animal Rights: All That Matters is a compelling account of some of the often bitterly contentious debates surrounding animal ethics. Starting from the key argument that - ethically speaking - there is far less difference between humans (...) and animals than has conventionally been allowed, Mark Rowlands goes on to explore and illuminate a host of contemporary issues - from farming and animal experimentation to hunting and the preservation of endangered species. This accessible and readable book will appeal to both students and general readers, giving a fascinating introduction to animal rights - and what matters most about them -- P. 4 of cover. (shrink)