I discuss the connections between rationality and intentional action, emphasising that different kinds of action are rational an intentional in different ways.

Bradley thought that there is a connexion between the theory of reality and the theory of truth. The theory of reality to which he subscribed, Monism, rules out a correspondence theory of truth, he thought, since it denies the existence of a plurality of facts, or things, in virtue of correspondence to which a judgment could be true. But though he rejects the correspondence theory he insists on the independence of truth from belief, wish and hope. For him the test (...) of truth is coherence, which has two aspects, system and comprehensiveness. However, he does not think that this test yields ?absolute? truth. This, he maintains, for at least three different reasons, is unobtainable. Judgments can only be partially true. However, since there are degrees of truth, some judgments are closer to the truth than others, even though none are, or could be, unconditionally true. (shrink)

In ‘A Plea For Excuses’ Austin observes that there are many situations in which a person accused of doing an action A wishes to protest that it is not altogether accurate or fair to say that he did A. The person may wish to excuse himself from an accusation of doing A on the grounds that what happened was inadvertent, or the result of an accident, or done by mistake etc. etc. Moreover if he really has an excuse, then it (...) will no longer be possible simply to say that he did A, because it will be seen that either it is not true that he did anything at all, or that whatever he did it was not A but something else, or that he did A in such a manner that simply to say that he did it would be misleading in the extreme. (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

Features collected extracts from key texts in jurisprudence, with commentary. These discuss the nature of law, and modern attempts to find an acceptable theory of justice. The book is intended for students of law.

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure has exerted a profound influence not only on twentieth century linguistics but on a whole range of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. His central thesis was that the primary object in studying a language is the state of that language at a particular time – a so-called synchronic study. He went on to claim that a language state is a socially constituted system of signs that are quite arbitrary and that can only (...) be defined in terms of their relationship within the system. This new perspective has changed the way people think about linguistics and has led to important attempts to apply structuralist ideas in anthropology, literary criticism, and philosophy. Professor Holdcroft's book expounds and elaborates Saussure's central ideas. It also offers a critical assessment of them, arguing that many of Saussure's claims are either questionable or have been misunderstood. (shrink)

The book presents a theory of illocutionary acts. It argues that the study of speech acts initiatied by Austin complements the truth theoretic approach to speaker meaning. It is shown that there are aspects of speaker meaning which cannot be explained by truth theoretic approaches. Though the nature of a speech act is partially determined by the semantic type of the the sentence uttered the speaker's intention and context of utterance are important also.

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

Women typically report more pain than men, as well as exhibit specific sex differences in the perception and emotional expression of pain. We present evidence that sex is a significant variable in the evolution of facial expression of pain.

Lexical Semantics is about the meaning of words. Although obviously a central concern of linguistics, the semantic behaviour of words has been unduly neglected in the current literature, which has tended to emphasize sentential semantics and its relation to formal systems of logic. In this textbook D. A. Cruse establishes in a principled and disciplined way the descriptive and generalizable facts about lexical relations that any formal theory of semantics will have to encompass. Among the topics covered in depth are (...) idiomaticity, lexical ambiguity, synonymy, hierarchical relations such as hyponymy and meronymy, and various types of oppositeness. Syntagmatic relations are also treated in some detail. The discussions are richly illustrated by examples drawn almost entirely from English. Although a familiarity with traditional grammar is assumed, readers with no technical linguistic background will find the exposition always accessible. All readers with an interest in semantics will find in this original text not only essential background but a stimulating new perspective on the field. (shrink)

A record of the words and teachings of Confucius, _The Analects_ is considered the most reliable expression of Confucian thought. However, the original meaning of Confucius's teachings have been filtered and interpreted by the commentaries of Confucianists of later ages, particularly the Neo-Confucianists of the Song dynasty, not altogether without distortion.In this monumental translation by Professor D. C. Lau, an attempt has been made to interpret the sayings as they stand. The corpus of the sayings is taken as an organic (...) whole and the final test of the interpretation rests on the internal consistency it exhibits. In other words, _The Analects_ is read in the light of _The Analects._This results in a truer understanding of Confucius' thought than the traditional interpretation and paves the way for a re-assessment of its importance in the history of Chinese thought and its relevance to the present day world.This volume also contains an introduction to the life and teachings of Confucius, and three appendices on the events in the life of Confucius, on his disciples, and on the composition of _The Analects._. (shrink)

"By combining recent advances in the physical sciences with some of the novel ideas, techniques, and data of modern biology, this book attempts to achieve a new and different kind of evolutionary synthesis. I found it to be challenging, fascinating, infuriating, and provocative, but certainly not dull."--James H, Brown, University of New Mexico "This book is unquestionably mandatory reading not only for every living biologist but for generations of biologists to come."--Jack P. Hailman, Animal Behaviour , review of the first (...) edition "An important contribution to modern evolutionary thinking. It fortifies the place of Evolutionary Theory among the other well-established natural laws."--R.Gessink, TAXON. (shrink)

Bradley’s first work, The Presuppositions of Critical History, was published in 1874 when he was 28, and was followed shortly by the publication of Ethical Studies ‘in 1876. T.S. Eliot, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Bradley and was a great admirer of not only his philosophy but also his prose, described the British philosopher as a ‘master of style’; but that of The Presuppositions often seems over embellished, even a little pretentious. Moreover, though the argument is dense it is (...) compressed into only forty five pages; and it has to be said that the text is not easy to follow, in part because it is dense, in part because of the style, and in part because it is not immediately apparent how to reconcile its two principal theses. The first of these maintains that historical testimony has to be evaluated from the standpoint of one’s personal scientific beliefs and judgments, so that if what is attested to conflicts with the latter, it cannot be accepted. The second thesis maintains that natural science and history are distinct, thereby denying the positivistic conception of history which is, at first sight anyway, implied by the first thesis. (shrink)