Online research in philosophy

Two somewhat overlooked aspects of information, namely, total involvement and simultaneous presence, are presented, aspects that may be useful in theories of Physics.

We focus on how we should define the relevance of information to a context for information processing agents, such as oracles. We build our formalization of relevance upon works in pragmatics which refer to contextual information without giving any explicit representation of context. We use a formalization of context (due to us) in Situation Theory, and demonstrate its power in this task. We also discuss some computational aspects of this formalization.

The Tractatus contains twodifferent proofs of the Grundgedanke, or thenonreferentiality of logical constants. In thispaper, I explicate the first proof in TLP 5.4s andreconstruct the less explicitly stated second proof. My explication of the first proof shows it to beelegant but based on an invalid inference. In myreconstruction of the second proof, the main argumentis that the sign of a logical constant does not denotebecause it possesses the punctuation-mark-nature. Andit possesses the punctuation-mark-nature because,given the analyticity thesis in TLP 5, one canestablish for everyday language an adequate symbolismwith N as the sole fundamental operation such that itssign is a bar indicating merely the order and scope ofits application.

Weak links, in the form of inadequacies in both reasoning and supporting evidence, exist at several critical steps in the derivation of an hierarchical concept of evolution from punctuated equilibria. Punctuation itself is predicated on a distorted reading of phyletic change as phyletic gradualism, and of allopatric speciation as the instantaneous formation of unchanging typological taxa. The concept of punctuation is further confounded by the indescriminate employment of the same term to denote both a causal explanation for evolutionary change and an outcome of substantiated evolutionary processes. Even when the intended usage for the term is specified, each denotation of punctuation entails respective drawbacks. As a causal explanation, punctuation clearly belongs to the class of quantum theories with all their attendant impedimenta, including special salsatory non-adaptive mechanisms of evolutionary change. Redefinition of punctuation as a pattern of morphologic change reduces it to one possible outcome of known microevolutioanry processes, thus obviating any need for an hierarchical explanation of macroevolution. While vacillation between usages has preserved the term in the literature, the end result of this obfuscation has been a circle of faulty reasoning in which the pattern of punctuation is invoked as its own proof. Widespread confusion concerning what constitutes an adequate test of punctuation is directly attributable to imprecision in both the original and revised formulations of the concept.The argument for species-level selection is based on the typological and philosphically flawed premise of species as individuals, and further requires the hypothesis of heritable emergent properties, for which empirical evidence is lacking.

This document provides a system of punctuation that is based on the syntax of English sentences. It accords with the practice of leading publishers, and it conforms to the recommendations of such publications as The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage. Skillful writers often punctuate in ways that violate this system of punctuation, but they have earned the right to do so: they know what they are doing and why. If you master the system presented in this document, you will not make errors of punctuation that teachers and editors will want to correct. You will also have the ability to justify your occasional departures from the rules: you will understand why your usage is preferable in the circumstances.

This document provides a system of punctuation that is based on the syntax of English sentences. It accords with the practice of leading publishers, and it conforms to the recommendations of such publications as The New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage. Skillful writers often punctuate in ways that violate this system of punctuation, but they have earned the right to do so: they know what they are doing and why. If you master the system presented in this document, you will not make errors of punctuation that teachers and editors will want to correct. You will also have the ability to justify your occasional departures from the rules: you will understand why your usage is preferable in the circumstances.

We take em-dash as our sample punctuation mark and examine its usage from a discourse perspective, using sentences from well-known corpora. We particularly comment on how dashes can give hints on information structure, focus, and anaphora. Throughout the paper Discourse Representation Theory is used as a framework. Keywords: Punctuation, Discourse, Discourse Representation Theory, Information Structure..

Some recent studies in computational linguistics have aimed to take advantage of various cues presented by punctuation marks. This short survey is intended to summarise these research efforts and additionally, to outline a current perspective for the usage and functions of punctuation marks. We conclude by presenting an information-based framework for punctuation, influenced by treatments of several related phenomena in computational linguistics.

Punctuation has so far attracted attention within the linguistics community mostly from a syntactic perspective. In this paper, we give a preliminary account of the information-based aspects of punctuation, drawing our points from assorted, naturally occurring sentences. We present our formal models of these sentences and the semantic contributions of punctuation marks. Our formalism is a simpli ed analogue of an extension|due to Nicholas Asher|of Discourse Representation Theory.