(Statement of Responsibility) by Timothy S. Huebner.

Anti-exceptionalists about logic maintain that it is continuous with the empirical sciences. Taking anti-exceptionalism for granted, we argue that traditional approaches to explanation are inadequate in the case of logic. We argue that Andrea Woody's functional analysis of explanation is a better fit with logical practice and accounts better for the explanatory role of logical theories.

Hugh Everett III proposed that a quantum measurement can be treated as an interaction that correlates microscopic and macroscopic systems—particularly when the experimenter herself is included among those macroscopic systems. It has been difficult, however, to determine precisely what this proposal amounts to. Almost without exception, commentators have held that there are ambiguities in Everett’s theory of measurement that result from significant—even embarrassing—omissions. In the present paper, we resist the conclusion that Everett’s proposal is incomplete, and we develop a close (...) reading that accounts for apparent oversights. We begin by taking a look at how Everett set up his project—his method and his criterion of success. Illuminating parallels are found between Everett’s method and then-contemporary thought regarding inter-theoretic reduction. Also, from unpublished papers and correspondence, we are able to piece together how Everett judged the success of his theory of measurement, which completes our account of his intended contribution to the resolution of the quantum measurement problem. (shrink)

Hugh Everett III proposed that a quantum measurement can be treated as an interaction that correlates microscopic and macroscopic systems—particularly when the experimenter herself is included among those macroscopic systems. It has been difficult, however, to determine precisely what this proposal amounts to. Almost without exception, commentators have held that there are ambiguities in Everett’s theory of measurement that result from significant—even embarrassing—omissions. In the present paper, we resist the conclusion that Everett’s proposal is incomplete, and we develop a close (...) reading that accounts for apparent oversights. We begin by taking a look at how Everett set up his project—his method and his criterion of success. Illuminating parallels are found between Everett’s method and then-contemporary thought regarding inter-theoretic reduction. Also, from unpublished papers and correspondence, we are able to piece together how Everett judged the success of his theory of measurement, which completes our account of his intended contribution to the resolution of the quantum measurement problem. (shrink)

This paper provides new theoretical insights into the interconnections and relationships between women, management and globalization in the Middle East (ME). The discussion is positioned within broader globalization debates about women’s social status in ME economies. Based on case study evidence and the UN datasets, the article critiques social, cultural and economic reasons for women’s limited advancement in the public sphere. These include the prevalence of the patriarchal work contract within public and private institutions, as well as cultural and ethical (...) values which create strongly defined gender roles. The discussion examines the complexities of conceptualizing women’s equality and empowerment in Islamic states. The paper reveals that there have been significant achievements in advancing women in leadership and political roles, but that there are still institutional and cultural barriers embedded in business systems. Linking feminist, development and management theoretical strands a development framework is proposed which is sensitive to the Islamic Shar’ia encompassing government, organization and individual level strategies. It is suggested that scholars should integrate literatures from gender and management, development and Middle East studies, and in particular that critical scholars of gender and organization should consider the interrelations of the national and transnational in critiques of contemporary global capitalism to understand the complexity of women and social change in the ME. (shrink)

There is a growing body of empirical evidence which shows that infants and non-human primates have the ability to represent the mental states of other agents, i.e. that they possess a Theory of Mind. We will argue that this evidence also suggests that infants and non-human primates possess the concept of truth, which, as we will explain, is good news for primitivists about truth. First, we will offer a brief overview of alethic primitivism, focusing on Jamin Asay’s conceptual version of (...) the view. Next, we will survey relevant work on Theory of Mind which indicates that children younger than two and non-human primates are able to attribute false beliefs. Then, we will bring these false-belief data to bear on Asay’s form of primitivism, arguing that the data support two of the four distinctive theses of this view and offering some remarks about the empirical evaluability of the two remaining theses. We hope that our discussion will help to bridge the gap between psychological and philosophical inquiry and that it will encourage further empirical research on the cognitive significance of the concept of truth for humans and other thinking creatures. (shrink)

It’s natural for hyperbole to mix with metaphor and irony, and other figures of speech. How do they mix together and what kind of compound, if any, arises out of the mixing? In tackling this question, I shall argue that thinking of hyperbolic figures along the lines familiar from ironic metaphor compounds is a temptation we should resist. Looking in particular at hyperbolic metaphor and hyperbolic irony, I argue, they don’t yield a new encompassing compound figure with one figure building (...) on another. Instead, what we have is one dominant figure colored with hyperbolic tinges. So what does hyperbole bring to the mixing pot? I suggest we should think of hyperbole in hyperbolic figures as being an interpretive effect, modulating the working of the partner figure and thus rendering more emphatic. (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.

In an era of fake news, alternative truths and leaked secrets making constant headlines, we are telling stories about ourselves all the time, and we are telling them in so many different ways. From vlogs and blogs to tweets and posts, from photos and gifs to live streams. From instant updates that disappear to rash words that last for ever and data trails that chart every step we take. While people around her shake their heads and mutter bad things about (...) the new levels of day-to-day deceit, Kathleen Wyatt is busy marvelling at how society manages it. How do we do this extraordinary thing - often under the most ordinary of circumstances? How do we convince each other to suspend disbelief? And why do we do it? In this brilliant, wide-ranging study of lies and lying, Wyatt introduces us to a cast of professionals and professional liars - from scientists to investigators, from double agents to journalists, from toddler specialists to a fallen titan of industry - all to help her prove a remarkable thesis: lies hold us together as much as they push us apart and may be vital in a healthy society"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This study aimed to understand the preserved elements of self-identity in persons with moderate to severe dementia attributable to Alzheimer’s disease. A semi-structured interview was developed to explore the narrative self among residents with dementia in a residential care facility and residents without dementia in an independent living setting. The interviews were transcribed verbatim from audio recordings and analyzed for common themes, while being sensitive to possible differences between the groups. The participants with dementia showed evidence of self-reference even though (...) losses in explicit memory were evident. The most noticeable difference between the two groups was time frame reference. Nonetheless, all participants showed understanding of their role in relationships and exhibited concrete preferences. Our findings suggest that memory loss and other cognitive deficits associated with moderate to severe dementia do not necessarily lead to a loss of “self.”. (shrink)

Compound figures are a rich, and under-explored area for tackling fundamental issues in philosophy of language. This paper explores new ideas about how to explain some features of such figures. We start with an observation from Stern that in ironic-metaphor, metaphor is logically prior to irony in the structure of what is communicated. Call this thesis Logical-MPT. We argue that a speech-act-based explanation of Logical-MPT is to be preferred to a content-based explanation. To create this explanation we draw on Barker’s (...) expressivist speech-act theory, in which speech-acts build on other speech-acts to achieve the desired communicative effects. In particular, we show how Barker’s general ideas explain metaphor as an assertive-act, and irony as a ridiculing-act. We use Barker’s notion of proto-illocutionary-acts to show how metaphorical-acts and ironic-acts can build one on the other. Finally, we show that while an ironic-act can build on a metaphorical-act, a metaphorical-act cannot build on an ironic-act. This restriction on how they can be composed establishes Logical-MPT via a different route. (shrink)

The philosophical legacy of Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, represents a significant contribution to Marxist philosophy. Gramsci breathes new life into the Marxist tradition by infusing Marxism with persistent strands of Italian political thought. Not only does Gramsci turn to the Marxist philosophy of Antonio Labriola, but, furthermore, he reaches outside the Marxist tradition to such non-Marxist thinkers as Giambattista Vico, Niccolo Machiavelli, Gaetano Mosca, Giovanni Gentile, and Benedetto Croce. In particular, it is through his encounter with, (...) and reformulation of, Crocean philosophy that Gramsci lays the foundation for his own open-ended critical philosophy which challenges the universalistic pretensions of traditional interpretations of Marxism as a closed system of unalterable scientific laws and immutable truths. (shrink)

While I appreciate Annette Kolodny's attempt to clarify the aims of feminist criticism, I would like to correct a historical misconception in her recent article, "Some Notes on Defining A 'Feminist Literary Criticism.'" When Kolodny comes to defining a feminist criticism, near the end of the essay, she advocates applying to individual works, without preconceived conclusions, "rigorous methods for analyzing style and image.” . . . Kolodny implies that Hawthorne wrongly condemned domestic novels without having read them and that once (...) he began reading this body of fiction he reversed his views—in short, that his initial response was unthoughtful and, in current jargon, sexist. Second, Kolodny implies that the modern reader will find the domestic novels of the 1850s as fascinating as Hawthorne found Ruth Hall. Beverly Voloshin is a teaching associate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her current area of study is mid-nineteenth-century American domestic fiction. (shrink)

Philosophical views of language have traditionally been focused on notions of truth. This is a reconstructive view in that we try to extract from an utterance in context what the sentence and speaker meaning are. This focus on meaning extraction from word sequences alone, however, is challenged by utterances which combine different types of figures. This paper argues that what appears to be a special case of ironic utterances—ironic metaphorical compounds—sheds light on the requirements for psychological plausibility of a theory (...) of communication and thus presents a different view of communication and language to that dominant in philosophy of language. In the view presented here, the hearer does not extract the speaker’s communicative intention from the sequence of words in the utterance, but from other channels, so as to constrain the inferential space for the sentence and speaker meaning. Specifically, we examine an example of ironic metaphor discussed by Stern. He argues that ironic content is logically dependent on metaphorical content, but makes no claims about how psychologically plausible this is in terms of the processing order. We argue that a straightforward translation of logical order into temporal order makes little sense. The primary sticking point is that without a prior understanding of the speaker’s communicative intentions, it is computationally more challenging to process the sub-component meanings. An alternative solution based on communicative channels leads us to a more psychologically plausible account of the structure of communicative acts and intentions. This provides support for the psychological realism of a richer theory of communicative intent. (shrink)

This article analyzes through a linguistic lens three official documents of the Roman Catholic Church on women’s ordination; it also identifies various discursive tactics utilized by text creators to reinforce gender hierarchy within the Church. Drawing from Fairclough’s three dimensional discourse framework, we examine the ideological message embedded in the linguistic features and the role each text plays within a matrix of power relations. Through close readings of Inter Insigniores: On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood, (...) Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of John Paul II, and Women and the Priesthood, we demonstrate how discourse analysis can serve as a useful tool for identifying logical fallacies, inconsistencies, dilemmas, and manipulative tactics in religious discourses. (shrink)

The use of medical records in research can yield information that is difficult to obtain by other means. When such records are released to investigators in identifiable form, however, substantial privacy and confidentiality risks may be created. These risks become more common and more serious as medical records move to an electronic format. In 1996, the state of Minnesota enacted legislation with respect to consent requirements for the use of medical records in research. This legislation has been widely criticized because—it (...) is claimed—it creates an unnecessary impediment to research. In this article, we show that these arguments rest upon misinterpretation and/or misrepresentation of the 1996 legislation. A consent requirement had actually been present in Minnesota since 1976 (though codified in a patient rights statute rather than a privacy statute). The 1996 law does not require specific consent, as often claimed, but rather only a general authorization. The campaign against the Minnesota legislation appears to have been motivated by concern with respect to the then impending federal privacy rule. The HIPAA rule, as enacted, is in fact less stringent with respect to consent than the Minnesota consent law. On the other hand, the Minnesota consent law has not been effectively applied or enforced. As we change the way we manage sensitive medical information, new efforts are needed to provide protection against the confidentiality risks in research. Patient consent is an important tool in this regard. New instrumentalities are needed to solicit and document consent. (shrink)

In Singapore, the law holds that one person may constitute an illegal assembly. This makes each person, individually and at all times, latently assembled if not actually so. But where exactly does the permissible, non-assembled one end and the unlawful, gathered one begin? How and when does one become more than one, that is, some? For here an excess of one is not many, but rather an indeterminate some. Of what does this someness consist? This essay draws on Foucault and (...) Lacan’s discussion of the liar paradox and set theory’s concept of the “not-all” via Bateson and Kordela to make a few observations about the political subject’s constitution under illiberal democracy. (shrink)

This essay presents an analysis in the area of the theory of human action. Philosophers and pschologists are interested in theories of action because action defines those behaviors that are under our control as opposed to behaviors that in some sense just happen. In its wider context, a theory of action has implications for legal reasoning or moral reasoning. Throughout the history of this topic, one of the leading theories of action has been the volitional theory. Volition, in its simplest (...) sense, refers to an act of will. In this essay, I evaluate the work of Carl Ginet, who is one of the leading modern advocates of the Volitional theory of action. I argue below that Ginet's sophisticated volitional theory of action suffers from certain internal problems that result from Ginet's project of removing causal relations from his account of action. Ultimately, I argue that when he does this, Ginet reduces the theoretical resources for explaning how volition is connected to both overt behavior and to the agent. Furthermore, I belive that elucidating such problems is valuable just because this process reveals why we should focus our efforts upon a leading alternative to the volitional theory, namely the belief/desire theory of action. In the way, my analysis of Ginet reveals the strengths of an externalist rather than an internalist approach to the problem of action. (shrink)

Our time is marked by a resurgence of hate that threatens to increase oppression. Social media has contributed to this by acting as a medium through which hate speech is spread. How should we model the spread of hate? This article considers two models. First, I consider a simple contagion model. In this model, hate spreads like a virus through a social network. This model, however, fails to capture the fact that people do not acquire hatred from a single infectious (...) contact. Instead, it builds up in a person's beliefs and attitudes through time until the infection reaches a level where the subject themselves becomes a generator of hate speech. Second, to accommodate this, I consider an alternative model known as complex contagion. I argue that not only is a complex contagion model more explanatory and predictive, but it can be used to explain why certain features of social media cause it to be a promoter of hate. I conclude by sketching some mitigation strategies. (shrink)

Frege’s distinction between force and sense is a central pillar of modern thinking about meaning. This is the idea that a self-standing utterance of a sentence S can be divided into two components. One is the proposition P that S’s linguistic meaning and context associates with it. The other is S’s illocutionary force. The force/sense distinction is associated with another thesis, the embedding principle, that implies that the only content that embeds in compound sentences is propositional content. We argue that (...) both the Force/Sense distinction and the principle of embedding are seriously challenged by figurative language, and irony in particular. We conclude that theorists need to go back to the drawing board about the nature of illocutionary acts. (shrink)

The core of this article is a comparative analysis of the double movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with the double movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. In both periods the movement toward allegedly self-regulating markets called forth a countermovement of protection. Nevertheless, important differences exist due, first, to differences in the nature of the hegemonic state and, second, to the greater role of subordinate forces in constraining the movement toward self-regulating markets in the (...) late twentieth century. (shrink)

The starting point for this paper is a critical discussion of claims of psychological reality articulated within Borg’s (forth.) minimal semantics and Carpintero’s (2007) character*-semantics. It has been proposed, for independent reasons, that their respective accounts can accommodate, or at least avoid the challenge from psychological evidence. I outline their respective motivations, suggesting various shortcomings in their efforts of preserving the virtues of an uncontaminated semantics in the face of psychological objection (I-II), and try to make the case that, at (...) least for a theory of utterance comprehension, a truth-conditional pragmatic stance is far preferable. An alternative from a relevance-theoretic perspective is offered in terms of mutual adjustment between truth-conditional content and implicature(s), arguing that many “free” pragmatic processes are needed to uncover the truth-conditional content, which can then warrant the expected implicature(s) (III). I finally illustrate the difficulties their accounts have in predicting the correct order of interpretation in cases of ironic metaphor, i.e. metaphor is computed first, as part of truth-conditional content, while irony is inferentially grounded in metaphorical content (IV). (shrink)

This study constitutes a contribution to the discussion about moral reasoning in business. Kohlberg’s (1971, in Cognitive Development and Epistemology (Academic Press, New York), 1976, in Moral Development and Behavior: Theory and Research and Social Issues (Holt, Rienhart and Winston, New York)) cognitive moral development (CMD) theory is one explanation of moral reasoning. One unresolved debate on the topic of CMD is the charge that Kohlbergian-type CMD theory is gender biased. This research puts forth the proposal that the issue may (...) be elucidated by exposing an ambiguity in “gender” (Borna and White: 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 47, 89–99; Gentile: 1993, Psychological Science 4(2), 120–122; Unger: 1979, American Psychologist 34(11), 1085–1094). We use the Sociomoral Reflective Objective Measure (SROM) to measure CMD and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to measure gender as a psychosocial concept, rather than as a biological classification. The results of our study indicate that high femininity, measured as a psychosocial attribute, is associated with significantly lower Kohlbergian-type CMD scores among business practitioners. Sex moderates the effect of gender on CMD, but only indirectly. Our research also reveals that education plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between gender and moral reasoning. In addition, age has a significant direct effect on CMD scores of business practitioners. (shrink)

This article introduces the special issue on middle-range theory in science and technology studies, providing the background to its production and reviewing different notions of “middle.” It begins with Merton's ideas about middle-range theory as a way of moving beyond the production of either descriptions or theories of everything. Instead of seeing the middle as the space between the theoretical imagination and the detailed depiction of everyday practices, the authors outline three ways of thinking about the middle range: as an (...) adjective, the closest to Merton's conception; as a noun, the liminal place between theories, audiences, and levels; and as a verb, a process, a means of making connections across time, discipline, community, and place. A summary of each of the articles in this special issue is provided, preceding a call for further discussion about the role of case studies and the nature of the middle in STS. (shrink)

Many Western environmental activist groups and theorists have sounded the call for the Earth’s salvation from the “global environmental crisis.” What is lacking, however, is some reflection on the ramifications of framing the problem globally and on the justifications for particular solutions. This article examines the “ecomessiah” (saviors of the Earth) phenomenon to investigate the impacts of these types of programs. Specifically, we examine the “global environmental ethic” proposed by J. Baird Callicott. His program, presented as an inclusive system that (...) incorporates non-Western belief systems, trades heavily on Western science as an authority and a justification. We contend that his ethic, although well-intentioned, rests on assumptions and uses of science that subvert both non-Western ideologies and non-Western interests rather than revere them. Consequently, the inherent flaws undermine the feel-good one-world rhetoric that he espouses. (shrink)

Trust is a key concept in business, particularly in electronic commerce. In order to understand online trust, one must first study trust research conducted in the offline world. The findings of such studies, dating from the 1950’s to the present, provide a foundation for online trust theory in e‐commerce. This paper provides an overview of the existing trust literature from the fields of philosophy, psychology, sociology, management, and marketing. Based on these bodies of work, online trust is briefly explored. The (...) range of topics for future research in online trust in e‐commerce is presented. (shrink)