It is a little understood fact that the system of formal logic presented in Wittgenstein?s Tractatusprovides the basis for an alternative general semantics for a predicate calculus that is consistent and coherent, essentially independent of the metaphysics of logical atomism, and philosophically illuminating in its own right. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to describe the general characteristics of a Tractarian-style semantics, to defend the Tractatus system against the charge of expressive incompleteness as levelled by Robert Fogelin, and to (...) give a semantics for a formal language that is the Tractarian equivalent of a first-order predicate calculus. Of note in regard to the latter is the fact that a Tractatusstyle truth-definition makes no appeal to the technical trick of defining truth in terms of the satisfaction of predicates by infinite sequences of objects, yet is materially equivalent to the usual Tarski-style truth-definitions. (shrink)

_The Limits of Utilitarianism _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Many philosophers have argued that utilitarianism is an unacceptable moral theory and that promoting the general welfare is at best only one of the legitimate goals of public policy. Utilitarian principles seem to place no limits on the extent to which society may legitimately interfere with (...) a person's liberties - provided that such actions can be shown to promote the long-term welfare of its members. These issues have played a central role in discussions of utilitarianism since the time of Bentham and Mill. Despite criticisms, utilitarianism remains the most influential and widely accepted moral theory of recent times. In this volume contemporary philosophers address four aspects of utilitarianism: the principle of utility; utilitarianism vis-à-vis contractarianism; welfare; and voluntary cooperation and helping others. The editors provide an introduction and a comprehensive bibliography that covers all books and articles published in utilitarianism since 1930. (shrink)

A correlational pilot study (N = 143) and an integrative data analysis of two experiments (total N = 377) provide evidence linking anger to the psychology of social hierarchy. The experiments demonstrate that the experience of anger increases the psychological accessibility of implicit cognitions related to social hierarchy: compared to participants in a control condition, participants in an anger-priming condition completed word stems with significantly more hierarchy-related words. We found little support for sex differences in the effect of anger on (...) implicit hierarchy-related cognition; effects were equivalent across male and female participants. Findings fit with functionalist evolutionary views of anger suggesting that anger may motivate the use of dominance to strive for high social rank in group hierarchies. Implications for downstream behaviour, including aggression and negotiation, are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundParent-mediated intervention has been studied in promoting skill acquisition or behavior change in the children with autism spectrum disorder. Most studies emphasize on the improvement of child’s core symptoms or maladaptive behaviors, making parental perceived competence and self-efficacy secondary. Yet, the evaluations of intervention implementation are under-reported, especially when translating such interventions into a new population or context. This research investigated the intervention implementation of a 12-week parent coaching intervention which was delivered through telehealth and tailored to Chinese population. The (...) intervention was based on the Parent-mediated Early Start Denver Model with culturally adapted lectures, manuals, and demonstration and commentary videos. This study aimed to evaluate the intervention implementation by assessing parents’ satisfaction, acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility.MethodA randomized controlled trial was conducted with two telehealth conditions: self-directed and web+group therapy. Parents in the self-directed condition received intervention individually through the online learning platform. The web+group therapy condition navigated the same program with weekly 1.5-h group coaching sessions via videoconferencing. This mixed-methods study used a concurrent convergent design to evaluate the intervention implementation at post-intervention. The quantitative data was collected from the Program Evaluation Survey and the qualitative data was collected from five focus groups.ResultsParents in self-directed group reported significantly lower scores in total perceived competence than parents in web+group therapy condition, while there was no group difference on the total self-efficacy. Tailored feedback, demonstration and commentary videos, peer commenting, live coaching, and guided reflection were the top-five acceptable telehealth strategies that were strongly endorsed by parents. Family centered care, home-based intervention, strategies relative to daily activities, the remote learning platform, and the program-based community were elements that parents considered when evaluating the program’s appropriateness. Parent modeling, step-by-step instructions, and tailored feedback were key components in making intervention strategies feasible for parents to implement at home.ConclusionFindings indicate the application of telehealth was acceptable, appropriate, and feasible for Chinese parents. Group-based parent coaching intervention via videoconferencing could be a promising home-based service model to increase parental perceived competence. A large-scale RCT is needed to investigate the effectiveness of group-based PMI via telehealth. (shrink)

This paper examines the outcomes of Preserving the Past Together, a workshop series designed to build the capacity of local heritage managers to engage in collaborative and community-based approaches to archaeology and historic preservation. Over the past two decades practitioners of these approaches have demonstrated the interpretive, methodological, and ethical value of integrating Indigenous perspectives and methods into the process and practice of heritage management and archaeology. Despite these benefits, few professional resources exist to support the development of collaborative relationships (...) between local heritage managers and Tribal nations. Filling this need, Preserving the Past Together’s interactive workshops and keynote lectures involved participants in a discussion of the central themes in collaborative and Indigenous approaches to archaeology today, highlighting the local challenges and opportunities that exist for archaeologists, heritage managers, and Tribal nations to work together to care for the past. This paper presents an overview of the event series’ goals, the strategies it used to foster collaboration among the diverse stakeholders of the Salish Sea, and the next steps the project’s co-directors are taking to further support communication and collaboration between stewards and stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays concerned with the morality of hu man treatment of nonhuman animals. The contributors take very different approaches to their topics and come to widely divergent conclusions. The goal of the volume as a whole is to shed a brighter light upon an aspect of human life-our relations with the other animals-that has recently seen a great increase in interest and in the generation of heat. The discussions and debates contained herein are addressed by (...) the contributors to each other, to the general public, and to the academic world, especially the biological, philosophical, and political parts of that world. The essays are organized into eight sections by topics, each sec tion beginning with a brief introduction linking the papers and the sec tions to one another. There is also a general introduction and an Epilog that suggests alternate possible ways of organizing the material. The first two sections are concerned with the place of animals in the human world: Section I with the ways humans view animals in literature, philosophy, and other parts of human culture, and Section II with the place of animals in human legal and moral community. The next three sections concern comparisons between human and nonhuman animals: Section III on the rights and wrongs of killing, Section IV on the humanity of animals and the animality of humans, and Section V on questions of the conflict of human and animal interests. (shrink)

Debates rage over what kind of literature we should read, what is good and bad literature, and whether in the global, digital age, literature even has a future. But what exactly is literature? Why should we read literature? How do we read literature? These are some of the important questions J. Hillis Miller answers in this beautifully written and passionate book. He begins by asking what literature is, arguing that the answer lies in literature's ability to create an imaginary world (...) simply with words. On Literature also asks the crucial question of why literature has such authority over us. Returning to Plato, Aristotle and the Bible, Miller argues we should continue to read literature because it is part of our basic human need to create imaginary worlds and to have stories. Above all, On Literature is a plea that we continue to read and care about literature. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human (...) history. (shrink)

After rejecting Carruthers' conflation of levels of consciousness as implausible and conceptually muddled, and Carruthers' claim that nonhumans are automata as undermined by evolutionary and ethological considerations, we develop a general criticism of contemporary philosophical approaches which, though recognizing nonhuman consciousness, still see animals as mere receptacles of experiences. This is, we argue, due to the fact that, while in the case of humans we grant a self - something that has not only a descriptive but also a prescriptive side, (...) requiring at least non-interference - in the case of nonhumans we focus only on the descriptive aspects. Consequently, we treat humans as equals whatever their capacities, but we order nonhumans in a hierarchy based on their cognitive level. We conclude that such double standards are not only inconsistent but also self-serving. (shrink)

In this book Fox and Miller define public administration theory and public management doctrine as an orthodoxy that is intellectually bankrupt and democratically unacceptable. Constitutionalism and communitarianism get similar treatment. Next, the authors construct a new theoretical position defined as constructivism and based on critical theory, phenomenology and structuration theory.

Examination of the target article for its relevance to the analysis of private behavior leads to three concerns: the absence of a new methodology for studying private behavior, the undisclosed possibility of interactions, and insufficient attention to the social context of idea generation. Regardless of these concerns, a larger issue remains: Can a science of n = 1 be credible?

In this paper we investigate intergroup conflict and examine the impact of strategies to manage and hopefully reduce it. To do this, we use a probabilistic computer simulation model, based on feedback principles. The model examines how conflict between two groups evolves over time. Group differences and the occurrence of intergroup incidents drive the model. Intergroup hostility which depends on past history, recent conflict incidents, and group differences is the key variable that indicates the proclivity toward conflict between the two (...) groups. We use the model to examine various cases and the effect of conflict management strategies. Based on the model results, we develop some conclusions about the applicability of the findings to actual situations, as well as directions for further research. (shrink)

I want, this morning, to talk about wants, about how what we want makes us who we are, and how some ways of understanding our own wants and the wants of others shape our lives both personally and politically. There are five parts, respectively personal, political, personal, political, personal.