The present paper studies the general implications of theprinciple of compositionality for the organization of grammar.It will be argued that Janssen''s (1986) requirement that syntax andsemantics be similar algebras is too strong, and that the moreliberal requirement that syntax be interpretable into semanticsleads to a formalization that can be motivated and applied more easily,while it avoids the complications that encumber Janssen''s formalization.Moreover, it will be shown that this alternative formalization evenallows one to further complete the formal theory of compositionality, inthat (...) it is capable of clarifying the role played by translation,model-theoretic interpretation and meaning postulates,of which the latter two aspects received little or no attention inMontague (1970) and Janssen (1986). (shrink)
Vital Democracy outlines a theory of democracy in action, based on four elementary forms of democracy - pendulum, consensus, voter and participatory democracy - that are thoroughly analysed, compared and related to both the literature and the real world of democracy. Just like a few primary colours produce an array of shades, a few basic models of democracy appear, the author argues, to constitute a wide range of democratic variants in real life. Focusing on tried and tested democratic institutions, Frank (...)Hendriks shows that the four models of democracy - with their divergent patterns of leadership, citizenship and governance, their inherent strengths and weaknesses - are never purely instantiated. He argues that wherever democracy is practiced with some level of success, it is always as hybrid democracy, thereby challenging those democratic reformers and theorists that have inspired the quest for democratic purity. -/- Vital Democracy builds on Arend Lijphart's well-known work which distinguishes between majoritarian and consensual democratic countries but also goes well beyond it, urging attention to non-national, non-formal, and non-representative expressions of democracy as well. (shrink)
Richard Henson attempts to take the sting out of this view of Kant on moral worth by arguing (i) that attending to the phenomenon of the overdetermination of actions leads one to see that Kant might have had two distinct views of moral worth, only one of which requires the absence of cooperating inclinations, and (ii) that when Kant insists that there is moral worth only when an action is done from the motive of duty alone, he need not also (...) hold that such a state of affairs is morally better, all things considered, than one where supporting inclination is present. Henson's proposals seem to me both serious and plausible. I do not think that either of his models, in the end, can take on the role Kant assigns to moral worth in the argument of the Groundwork. But seeing the ways Henson's account diverges from Kant's makes clearer what Kant intended in his discussion of those actions he credits with moral worth. [...] An action has moral worth if it is required by duty and has as its primary motive the motive of duty. The motive of duty need not reflect the only interest the agent has in the action (or its effect); it must, however, be the interest that determines the agent's acting as he did. (shrink)
If, as Kant says, "the will is practical reason", we should think of willing as a mode of reasoning, and its activity represented in movement from evaluative premises to intention by way of a validity-securing principle of inference. Such a view of willing takes motive and rational choice out of empirical psychology, thereby eliminating grounds for many familiar objections to Kant's account of morally good action. The categorical imperative provides the fundamental principle of valid practical inference; however, for good willing, (...) we also require correct premises. These come from specifications of the two obligatory ends - our own perfection and the happiness of others. Interpreting good willing as good reasoning not only fits well with Kant's metaphysics of free action, it also offers a sound method for reasoning to and about individual as well as role-dependent moral obligations. (shrink)
Making room for character -- Pluralism and the community of moral judgment -- A cosmopolitan kingdom of ends --Responsibility and moral competence --Can virtue be taught?: the problem of new moral facts -- Training to autonomy: Kant and the question of moral education -- Bootstrapping -- Rethinking Kant's hedonism -- The scope of moral requirement -- The will and its objects -- Obligatory ends -- Moral improvisation -- Contingency in obligation.
The essays in this volume offer an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. All the contributors are philosophers who have studied with Rawls and they offer this collection in his honor. The distinctive feature of this approach is to address substantive normative questions in moral and political philosophy through an analysis of the texts and theories of major figures in the history of the subject: Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, and (...) Marx. By reconstructing the core of these theories in a way that is informed by contemporary theoretical concerns, the contributors show how the history of the subject is a resource for understanding present and perennial problems in moral and political philosophy. This outstanding collection will be of particular interest to historians of moral and political philosophy, historians of ideas, and political scientists. (shrink)
Many social situations require a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, goals, and intentions of others: a Theory of Mind (ToM). If a person can reason about other people’s beliefs about his own beliefs or intentions, he is demonstrating second-order ToM reasoning. A standard task to test second-order ToM reasoning is the second-order false belief task. A different approach to investigating ToM reasoning is through its application in a strategic game. Another task that is believed to involve the application of (...) second-order ToM is the comprehension of sentences that the hearer can only understand by considering the speaker’s alternatives. In this study we tested 40 children between 8 and 10 years old and 27 adult controls on (adaptations of) the three tasks mentioned above: the false belief task, a strategic game, and a sentence comprehension task. The results show interesting differences between adults and children, between the three tasks, and between this study and previous research. (shrink)
The neutralization of contrasts in form or meaning that is sometimes observed in language production and comprehension is at odds with the classical view that language is a systematic one-to-one pairing of forms and meanings. This special issue is concerned with patterns of forms and meanings in language. The papers in this special issue arose from a series of workshops that were organized to explore variants of bidirectional Optimality Theory and Game Theory as models of the interplay between the speaker’s (...) and the hearer’s perspective. (shrink)
Abstract In discussing the meaning of life in the Bhagavad Git? two obvious questions arise: first, what is the meaning of ?the meaning of life'?, and second, how does that meaning apply to the Bhagavad Git?? In Part I of this brief paper I will attempt to answer the first question by focusing on one of the common meanings of that phrase; in Part II, I will apply that very common meaning to the Bhagavad Git?; and in the third and (...) final part, I will point to a puzzle, the paradox of the jivanmukta, that would seem to follow from the discussion in the first two parts of this paper. My own feeling is that the concept of ?the meaning of life? is a Western invention [1]. This being so, perhaps it would be wise to probe for that concept and its meaning among Western authors. We turn first, then, to one ancient writer, Aristotle of Stagira, and conclude Part I with a modern writer also concerned with the meaning of life, Albert Camus. (shrink)
The two statements quoted above bring out some central features of modern Latin America. A close study of recent trends including the specific totalitarian ideology of the generals, the system of ideological manipulation and terror, the diaspora, and the defensive response of the churches (and their harassment by the military juntas) reveals startling similarities with patterns of thought and behavior under European fascism, especially under Nazism. Fascist ideology has flowed into Latin American directly and indirectly. Large numbers of Nazi refugees (...) came to Latin America during and after World War II, and important ingredients of fascist ideology have been indirectly routed into that area through the U.S. military and intelligence establishment. Whatever the source, however, it has met a need of the local and foreign elites that dominate the area, and has been modified to meet their special requirements. (shrink)
Because the propaganda model challenges basic premises and suggests that the media serve antidemocratic ends, it is commonly excluded from mainstream debates on media bias. Such debates typically include conservatives, who criticize the media for excessive liberalism and an adversarial stance toward government and business, and centrists and liberals, who deny the charge of adversarialism and contend that the media behave fairly and responsibly. The exclusion of the propaganda model perspective is noteworthy, for one reason, because that perspective is consistent (...) with long standing and widely held elite views that 'the masses are notoriously short-sighted' (Bailey 1948: 13) and are 'often poor judges of their own interests' (Lasswell 1933: 527), so that 'our statesmen must deceive them' (Bailey 1948: 13); and they 'can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality' (Walter Lippmann 1921: 310). In Lippmann's view, the 'manufacture of consent' by an elite class had already become 'a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government' by the 1920s (Lippman 1921: 248). (shrink)
The aim of this article is to elucidate the processes that characterize natural language interpretation. The basic hypothesis is that natural language interpretation can be characterized as an optimization problem. This innovative view on interpretation is shown to account for the crucial role of contextual information while avoiding certain well-known problems associated withcompositionality. This will become particularly clear in the context of incomplete expressions. Our approach takes as a point of departure total freedom ofinterpretation in combination with the parallel application (...) of soft constraints on possible interpretations. These constraints can be contextual, intonational or syntactic in nature. The integration of pragmatic andsyntactic/semantic information in a system of ranked constraints is proposed to correctly derive the optimal interpretations in cases of nominal anaphorization, determiner quantification and elliptical comparatives. (shrink)
The aim of this article is to investigate whether choosing the appropriate referring expression requires taking into account the hearer’s perspective, as is predicted under some versions of bidirectional Optimality Theory but is unexpected under other versions. We did this by comparing the results of 25 young and 25 elderly adults on an elicitation task based on eight different picture stories, and a comprehension task based on eight similar written stories. With respect to the elicitation task, we found that elderly (...) adults produce pronouns significantly more often than young adults when referring to the old topic in the presence of a new topic. With respect to the comprehension task, no significant differences were found between elderly and young adults. These results support the hypothesis that speakers optimize bidirectionally and take into account hearers when selecting a referring expression. If the use of a pronoun will lead to an unintended interpretation by the hearer, the speaker will use an unambiguous definite noun phrase instead. Because elderly adults are more limited in their processing capacities, as is indicated by their smaller working memory capacity, as speakers they will not always be able to reason about the hearer’s choices. As a result, they frequently produce non-recoverable pronouns. (shrink)
" The primary U.S. goal in the Third World is to ensure that it remains open to U.S. economic penetration and political control. Failing this the United States exerts every effort to..
The work ethic has been deeply challenged by two trends – the division of labor and the destruction of continuity in employment. Here a narrative model is proposed for reconstructing the work ethic. Narratives embody assumptions about the flow of time, and work becomes charged with meaning when "contractual time" is interrupted, when new functions are invented to cope with obstacles having to do human character and action. Content for this abstract model is provided by four historical movements in the (...) U.S. having to do with the reorganization of work or work relations: scientific management, the human-relations movement, the human-potential movement, and early management thought. (shrink)
Dutch allows for variation as to whether the first position in the sentence is occupied by the subject or by some other constituent, such as the direct object. In particular situations, however, this commonly observed variation in word order is ‘frozen’ and only the subject appears in first position. We hypothesize that this partial freezing of word order in Dutch can be explained from the dependence of the speaker’s choice of word order on the hearer’s interpretation of this word order. (...) A formal model of this interaction between the speaker’s perspective and the hearer’s perspective is presented in terms of bidirectional Optimality Theory. Empirical predictions of this model regarding the interaction between word order and definiteness are confirmed by a quantitative corpus study. (shrink)
The Health Council of the Netherlands is an independent scientific advisory board to the Dutch government in matters of public health. In this article we argue that even for an independent body such as the Health Council there seems to be no escape from the increasing intertwinement of scientific and societal processes. In order to produce a serviceable truth for policymaking, the council needs to reflect on what goes on in its socio-political surroundings. On the other hand, how could we (...) ever come to understand the legitimacy of the council when notions of scientific objectivity dissolve in such a reflexive, inherently political stance? In a situation where science and society are thoroughly interrelated, the Health Council somehow succeeds in bringing about or re-claiming some sense of objectivity. Our central question will be how to conceptualise this notion of 'objectivity' without having to rely on idealized notions of objectivity that are criticized in philosophical, sociological and historical studies of science and society. In order to do so, we will regard the objectivity of advisory reports of the Health Council as being constructed out of heterogeneous elements and under complex circumstances. The theoretical point will be empirically underpinned with case material drawn from activities of the Health Council in the period 1985-2002 in predominantly the subject areas healthcare and medical technology. (shrink)
My paper picks up a long ignored suggestion of Sheldon Wolin - that we use Thomas Kuhn''s analysis of scientific revolutions to examine the crisis of "normal" political science. This approach allows us to see the connection between the state of the discipline and the larger crisis of meaning afflicting modernity. I then use Eric Voegelin''s notion of a multicivilizational "truth quest" - or search for meaning - to make a case for institutionalizing "extraordinary" or "revolutionary" political science. I attempt (...) such a discipline by following Voegelin - reflecting on "the full amplitude of human experience." Such a meditation takes place within the "first reality of existence" - Plato''s metaxy or the "in-between" - the experience of human existence between the sacred and the mundane. I bring to Voegelin''s exploration of the metaxy the realm of experience which is most radically "other" for modernity - the primal political order of paleolithic and contemporary hunting gathering societies. I argue that shamanic "Urreligion" and Socratic discussion share a boundary crossing logic which provides a basis for a discipline of "extraordinary political science." Finally I suggest that such a discipline is both the quest for, and, in a sense, a realization of, the Good Life - a source of order for the individual and society. (shrink)
Abstract There is one assumption that is shared by practically all popular religious and philosophic systems, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western. In truth it may well be that it is this single assumption which makes such ?systems? possible. That shared assumption is the belief in a ?just universe?, i.e. ?just? in the sense of morally ordered, morally predictable and morally explainable. This assumption rests, as most assumptions must, on pragmatic grounds; that is to say, the assumption is retained or (...) used because it gets the users where they want to go, i.e. the assumption works. But if it could be shown that this assumption, aside from being useful, leads to insuperable logical or empirical problems, then this might be prima facie grounds for rejecting the assumption. Part I examines the historical roots of the assumption of a just universe. Part II, examines three implications that would seem to follow from the assumption that the universe, the world, is a just place in which to live. Part III explores the unacceptable consequences that are found in and that follow from these three implications and that necessitate the rejection of the assumption of the just universe of Part I. (shrink)
Abstract: Contrary to criticisms by Thomas McInerney,Durable Goods proposes a realistic and empirically testable “covenantal” ethic for moving management and labor beyond tactics of mutual coercion and evasion. Nonetheless, two questions asked by McInerney remain germane. First, should the moral claims of management and labor always receive equal moral consideration, as a matter of justice? To this substantive question Durable Goods admittedly provides a less than satisfactory answer. Second, can the normative theory proposed by Durable Goods, based in part as (...) it is on the Bible, meet the standards of cogency, coherence, and parsimony appropriate to business ethics as a field of rigorous inquiry? This methodological question remains unaddressed. (shrink)
In this manuscript Hobson et al. propose a model exploring qualitative differences between the three states of consciousness, waking, NREM sleep, and REM sleep, in terms of state-related brain activity. The model consists of three factors, each of which varies along a continuum, creating a three-dimensional space: activation (A), information flow (I), and mode of information processing (M). Hobson has described these factors previously (1990; 1992a). Two of the dimensions, activation and modulation, deal directly with subcortical influences upon cortical structures (...) – the reticular activation system, with regard to the activation dimension and the locus coeruleus and the pontine raphe neuclei, with regard to the modulation dimension. The focus of this review is a further exploration of the interaction between dreaming and the cortical and subcortical structures relevant to REM sleep eye movements. [Hobson et al. ]. (shrink)
Edward Conze once observed of the thirty-eight books constituting the Praj p ramit S tras that their central message could be summed up in two sentences: (1) One should become a Bodhisattva (or Buddha-to-be), i.e. one who is content with nothing less than all-knowledge attained through the perfection of wisdom for the sake of all beings. (2) There is no such thing as a Bodhisattva or as all-knowledge or as a being or as the perfection of wisdom or as an (...) attainment. [1] It seems to me that Conze was profoundly correct, as far as he went, and that what he said of the Praj p ramit literary corpus might apply to other Mah y na S tras , as well. One test of this broad application of Conze's observation to the whole of the Mah y na scriptural tradition lies in a close reading of one of the Mah y na S tras from that tradition, the Saddharmapundarika S tra, “the scripture of the lotus blossom of the wonderful law”, or the Lotus S utra . The Lotus S tra not only makes Conze's point, as I shall try to show, but it goes further in offering a new middle path between the two summary sentences above. In doing this it brings forth a practical ethical-religious way for Buddhists and others to follow who will be caught in the sufferings and terrors of the 21st century. We shall refer to this way as “the way of the Lotus” or “the Lotus way”. In what follows I want to attempt three things. First, using Edward Conze's summary sentences above, I identify and explicate three ways to liberation in the Lotus Sutra , viz. the way of ethics and attachment, i.e. “the Bodhisattva way” ("One should become a Bodhisattva...”); next, the way of emptiness and unattachment, i.e. “the Buddha way” ("There is no such thing as a Bodhisattva...”); and, finally, the Lotus way wherein the Bodhisattva way and the Buddha way combine to form a single and powerful new way of liberation. This third way is indirectly referred to in the remark which Edward Conze makes in his summary of the Praj p ramit immediately following his previous two sentences: “To accept both of these contradictory facts is to be perfect”. [2] To accept the Bodhisattva way together with the Buddha way yields the Lotus way. Second, I demonstrate the significance of the Lotus way as a practical way of solving moral problems for Buddhists and others in the 21st century. Third, and finally, I raise and attempt to answer and solve several questions and puzzles about the Lotus way as a way to peace and liberation for Buddhists and others in the 21st century. (shrink)
An intercultural framework for servanthood was explored in three Christian community projects. The framework consists of six basic principles, as defined by Duane Elmer, namely openness, acceptance, trust, learning, understanding and serving. This framework is brought into conversation with Miroslav Volf's metaphor of an embrace. In all of this koinonia and diaconia play a pivotal role - especially in the relationship between the two modi. With this hermeneutical framework as point of departure, an empirical study was undertaken to discern the (...) processes and structures within intercultural Christian community projects; and to evaluate the transformation in relationships and the sustainability of the development projects. (shrink)
How does faith-based social involvement within a cultural diverse society express itself? Is the focus pure social outreach, that is, the rendering of services, or should the focus include meaningful interaction between the so called 'outreacher' and those being supported by the outreach? This article looks at the relationship between koinonia and diaconia in the creation of an intercultural space where individuals from different contexts are welcomed and supported in a mutual way. Through an interdisciplinary approach this article reflects on (...) the experience of koinonia and diaconia in the mission of the church by bringing it into an interdisciplinary conversation with Sociology. God's reign become visible if koinonia and diaconia can dance together! (shrink)
Analysts studying the nexus between language and ethnic identity have characterized ethnolinguistic ideologies as the deep structure of overt language practices. By contrast, this exploratory analysis argues for the advantages of shifting from a multi-level to a single-level explanatory model, consisting of interpretive frames and data (= aspects of sociocommunicative behavior) interpreted by way of those frames. The single-level model affords, arguably, a more unified treatment of people’s everyday inferences about ethnolinguistic identity, on the one hand, and research paradigms for (...) studying language as an ethnosemiotic resource, on the other hand. Yet the “singletiered” model does not void socioideological considerations. Instead, it assumes that a continuum stretches between (1) entrenched language prejudices, (2) efforts to use language theory to question or dislodge such prejudices, and (3) the moment-by-moment hypotheses and inferences in terms of which humans make sense of their conspecifics’ linguistic behavior, along with other ethnosemiotic cues. (shrink)
This essay sketches a method for identifying the insights that diverse religious traditions offer to the field of business ethics. Each article in this volume asserts or assumes faith-based claims about what is "truly real" as the ground of moral aspiration and obligation. Four distinct kinds of claims yield four kinds of wisdom, that is, moral guidance for business practice. 1) In Judaism and Islam, scriptural commands, as interpreted authoritatively down through these traditions, yield precise methods for rendering specific moral (...) judgments; in Roman Catholicism, similar guidance is provided through natural law. 2) In Buddhism, Judaism, and most of the surveyed Christian traditions, the values of compassion, love, and justice provide spiritual resources to counter pressures towards immoral behavior in business. 3) The African-American and Mennonite churches interpret their particular histories of oppression to offer distinctive models of fortitude and hope. 4) In Evangelical Calvinism, Mormonism, and Roman Catholic social teaching, convictions about God's redemptive and sanctifying activity offer a robust moral vision for successful striving. (shrink)
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Herman Dooyeweerd’s New Critique of Theoretical Thought in 1985 and the 10th anniversary of his death in 1987, I explore his theory of theory. Dooyeweerd distinguished theory as conceptual knowledge of abstracted functions from everyday knowing as integrated knowledge of wholes. He tried to show that critical theorizing requires philosophical integration, self-awareness, and religious knowledge of the origin of ourselves and creation. In the course of developing his view Dooyeweerd touched on (...) many issues that are still current for us today, in particular issues around foundationalism. A brief evaluation in the context of our contemporary philosophical scene closes the essay. (shrink)
This paper develops an interpretation of the relationship between Kant's various formulations of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork that steers a middle course between the formal and substantive poles of the interpretive spectrum, represented by John Rawls and Barbara Herman, respectively. Accepting and rejecting key aspects of both Rawls's and Herman's interpretations, I argue that the first formulation, understood correctly, does suffice to determine all Kantian moral duties, but only if duties are regarded as situation-specific rather than (...) standing obligations. I also argue, however, that the second and third formulations provide information that is necessary for understanding and applying the first formulation to determine one's duty correctly, and that the formulations are in a sense equivalent even though each plays a distinctive and important role. (shrink)
In the early eighteenth century, chemistry became the main academic locus where, in Francis Bacon's words, Experimenta lucifera were performed alongside Experimenta fructifera and where natural philosophy was coupled with natural history and 'experimental history' in the Baconian and Boyleian sense of an inventory and exploration of the extant operations of the arts and crafts. The Dutch social and political system and the institutional setting of the university of Leiden endorsed this empiricist, utilitarian orientation toward the sciences, which was forcefully (...) propagated by one of the university's most famous representatives in the first half of the eighteenth century, the professor of medicine, botany and chemistry Herman Boerhaave. Recent historical investigations on Boerhaave's chemistry have provided important insights into Boerhaave's religious background, his theoretical and philosophical goals, and his pedagogical agenda. But comparatively little attention has been paid to the chemical experiments presented in Boerhaave's famous chemical textbook, the Elementa chemiae, and to the question of how these experiments relate not only to experimental philosophy but also to experimental history and natural history, and to contemporary utilitarianism. I argue in this essay that Boerhaave shared a strong commitment to Baconian utilitarianism and empiricism with many other European chemists around the middle of the eighteenth century, in particular to what Bacon designated 'experimental history' and I will provide evidence for this claim through a careful analysis of Boerhaave's plant-chemical experiments presented in the Elementa chemiae. (shrink)
