Silent gesture is not considered to be linguistic, on par with spoken and sign languages. It is claimed that silent gestures, unlike language, represent events holistically, without compositional structure. However, recent research has demonstrated that gesturers use consistent strategies when representing objects and events, and that there are behavioral and clinically relevant limits on what form a gesture may take to effect a particular meaning. This systematicity challenges a holistic interpretation of silent gesture, which predicts that there should be no (...) stable form‐meaning correspondence across event representations. Here, we demonstrate to the contrary that untrained gesturers systematically manipulate the form of their gestures when representing events with and without a theme (e.g., Someone popped the balloon vs. Someone walked), that is, transitive and intransitive events. We elicited silent gestures and annotated them for manual features active in coding transitivity distinctions in sign languages. We trained linear support vector machines to make item‐by‐item transitivity predictions based on these features. Prediction accuracy was good across the entire dataset, thus demonstrating that systematicity in silent gesture can be explained with recourse to subunits. We argue that handshape features are constructs co‐opted from cognitive systems subserving manual action production and comprehension for communicative purposes, which may integrate into the linguistic system of emerging sign languages. We further suggest that nonsigners tend to map event participants to each hand, a strategy found across genetically and geographically distinct sign languages, suggesting the strategy's cognitive foundation. (shrink)

In advocating that we extend our experiment in political democracy in America to include economic democracy as well, the Bishops' Letter assumes the basic social nature of man. This leaves an enormous gap between the values and attitudes they recommend and the private and individualistic view of man that undergirds our traditional economic thinking. This essay attempts to bridge that gap in terms of a theory of practice, individual in emphasis, but bringing out the enabling conditions of any and all (...) practice without which practice would not be possible. It is suggested that these presuppositions of practice function normatively in all practice, economic as well as other types, and ought to be of interest to the practice of any adequately self-interested individual. They constitute a large part of what we used to call the "public interest". (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that corporate activity can best be understood on analogy with the acitivity of persons. The ground for this analogy lies in the nature of activity itself which is common to both and to find a ground therein an analysis of the features of activity is presented based upon a comparison of activity and process by Alburey Castell. Activity is said to be bi-polar with one pole the purpose or goal to be handled in utilitarean (...) fashion and the other pole concerned with the maintenance of the presuppositions of activity.While any goal chosen will have hypothetical oughts as its conditions, it is argued that the presuppositions of activity are categorical oughts in that they cannot be denied without asserting them. And since one of these presuppositions is freedom of choice, thus giving activity the power to destroy its own possibility, these presuppositions function in the context of practice as categorical norms and are universal in their applicability as preserving the possibility of responsible activity for everyone else as well as myself. All activity whether it be other-regarding or self-regarding (self-interest in the business world) is subject to the norms of its own possibility, its enabling conditions, and this constitutes the moral ground for personal, managerial and a basis for inquiry into corporate responsibility. (shrink)

First Published in 1971, Human Values and the Mind of Man examines how value questions have been treated in traditional theories of human nature. The book presents an interdisciplinary dialogue centred around the 'human mind'.

It is not easy to summarize what has been suggested in this essay. But in greatly simplified terms, something like this may serve.The understanding which comes through education increases the power of man over himself and his world; it increases his awareness, his capacity to influence, to accept and to enjoy. Everybody knows these things, but an explanation of how this power arises has been attempted. To do this, understanding, was said to be a process, a dynamic act, and four (...) perspectives on this act, each showing one of the ways in which power is created have been presented.First, it was suggested that thought is the process of discriminating the field of feeling. This implies a much closer connection between thought and feeling than is ordinarily held. The particular power here is expressed in terms of the idea that the form of thought both expresses and limits at the same time. Due to this you get clear elements not only expressed in their own right, but deriving part of their clarity and individuality because of their explicit exclusion from other elements of the same field. Second, the power of knowing was explained as due to the tension between levels of significance It was suggested that concepts are fields of meaning composed of mutually constituting levels or particularity and generality.Third, it was suggested that the power of knowing comes through the extension of the range of significant feeling through the use of imagination.Finally, the double aspect of consciousness, which allows man both to do something consciously and to guide such doing self-consciously, was indicated as of major importance to the power and practice of a liberal education because it constitutes the power which frees man from himself.No one can liberate another person by organizing his experience for him. That he must do for himself; it is his life. But educators are in the business of disciplining the student in the truly human fashion which includes the organization of our experience in terms of dynamically interacting levels of generality and significance, the objectifying and clarifying of the field of feeling through thought, the broadening and deepening of that range of feeling through the imaginative projection of possibilities for feeling, as well as the steady consciousness of self that frees man from himself.These four aspects constitute the power which man's nature gives to him alone. It is because of this power that man has been called a rational animal. And along side of this power any others which he may be said to possess are as nothing. Indeed, it is open to question whether there are any other separate powers. Someone may want to mention the power of human love, but a moment of reflection should show that all we consider of most value in human love is an expression of the powers of which we have spoken. A liberal education is of value precisely because it is aimed at the development of those qualities of truly human activity which characterize man at his best. We may have to accept something less than this due to human frailty, but we need not be content to aim at anything less. (shrink)

Chinese Philosophy: Overview of Topics If Chinese philosophy may be said to have begun around 2000 B.C.E., then it represents the longest continuous heritage of philosophical reflection. Trying to mention each philosopher or every significant thinker is not possible. This article is highly selective by choosing philosophers according to two basic principles: Those who … Continue reading Chinese Philosophy: Overview of Topics →.

Artikkelen ønsker å gi et konstruktivt bidrag til forståelsen og anvendelsen av fair play i en kroppsøvingsfaglig kontekst. Dette er et tema som er blitt aktualisert i og med at fair play er kommet inn som et sentralt element i kroppsøvingsfagets nye reviderte læreplan. Fair play omhandler regler, normer og verdier som skal gjelde ved idrettsutøvelse, og det er et etablert verdikonsept innenfor organisert idrettsliv og idrettsetisk forskning. I skolen, derimot, er fair play mindre kjent. Kroppsøvingsplanen hevder fair play omfatter (...) aspekter ved idrettsspillet som å overholde regler, vise hverandre respekt og gjøre hverandre gode. Hva betyr så dette? Hva vil det si å gjøre hverandre gode? Rommer det bare en teknisk eller også en sosialetisk kvalitet? Dersom det siste er tilfelle, bør det diskuteres hvilke danningskvaliteter det så ligger i det å gjøre hverandre gode i faget, og om disse har noen tilknytningspunkt til Aristoteles' klassiske dyder om rettferdighet, måtehold, mot og klokskap. Dette er de sentrale spørsmålene artikkelen reiser og prøver å gi noen svar på. Artikkelen ser først på fair play i kroppsøvingsfagets planer, for deretter å gi begrepet en nærmere etymologisk og ideologisk-historisk avklaring, med utgangspunkt i begrepene «fair» og «play». Videre drøftes fair play i lys av de aristoteliske dydene, relatert til kroppsøvingsfaglig kontekst og diskurs.Nøkkelord: kroppsøving, fair play, idrett, lek og danningEnglish summary: Fair play in Physical Education in the light of Aristotelian virtue ethicsThe aim of this article is to give a constructive contribution to the understanding and the application of the concept of fair play in the Physical Education context. This is a topic that has come into focus since fair play has been introduced as a central element in the newest revision of the subject curriculum. Fair play concerns the rules, norms, and values that apply to sports activities, and constitutes an established value concept within organized sports and research related to sports ethics. In schools, however, fair play is less known. The Physical Education curriculum states that fair play concerns aspects of sports and games such as adhering to rules, showing each other respect, and helping each other achieve. What, then, does this mean? What does it mean to help each other achieve? Does it entail purely technical, or also socio-ethical qualities? If the latter is the case, a discussion is needed as to what ethical formation qualities are involved in helping each other achieve in the subject and whether these have any connection to Aristotle's classical virtues of justice, moderation, courage, and wisdom. These are the central issues the article raises and attempts to shed some light on. The article takes a closer look at fair play in the curricula of Physical Education, moving on to an etymological and ideological-historical clarification of the concept, taking the concepts of fair and play as starting points. Further, it discusses fair play in the light of Aristotelian virtues, related to a Physical Education context and discourse. (shrink)

To justify certain steps of the computation developed in his Sand-Reckoner, Archimedes cites the following inequalities relative to the sides of right triangles: if of two right-angled triangles, the sides about the right angle are equal , while the other sides are unequal, the greater angle of those toward [sc. next to] the unequal sides has to the lesser a greater ratio than the greater line of those subtending the right angle to the lesser, but a lesser than the greater (...) line of those about the right angle to the lesser. That is, with reference to the two right triangles ABG, DEZ , where AG equals DZ and the angle at B is greater than that at E, ZE:GB < angle B:angle E < DE:AB. (shrink)

To justify certain steps of the computation developed in his Sand-Reckoner, Archimedes cites the following inequalities relative to the sides of right triangles: if of two right-angled triangles, the sides about the right angle are equal, while the other sides are unequal, the greater angle of those toward [sc. next to] the unequal sides has to the lesser a greater ratio than the greater line of those subtending the right angle to the lesser, but a lesser than the greater line (...) of those about the right angle to the lesser. That is, with reference to the two right triangles ABG, DEZ, where AG equals DZ and the angle at B is greater than that at E, ZE:GB < angle B:angle E < DE:AB. (shrink)

The authors of this book are presenting the written materials ascribed to the early Greek philosophers (c. 585 B.C.- 400 B.C.) and the historical context in which those writings occurred.

"China has 'arrived,' and Ronnie Littlejohn helps us know this antique culture better. In his entirely accessible introduction, Littlejohn has done the academy the timely service of resourcing the best contemporary research in sinology to tell the compelling story of a living Confucianism as it has meandered through the dynasties to flow down to our present time." -- Roger T. Ames, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i "Although basically intended as an introductory text for undergraduates, this book is equally (...) a very useful one for everyone with a serious interest in things sinological to have on their bookshelves. Littlejohn has surveyed well the modern Western scholarship on the manifold dimensions of the Confucian persuasion from its earliest beginnings to the present, and proffers it to the reader in a clearly written and commendably balanced narrative, complete with notes, references, and a working bibliography for further studies of this ancient but still vibrant philosophical and religious tradition we know as 'Confucianism'." —Henry Rosemont, Jr, George B & Wilma Reeves Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts Emeritus, St Mary’s College of Maryland, and Visiting Professor of Religious Studies, Brown University . (shrink)

Descartes' place in history, by L. J. Lafleur.--A central ambiguity in Descartes, by S. Rosen.--Doubt, common sense and affirmation in Descartes and Hume, by H. J. Allen.--Some remarks on logic and the cogito, by R. N. Beck.--The cogito, an ambiguous performance, by J. B. Wilbur.--The modalities of Descartes' proofs for the existence of God, by B. Magnus.--Descartes and the phenomenological problem of the embodiment of consciousness, by J. M. Edie.--The person and his body: critique of existentialist responses to Descartes, (...) by P. A. Bertocci. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, and: Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential TextsRonnie LittlejohnReadings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2003. Pp. xviii + 362. Paper $24.95.Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts. By Joel J. Kupperman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. x + 159. Hardcover $50.00. Paper $21.00.Readings in Classical Chinese (...) Philosophy, an anthology edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan Van Norden, contains introductions to and translations of seven important Chinese philosophical works from the sixth to the end of the third centuries B.C.E. The figures included are Kongzi (the Analects), Mozi, Mengzi, Laozi (the Daodejing), Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi. Each selection is about fifty pages in length, including the introductory remarks, which are typically very concise. The translation is followed by a short and briefly annotated bibliography that is divided into two parts: other translations and secondary works. The volume was originally published in 2001 by Seven Bridges Press, but it is now reprinted by Hackett Publishing.A usual worry one has when using an anthology of translations in which works are not rendered in their entirety is that principal passages might be omitted. It cannot always be the case that one's favorite passages will make it into a condensation of a work, but one does expect to find the major component passages available to the reader. With regard to this collection, I must say that while there can be no guarantee that these translators have included everything that everyone will think is important, nonetheless, as I will try to show in what follows, the selections are very well chosen and ably translated.The first selection is taken from the Analects. Edward Slingerland is the translator. Subsequent to his work in this readings collection, Slingerland has recently published an entire translation of the Analects including a robust collection of the commentarial tradition on that work. What few differences I have been able to notice between this version and the publication of the entire translation seem to be inconsequential. In this readings collection, all twenty chapters of the Analects are represented. [End Page 687] Chapter 4, widely regarded as the centerpiece of sayings reliably traceable to Kongzi himself, is translated in its entirety.Slingerland uses several conventions for dealing with the concepts regarded as fundamental to a Confucian lexicon. For example, he leaves ren untranslated. And a few scholars will be troubled by his decision to translate junzi as "gentleman." As an aid to the reader, he often uses pinyin and gives the Chinese character for other strategic terms, but he does not allow the translation to be cluttered with too many characters. He seems to stay always consistent with the overall intention of the editors of the collection to use characters only as an aid to the beginning student and nonspecialist. What one needs to introduce key Confucian concepts and Kongzi's way of dealing with his students is available here.Philip J. Ivanhoe's translation of Mozi follows next. What struck me in the beginning was Ivanhoe's fine introductory essay on Master Mo, and I think it will be of benefit to students and nonspecialists alike. This is especially true if one is considering this anthology for a first course in Chinese philosophy or comparative philosophy. Some scholars will think that Ivanhoe's translation of jian ai as "impartial care" instead of "universal love" is not adequately explained in the introductory remarks and even somewhat problematic. But this could provide a point of conversation in the study of the text.Ivanhoe bases his translation on his own selections from the various versions available of the central chapters of the Mozi but the result is relatively uncontroversial. He includes the important eighth and eleventh chapters, concerned with worthy ministers, and chapter 16 on jian ai. The inclusion of Mozi's remarks on funerals, ghosts, and spirits demonstrates Ivanhoe's claim that Mozi is the first philosopher of China to exhibit a sustained interest in argumentation and debate. These sections should be read carefully, not only for what they tell... (shrink)

Volume XVI Phenomenology of Emotions, Systematical and Historical Perspectives Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Esteban Marín Ávila, Thiemo Breyer, Jakub Čapek, Mariano Crespo, Roberta De Monticelli, John J. Drummond, Søren Engelsen, Maria Gyemant, Mirja Hartimo, Elisa Magrì, Ronny Miron, Anthony J. Steinbock, (...) Panos Theodorou, Íngrid Vendrell Ferran, Antonio Zirión Quijano, and Nate Zuckerman. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors electronically via e-mail attachments. (shrink)

The description for this book, Eighteenth-Century British Logic and Rhetoric, will be forthcoming.

This volume, the first of its kind written in English, interprets the realistic-phenomenological philosophy of Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1888-1966). She was a prominent figure in the Munich-Göttingen Circle, the first generation of phenomenology after Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), and was known as the “first lady of German philosophy”.The articles included in this collection deal with the two main themes constituting her realistic-metaphysical phenomenology: Being and the I. The new edition includes an additional chapter opening a new path into the study of Conrad-Martius (...) with Heidegger. In addition, the collection includes a comprehensive Introduction that describes the personal background and the social and philosophical contexts behind Conrad-Martius’s thought, with an emphasis on the mutual influence and fertilization of the group of early phenomenologists in the Munich-Göttingen Circle. The book is aimed at scholars of philosophy and educated readers. (shrink)

In response to an accusation of having said something inappropriate, the accused may exploit the difference between the explicit contents of their utterance and its implicatures. Widely discussed in the pragmatics literature are those cases in which arguers accept accountability only for the explicit contents of what they said while denying commitment to the implicature. In this paper, we sketch a fuller picture of commitment denial. We do so, first, by including in our discussion not just denial of implicatures, but (...) also the mirror strategy of denying commitment to literal meaning and, second, by classifying strategies for commitment denial in terms of classical rhetorical status theory. In addition to providing a systematic categorization of our data, this approach offers some clues to determine when such a defence strategy is a reasonable one and when it is not. (shrink)

This volume offers a selection of the most interesting and important work from recent years in the philosophy of mathematics, which has always been closely linked to, and has exerted a significant influence upon, the main stream of analytical philosophy. The issues discussed are of interest throughout philosophy, and no mathematical expertise is required of the reader. Contributors include W.V. Quine, W.D. Hart, Michael Dummett, Charles Parsons, Paul Benacerraf, Penelope Maddy, W.W. Tait, Hilary Putnam, George Boolos, Daniel Isaacson, Stewart Shapiro, (...) and Hartry Field. (shrink)

How can finite creatures know an infinite God? How do the limits of our intellect and language impact how we know God and talk about God? This book explores a doctrine called divine incomprehensibility in hopes to seek how a proper understand of God's incomprehensibility protects us from both a theological despair in which there is no hope for Christian theology and a theological idolatry in which we are tempted to believe we can capture the essence of God with our (...) thoughts or words. (shrink)

This volume, the first of its kind written in English, interprets the realistic-phenomenological philosophy of Hedwig Conrad-Martius. She was a prominent figure in the Munich-Göttingen Circle, the first generation of phenomenology after Edmund Husserl, and was known as the “first lady of German philosophy”. The articles included in this collection deal with the two main themes constituting her realistic-metaphysical phenomenology: Being and the I. In addition, the collection includes a comprehensive Preface that describes the personal background and the social and (...) philosophical contexts behind Conrad-Martius’s thought, with an emphasis on the mutual influence and fertilization of the group of early phenomenologists in the Munich-Göttingen Circle. The book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy and educated readers. (shrink)

Bringing together scholars from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, The Language of Argumentation offers a unique overview of research at the crossroads of linguistics and theories of argumentation. In addition to theoretical and methodological reflections by leading scholars in their fields, the book contains studies of the relationship between language and argumentation from two different viewpoints. While some chapters take a specific argumentative move as their point of departure and investigate the ways in which it is linguistically manifested in (...) discourse, other chapters start off from a linguistic construction, trying to determine its argumentative function and rhetorical potential. The Language of Argumentation documents the currently prominent research on stylistic aspects of argumentation and illustrates how the study of argumentation benefits from insights from linguistic models, ranging from theoretical pragmatics, politeness theory and metaphor studies to models of discourse coherence and construction grammar. (shrink)

In this paper we adopt the hypothesis that languages are mechanisms for interaction, and that grammars encode the means by which such interaction may take place, by use of procedures that construct representations of meaning from strings of words uttered in context, and conversely strings of words are built up from representations of content in interaction with context. In a review of the systemic use of ellipsis in dialogue and associated split-utterance phenomena, we show how, in Dynamic Syntax, words give (...) rise to a range of procedures for the building of representations of the content of some utterance, which both speakers and hearers use. We then extend the discussion to take account of adjuncts, showing how they contribute to content construction both in single utterances and across speakers. The same mechanisms are then shown to underlie the building of inferential extensions of meaning in context, giving rise to the creation of the ad hoc concepts expressed by phrases or single words in relation to the utterance context and ultimately to the creation of metaphorical uses of language. (shrink)

This accessible introduction to formal, and especially Montague, semantics within a linguistic framework, presupposes no previous background in logic, but takes students step-by-step from simple predicate/argument structures and their interpretation to Montague's intentional logic.

Laozi Laozi is the name of a legendary Daoist philosopher, the alternate title of the early Chinese text better known in the West as the Daodejing, and the moniker of a deity in the pantheon of organized “religious Daoism” that arose during the later Han dynasty. Laozi is … Continue reading Laozi →.