Corballis presents a plausible evolutionary mechanism to explain the tight linkage between cerebral lateralization for language and for handedness in humans. This argument may be bolstered by invoking Stokoe's notion of semantic phonology to explain the role of Broca's area in grammatical functions.

This paper points to the need in ape language research to shift from experimentation to ethnography. We cannot determine what goes on inside the head of an ape when it communicates with a human being, but we can learn about the nature and content of the communication that occurs in such face-to-face interaction. This information is fundamental for establishing a baseline for the abilities of an ape-human common ancestor.

by D. M. Armstrong In the history of the discussion of the problem of universals, G. F. Stout has an honoured, and special. place. For the Nominalist, meaning by that term a philosopher who holds that existence of repeatables - kinds, sorts, type- and the indubitable existence of general terms, is a problem. The Nominalist's opponent, the Realist, escapes the Nominalist's difficulty by postulating universals. He then faces difficulties of his own. Is he to place these universals in a special (...) realm? Or is he to bring them down to earth: perhaps turning them into repeatable properties of particulars, and repeatable relations between universals? Whichever solution he opts for, there are well-known difficulties about how particulars stand to these universals. Under these circumstances the Nominalist may make an important con cession to the Realist, a concession which he can make without abandoning his Nominalism. He may concede that metaphysics ought to recognize that particulars have properties and are related by relations. But, he can maintain, these properties and relations are particulars, not universals. Nor, indeed, is such a position entirely closed to the Realist. A Realist about universals may, and some Realists do, accept particularized properties and relations in addition to universals. As Dr. Seargent shows at the beginning of his book. a doctrine of part icularized properties and relations has led at least a submerged existence from Plato onwards. The special, classical. (shrink)

This English translation of On Anger provides a newly read and supplemented Greek text of one of the most important "Herculaneum papyri," the only collection of literary texts to survive the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE. On Anger is our sole evidence for the Epicurean view of what constitutes natural and praiseworthy anger, as distinguished from unnatural pleasure in vengeance and cruelty for their own sake, a view that can be shown to have influenced Latin authors like Cicero, Horace (...) and Virgil. (shrink)

v. 1. Nominalism and realism.--v. 2. A theory of universals.

David Armstrong's book is a contribution to the philosophical discussion about possible worlds. Taking Wittgenstein's Tractatus as his point of departure, Professor Armstrong argues that nonactual possibilities and possible worlds are recombinations of actually existing elements, and as such are useful fictions. There is an extended criticism of the alternative-possible-worlds approach championed by the American philosopher David Lewis. This major work will be read with interest by a wide range of philosophers.

First published in 1985, D. M. Armstrong's original work on what laws of nature are has continued to be influential in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Presenting a definitive attack on the sceptical Humean view, that laws are no more than a regularity of coincidence between stances of properties, Armstrong establishes his own theory and defends it concisely and systematically against objections. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Marc (...) Lange, illuminating its continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this influential work is available for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

Two distinguished philosophers present opposing views on the questions of howthe objects of consciousness are perceived. (Philosophy).

How are children raised in different cultures? What is the role of children in society? How are families and communities structured around them? Now in its third edition, this deeply engaging book delves into these questions by reviewing and cataloging the findings of over 100 years of anthropological scholarship dealing with childhood and adolescence. It is organized developmentally, moving from infancy through to adolescence and early adulthood, and enriched with anecdotes from ethnography and the daily media, to paint a nuanced (...) and credible picture of childhood in different cultures, past and present. This new edition has been expanded and updated with over 350 new sources, and introduces a number of new topics, including how children learn from the environment, middle childhood, and how culture is 'transmitted' between generations. It remains the essential book to read to understand what it means to be a child in our complex, ever-changing world. (shrink)

In considering the nature of properties four controversial decisions must be made. (1) Are properties universals or tropes? (2) Are properties attributes of particulars, or are particulars just bundles of properties? (3) Are properties categorical (qualitative) in nature, or are they powers? (4) If a property attaches to a particular, is this predication contingent, or is it necessary? These choices seem to be in a great degree independent of each other. The author indicates his own choices.

In my reply to michael devitt, It is argued, First, That quine fails to appreciate the force of plato's "one over many" argument for universals. It is argued, Second, That quine's failure springs in part at least from his doctrine of ontological commitment: from the view that predicates need not be treated with ontological seriousness. Finally, An attempt is made to blunt the force of devitt's contention that realists cannot give a coherent explanation of the way that universals stand to (...) particulars. (shrink)

The emphasis is always on the arguments used, and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy, and how we got there.

This article examines the historical construction of depression over about a hundred years, employing the social life of methods as an explanatory framework. Specifically, it considers how emerging methodologies in the measurement of psychological constructs contributed to changes in epistemological approaches to mental illness and created the conditions of possibility for major shifts in the construction of depression. While depression was once seen as a feature of psychotic personality, measurement technologies made it possible for it to be reconstructed as changeable (...) and treatable. Different types of scaling techniques (Likert versus dichotomous scales) enabled the separation of depressive personality from reactive depression, paving the way for measuring the severity and intensity of emotions. Techniques to test sensitivity to change provided a means of demonstrating the efficacy of new psychoactive drug treatments. Later, more advanced techniques of precision scaling enabled the management of a new measurement problem, clinician unreliability, associated with the growing number of professionals involved in mental health care. Through statistical management of unreliability, the construct of depression has dramatically reduced over this period from hundreds of questionnaire items to potentially just two. Exploring the history of depression through this lens produces an alternative narrative to those that have emerged as a result of medicalisation and the actions of individuals and pressure groups. (shrink)

The paper tries to rebut an objection to materialism. Anti-Materialists have argued that mental processes do not appear to be mere physical processes in the brain, And that secondary qualities such as sounds do not appear to be mere vibrations in the air. So materialists must admit that introspection and perception involve at least the illusion of the falsity of materialism. Using the headless woman illusion as a model, It is shown how the illusion is generated, And that it is (...) exactly what we ought to expect even if materialism is true. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward what I think is a new approach to the problem of induction. I sketched the approach in brief sections of a book published in 1983. The same idea had occurred to the English philosopher John Foster and he presented it in a paper at about the same time.

The purpose of this paper is to defend the so-called Ostrich Nominalism against the influential criticism that has been put forward by David M. Armstrong. First, I reconstruct Armstrong’s “One over Many” argument for universals (§§ 1-2), reviewing his main reasons for rejecting the foremost kinds of nominalism (§ 3). I then argue that Ostrich Nominalism has been underrated by Armstrong (§ 4) and that, consequently, his strategy for dealing with it results in misleading and elusive conclusions. I conclude (...) that Ostrich Nominalism represents an arduous challenge to Armstrong’s Realism in that it compels him either to give up his sparse Realism, or to acknowledge that all the solutions to the problem of universals are utterly meaningless (§§ 5-6). (shrink)