Cedric Boeckx focuses on two core components of grammar: phrase structure and locality.

The Minimalist Program for linguistic theory is Noam Chomsky's boldest and most radical version of his naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckz examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results. He explores the roots and antecedents of the Program and shows how its methodologies parallel those of sciences such as physics and biology. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and issues around the nature of minimalist research in linguistics and (...) shows how the aims and ambitions of the Minimalist Program lie at the centre of the enterprise to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and is manifested in the world's languages.Professor Boeckx writes for advanced and graduate students of linguistics and for all those, in fields such as cognitive science and evolutionary biology, who want to know more about current developments in theoretical linguistics. (shrink)

Most syntacticians, no matter their theoretical persuasion, agree that features are the most important units of analysis. Within Chomskyan generative grammar, the importance of features has grown steadily and within minimalism, it can be said that everything depends on features. They are obstacles in any interdisciplinary investigation concerning the nature of language and it is hard to imagine a syntactic description that does not explore them. For the first time, this book turns grammar upside down and proposes a new model (...) of syntax that is better suited for interdisciplinary interactions, and shows how syntax can proceed free of lexical influence. The empirical domain examined is vast, and all the fundamental units and properties of syntax are rethought. Opening up new avenues of investigation, this book will be invaluable to researchers and students in syntactic theory, and linguistics more broadly. (shrink)

Understanding Minimalist Syntax introduces the logic of the Minimalist Program by analyzing well-known descriptive generalizations about long-distance dependencies. Proposes a new theory of how long-distance dependencies are formed, with implications for theories of locality, and the Minimalist Program as a whole Rich in empirical coverage, which will be welcomed by experts in the field, yet accessible enough for students looking for an introduction to the Minimalist Program.

Recent advances in genetics and neurobiology have greatly increased the degree of variation that one finds in what is taken to provide the biological foundations of our species-specific linguistic capacities. In particular, this variation seems to cast doubt on the purportedly homogeneous nature of the language faculty traditionally captured by the concept of “Universal Grammar.” In this article we discuss what this new source of diversity reveals about the biological reality underlying Universal Grammar. Our discussion leads us to support (1) (...) certain hypotheses advanced in evolutionary developmental biology that argue for the existence of robust biological mechanisms capable of canalizing variation at different levels, and (2) a bottom-up perspective on comparative cognition. We conclude by sketching future directions for what we call “comparative biolinguistics,” specifying which experimental directions may help us succeed in this new research avenue. (shrink)

The repeatedly noted absence of case-reports of individuals with schizophrenia and congenital/early developed blindness has led several authors to argue that the latter can confer protective effects against the former. In this work, we present a number of relevant case-reports from different syndromes that show comorbidity of congenital and early blindness with schizophrenia. On the basis of these reports, we argue that a distinction between different types of blindness in terms of the origin of the visual deficit, cortical or peripheral, (...) is crucial for understanding the observed patterns of comorbidity. We discuss the genetic underpinnings and the brain structures involved in schizophrenia and blindness, with insights from language processing, laying emphasis on the three structures that particularly stand out: the occipital cortex, the lateral geniculate nucleus and the pulvinar. Last, we build on previous literature on the nature of the protective effects in order to offer novel insights into the nature of the protection mechanism from the perspective of the brain structures involved in each type of blindness. (shrink)

It has been suggested that language disorders can serve as real windows onto language evolution. We examine this claim in this paper. We see ourselves forced to qualify three central assumptions of the the ‘disorders-as-windows’ hypothesis. After discussing the main outcome of decades of research on the linguistic ontogeny of pathological populations, we argue that language disorders should be construed as conditions for which canalization has failed to cope fully with developmental perturbations. We conclude that a robust link exists between (...) developmental disturbances and evolutionary history that allows language disorders to be used as real windows onto the evolution of the neuronal substrate of language, and emphasize that our conclusion is more compatible with views of language evolution as the result of reorganizational changes as opposed to radically novel emergences. (shrink)

Credible signaling may have provided a selection pressure for producing and discriminating increasingly elaborate proto-musical signals. But, why evolve them to have hierarchical structure? We argue that the hierarchality of tonality and meter is a byproduct of domain-general mechanisms evolved for reasons other than credible signaling.

This paper aims to explore a potential connection between two hypotheses recently put forward in the context of language evolution. One hypothesis argues that some human-specific change in the hominin brain developmental program habilitated the neuronal workspace that enabled “cognitive modernity” to unfold, also resulting in our globularized braincase. The other argues that the cultural niche resulting from our self-domestication favored the emergence of natural languages. In this article we document numerous links between the genetic changes we have claimed may (...) have brought about globularization and neural crest cells, which have been claimed to explain the constellation of distinctive traits found in all domesticated mammals. If these links turn out to be as robust as we think they are, globularization and self-domestication may well be closely related phenomena in the context of human evolution. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky applies a rational, scientific approach to disciplines as diverse as linguistics, ethics, and politics. His best-known innovations involve a groundbreaking theory of generative grammar, the revolution it initiated in cognitive science, and a radical encounter with political theory and practice. In _Chomsky Notebook_, Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein tackle the evolution of Chomsky's linguistic theory. Akeel Bilgrami revisits Chomsky's work on freedom and truth, and Pierre Jacob analyzes his naturalism. Chomsky's own contributions include an interview with (...) Jean Bricmont and an essay each on Edward Said and the natural world. Altogether, these works reveal the penetrating insight of a remarkable intellectual whose thought extends into a number of fields within and outside of academia. For the uninitiated reader and longtime fan, this anthology attests to the power of Chomsky's rationalism and the dexterity of his critical investigations. (shrink)

Racial injustice in employment demands the attention of business organizations because it profoundly shapes our life prospects. While comparing the ideal of perfectly equal opportunity with its invariably imperfect alternatives can impede reform, the true challenge lies in addressing persistent inequities as we strive for equality. This article introduces “shared inequity” as a frame of reference for assessing workplace racial disparities and emphasizing a collective responsibility to remedy systemic issues. In critiquing an exaggerated notion of meritocracy, I emphasize that structural (...) racism, rather than just individual acts, facilitates collective advantages, especially for White males. Hence, it is morally fitting to frame racial justice in employment, not only in terms of perfect equality, but also in terms of justly sharing an imbalance that cannot be corrected without counterbalance. The “shared inequity” lens offers a more realistic and just approach to pursuing racial justice in the workplace. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Figurative drawing is a skill that takes time to learn, and it evolves during different childhood phases that begin with scribbling and end with representational drawing. Between these phases, it is difficult to assess when and how children demonstrate intentions and representativeness in their drawings. The marks produced are increasingly goal-oriented and efficient as the child’s skills progress from scribbles to figurative drawings. Pre-figurative activities provide an opportunity to focus on drawing processes. We applied fourteen metrics to two different datasets (...) (_N_ = 65 and _N_ = 344) to better understand the intentional and representational processes behind drawing, and combined these metrics using principal component analysis (PCA) in different biologically significant dimensions. Three dimensions were identified: efficiency based on spatial metrics, diversity with color metrics, and temporal sequentiality. The metrics at play in each dimension are similar for both datasets, and PCA explains 77% of the variance in both datasets. Gender had no effect, but age influenced all three dimensions differently. These analyses for instance differentiate scribbles by children from those drawn by adults. The three dimensions highlighted by this study provide a better understanding of the emergence of intentions and representativeness in drawings. We discussed the perspectives of such findings in comparative psychology and evolutionary anthropology. (shrink)

Après deux millénaires de culpabilité chrétienne, on pourrait penser que la liberté de mœurs s'est imposée, or aucune liberté ne va sans angoisse. Afin de dissoudre cette angoisse de la sexualité, d'en éclairer les zones d'ombre, d'en annuler les déterminismes, la société contemporaine s'est lancée dans une folle entreprise : l'encadrer, comme tout échange, par les formes contractuelles des normes juridiques. Mais le contrat peut-il s'appliquer à la sexualité?? A-t-il les moyens de clarifier la relation humaine la plus intime qui (...) soit, de résoudre toutes les tensions liées au contact avec l'altérité?? Cédric Lagandré reprend le débat du statut culturel de la sexualité en Occident pour défendre, sur le socle du consentement mutuel, sa nature nécessairement infra-juridique. On ne peut accéder innocemment à la sexualité, non au sens où le désir sexuel serait moralement coupable, mais au sens où il implique un vertige, une angoisse et une mise à nu. La forme juridique, loin de civiliser la sexualité, l'enferme donc dans un cadre défini par la prostitution, et ne la repousse pas moins que la pornographie dans le registre trivial du besoin. L'effort contemporain pour passer l'intégralité du réel au crible des catégories juridiques ne peut donc qu'échouer devant l'ordre du symbolique: l'obscurité du désir rend la sexualité insaisissable à toute volonté de l'encadrer par la règle. (shrink)

In 2010, the Eurozone became the epicentre of the world crisis. The vulnerability of Europe appears to be linked to the specific institutional arrangement which organises monetary, financial and budgetary policies within the Eurozone. This article tries to understand the evolution of theeuduring a short but decisive historical sequence in a theoretical framework that puts elements of Gramsci’s reflections on the theme of crisis, and especially his notion of ‘Caesarism’, at its centre. It addresses the current debate concerning the relationships (...) between democratic politics and neoliberalism, while focusing on how the radicalisation of the crisis put at stake the co-construction of capitalism and representative democracy in the Western world sincewwii. (shrink)

This article revisits an historic exchange between two black ex-communists, Harold Cruse and Harry Haywood, a debate that prefigured many of the central contradictions of the black-power era. Their exchange followed Cruse’s influential 1962 essay forStudies on the Left, ‘Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American’, which declared that the American Negro was a ‘subject of domestic colonialism’. Written against the prevailing liberal integrationist commitments of the civil-rights movement, his essay called for black economic and political independence, and inspired many of the (...) younger activists who would give birth to the black-power movement. In a series of essays for the Bay Area black radical journalSoulbook, Haywood criticised Cruse’s mishandling of class politics among blacks, and his retreat from anti-capitalism. This forgotten episode is important on its own terms, for what it says about the character and limitations of left-political thinking during the sixties, and equally for understanding and contesting those commonsensical notions of African-American public life in our times which too often remain rooted in the vanished social context and political realities of the twentieth-century racial ghetto. (shrink)

Self-sufficient ideographies are rare because they are stifled by the issue of standardization. Similar issues arise with abstract art or drawings created by young children or great apes. We propose that mathematical indices and artificial intelligence can help us decode ideography, and if not to understand its meaning, at least to know that meaning exists.

In his 1962 essay ‘Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American,’ Harold Cruse quipped, ‘American Marxists cannot “see” the Negro at all, unless he is storming the barricades, either in the pres...

We investigate some common points between stable structures and weakly small structures and define a structureMto befineif the Cantor-Bendixson rank of the topological space${S_\varphi }\left} \right)$is an ordinal for every finite subsetAofMand every formula$\varphi \left$wherexis of arity 1. By definition, a theory isfineif all its models are so. Stable theories and small theories are fine, and weakly minimal structures are fine. For any finite subsetAof a fine groupG, the traces on the algebraic closure$acl\left$ofAof definable subgroups ofGover$acl\left$which are boolean combinations of (...) instances of an arbitrary fixed formula can decrease only finitely many times. An infinite field with a fine theory has no additive nor multiplicative proper definable subgroups of finite index, nor Artin-Schreier extensions. (shrink)

An intellectual biography of Don Isaac ben Judah Abravanel, a 15th century Portuguese rabbi, scholar, Bible commentator, philosopher, and statesman.

A theory of planned behavior framework was employed to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility perceptions on the job choice intentions of American, Chinese, and Lebanese college students. Attitudes toward CSR, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control explained moderate levels of the variance in job choice intention in all three countries. Attitudes toward CSR, which entailed individual evaluations of CSR, were positively related to job choice intentions among Lebanese and American respondents, but not Chinese respondents. Subjective norm, the importance (...) accorded the views of significant others, was most strongly related to job choice intentions among Chinese respondents. Perceived behavioral control, the perceived degree of control over one’s actions and outcomes, had the strongest relationship to job choice intentions among American respondents. The authors concluded that respondents in the three countries did not differ in the extent to which they intend to work for socially responsible firms but tended to derive their intentions in different ways. Implications for tailoring CSR and recruitment efforts across countries are derived based on the findings. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This paper argues that, although stakeholder engagement occurs within the context of power, neither market-centered CSR nor the deliberative model of political CSR adequately addresses the specter of power asymmetries and the inevitability of conflict in stakeholder relations, particularly for powerless stakeholders. Noting that the objective of stakeholder engagement should not be benevolence toward stakeholders, but mechanisms that address power asymmetries such that stakeholders are able to protect their own interests, I present a framework of stakeholder engagement based on agonistic (...) pluralism that seeks to structure and utilize discord rather than reduce or eliminate it. I then propose arbitration as an agonistic mechanism to address power asymmetries in stakeholder engagement and explore its implications. (shrink)

The role intellectual virtues play in scientific inquiry has raised significant discussions in the recent literature. A number of authors have recently explored the link between virtue epistemology and philosophy of science with the aim to show whether epistemic virtues can contribute to the resolution of the problem of theory choice. This paper analyses how intellectual virtues can be beneficial for successful resolution of theory choice. We explore the role of virtues as well as vices in scientific inquiry and their (...) beneficial effects in the context of theory choice. We argue that vices can play a role in widening the set of potential candidate theories and support our claim with historical examples and normative arguments from formal social epistemology. We argue that even though virtues appear to be neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific success, they have a positive effect because they accelerate successful convergence amongst scientists in theory choice situations. (shrink)

Non-classical views about important issues in logic and its philosophy are a distinctive trait of Shahid Rahman's work. This volume has been designed, on the occasion of his 50th birthday, as a gathering place for unconventional approaches, original ideas and attempts to question well-established standards. Some of the world top philosophers and logicians contributed to a brilliant collection of papers, some of which doubtlessly leave their mark on the work to come in logic and in philosophy of formal sciences. Contributors (...) are: Philippe Balbiani, Diderik Batens, Johan van Benthem, Giacomo Bonanno, Walter A. Carnielli, Newton C. A. Da Costa, Michel Crubellier, Francisco A. Doria, Dov M. Gabbay, Olivier Gasquet, Gerhard Heinzmann, Andreas Herzig, Jaakko Hintikka, Justine Jacot, Reinhard Kahle, Erik C. W. Krabbe, Decio Krause, Franck Lihoreau, Kuno Lorenz, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Graham Priest, Stephen Read, Manuel Rebuschi, Greg Restall, Gabriel Sandu, Gerhard Schurz, Francois Schwarzentruber, Yaroslav Shramko, Goran Sundholm, John Symons, Christian Thiel, Nicolas Troquard, Tero Tulenheimo, Jean Paul Van Bendegem, Daniel Vanderveken, Yde Venema, Heinrich Wansing, Jan Wolenski and John Woods. (shrink)

The United Kingdom case R v Lee EWCA Crim 1404 resulted in a pharmacist being convicted for an inadvertent dispensing error and paved way for the decriminalisation of such errors by way of a due diligence defence enacted in 2018. In relation to Hong Kong, what is its legal position for dispensing errors, and can it follow the decriminalising steps of UK? The primary objective of this paper is to explore whether and how HK can reach the normative position for (...) a dispensing error legal regime: I posit that the normative position for healthcare professional liability for dispensing errors should prioritise the public interest of minimisation of future dispensing errors over the retribution of past wrongs; I illustrate HK’s current position for the liabilities of HCPs on dispensing errors, focusing analysis on the relatively controversial aspects of HK’s criminal liability, referencing the landmark cases Hin Lin Yee v HKSAR 13 HKCFAR 142 and Kulemesin v HKSAR 16 HKCFAR 195 to assist my analysis of the requisite mental element for relevant statutory offences; through comparison with UK’s development post-R v Lee and application of Rule of Law principles, HK’s current position is critiqued, coming to the conclusion that while there are compelling reasons for the decriminalisation of dispensing errors in HK, the prerequisite for this to happen is an overhaul of regulatory frameworks by significantly increasing levels of accountability. (shrink)

Leopold Kronecker constructs in two articles published in 1869 and 1878, a theory which has its roots in Sturm’s work on the determination of the number of real solutions of an equation. The presentation of this theory of characteristics by Émile Picard will give rise to a controversy between the two mathematicians, who claimed the fame for a formula giving the number of solutions of certain systems of several equations. In this article, after an overview of the theory of characteristics, (...) we will show how, through this dispute, it is actually the way these two mathematicians approach mathematics that is at stake. (shrink)

In [T. Brihaye, C. Michaux, C. Rivière, Cell decomposition and dimension function in the theory of closed ordered differential fields, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic .] the authors proved a cell decomposition theorem for the theory of closed ordered differential fields which generalizes the usual Cell Decomposition Theorem for o-minimal structures. As a consequence of this result, a well-behaving dimension function on definable sets in CODF was introduced. Here we continue the study of this cell decomposition in CODF by proving three (...) additional results. We first discuss the relation between the δ-cells introduced in the above-mentioned reference and the notion of Kolchin polynomial in differential algebra. We then prove two generalizations of classical decomposition theorems in o-minimal structures. More exactly we give a theorem of decomposition into definably d-connected components and a differential cell decomposition theorem for a particular class of definable functions in CODF. (shrink)

Major depression is associated with a decrease of 1st person visual perspective in autobiographical memory, even after full remission. This study aimed to examine visual perspective in healthy never-depressed subjects presenting with either genetic or psychological vulnerability for depression. Sixty healthy participants performed the Autobiographical Memory Test with an assessment of visual perspective. Genetic vulnerability was defined by the presence of at least one S or LG allele of the polymorphism of the serotonin-transporter-linked promoter region . Psychological vulnerability was defined (...) by high scores of harm avoidance measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory. Life stress exposure, depressive mood, rumination, and familial history of depression were assessed through standardized procedures. Visual perspective for positive memories was independently predicted by both harm avoidance and a gene by environment interaction between the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and life stress exposure. Visual perspective and vulnerability for depression may share some biological bases. (shrink)

In 2013, Bennett proposed a mereological theory in which the parthood relation is defined on the basis of two primitive relations: a is a part of b iff a fills a slot owned by b. However, this theory has issues counting how many parts an entity has. We explore the various counting problems and propose a new theory to solve them. Keeping the core idea of Bennett’s slots, this theory introduces mereological relations between slots. This theory enables us to solve (...) all known counting problems and to go beyond the limits of Bennett’s theory by theorising expected features of mereological theories: supplementation principles and mereological sum and fusion. The theory is illustrated on ontological issues on the nature of structural universals and informational entities. (shrink)

Although stakeholder theory is concerned with stakeholder engagement, substantive operational barometers of engagement are lacking in the literature. This theoretical paper attempts to strengthen the accountability aspect of normative stakeholder theory with a more robust notion of stakeholder engagement derived from the concept of good faith. Specifically, it draws from the labor relations field to argue that altered power dynamics are essential underpinnings of a viable stakeholder engagement mechanism. After describing the tenets of substantive engagement, the paper draws from the (...) labor relations and commercial law literatures to describe the characteristics of good faith as dialogue, negotiation, transparency, and totality of conduct; explains how they can be adapted and applied to the stakeholder context; and suggests the use of mediation and non-binding arbitration. The paper concludes by addressing anticipated objections and shortcomings and discussing implications for theory and research. (shrink)