In this, his magnum opus, distinguished linguist Zellig Harris presents a formal theory of language structure, in which syntax is characterized as an orderly system of departures from random combinations of sounds, words, and indeed of all elements of language.

Ce texte constitue un bref résumé de certains travaux en cours beaucoup plus longs et détaillés sur le concept de «trace» dans la théorie linguistique contemporaine, en particulier dans la syntaxe. On pense généralement que l'idée en revient à Noam Chomsky; cependant, nous découvrons déjà son utilisation, avec une valeur très précise, dans les premiers travaux de Zellig Harris sur la linguistique mathématique ou, pour être plus précis, sur les structures mathématiques du langage. À l'origine, plutôt que d'être (...) un index responsable du marquage de la place occupée par une unité antérieure à son mouvement syntaxique (qui prend toujours la forme d'un fronting), la trace était le résultat d'un produit matriciel entre des fonctions n-adiques. Ainsi, chez Harris, la trace est avant tout un concept ancré dans le calcul matriciel ou, autrement dit, une notion algébrique. La notion de Chomsky, à son tour, est étroitement liée au langage de programmation LISP. Ce texte cherche à fournir une analyse préliminaire de la complexité conceptuelle impliquée dans le concept de trace, dont les linguistes devraient prendre conscience, sous peine de s’embourber dans des incompréhensions stériles pour notre discipline au cours des décennies à venir. (shrink)

The relation between “theory of language” and “language” is asymmetrical. There can be no theory of language without language, but it's perfectly coherent to hold that language exists in some form but that it is idle, even seriously misguided, to seek a theory of language. The two most outstanding theoreticians of “post‐Bloomfieldian” structural linguistics, Zellig Harris and Charles Hockett, adopted perspectives of the general nature in the mid‐1960s, in different and instructive ways. Hockett adopts the general American structuralist (...) consensus based on Leonard Bloomfield's conception of language as “a matter of training and habit”. Hockett describes his core objection as a demand to keep to the norms of science, part of the consensus of the Bloomfield‐based structural linguistics of which he was, as noted, the most sophisticated exponent. (shrink)

A familiar argument goes as follows: natural languages have infinitely many sentences, finite representation of infinite sets requires recursion; therefore any adequate account of linguistic competence will require some kind of recursive device. The first part of this paper argues that this argument is not convincing. The second part argues that it was not the original reason recursive devices were introduced into generative linguistics. The real basis for the use of recursive devices stems from a deeper philosophical concern; a grammar (...) that functions merely as a metalanguage would not be explanatorily adequate as it would merely push the problem of explaining linguistic competence back to another level. The paper traces this concern from Zellig Harris and Chomsky’s early work in generative linguistics and presents some implications. (shrink)

Landau introduces the volume with a selective review of Lila R. Gleitman’s intellectual history, emphasizing the theoretical roots of her research. These include influences of Zellig Harris and Noam Chomsky, her creation of “The Great Verb Game” (which paved the way for the theory of syntactic bootstrapping), the importance of natural “deprivation” experiments, and how they shed light on understanding what the data for learning really might be, and her life as an empiricist, driven by data to nativist (...) conclusions. The introduction also provides brief summaries of each contributed paper. (shrink)

The absence of a clear distinction between notions of the individual and the social or general must, in fact, raise particularly strong reservations about any critical method as preoccupied as French structuralism is with comparisons between art and natural language. To be sure, this preoccupation has led to the isolation of many suggestive likenesses and differences between music and language. Among the likenesses, for example, is the assertion that both language and music constitute semiotic media within which the same techniques (...) for verifying competence and correctness of usage can be applied. Lévi-Strauss is insistent that musical as well as linguistic usage must be subject to verification through reference to some sort of "double articulation," or what will more generally be called here "dual structure," that is, through some method whereby, in effect, speakers and listeners can test each other's competence by altering the relationship between a more general and a more particularized level of a system and observing each other's responses.1 Nattiez essentially rejects this method of verifying competence, but he proposes two others which have analogues in the linguistic theory, respectively, of Zellig Harris and of Noam Chomsky ; interestingly these methods, which appear to be more "modern" than Lévi-Strauss', rely far more heavily on faith in fundamentally unexplainable judgments by single individuals, especially by individual "experts." · 1. Lévi-Strauss' somewhat obscure account of double articulation in Raw and Cooked differs from standard accounts such as André Martinet's and John Lyons' in Noam Chomsky , pp. 19-20. Lévi-Strauss appears to include both phonemes and morphemes in the code level, whereas it is more usual to oppose to the phonemic or sound level a level of meaning which is both semantic and morphemic. Rose Rosengard Subotnik is an assistant professor of music at the University of Chicago. She has written on Adorno's criticism of nineteenth-century music and is currently studying the relation between nineteenth-century German music and philosophy. She has contributed "Tonality, Autonomy, and Competence in Post-Classical Music" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This chapter presents some reflections by Lila Gleitman on the development of her thinking and her research – in concert with a host of esteemed collaborators over the years – on issues of language and mind, focusing on how language is acquired. Gleitman entered the field of linguistics as a student of Zellig Harris, and learned firsthand of Noam Chomsky's early work. The chapter points out that Goldin‐Meadow's first looks at isolate language, and deaf language, transmuted into her (...) life's work on gesture and sign. Linguists, including particularly Anne Senghas, had the opportunity to look at a remarkable case of a language rising in a hithertofore‐isolated deaf community. Behaviorist psychology saw language learning as an instance of more general principles of operant conditioning, a relatively straightforward distillation and organization of experience. Chomsky continues to frame and expatiate upon the central questions of language learning and knowledge. (shrink)

The goal Kahn sets for himself in this impressive and important book is "to give an account of the ordinary, nontechnical uses of the Greek verb [eimi]... by dealing extensively with the earliest evidence and by referring to parallel evidence in cognate languages" so as to "make this a study of the Indo-European verb be". He uses a modified version of Zellig Harris’ transformational grammar for analyzing the copula, existential and veridical uses of the verb be in Chs. (...) IV, VI, and VII, which are the core of the book and which will be of special interest to students of linguistics. Ch. II on the concepts of subject and predicate, Ch. V on the general theory of be as copula, and Ch. VIII on the conceptual unity between the multiple uses of be are geared "for readers whose interest is primarily philosophical.". (shrink)

ABSTRACT This part of the series has a dual purpose. In the first place we will discuss two kinds of theories of proof. The first kind will be called a theory of linear proof. The second has been called a theory of suppositional proof. The term "natural deduction" has often and correctly been used to refer to the second kind of theory, but I shall not do so here because many of the theories so-called are not of the second kind--they (...) must be thought of either as disguised linear theories or theories of a third kind (see postscript below). The second purpose of this part is 25 to develop some of the main ideas needed in constructing a comprehensive theory of proof. The reason for choosing the linear and suppositional theories for this purpose is because the linear theory includes only rules of a very simple nature, and the suppositional theory can be seen as the result of making the linear theory more comprehensive. CORRECTION: At the time these articles were written the word ‘proof’ especially in the phrase ‘proof from hypotheses’ was widely used to refer to what were earlier and are now called deductions. I ask your forgiveness. I have forgiven Church and Henkin who misled me. (shrink)

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) have gained a degree of prominence across recent moral enhancement literature as a possible intervention for dealing with antisocial and aggressive impulses. This is due to serotonin's purported capacity to modulate persons’ averseness to harm. The aim of this article is to argue that the use of SSRIs is not something worth getting particularly excited about as a practicable intervention for moral enhancement purposes, and that the generally uncritical enthusiasm over serotonin's potential as a moral (...) enhancer is a consequence of the paucity of viable options for envisaging practicable moral enhancement interventions. While there are many conceptual issues raised by the idea of moral enhancement generally, and by the idea of serotonin as a morally affective agent, the aim here is to look at practical concerns. It is argued that SSRIs do not, nor cannot in the reasonably foreseeable future, be made to work as a reliably safe or reliably effective means for moral enhancement, even within the very limited remit of treating “reactive” aggression. SSRIs might be effective as a limited and partial mental health intervention (even this is questionable), but not as a generally effective moral enhancement technology. (shrink)

This study examines the contentious claim that much evangelicalism is fundamentalist in character. Within Protestantism, the term `fundamentalism' denotes not only a movement but also a mentality which has greatly affected evangelicals, and which involves preserving as factual a reading of scripture as possible. Here the development and dismantling of the fundamentalist mentality is examined in light of philosophical influences upon evangelicalism over the last three centuries, notably: Common Sense Realism, neo-Calvinism, and modern hermeneutical philosophy. Particular attention is paid to (...) James Barr's critique of fundamentalism and to evangelical rejoinders. Harriet A. Harris proposes that the fundamentalist mentality does not do justice to evangelical experience since it is more concerned with the Bible's factual truthfulness than with its life-giving effects. An appendix on Global Fundamentalism brings together two rarely united fields of study: Protestant fundamentalism's relation to evangelicalism, and its relation to resurgent movements in other religions. (shrink)

I argue that semantics is the study of the proprietary database of a centrally inaccessible and informationally encapsulated input–output system. This system’s role is to encode and decode partial and defeasible evidence of what speakers are saying. Since information about nonlinguistic context is therefore outside the purview of semantic processing, a sentence’s semantic value is not its content but a partial and defeasible constraint on what it can be used to say. I show how to translate this thesis into a (...) detailed compositional-semantic theory based on the influential framework of Heim and Kratzer. This approach situates semantics within an independently motivated account of human cognitive architecture and reveals the semantics–pragmatics interface to be grounded in the underlying interface between modular and central systems. (shrink)

:The term “moral bioenhancement” conceals a diverse plurality encompassing much potential, some elements of which are desirable, some of which are disturbing, and some of which are simply bland. This article invites readers to take a better differentiated approach to discriminating between elements of the debate rather than talking of moral bioenhancement “per se,” or coming to any global value judgments about the idea as an abstract whole. Readers are then invited to consider the benefits and distortions that come from (...) the usual dichotomies framing the various debates, concluding with an additional distinction for further clarifying this discourse qua explicit/implicit moral bioenhancement. (shrink)

This paper identifies human enhancement as one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest in the last twenty years. It discusses in more detail one area, namely moral enhancement, which is generating significant contemporary interest. The author argues that so far from being susceptible to new forms of high tech manipulation, either genetic, chemical, surgical or neurological, the only reliable methods of moral enhancement, either now or for the foreseeable future, are either those that have been in human and (...) animal use for millennia, namely socialization, education and parental supervision or those high tech methods that are general in their application. By that is meant those forms of cognitive enhancement that operate across a wide range of cognitive abilities and do not target specifically ‘ethical’ capacities. The paper analyses the work of some of the leading contemporary advocates of moral enhancement and finds that in so far as they identify moral qualities or moral emotions for enhancement they have little prospect of success. (shrink)

The question of whether or not either elderly people or those whose life expectancy is short have commensurately reduced claims on their fellows, have, in short, fewer or less powerful rights than others, is of vital importance but is one that has seldom been adequately examined. Despite ringing proclamations of justice and equality for all, the fact is that most societies discriminate between citizens on the basis both of age and life expectancy.

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Mitte der fünfziger Jahre entsteht mit den Arbeiten der amerikanischen Linguisten Zellig S. Harris und Noam Chomsky die Theorie der generativen (Transformations-)Grammatiken a) Chomskys Grammatikmodell in den "Aspects" ... b) Entwicklung der Theorie ... nach 1965 ...

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement. Enhancing Evolution defends biotechnological interventions that could allow us to live longer, healthier, and even happier lives by, for example, providing us (...) with immunity from cancer and HIV/AIDS. Further, Harris champions the possibility of influencing the very course of evolution to give us increased mental and physical powers--from reasoning, concentration, and memory to strength, stamina, and reaction speed. Indeed, he says, it's not only morally defensible to enhance ourselves; in some cases, it's morally obligatory. In a new preface, Harris offers a glimpse at the new science and technology to come, equipping readers with the knowledge to assess the ethics and policy dimensions of future forms of human enhancement. (shrink)

Biomedical research is so important that there is a positive moral obligation to pursue it and to participate in itScience is under attack. In Europe, America, and Australasia in particular, scientists are objects of suspicion and are on the defensive.i“Frankenstein science”5–8 is a phrase never far from the lips of those who take exception to some aspect of science or indeed some supposed abuse by scientists. We should not, however, forget the powerful obligation there is to undertake, support, and participate (...) in scientific research, particularly biomedical research, and the powerful moral imperative that underpins these obligations. Now it is more imperative than ever to articulate and explain these obligations and to do so is the subject and the object of this paper.Let me present the question in its starkest form: is there a moral obligation to undertake, support and even to participate in serious scientific research? If there is, does that obligation require not only that beneficial research be undertaken but also that “we”, as individuals and “we” as societies be willing to support and even participate in research where necessary?Thus far the overwhelming answer given to this question has been “no”, and research has almost universally been treated with suspicion and even hostility by the vast majority of all those concerned with the ethics and regulation of research. The so called “precautionary approach”9 sums up this attitude, requiring dangers to be considered more likely and more serious than benefits, and assuming that no sane person would or should participate in research unless they had a pressing personal reason for so doing, or unless they were motivated by a totally impersonal altruism. International agreements and protocols—for example, the Declaration of Helsinki10 and the CIOMS Guidelines11—have been directed principally at …. (shrink)

This book, like the practice of medicine itself, is about the value of life. Health care is one of the clearest and most visible expressions of a society's ...

The eighteenth century was a time of brilliant philosophical innovation in Britain. In Of Liberty and Necessity James A. Harris presents the first comprehensive account of the period's discussion of what remains a central problem of philosophy, the question of the freedom of the will. He offers new interpretations of contributions to the free will debate made by canonical figures such as Locke, Hume, Edwards, and Reid, and also discusses in detail the arguments of some less familiar writers. (...) class='Hi'>Harris puts the eighteenth-century debate about the will and its freedom in the context of the period's concern with applying what Hume calls the "experimental method of reasoning" to the human mind. His book will be of substantial interest to historians of philosophy and anyone concerned with the free will problem. (shrink)

In Lying and Insincerity, Andreas Stokke argues that bald-faced lies are genuine lies, and that lies are always assertions. Since bald-faced lies seem not to be aimed at convincing addressees of their contents, Stokke concludes that assertions needn’t have this aim. This conflicts with a traditional version of intentionalism, originally due to Grice, on which asserting something is a matter of communicatively intending for one’s addressee to believe it. I argue that Stokke’s own account of bald-faced lies faces serious problems (...) and give several responses on behalf of intentionalism. Some bald-faced lies are best understood as irrational attempts to deceive. Others are best understood as indirect speech acts of various kinds. Still, others are best understood as conventional speech acts, which differ from communicative acts like assertion in the ways that they must be embedded in social institutions or practices. An overarching theme of this essay is that we should not make theoretical decisions about how to classify speech acts by consulting ordinary usage. (shrink)

Knowing how to be good, or knowing how to go about trying to be good, is of immense theoretical and practical importance. And what goes for trying to be good oneself, goes also for trying to provide others with ways of being good, and for trying to make them good whether they like it or not. This is what is meant by 'moral enhancement'. John Harris explores the many proposed methodologies or technologies for moral enhancement: traditional ones like good (...) parenting and education; newer ones like chemical or biological intervention; modifying the environment to make bad outcomes of all sorts less likely; experimentation with political and social systems. The issue of whether and to what extent moral enhancement is possible is the subject of this book. (shrink)

Frances Kamm sets out to draw and make plausible distinctions that would show how and why it is, in some circumstances, permissible to kill some to save many more, but is not so in others. To do so she draws on a famous, and famously artificial, example of Judith Thomson, which illustrates the fact that people intutitively reject some instances of such killings but not others. The irrationality, implausibility and in many cases the self-defeating nature of such distinctions I had (...) attempted to expose in my 'The Survival Lottery' over 25 years ago. I still think these distinctions irrational and implausible and I will try, in this response, to show why this remains the case and why doctrines of additional effects, to however many powers they are taken, remain unhelpful in ethics. (shrink)