Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

Building on the author's earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (from Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the “shackles” (Barrett, 2006) of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. (...) The use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus “opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychological experience” (Goddard, 2007). (shrink)

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The paper concentrates on the problem of adequate reflection of fragments of reality via expressions of language and inter-subjective knowledge about these fragments, called here, in brief, language adequacy. This problem is formulated in several aspects, the most being: the compatibility of language syntax with its bi-level semantics: intensional and extensional. In this paper, various aspects of language adequacy find their logical explication on the ground of the formal-logical theory T of any categorial language L (...) generated by the so-called classical categorial grammar, and also on the ground of its extension to the bi-level, intensional and extensional semantic-pragmatic theory ST for L. In T, according to the token-type distinction of Ch.S. Peirce, L is characterized first as a language of well-formed expression-tokens (wfe-tokens) - material, concrete objects - and then as a language of wfe-types - abstract objects, classes of wfe-tokens. In ST the semantic-pragmatic notions of meaning and interpretation for wfe-types of L of intensional semantics and the notion of denotation of extensional semanics for wfe-types and constituents of knowledge are formalized. These notions allow formulating a postulate (an axiom of categorial adequacy) from which follow all the most important conditions of the language adequacy, including the above, and a structural one connected with three principles of compositionality. (shrink)

When we consider the issue of linguistic justice, we must define what we mean by language. Standardisation of languages is closely associated with the development of the nation state, and the de Saussurian conception of language as system is in concert with nationalism and its divisions. In the early twenty-first century, however, this view of the world as a mosaic of stable national monolingualisms is outdated. In a globalising world, much of the political, social and economic structure that (...) is developing is transnational and patterns of contact, both real and virtual, have become extraordinarily complex. In the resulting communities of communication of this superdiverse world, much language practice is more function driven than in the recent past. New practices mean that we cannot consider questions of linguistic justice in this new world order using the linguistic toolkit of the old. The flows, exchanges and networks of globalisation present us with a new paradigm and we need to recalibrate concepts. (shrink)

For 15 years, former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky used his Penn State University perquisites to lure young and fatherless boys by offering them special access to one of the most revered football programs in the country. He repeatedly used the football locker room as a space to groom, molest, and rape his victims. In February 2001, an eye-witness alerted Penn State’s top leaders that Sandusky was caught sexually assaulting a young boy in the showers. Instead of taking swift action (...) against Sandusky, leaders began a cover-up that is considered one of the worst scandals in sports history. While public outcry has focused on the leaders’ silence, we focus on the talk that occurred within the organization by key personnel. Drawing from court documents and internal investigative reports, we examine two euphemism clusters that unfolded in the scandal. The first cluster comprises reporting euphemisms, in which personnel used coded language to report the assault up the chain of command. The second cluster comprises responding euphemisms, in which Penn State’s top leaders relied on an innocuous, but patently false, interpretation of earlier euphemisms as a decision-making framework to chart their course of action. We use this case to demonstrate how euphemistic language impairs ethical decision-making, particularly by framing meaning and visibility of acts, encouraging mindless processing of moral considerations, and providing a shield against psychological and material consequences. Further, we argue that euphemism may serve as a disguised retort to critical upward communication in organizations. (shrink)

The target article by Locke & Bogin (L&B) focuses on the evolution of language as a communicative tool. They neglect, however, that from infancy onwards humans have the ability to go beyond successful behaviour and to reflect upon language (and other domains of knowledge) as a problem space in its own right. This ability is not found in other species and may well be what makes humans unique.

The editors of the Applied Logic Series are happy to present to the reader the fifth volume in the series, a collection of papers on Logic, Language and Computation. One very striking feature of the application of logic to language and to computation is that it requires the combination, the integration and the use of many diverse systems and methodologies - all in the same single application. The papers in this volume will give the reader a glimpse into (...) the problems of this active frontier of logic. The Editors CONTENTS Preface IX 1. S. AKAMA Recent Issues in Logic, Language and Computation 1 2. M. J. CRESSWELL Restricted Quantification 27 3. B. H. SLATER The Epsilon Calculus' Problematic 39 4. K. VON HEUSINGER Definite Descriptions and Choice Functions 61 5. N. ASHER Spatio-Temporal Structure in Text 93 6. Y. NAKAYAMA DRT and Many-Valued Logics 131 7. S. AKAMA On Constructive Modality 143 8. H. W ANSING Displaying as Temporalizing: Sequent Systems for Subintuitionistic Logics 159 9. L. FARINAS DEL CERRO AND V. LUGARDON 179 Quantification and Dependence Logics 10. R. SYLVAN Relevant Conditionals, and Relevant Application Thereof 191 Index 245 Preface This is a collection of papers by distinguished researchers on Logic, Lin guistics, Philosophy and Computer Science. The aim of this book is to address a broad picture of the recent research on related areas. In particular, the contributions focus on natural language semantics and non-classical logics from different viewpoints. (shrink)

This paper defends an interpretation of Husserl''s theory of language, specifically as it appears in the Logical Investigations, as an example of a larger body of theories dubbed ''language as calculus''. Although this particular interpretation has been previously defended by other authors, such as Hintikka and Kusch, this paper proposes to contribute to the discussion by arguing that what makes this interpretation plausible are Husserl''s distinction between the notions of meaning-intention and meaning-fulfillment, his view that meaning is instantiated (...) through meaning-intending acts of transcendental consciousness, and his view that the content of meaning-intending acts is ideal meaning simpliciter. As well, the paper argues that the phenomenological method of reduction itself presupposes the notion that reality as such can be reached by subtracting the influence of the language of the natural attitude and its ontological commitments and it, thus, presupposes the conception of language as a reinterpretable calculus. (shrink)

This study examined how vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and orthographic knowledge are related to comprehension monitoring and whether comprehension monitoring mediates the relations between these language skills and reading comprehension. Eighty-nine Chinese children were assessed on their vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, orthographic knowledge, and comprehension monitoring in Grade 1. Their reading comprehension skills were assessed in Grade 1 and Grade 3. Results showed that in Grade 1, comprehension monitoring mediated the relations between vocabulary and syntactic knowledge and reading comprehension. For Grade (...) 3 reading comprehension, syntactic knowledge in Grade 1 was the only significant predictor. These findings indicate that multiple language skills make direct and indirect contributionsviacomprehension monitoring to Chinese reading comprehension, and the relations would change as children’s reading skills develop. (shrink)

The first book in English on Gadamer's relationship to Heidegger, this study illustrates the philosophical power Gadamer's thinking has achieved by departing from Heidegger's at certain crucial moments.

Bayesian probability is normally defined over a fixed language or eventspace. But in practice language is susceptible to change, and thequestion naturally arises as to how Bayesian degrees of belief shouldchange as language changes. I argue here that this question poses aserious challenge to Bayesianism. The Bayesian may be able to meet thischallenge however, and I outline a practical method for changing degreesof belief over changes in finite propositional languages.

There is hardly any feature of Hegel’s philosophy whose current significance is greater, or more neglected, than the unique place given the analysis of thought. Unlike any other thinker before or after, Hegel begins his philosophical system with a logic conceiving categories without regard for their reference to reality or how a given knower might think them. He allows thinking itself to figure as an object of investigation only within the subsequent theory of reality comprising the philosophies of nature and (...) spirit. There Hegel treats thinking as a real activity of living individuals, inhabiting a common world of which they are conscious and able to speak. Consequently, thought becomes something properly analyzable only after not just categories, but nature and such worldly features of mind as consciousness, representation, and language have been determined. As unsurprising as this ordering may appear, it represents a fundamental break from ordinary philosophical practice, a break bearing crucial importance for the nonmetaphysical, antifoundational character of Hegel’s philosophy, as well as signaling the genuine alternative he provides to the dilemmas plaguing so much contemporary thought. (shrink)

This study deals with teachers’ language use as it is manifested in community-based heritage-language classes. Specifically, it focuses on the functions of students’ dominant variety when harnessed by teachers for the purposes of teaching their ethnic language. Empirical investigation was conducted at two Chinese community schools in the United Kingdom and data demonstrate that students’ L1 was utilised naturally and systematically by teachers to facilitate students’ L2 learning. Various L1 facilitative functions were identified and these generally accord (...) well with functions recorded in other studies. In addition, this study underlines the potentially unique characteristics of community-based heritage-language education: while the target variety of students is routinely the native variety of teachers, teachers struggle to explain new linguistic information in Mandarin because of students’ low proficiency while they concurrently struggle with at least some elements of students’ native or dominant variety. Teachers explained that the fact that students’ dominant language of English is a global language makes their use of it all the more likely. Teachers demonstrated a strong tendency to feel ill-prepared for their language teaching role. There is thus a clear need for heritage-language teachers to receive training that is sociolinguistically informed. This training should emphasise the potential utility of exploiting students’ full linguistic repertoires by drawing in particular on the crosslinguistic similarities and differences between the varieties of which students are cognisant. Teacher-training programmes that promote such awareness may well hold the key to better heritage-language education which will continue to have a crucial role in maintaining and developing minority community languages. (shrink)

The paper shows that certain well established arguments widely used in the philosophy of language to discredit some semantic theories are, in fact, defective . In particular, the direct reference theory is usually rejected, because it is impossible to substitute co-referential proper names for each other in epistemic contexts and true identity sentences of the form “a = b”, where a and b are proper names, have to be both necessary and a posteriori. Both arguments are based on what (...) a competent user of a given language is willing to admit or refuse to admit. It is shown that the language user invoked in these arguments has to be perfect in a certain sense. Otherwise, the arguments are inconclusive. However, if perfect speakers enter the picture, these arguments become theory laden in a certain way and thus fail to be neutral means which can be used to distinguish correct theories from incorrect ones. In this sense, they cannot be used to discredit neither the direct reference theory, nor any other rival theory. (shrink)

This paper presents the Constraint Language for Lambda Structures(CLLS), a first-order language for semantic underspecification thatconservatively extends dominance constraints. It is interpreted overlambda structures, tree-like structures that encode -terms. Based onCLLS, we present an underspecified, uniform analysis of scope,ellipsis, anaphora, and their interactions. CLLS solves a variablecapturing problem that is omnipresent in scope underspecification andcan be processed efficiently.

The aim of this chapter is to examine tentatively the difference between two kinds of moral frameworks based on the concepts of the good and that of interest. I shall start with some introductory remarks on language taken as an explanatory framework rooted in Gadamer and a hermeneutical reading of MacIntyre. In parts two and three, I use this hermeneutical background to analyse the difference between the concept of the good as seen within the classical tradition and that of (...) interest as it came up with the turn of modernity. I also deal with some consequences of this distinction for ethics. Finally, in part four I discuss the possibilities of using the Aristotelian idea of the ethical in a contemporary social and philosophical context. I argue for the necessity of including some references to developed economics by pointing out those aspects of Martha Nussbaum’s and Amartya Sen’s projects, which promote a conception of the good within liberal economics. (shrink)

Many contextualist accounts in epistemology appeal to ordinary language and everyday practice as grounds for positing a low-standards knowledge (knowledgeL) that contrasts with high-standards prevalent in epistemology (knowledgeH). We compare these arguments to arguments from the height of “ordinary language” philosophy in the mid 20th century and find that all such arguments face great difficulties. We find a powerful argument for the legitimacy and necessity of knowledgeL (but not of knowledgeH). These appeals to practice leave us with reasons (...) to accept knowledgeL in the face of radical doubts raised by skeptics. We conclude by arguing that by relegating knowledgeH to isolated contexts, the contextualist fails to deal with the skeptical challenge head-on. KnowledgeH and knowledgeL represent competing, incompatible intuitions about knowledge, and we must choose between them. A fallibilist conception of knowledge, formed with proper attention to radical doubts, can address the skeptical challenge without illicit appeal to everyday usage. (shrink)