Each contributor to this book has used personal experience as the basis from which to frame his individual sociological perspectives. Because they have personalized their work, their accounts are real, and recognizable as having come from 'real' persons, about 'real' experiences. There are no objectively-distanced disembodied third person entities in these accounts. These writers are actual people whose stories will make you laugh, cry, think, and want to know more.

'It would ... be a pity if the sketch of religious controversy in the 1670s contained in Richard Ashcraft's bold and exhilarating attempt to reconstruct the argument and intellectual framework of Locke's political thinking and activity should be thought to represent the entire debate accurately.' (Spurr 1988, 567 n. 17) 'has also taken the view that Locke equated the dissolution of government with the state of nature [pp. 576–6]. Important opponents of this view include Dunn [1969, p. 181] and (...) Franklin [1978, p. 107].' (Levitin MPhil diss., p. 32). (shrink)

The growth activity of an organ (variable y) is defined simultaneously by the instantaneous absolute ratedy/dt and its variationd 2y/dt2. The use of these two descriptors allows a sigmoidal (i.e. continuous and non periodical, as observed for the logistic function) growth curve to be discretized into a series of 5 growth states or phases which are delimited by the following singular values: max, Vmax (=0), max, adult stage. The (V, ) plot, termedgrowth trajectory, visualizes, e.g. in the case of Richards-Nelder's (...) generalized logistics, the unequal duration of these phases and allows the dissymmetry property of the growth function to be characterized precisely.At a more integrated organization level, such anorganic series (e. g. the set of the leaves borne by a same branch), the above concepts allow two kinds of analyses to be carried out: (i) in thekinetic approach, the growth trajectory of the series can characterizes, under certain conditions, the emergence of a new property: theoccurrence of growth activity rhythms which are independent of meristem dormancy processes; (ii) thedemographic approach shows thegrowth structure of the phytomer population (a particular form of age structure) and the associated dimensional structure (plant partition into zones or regions in relation to the growth state of the various phytomers). (shrink)

L'analyse d'une cinétique de croissance y est conduite à partir du modèle logistique généralisé de Richards-Nelder. On distingue 2 types de processus dits mono- et multi-logistique. Dans le cas mono-logistique, le phénomène est correctement décrit par une seule fonction logistique. La cinétique de croissance est alors caractérisée par lea propriétés de chacune des phases G 1 à G 4, délimitées par les points singuliers Γmax, V max et Γmin. On appelle structure de croissance la contribution relative de ces différentes phases (...) à l'expression de la croissance totale. Cette distribution temporelle de l'activité de croissance est une représentation discrétisée de la trajectoire y 0 → y max. On appelle processus multi-logistique toute cinétique de croissance correspondant à une somme de 2 ou plusieurs logistiques généralisées. II existe alors un plus grand nombre de points singuliers et donc un plus grand nombre de phases G i que dans le cas monologistique. La structure de croissance définit avec précision la cinetique du phénomène, ainsi que l'importance relative des différentes composantes logistiques au cours du temps. Une application en est donnée avec le grandissement des cellules pleuridiophores de l'Algue Antithamnion plumula. L'allongement de ces cellules est toujours de type bi-logistique. Les caractéristiques de la structure de croissance permettent une discrimination nette du sporophyte et des gametophytes mâle et femelle. Tandis que la composante 1 est pen différente, la composante 2 varie fortement selon la ploïdie du thalle. En revanche, il y a pen de différences entre les deux gamétophytes. Cette notion de structure de croissance est ainsi susceptible d'apporter des résultats originaux. Audelà de cet example, cette approche est proposée comme une méthode de caractérisation simple mais précise de toute cinétique de croissance basée sur lea variations temporelles de l'activité de croissance [couple ]. (shrink)

Abstract. Richard Feldman’s Uniqueness Thesis holds that “a body of evidence justifies at most one proposition out of a competing set of proposi- tions”. The opposing position, permissivism, allows distinct rational agents to adopt differing attitudes towards a proposition given the same body of evidence. We assess various motivations that have been offered for Uniqueness, including: concerns about achieving consensus, a strong form of evidentialism, worries about epistemically arbitrary influences on belief, a focus on truth-conduciveness, and consequences for peer (...) disagreement. We argue that each of these motivations either misunderstands the commitments of permissivism or is question-begging. Better understanding permissivism makes it a much more plausible position. (shrink)

In Mind and World, John McDowell argues against the view that perceptual representation is non-conceptual. The central worry is that this view cannot offer any reasonable account of how perception bears rationally upon belief. I argue that this worry, though sensible, can be met, if we are clear that perceptual representation is, though non-conceptual, still in some sense 'assertoric': Perception, like belief, represents things as being thus and so.

Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, or Basic Laws of Arithmetic, was intended to be his magnum opus, the book in which he would finally establish his logicist philosophy of arithmetic. But because of the disaster of Russell's Paradox, which undermined Frege's proofs, the more mathematical parts of the book have rarely been read. Richard G.

Frege, famously, held that there is a close connection between our concept of cardinal number and the notion of one-one correspondence, a connection enshrined in Hume's Principle. Husserl, and later Parsons, objected that there is no such close connection, that our most primitive conception of cardinality arises from our grasp of the practice of counting. Some empirical work on children's development of a concept of number has sometimes been thought to point in the same direction. I argue, however, that Frege (...) was close to right, that our concept of cardinal number is closely connected with a notion like that of one-one correspondence, a more primitive notion we might call just as many. (shrink)

A brief, non-technical introduction to technical and philosophical aspects of Frege's philosophy of arithmetic. The exposition focuses on Frege's Theorem, which states that the axioms of arithmetic are provable, in second-order logic, from a single non-logical axiom, "Hume's Principle", which itself is: The number of Fs is the same as the number of Gs if, and only if, the Fs and Gs are in one-one correspondence.

Why do people in more unequal societies have worse health and shorter lives than those in less unequal ones? Why do more unequal societies tend to have more violence and weaker community life? This paper discusses the research evidence on the psychosocial pathways which suggest how and why we are affected by inequality.How big income differences are in any society seems to serve as an indicator of the scale of social differentiation and social distances within it. The evidence shows that (...) more hierarchical societies incur a wide range of social costs reflecting the corrosive effects of inequality. But why are we so sensitive to inequality? Epidemiological research on health inequalities and the social determinants of health has demonstrated that the quality of the social environment has powerful effects on health. Particularly important are social status, friendship and early childhood experience. The indications are that poor health may share causal pathways with many other social problems associated with relative deprivation - including violence.Summarizing my recent book, The Impact of Inequality , this paper provides an account of how inequality gets under the skin to affect both health and wellbeing. Rather than making comparisons with some impractical state of complete equality, all the evidence presented shows the importance of the differences in inequality between different states of the USA or between different developed market democracies: it shows that even small increases in equality matter. (shrink)

The book begins with an overview that introduces the Theorem and the issues surrounding it, and explores how the essays that follow contribute to our understanding of those issues.

Contrairement à une croyance trop répandue, le darwinisme et son prolongement au XXe siècle — le néo-darwinisme — ne portent pas sur une idée de l'évolution fondée sur la simple notion de « la survie du plus apte ». Si la théorie de la sélection naturelle est partie intégrante du néo-darwinisme, plusieurs de ses fondateurs seront en quête d'une conception beaucoup plus généreuse, pleine et compréhensive de l'évolution. En réalité, la révolution dite darwinienne s'insère au coeur d'une révolution intellectuelle beaucoup (...) plus importante : la révolution transformiste. Avant d'être des darwiniens, de dignes représentants de cette mouvance s'afficheront comme étant des transformistes. Cela signifie que, en plus des mécanismes de l'évolution biologique, d'autres éléments tout aussi cruciaux seront pris en considération`, dans l'élaboration d'une véritable synthèse évolutionniste : les rapports entre l'évolution biologique et l'évolution cosmique ; les interrogations portant sur la question d'une possible direction évolutive ; l'enseignement à tirer pour l'homme de sa place et de son rôle dans la nature. A la croisée de l'histoire, de la philosophie et de la science, cet ouvrage cherche à démontrer, à travers l'analyse des travaux de plusieurs néo-darwiniens de premier plan, que la révolution darwinienne demeurera incomplète aussi longtemps que la révolution transformiste le restera. (shrink)

My purpose is to account for some oddities in what Kant did and did not say about "moral worth," and for another in what commentators tell us about his intent. The stone with which I hope to dispatch these several birds is-as one would expect a philosopher's stone to be-a distinction. I distinguish between two things Kant might have had in mind under the heading of moral worth. They come readily to mind when one both takes account of what he (...) actually said about it and notices a fact which he did not seem to notice: namely, that dutiful action- action which, whatever its motive, fulfills a duty-can be over- determined, and determined in particular by both respect for duty and some consortium of inclinations and prudenc. (shrink)

Jim Joyce has presented an argument for Probabilism based on considerations of epistemic utility [Joyce, 1998]. In a recent paper, I adapted this argument to give an argument for Probablism and the Principal Principle based on similar considerations [Pettigrew, 2012]. Joyce’s argument assumes that a credence in a true proposition is better the closer it is to maximal credence, whilst a credence in a false proposition is better the closer it is to minimal credence. By contrast, my argument in that (...) paper assumed (roughly) that a credence in a proposition is better the closer it is to the objective chance of that proposition. In this paper, I present an epistemic utility argument for Probabilism and the Principal Principle that retains Joyce’s assumption rather than the alternative I endorsed in the earlier paper. I argue that this results in a superior argument for these norms. (shrink)

Depression and the subjective experience of suffering are distinct forms of distress, but they are sometimes commingled with one another. Using a cross-sectional sample of flight attendants, we tested for further empirical evidence distinguishing depression and suffering. Correlations with 15 indices covering several dimensions of well-being indicated that associations with worse well-being were mostly stronger for depression than suffering. There was a large positive correlation between depression and suffering, but we also found evidence of notable non-concurrent depression and suffering in (...) the sample. After dividing participants into four groups that varied based on severity of depression and suffering, regression analyses showed higher levels of well-being among those with both none-mild depression and none-mild suffering compared to those with moderate-severe depression, moderate-severe suffering, or both. All indices of well-being were lowest among the group of participants with moderate-severe depression and moderate-severe suffering. In addition to providing further evidence supporting a distinction between depression and suffering, our findings suggest that concurrent depression and suffering may be more disruptive to well-being than when either is present alone. (shrink)

As is well-known, the formal system in which Frege works in his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik is formally inconsistent, Russell’s Paradox being derivable in it.This system is, except for minor differ...

Frege's intention in section 31 of Grundgesetze is to show that every well-formed expression in his formal system denotes. But it has been obscure why he wants to do this and how he intends to do it. It is argued here that, in large part, Frege's purpose is to show that the smooth breathing, from which names of value-ranges are formed, denotes; that his proof that his other primitive expressions denote is sound and anticipates Tarski's theory of truth; and that (...) the proof that the smooth breathing denotes, while flawed, rests upon an idea now familiar from the completeness proof for first-order logic. The main work of the paper consists in defending a new understanding of the semantics Frege offers for the quantifiers: one which is objectual, but which does not make use of the notion of an assignment to a free variable. (shrink)

The paper formulates and proves a strengthening of ‘Frege’s Theorem’, which states that axioms for second-order arithmetic are derivable in second-order logic from Hume’s Principle, which itself says that the number of Fs is the same as the number ofGs just in case the Fs and Gs are equinumerous. The improvement consists in restricting this claim to finite concepts, so that nothing is claimed about the circumstances under which infinite concepts have the same number. ‘Finite Hume’s Principle’ also suffices for (...) the derivation of axioms for arithmetic and, indeed, is equivalent to a version of them, in the presence of Frege’s definitions of the primitive expressions of the language of arithmetic. The philosophical significance of this result is also discussed. (shrink)

Scaffolds are fundamental to many cellular signaling pathways. In this essay, a novel class of scaffolds are proposed, whose action bears striking resemblance to kinetic proofreading. Commonly, scaffold proteins are thought to work as tethers, bringing different components of a pathway together to improve the likelihood of their interaction. However, recent studies show that the cytoskeletal scaffold, anillin, supports contractile signaling by a novel, non‐tethering mechanism that controls the membrane dissociation kinetics of RhoA. More generally, such proof‐reading‐like scaffolds are distinguished (...) from tethers by a rare type of cooperativity, manifest as a super‐linear relationship between scaffold concentration and signaling efficiency. The evidence for this hypothesis is reviewed, its conceptual ramifications are considered, and research questions for the future are discussed. (shrink)

Hartry Field has suggested that we should adopt at least a methodological deflationism: [W]e should assume full-fledged deflationism as a working hypothesis. That way, if full-fledged deflationism should turn out to be inadequate, we will at least have a clearer sense than we now have of just where it is that inflationist assumptions ... are needed. I argue here that we do not need to be methodological deflationists. More pre-cisely, I argue that we have no need for a disquotational truth-predicate; (...) that the word true, in ordinary language, is not a disquotational truth-predicate; and that it is not at all clear that it is even possible to introduce a disquotational truth-predicate into ordinary language. If so, then we have no clear sense how it is even possible to be a methodological deflationist. My goal here is not to convince a committed deflationist to abandon his or her position. My goal, rather, is to argue, contrary to what many seem to think, that reflection on the apparently trivial character of T-sentences should not incline us to deflationism. (shrink)

In this exciting new collection, a distinguished international group of philosophers contribute new essays on central issues in philosophy of language and logic, in honor of Michael Dummett, one of the most influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. The essays are focused on areas particularly associated with Professor Dummett. Five are contributions to the philosophy of language, addressing in particular the nature of truth and meaning and the relation between language and thought. Two contributors discuss time, in particular the (...) reality of the past. The last four essays focus on Frege and the philosophy of mathematics. The volume represents some of the best work in contemporary analytical philosophy. (shrink)

The Evolutionary Synthesis is often seen as a unification process in evolutionary biology, one which provided this research area with a solid common theoretical foundation. As such, neo-Darwinism is believed to constitute from this time onward a single, coherent, and unified movement offering research guidelines for investigations. While this may be true if evolutionary biology is solely understood as centred around evolutionary mechanisms, an entirely different picture emerges once other aspects of the founding neo-Darwinists’ views are taken into consideration, aspects (...) potentially relevant to the elaboration of an evolutionary worldview: the tree of life, the ontological distinctions of the main cosmic entities , the inherent properties of self-organizing matter, evolutionary ethics, and so on. Profound tensions and inconsistencies are immediately revealed in the neo-Darwinian movement once this broader perspective is adopted. This pluralism is such that it is possible to identify at least three distinct and quasi-incommensurable epistemological/metaphysical frameworks as providing a proper foundation for neo-Darwinism. The analysis of the views of Theodosius Dobzhansky, Bernhard Rensch, and Ernst Mayr will illustrate this untenable pluralism, one which requires us to conceive of the neo-Darwinian research agenda as being conducted in more than one research programme or research tradition at the same time. (shrink)

In recent work on Frege, one of the most salient issues has been whether he was prepared to make serious use of semantical notions such as reference and truth. I argue here Frege did make very serious use of semantical concepts. I argue, first, that Frege had reason to be interested in the question how the axioms and rules of his formal theory might be justified and, second, that he explicitly commits himself to offering a justification that appeals to the (...) notion of reference. I then discuss the justifications Frege offered, focusing on his discussion of inferences involving free variables, in section 17 of Grundgesetze, and his argument, in sections 29-32, that every well-formed expression of his formal language has a unique reference. (shrink)

In The Varieties of Reference, Gareth Evans argues that the content of perceptual experience is nonconceptual, in a sense I shall explain momentarily. More recently, in his book Mind and World, John McDowell has argued that the reasons Evans gives for this claim are not compelling and, moreover, that Evans’s view is a version of “the Myth of the Given”: More precisely, Evans’s view is alleged to suffer from the same sorts of problems that plague sense-datum theories of perception. In (...) particular, McDowell argues that perceptual experience must be within “the space of reasons,” that perception must be able to give us reasons for, that is, to justify, our beliefs about the world: And, according to him, no state that does not have conceptual content can be a reason for a belief. Now, there are many ways in which Evans’s basic idea, that perceptual content is nonconceptual, might be developed; some of these, I shall argue, would be vulnerable to the objections McDowell brings against him. But I shall also argue that there is a way of developing it that is not vulnerable to these objections. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to present a strong form of the liar paradox. It is strong because the logical resources needed to generate the paradox are weak, in each of two senses. First, few expressive resources required: conjunction, negation, and identity. In particular, this form of the liar does not need to make any use of the conditional. Second, few inferential resources are required. These are: (i) conjunction introduction; (ii) substitution of identicals; and (iii) the inference: From ¬(p (...) ∧ p), infer ¬ p. It is, interestingly enough, also essential to the argument that the ‘strong’ form of the diagonal lemma be used: the one that delivers a term λ such that we can prove: λ = ¬ T(⌈λ⌉); rather than just a sentence Λ for which we can prove: Λ ≡ ¬T(⌈Λ⌉). The truth-theoretic principles used to generate the paradox are these: ¬(S ∧ T(⌈¬S⌉); and ¬(¬S ∧ ¬T(⌈¬S⌉). These are classically equivalent to the two directions of the T-scheme, but they are intuitively weaker. The lesson I would like to draw is: There can be no consistent solution to the Liar paradox that does not involve abandoning truth-theoretic principles that should be every bit as dear to our hearts as the T-scheme. So we shall have to learn to live with the Liar, one way or another. (shrink)

Some years ago, Machery, Mallon, Nichols, and Stich reported the results of experiments that reveal, they claim, cross-cultural differences in speaker’s ‘intuitions’ about Kripke’s famous Gödel–Schmidt case. Several authors have suggested, however, that the question they asked their subjects is ambiguous between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. Machery and colleagues have since made a number of replies. It is argued here that these are ineffective. The larger lesson, however, concerns the role that first-order philosophy should, and more importantly should not, (...) play in the design of such experiments and in the evaluation of their results. (shrink)

The 'substitution argument' purports to demonstrate the falsity of Russellian accounts of belief-ascription by observing that, e.g., these two sentences: (LC) Lois believes that Clark can fly. (LS) Lois believes that Superman can fly. could have different truth-values. But what is the basis for that claim? It seems widely to be supposed, especially by Russellians, that it is simply an 'intuition', one that could then be 'explained away'. And this supposition plays an especially important role in Jennifer Saul's defense of (...) Russellianism, based upon the existence of an allegedly similar contrast between these two sentences: (PC) Superman is more popular than Clark. (PS) Superman is more popular than Superman. The latter contrast looks pragmatic. But then, Saul asks, why shouldn't we then say the same about the former? The answer to this question is that the two cases simply are not similar. In the case of (PC) and (PS), we have only the facts that these strike us differently, and that people will sometimes say things like (PC), whereas they will never say things like (PS). By contrast, there is an argument to be given that (LS) can be true even if (LC) is false, and this argument does not appeal to anyone's 'intuitions'. The main goal of the paper is to present such a version of the substitution argument, building upon the treatment of the Fregan argument against Russellian accounts of belief itself in "Solving Frege's Puzzle". A subsidiary goal is to contribute to the growing literature arguing that 'intuitions' simply do not play the sort of role in philosophical inquiry that so-called 'experimental philosophers' have supposed they do. (shrink)

Using the case of an industrial accident involving a killer robot, the author successfully combines technical and ethical concepts to present to students and professionals real-life issues that they may one day have to confront.

A revelatory alternative to the standard economic models of human behavior that proposes an exciting new way to understand decision-making "Willful is a breakthrough in economics. Richard Robb's tremendously insightful book shows how much of our behavior is not explained by existing theories of human action and explains in sparkling prose why understanding decisions made seemingly without reason presents a fuller picture of our world."--Edmund S. Phelps, Nobel Laureate in Economics Why do we do the things we do? The (...) classical view of economics is that we are rational individuals, making decisions with the intention of maximizing our preferences. Behaviorists, on the other hand, see us as relying on mental shortcuts and conforming to preexisting biases. Richard Robb argues that neither explanation accounts for those things that we do for their own sake, and without understanding these sorts of actions, our picture of decision-making is at best incomplete. Robb explains how these choices made seemingly without reason belong to a realm of behavior he identifies as "for-itself." A provocative combination of philosophy and economics that offers a key to many of our quixotic choices, this groundbreaking volume provides a new way to understand everything from investing to how hard we work to how we manage daily interactions. (shrink)

The paper argues, as against Thau and Caplan, that the traditional interpretation that Frege abandoned his earlier views about identity and identity--statements is correct.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.3 (2003) 255-259 [Access article in PDF] Illnesses and Likenesses Richard G. T. Gipps IN THIS RESPONSE to Neil Pickering's paper I shall focus only on what he describes as the "strong objection" to the typical use of the likeness argument. The likeness argument, to recap, has it that we can decide whether conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, or alcoholism do or do not (...) deserve the designation of illness depending on whether they possess features which, if they occurred in physical conditions, would enable one to decide for or against the designation. To take an implausible example, if it were decided that it would be enough to describe a physical condition as an illness if it involves pain not caused through injury, then a psychological condition would be appropriately described as an illness just to the extent that it too involved such pain.In arguing against typical deployments of the likeness argument, Pickering finds that it is only on questionable initial descriptions of psychological conditions that such conditions appear to share the features that, in physical conditions, would be taken to be indicative of illness. That is to say, theorists who deploy the likeness argument to urge either the reality or unreality of mental illnesses typically presuppose what both we and they had all along hoped would be demonstrated in their argument. In terms of the above example, we might say that a certain psychological condition can count as an illness if it involves psychic pain. The concept of psychic pain is however (so the argument would have it) contestable; there exist other descriptions that make no reference to pain and in so doing fail to provide what a user of the likeness argument would need to substantiate the claim that a conception of the condition as an illness is more than a façon de parler.By way of arriving at this conclusion the following precondition for the applicability of the likeness argument (Pickering's "assumption" (2)) is insisted on: "That, with respect to the presence or absence of [those features of conditions which features decide whether or not the conditions are illnesses], a condition such as schizophrenia [must be] describable independently of the category it is assigned to." This can seem a quite reasonable restriction, for—it could be said—one can only win an argument if it is first allowed that there is actually something to argue about. That is, it is only if both partisans and detractors of the illness conception first accept a certain description of schizophrenia as spelling out what schizophrenia essentially involves that they can then progress to determining whether or not such a condition so described is or is not an illness.Yet, whereas this seems like a perfectly reasonable requirement, it is I believe uncertain whether it will always capture the form of the intuitions of adherents and detractors of the illness conception—or of the form of philosophical arguments more generally. To be sure, some philosophical discussions can perhaps be reconstructed as debates about the validity of certain inferences [End Page 255] from mutually understood premises (i.e., given X, does Y follow or not?). Yet if this were the case, then genuinely interesting philosophical arguments would probably be few and far between. If we are agreed as to the precise significance of our premises, and are not furthermore just making straightforward mistakes in reasoning, it is hard to see how or why we could all fail to arrive at the same conclusions.In the Philosophical Investigations paragraph 128 Wittgenstein wrote that "If one tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to question them, because everyone would agree to them" (Wittgenstein 1953). Now that proposition might seem on rather weak grounds, because all one has to do to actually disprove it is merely disagree with it. But presumably Wittgenstein is rather articulating his intuition that although philosophical arguments often take the form of clashes concerning what conclusions can be drawn from what premises, most of their substance comes from a prior failure to unpack the intrinsic significance... (shrink)

The paper formulates and proves a strengthening of 'Frege's Theorem', which states that axioms for second-order arithmetic are derivable in second-order logic from Hume's Principle, which itself says that the number of Fs is the same as the number of Gs just in case the Fs and Gs are equinumerous. The improvement consists in restricting this claim to finite concepts, so that nothing is claimed about the circumstances under which infinite concepts have the same number. 'Finite Hume's Principle' also suffices (...) for the derivation of axioms for arithmetic and, indeed, is equivalent to a version of them, in the presence of Frege's definitions of the primitive expressions of the language of arithmetic. The philosophical significance of this result is also discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Autism and Intersubjectivity:Beyond Cognitivism and the Theory of MindRichard Gipps (bio)The papers that make up this special issue of Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology are obviously united by both topic and approach. They all look at autism through a philosophical lens—both at infantile autism (Gallagher 2004a, 2004b; McGeer 2004; Shanker 2004) and at schizophrenic autism (Stanghellini and Ballerini 2004). Moreover, they are all concerned with the foundations of our understanding (...) of people and their minds, both the minds of others (Gallagher 2004a, 2004b; Shanker 2004; Stanghellini and Ballerini 2004) and that of oneself (McGeer 2004). The developmental disorder of infantile autism provides a conspicuous example of a disruption in the ability to develop such an understanding and enter into the social world, whilst schizophrenic autism provides a conspicuous example of what happens when one falls out of it (Stanghellini and Ballerini 2004).Yet what further affords the opportunity of this introduction is the possibility of discerning a strong common theme that runs through the philosophical treatment the papers provide. For they are united in their rejection of the primarily cognitive approach toward our capacity to relate to one another (or to ourselves) as to minded people taken by many in the mainstream of developmental psycho(patho)logy today.1 Such mainstream approaches ascribe to the developing child a 'theory of mind,' tacit knowledge of which supposedly enables them to negotiate the social world. In place of such an intellectualist, disengaged, cognition-focused psychology, we are offered perspectives that stress the primitive foundational character of our pre-reflective (noncognitive) engagement with one another, our emotion, our expression, and our embodiment.The grounds for this stressing of the affective and praxical dimensions of personal life over the cognitive and representational are twofold. First there is the developmental trajectory itself, and the claim is that the autistic child's interpersonal lacunae manifest themselves considerably before they develop the cognitive capacities for social knowledge (Gallagher 2004a; Shanker 2004). The principle ground, however, is philosophical, and the claim here is that what needs to be rejected in the developmental psycho(patho)logy is an alienated ontology and estranged epistemology that has implicitly become inscribed within it, constraining its explanatory project and limiting its vision of possibilities.2 That at least is how I [End Page 195] would put it and, by way of providing an overarching philosophical presentation of the papers of this issue, what follows shall be its elaboration.The ontology in question has it that the mind is an inner domain, that bodily behavior is an outer domain, that belief and thought epitomize the former, that intentionality is a function of the former and only derivatively manifest in the latter, that the form of our embodiment is contingent, that understanding is manifest primarily in thought and not intrinsically in praxis, that the mind is populated by free-standing inner representations, and that perception and the emotions are extrinsic to the understanding (Gallagher 2004a, 2004b; McGeer 2004; Shanker 2004). And such an ontology carries a host of epistemological implications. The self retreats from the interpersonal interactive domain, taking up residence even behind the subject's own mind, which itself becomes an objectified domain. In our own case, we are left in the predicament of needing to inspect (or intro-spect) our own inner states to find out how things are for us; our self-reports (avowals of what we think and feel) thereby become avowals of judgments of what we take ourselves to think and feel (McGeer 2004). And when we confront others the task becomes one of cognitively figuring out, from merely 'outer' clues, how things stand with them on the inside. The encounter with others is then epistemologically fraught, relying on inference and theory to take us from an outer domain of mere movement to a hidden inner world of intentionality (Gallagher 2004a, 2004b; Shanker 2004).Thus, an alienated ontology of the person and their mind bequeaths its own epistemological problematic, and the estranged epistemology gives to developmental psychology the task of filling in the details of the actual cognitive states and mechanisms which instantiate the theories and inferences which it has discerned a priori to be required. And psychopathology... (shrink)

John Etchemendy has argued that it is but "a fortuitous accident" that Tarski's work on truth has any signifance at all for semantics. I argue, in response, that Etchemendy and others, such as Scott Soames and Hilary Putnam, have been misled by Tarski's emphasis on definitions of truth rather than theories of truth and that, once we appreciate how Tarski understood the relation between these, we can answer Etchemendy's implicit and explicit criticisms of neo-Davidsonian semantics.