Cognitive propositions and semantic expressions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
Wayne A. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Central Question ◽  
General Account ◽  
Incorrect Usage

Abstract Building on their well-known act theory of propositions, Soames and Hanks have proposed a theory of what it is for sentences to express propositions, thereby answering a central question about the foundations of semantics. The basic idea is that for a sentence to express a proposition in a language is for speakers of the language to use the sentence to perform the act that is the proposition. I argue that this general account of expression fails to explain how incorrect usage is possible, how what sentences express differs from what they implicate, how unused sentences can express propositions, how compositional meanings are possible, and how to specify who the speakers of L are without circularity. I go on to show how these things can be explained within the structured cognitive proposition framework.

Elements for a General Organology

Derrida Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-94
Author(s):  
Bernard Stiegler
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Planetary Scale ◽  
General Account ◽  
Inorganic Matter ◽  
History Of

These lectures outline the project of a general organology, which is to say an account of life when it is no longer just biological but technical, or when it involves not just organic matter but organized inorganic matter. This organology is also shown to require a modified Simondonian account of the shift from vital individuation to a three-stranded process of psychic, collective and technical individuation. Furthermore, such an approach involves extending the Derridean reading of Socrates's discussion of writing as a pharmakon, so that it becomes a more general account of the pharmacological character of retention and protention. By going back to Leroi-Gourhan, we can recognize that this also means pursuing the history of retentional modifications unfolding in the course of the history of what, with Lotka, can also be called exosomatization. It is thus a question of how exteriorization can, today, in an epoch when it becomes digital, and in an epoch that produces vast amounts of entropy at the thermodynamic, biological and noetic levels, still possibly produce new forms of interiorization, that is, new forms of thought, care and desire, amounting to so many chances to struggle against the planetary-scale pharmacological crisis with which we are currently afflicted.

Ruler Visibility and Popular Belonging in the Ottoman Empire, 1808-1908

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darin Stephanov
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Group Consciousness ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Point Model ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
National Movements ◽  
Tanzimat Reforms ◽  
The One

‘What do we really speak of when we speak of the modern ethno-national mindset and where shall we search for its roots?’ This is the central question of a book arguing that the periodic ceremonial intrusion into the everyday lives of people across the Ottoman Empire, which the annual royal birthday and accession-day celebrations constituted, had multiple, far-reaching, and largely unexplored consequences. On the one hand, it brought ordinary subjects into symbolic contact with the monarch and forged lasting vertical ties of loyalty to him, irrespective of language, location, creed or class. On the other hand, the rounds of royal celebration played a key role in the creation of new types of horizontal ties and ethnic group consciousness that crystallized into national movements, and, after the empire’s demise, national monarchies. The book discusses the themes of public space/sphere, the Tanzimat reforms, millet, modernity, nationalism, governmentality, and the modern state, among others. It offers a new, thirteen-point model of modern belonging based on the concept of ruler visibility.

The Tribal Impact on Political Stability in Sudan

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 167-188
Author(s):  
Abdu Mukhtar Musa
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Third World ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Conflict Escalation ◽  
Islamic Movement ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Cultural Structure

As in most Arab and Third World countries, the tribal structure is an anthropological reality and a sociological particularity in Sudan. Despite development and modernity aspects in many major cities and urban areas in Sudan, the tribe and the tribal structure still maintain their status as a psychological and cultural structure that frames patterns of behavior, including the political behavior, and influence the political process. This situation has largely increased in the last three decades under the rule of the Islamic Movement in Sudan, because of the tribe politicization and the ethnicization of politics, as this research reveals. This research is based on an essential hypothesis that the politicization of tribalism is one of the main reasons for the tribal conflict escalation in Sudan. It discusses a central question: Who is responsible for the tribal conflicts in Sudan?

Death of the General Account

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Brian O'Neil
Keyword(s):  
General Account

Who’s holding up the sky? On Rymba, a novel by A. Bushkovsky

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 150-158
Author(s):  
A. V. Zhuchkova
Keyword(s):  
Gender Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Flood Zone ◽  
The Social ◽  
Russian North ◽  
And Gender

The article deals with A. Bushkovsky’s novel Rymba that goes beyond the topics typical of Russian North prose. Rather than limiting himself to admiring nature and Russian character, the author portrays the northern Russian village of Rymba in the larger context of the country’s mentality, history, mythology, and gender politics. In the novel, myth clashes with reality, history with the present day, and an individual with the state. The critic draws a comparison between the novel and the traditions of village prose and Russian North prose. In particular, Bushkovsky’s Rymba is discussed alongside V. Rasputin’s Farewell to Matyora [ Proshchanie s Matyoroy ] and R. Senchin’s The Flood Zone [ Zona zatopleniya ]. The novel’s central question is: what keeps the Russian world afloat? Depicting the Christian faith as such a bulwark, Bushkovsky links atheism with the social and spiritual roles played by contemporary men and women. The critic argues, however, that the reliance on Christianity in the novel verges on an affectation. The book’s main symbol is a drowning hawk: it perishes despite people’s efforts to save it.

The Fight to Save Welfare for Low-Income Older Asian Immigrants: The Role of National Asian American Organizations

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Welfare Reform Law ◽  
Selection Of

The welfare reform law of August 1996 signed by President Bill Clinton put an end to immigrants’ eligibility of federal means tested entitlements. The rollbacks on welfare are the most drastic for older, low-income Asian immigrants who are on Supplemental Security Income. The article’s focus is in on national Asian American organizations who are involved in this political debate. The central question discuss is how did national Asian American organizations characterize and affect the 1996 federal welfare reform and immigrant debate. The selection of organizations that was studied and the findings of that investigation, along with the assessment of its effectiveness and the resources barriers they face are discussed.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Evan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Agent Causation ◽  
The Right

This chapter lays out the book’s central question: Assuming agency reductionism—that is, the thesis that the causal role of the agent in all agential activities is reducible to the causal role of states and events involving the agent—is it possible to construct a defensible model of libertarianism? It is explained that most think the answer is negative and this is because they think libertarians must embrace some form of agent-causation in order to address the problems of luck and enhanced control. The thesis of the book is that these philosophers are mistaken: it is possible to construct a libertarian model of free will and moral responsibility within an agency reductionist framework that silences that central objections to libertarianism by simply taking the best compatibilist model of freedom and adding indeterminism in the right junctures of human agency. A brief summary of the chapters to follow is given.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Deterrence Theory ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Policy ◽  
Previous Scholarship ◽  
As If

This chapter provides a summary introduction to the book. It explains the central question the book addresses and why it is important. Namely, it asks why academic nuclear deterrence theory maintains that nuclear superiority does not matter, but policymakers often behave as if it does. It then provides a brief explanation of the answer to this question: the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. It discusses the implications of the argument for international relations theory and for US nuclear policy. In contrast to previous scholarship, the argument of this book provides the first coherent explanation for why nuclear superiority matters even if both sides possess a secure, second-strike capability. In so doing, it helps to resolve what may be the longest-standing, intractable, and important puzzle in the scholarly study of nuclear strategy. It concludes with a description of the plan for the rest of the book.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Reutlinger ◽  
Juha Saatsi
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Covering Law

What is a scientific explanation? This has been a central question in philosophy of science at least since Hempel and Oppenheim’s pivotal attempt at an answer in 1948 (also known as the covering-law model of explanation; Hempel 1965: chapter 10). It is no surprise that this question has retained its place at the heart of contemporary philosophy of science, given that it is one of the sciences’ key aims to provide ...

Atonement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eleonore Stump

The doctrine that Christ has saved human beings from their sins, with all that that salvation entails, is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection on the doctrine, highly diverse understandings have been proposed, many of which have also raised strong positive or negative emotions in those who have reflected on them. In this book, in the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers this theological doctrine with philosophical care. The central question of the book is the nature of the atonement. That is, what is it that is accomplished by the passion and death of Christ (or the life, passion, and death, of Christ)? Whatever exactly it is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problem of the post-Fall human condition, with its guilt and shame. This volume canvasses major interpretations of the doctrine of the atonement that attempt to explain this solution, and it argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, Stump employs an extension of a Thomistic account of love and forgiveness to argue for a relatively novel interpretation of the doctrine, which she calls ‘the Marian interpretation.’ Stump argues that this Marian interpretation makes better sense of the doctrine of the atonement than other interpretations do, including Anselm’s well-known theory. In the process of constructing the Marian interpretation, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics.

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