Ambiguity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kent Bach
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Basis ◽  
Other Hand

A word, phrase or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning. The word ‘light’, for example, can mean not very heavy or not very dark. Words like ‘light’, ‘note’, ‘bear’ and ‘over’ are lexically ambiguous. They induce ambiguity in phrases or sentences in which they occur, such as ‘light suit’ and ‘The duchess can’t bear children’. However, phrases and sentences can be ambiguous even if none of their constituents is. The phrase ‘porcelain egg container’ is structurally ambiguous, as is the sentence ‘The police shot the rioters with guns’. Ambiguity can have both a lexical and a structural basis, as with sentences like ‘I left her behind for you’ and ‘He saw her duck’. The notion of ambiguity has philosophical applications. For example, identifying an ambiguity can aid in solving a philosophical problem. Suppose one wonders how two people can have the same idea, say of a unicorn. This can seem puzzling until one distinguishes ‘idea’ in the sense of a particular psychological occurrence, a mental representation, from ‘idea’ in the sense of an abstract, shareable concept. On the other hand, gratuitous claims of ambiguity can make for overly simple solutions. Accordingly, the question arises of how genuine ambiguities can be distinguished from spurious ones. Part of the answer consists in identifying phenomena with which ambiguity may be confused, such as vagueness, unclarity, inexplicitness and indexicality.

Producing a Mental Representation of a Cup of Sake

2019 ◽  
pp. 430-448
Author(s):  
Hiroki Fukushima
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
The Other ◽  
Experimental Methodology ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Average Person ◽  
Supporting Tool

In this chapter, methodologies for producing a mental representation of a cup of sake are introduced. Mental representations of taste are often vague and fuzzy in comparison to audio or visual images. On the other hand, some individuals, such as sommeliers or tasters of sake, are able to readily formulate a representation of the taste they experience. How can the average person produce words or other types of mental representations in such a situation? In this chapter, the author presents three methodologies for eliciting mental representations of taste: a new supporting tool for verbalizing an image of taste, an experimental method for testing a verbal and visual image for taste, and an experimental methodology for producing a free drawing representation of a cup of sake.

Structural basis of the activation wave in the egg of Xenopus laevis

Development ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Tetsuo Takeichi ◽  
Hiroshi Y. Kubota
Keyword(s):  
Xenopus Laevis ◽  
Light Wave ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Basis ◽  
Cortical Granules ◽  
Dark Zone ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Light Area

A series of changes in the surface of activated Xenopus eggs was observed. Within a few seconds of prick activation a light area appears near the pricking point and expands as a circular light zone (light wave). Some 60s later this is followed by a dark area expanding as a circular dark zone (dark wave). Both waves travel at a rate of about 9 μm/s at 21 °C. In the light zone, cortical granules are breaking down, microvilli are elongating, and the egg surface is expanded. On the other hand, the elongated microvilli are reshortening to become globular and the egg surface is contracted in the dark zone.

The Trinity

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-169
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Material Constitution ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
The One ◽  
The Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity poses a serious philosophical problem. On the one hand, it seems to imply that there is exactly one divine being; on the other hand, it seems to imply that there are three. There is another well-known philosophical problem that presents us with a similar sort of tension: the problem of material constitution. After an examination of two classificatory schemes (the Latin tradition which traces its historical roots through the western church. and the Greek tradition which traces its roots through the eastern church) this chapter argues that a relatively neglected solution to the problem of material constitution can be developed into a novel solution to the problem of the Trinity.

The more data, the better: A usage-based account of the English comparative correlative construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann ◽  
Jakob Horsch ◽  
Thomas Brunner
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Construction Type ◽  
The One ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Specific Construction

AbstractLanguages are complex systems that allow speakers to produce novel grammatical utterances. Yet, linguists differ as to how general and abstract they think the mental representation of speakers have to be to give rise to this grammatical creativity. In order to shed light on these questions, the present study looks at one specific construction type, English comparative correlatives, that turns out to be particularly interesting in this context: on the one hand it has been described in terms of one of the most abstract and general syntactic rules, on the other hand it shows specific idiomatic structures that are often produced without any variation (e.g. the more, the merrier). While the syntax and semantics of the English Comparative Correlative (CC) construction have received considerable attention in the literature, so far only a small number of usage-based analyses have been published on the topic. These either only relied on small databases or focussed only on the productivity of one slot in the construction. In contrast to this, the present study analyses more than 1,400 CC tokens sampled from COCA. The results of the present study yield important results concerning English CC constructions, including the schematicity and generality of their mental representations.

Relative Identity and the Doctrine of the Trinity

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-200
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relative Identity ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The One ◽  
The Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity maintains that there are exactly three divine Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) but only one God. The philosophical problem raised by this doctrine is well known. On the one hand, the doctrine seems clearly to imply that the divine Persons are numerically distinct. How else could they be ‘three’ rather than one? On the other hand, it seems to imply that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are identical. If each Person is divine, how else could there be exactly ‘one’ God? But the divine Persons can’t be both distinct and identical. Thus, the doctrine appears to be incoherent. Some try to solve this problem by appeal to the view that identity is sortal-relative. This chapter argues that this strategy is unsuccessful as a stand-alone solution to the problem of the Trinity.

The Combinatorial Model of Pitch Contour

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pitch Contour ◽  
Melodic Contour ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Combinatorial Model

Much previous work on the perception of pitch contour has concerned itself only with the contour relations among adjacent notes, which may lead to the assumption that relations among nonadjacent tones do not play a role in the mental representation of contour. Music theorists, on the other hand, have developed sophisticated models of contour in which relations among nonadjacent tones play an integral part. In order to test the salience of relations among nonadjacent melodic tones in the perception of melodic contour, musically trained participants were asked to rate the similarity of discrete pairs of stimulus melodies with regard to contour. The results suggest that although contour relations among adjacent tones are more significant than those among nonadjacent tones in determining judgments about contour similarity, nonadjacent contour relations do contribute to such judgments.

scholarly journals Pozycja człowieka w przyrodzie – osobliwe zwierzę

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 23-50
Author(s):  
Zdzisław Kieliszek
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World ◽  
Living Nature ◽  
The One

The question: who is the man? seems to be the very important philosophical problem. This question focuses many different problems of the philosophy. Recently we have another form of this question: is the man only an animal? The development and results of the biology lead us to the statement – the man is the only one of many elements of the nature, wholly connected with the world. The analysis of the human way of being presents us, that the man is really the part of the nature, but he has the special status in the world. On the one hand he has many features with dead and living nature, especially with the apes. On the other hand the man has the certain attributes and abilities, which have no equivalent in the world of plants and animals. We can say the man belongs to the nature and he steps over it. He is a very peculiar species because he can control his animal nature.

Material Constitution and the Trinity [with Jeffrey Brower]

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Michael C. Rea
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Material Constitution ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The One ◽  
The Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity poses a serious philosophical problem. On the one hand, it seems to imply that there is exactly one divine being. On the other hand, it seems to imply that there are three divine beings. There is another well-known philosophical problem that presents us with a similar sort of tension: the problem of material constitution. This chapter argues that a relatively neglected solution to the problem of material constitution—an appeal to the Aristotelian doctrine of numerical sameness without identity—can be developed into a novel solution to the problem of the Trinity.

Purpose and Authority in Morals

Philosophy ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 31 (119) ◽  
pp. 309-323
Author(s):  
H. J. N. Horsburgh
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Fourth Section ◽  
The Third ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Points Of View

The controversy between teleologists and deontologists, whether under these names or in other guises, is one of the long-standing disputes of ethics. In different branches of philosophy the perennial nature of a dispute may point to different things: in some, for example, it may properly incline one to say “a plague on both your houses” and thereafter to look for some way of disposing of the whole problem around which the philosophical problem has raged; in ethics, on the other hand, root-and-branch methods of excision are to be deplored, for here a perennial issue usually draws attention to points of view which have somehow to be reconciled if the problems underlying them are to be overcome. The deontology-teleology controversy seems to me a case in point. Here, if anywhere in ethics, a reconciliation must be effected; and in the present paper my primary aim is to induce deontologists and teleologists to abandon their mutual hostility.1I shall attempt to carry out this mission of philosophical good will through examining the ways in which we justify imperatives. In the first section of the paper I shall say something about the controversy itself, making it clear that I consider that it has roots which it would be inconvenient to expose at this stage of the inquiry; in the second I shall study the justification of a number of typical non-moral imperatives; in the third I shall apply the findings of the second to the justification of moral imperatives; and finally, in the fourth section I shall return to the deontology-teleology controversy and attempt to elucidate how it arises, to point out the two levels on which the same dispute (as it seems to me) can be found, and to suggest a way in which the essentials of the rival views may be accepted and combined.

A study of cometary eruptions through OH radio-lines

1999 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 249-254
Author(s):  
A.M. Silva ◽  
R.D. Miró
Keyword(s):  
Short Duration ◽  
Growth Curves ◽  
The Other ◽  
Initial Mass ◽  
Radio Lines ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Sudden Rise

AbstractWe have developed a model for theH2OandOHevolution in a comet outburst, assuming that together with the gas, a distribution of icy grains is ejected. With an initial mass of icy grains of 108kg released, theH2OandOHproductions are increased up to a factor two, and the growth curves change drastically in the first two days. The model is applied to eruptions detected in theOHradio monitorings and fits well with the slow variations in the flux. On the other hand, several events of short duration appear, consisting of a sudden rise ofOHflux, followed by a sudden decay on the second day. These apparent short bursts are frequently found as precursors of a more durable eruption. We suggest that both of them are part of a unique eruption, and that the sudden decay is due to collisions that de-excite theOHmaser, when it reaches the Cometopause region located at 1.35 × 105kmfrom the nucleus.

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