Thick Epistemic Concepts

In metaethics, there is a range of different views of the nature of thick concepts. At one extreme are views holding that thick concepts are irreducibly thick, and that this has important consequences. At the other, there are views that hold that thick concepts are not inherently evaluative as a matter of content, and that they are of little or no theoretical consequence. In the epistemic case there is an additional element of controversy: whether the thick–thin distinction holds for epistemic concepts at all. In this chapter it is argued that it does. First, it is characterized what thick concepts are, before an outlining of why the question of whether there are any thick epistemic concepts is important. It is then argued that the epistemic domain is the right place to look for thick concepts, and that within that domain we find examples of concepts that are sufficiently like paradigm cases of thick ethical concepts to count as thick.

Professional Role of Tour Guides and Theoretical Consequences of Intercultural Communication

Intercultural communication between tour guides and foreign tourists, taking place in a number of tourist attractions in Tana Toraja, Indonesia, is a form of communication used to share information from various cultures and social groups. This factual condition of intercultural communication proves that; Firstly, none of the five informants (tour guides) selected which duties to perform as explicitly mentioned in the first theoretical consequence of intercultural communication by Sunnafrank (1989, p.44). As mentioned in the first theoretical consequence of intercultural communication, although intercultural communication is difficult, tour guides are unlikely to avoid it because it is assigned by the company hiring them, in addition to the fact that they already have professional competence as a tour guide, mastering international languages, cultural product knowledge and information related to tourist destinations. Secondly, in the communication process, none of the tour guides and foreign tourists reduced their communication intensity despite finding negative results. These two facts are the characteristics of intercultural communication between tour guides and foreign tourists in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. In terms of linguistics, findings lead to verbal forms used, both as the consequences of language relativity as well as the preferences of cultural experiences of each foreign tourist.

Dynamical properties of profinite actions

We study profinite actions of residually finite groups in terms of weak containment. We show that two strongly ergodic profinite actions of a group are weakly equivalent if and only if they are isomorphic. This allows us to construct continuum many pairwise weakly inequivalent free actions of a large class of groups, including free groups and linear groups with property (T). We also prove that for chains of subgroups of finite index, Lubotzky’s property (τ) is inherited when taking the intersection with a fixed subgroup of finite index. That this is not true for families of subgroups in general leads to the question of Lubotzky and Zuk: for families of subgroups, is property (τ) inherited by the lattice of subgroups generated by the family? On the other hand, we show that for families of normal subgroups of finite index, the above intersection property does hold. In fact, one can give explicit estimates on how the spectral gap changes when passing to the intersection. Our results also have an interesting graph theoretical consequence that does not use the language of groups. Namely, we show that an expanding covering tower of finite regular graphs is either bipartite or stays bounded away from being bipartite in the normalized edge distance.

New formulas derived from seismic interferometry to simulate phase velocity estimates from correlation methods using microtremor

I have developed two theoretical formulas on the basis of the power partition ratios among different modes of Rayleigh waves that are newly derived theoretically from seismic interferometry (SI). These formulas, one for the spatial autocorrelation method (SPAC) and another for the centerless circular array method (CCA), are used to simulate the estimates of the dispersion curves that can be obtained from the correlation methods using microtremor in situations when the higher normal modes are present along with the fundamental mode. The formulas can provide a way to overcome the problem caused by the assumption of the dominance of the fundamental mode, which is not always true. In addition, I have conducted a numerical validation check using the synthetic microtremor waveform data that were produced by the finite-difference method. I have found that the CCA can be an alternative to the SPAC to estimate the dispersion curves. The formula for the CCA can well simulate the dispersion curves estimated by the SPAC and CCA methods, and are better than the formula based on the above-mentioned assumption. Moreover, using the data mentioned above, I have discovered that the dual-mode inversion, which considers the presence of the fundamental and first higher modes on the basis of the formula for the CCA, performs better than the conventional single-mode inversion, which rests on the above-mentioned assumption. These positive results partially support the theoretical consequence of SI, i.e., the power partition ratio, and, further, SI itself on which the theoretically derived formulas fully rely.

La nominalisation d’un participe passé: la suppléance mettre/mise en composition lexicale

The nominalization of several French idioms constructed with the verb mettre contrasts with that of derived nominais such as la destruction de Rome par les barbares. This contrast is mainly due to the quasi mandatory shift of the internal arguments of NPs such as la mise en oeuvre de X ‘the implementation of X’ which corresponds to mettre X en oeuvre ‘to implement X’. A standard morphological treatment of the nominalization of mettre cannot account for the “parasitic gap” associated with this shift. A treatment in terms of “derivational syntax” appears to be more adequate, in that it attributes to the verbal suppletion the preservation of the categorial identity and the semantic unity of the lexical entry shared by the NP and the VP. A major theoretical consequence of this analysis is that it challenges the generally agreed upon claims that X-bar structures are necessarily endocentric and that lexical entries always constitute atomic categories.