Becoming: A modest proposal

In this paper I attempt a new approach to an old technical term: becoming. I show how the theory that becoming is coming-to-be could be supported by a semantic derivation of the nominalization becoming from its verbal counterpart, by investigating the properties of the present progressive constructions in which becoming as a verbal appears. My theory denies that dates, or qualitative change, play an essential role in the analysis of becoming.     

PROXY FUNCTIONS,TRUTH AND REFERENCE

Quines ontological relativity is related to Tarskis theory of truth in two ways: Quine repudiates term-by-term-correspondence, as does Tarskis rule of truth; and Quines proxy argument in support of relativity finds exact formulation in Tarskis truth definition.Unfortunately, relativity is threatened by the fact that the proxy argument doesnt comply with the rule of truth (Tarskis celebrated condition (T)). Despite Quines express allegiance to (T), use of proxy schemes does not generate all of the true sentences condition (T) requires.A possible adjustment is to drop (T), retain the satisfaction definition and proxy argument, and appeal to the theory of observation and indeterminacy of reference as grounds of relativity. But as we shall see Quines theories of assent to observation sentences and of reference-learning dont square easily with his naturalism. The first attributes intentional attitudes to observers; and the second assumes a holistic context principle and a concept of individuation which do not withstand scrutiny as empirical notions. Both appear to violate Quines behavorist canon.A saving alternative is a theory of term-reference that appears in Roots of Reference and affords a return to behaviorism, and reinstatement of the proxy argument and relativity in a way compatible with Tarskis (T).     

The two faces of Quine's naturalism

Quine's naturalized epistemology is ambivalent between a modest naturalism according to which epistemology is an a posteriori discipline, an integral part of the web of empirical belief, and a scientistic naturalism according to which epistemology is to be conducted wholly within the natural sciences. This ambivalence is encouraged by Quine's ambiguous use of science, to mean sometimes, broadly, our presumed empirical knowledge and sometimes, narrowly, the natural sciences. Quine's modest naturalism is reformist, tackling the traditional epistemological problems in a novel way; his scientistic naturalism is revolutionary, requiring restriction and reconceptualization of epistemological problems. In particular, his scientistic naturalism trivializes the question of the epistemic standing of the natural sciences, whereas modest naturalism takes it seriously, and can offer a plausible answer.Earlier versions of this paper were read at the Moral Sciences Club, Cambridge, U.K., Temple University, and the University of Miami. I wish to thank those who made helpful comments on these occasions, and Dirk Koppelberg for helpful correspondence.     

Kenneth Strike on Liberalism,Citizenship and the Private Interest in Schooling

After indicating a number of points of agreement with the argument 0eveloped by Kenneth Strike in his article Liberalism, Citizenship and the Private Interest in Schooling, this article identifies and explores a number of queries and criticisms which arise in relation to that argument. These queries and criticisms relate especially to the nature and extent of the expansiveness involved in Strike's conception of public or common educational influence, and to the implications and justification of the claim that private educational interests enjoy a greater salience and recognition on Strike's view of public or common educational influence than on some alternative views.     

Supererogation in Deontic Logic: Metatheory for DWE and Some Close Neighbours

In "Doing Well Enough: Toward a Logic for Common Sense Morality", Paul McNamara sets out a semantics for a deontic logic which contains the operator It is supererogatory that. As well as having a binary accessibility relation on worlds, that semantics contains a relative ordering relation, . For worlds u, v and w, we say that u w v when v is at least as good as u according to the standards of w. In this paper we axiomatize logics complete over three versions of the semantics. We call the strongest of these logics DWE for Doing Well Enough.     

Natural deduction rules for English

A system of natural deduction rules is proposed for an idealized form of English. The rules presuppose a sharp distinction between proper names and such expressions as the c, a (an) c, some c, any c, and every c, where c represents a common noun. These latter expressions are called quantifiers, and other expressions of the form that c or that c itself, are called quantified terms. Introduction and elimination rules are presented for any, every, some, a (an), and the, and also for any which, every which, and so on, as well as rules for some other concepts. One outcome of these rules is that Every man loves some woman is implied by, but does not imply, Some woman is loved by every man, since the latter is taken to mean the same as Some woman is loved by all men. Also, Jack knows which woman came is implied by Some woman is known by Jack to have come, but not by Jack knows that some woman came.     

Theor of free choice permission

I argue that the conjunctive distribution of permissibility over or, which is a puzzling feature of free-choice permission is just one instance of a more general class of conjunctive occurrences of the word, and that these conjunctive uses are more directly explicable by the consideration that or is a descendant of oper than by reference to the disjunctive occurrences which logicalist prejudices may tempt us to regard as semantically more fundamental. I offer an account of how the disjunctive uses of or may have come about through an intermediate discourse-adverbial use of or, drawing a parallel with but, which, etymologically, is disjunctive rather than conjunctive and whose conjunctive uses seem to represent just such a discourse-adverbial application.     

The array size function in simple visual search tasks: A comparison between “go-no go” and “yes-no” tasks under conditions of high and low target-noise similarity

Summary In research on visual search within a single eye-fixation a number of different tasks are used and referred to interchangeably. Research with other types of tasks suggests that there are possibly important differences between these tasks. In the present study, two types of search tasks were compared under conditions as equal as possible: the go-no go task and the yes-no task. Conditions of low and high target-noise similarity were used. The results obtained showed: a) a steeper slope of the array size function in yes-no tasks than in go-no go tasks on the first day of practice but not on the second: b) a higher intercept value of the same function for yes-no tasks than for go-no go tasks; and c) a greater proportion of errors with yes-no tasks than with comparable go-no go tasks. A tentative model, describing the main features of the results obtained, is briefly sketched.     

On the Way to a Postmodern Curriculum Theory -- Moving from the Question of Unity to the Question of Difference

This article will examine the consequences of highlighting subject and difference in one of the curriculum theories that has been inspired by postmodernism. The term postmodernism is here first and foremost meant to signify the attempt to combine politics and morality with epistemology in accordance with Levinas, Lyotard and Bauman. The article will highlight some themes that need to be developed further for a postmodernism-inspired curriculum theory. A starting-point is a critique of the type of curriculum theory which has its base in the new sociology of education. From this critique, focused on universal claims, the Habermasian-inspired universalism is quickly and critically dropped and left behind, and another form of reasoning is embarked upon. The latter is inspired by a minotarian politics concept and tries to dissolve universalism as a prerequisite for critical conversations. With this background and with the help of Levinas, the article sets out to talk about difference without reduction to the Same and finally suggest a direction for a postmodern curriculum theory with a normative focus on knowledge.     

Leadership of antireligious propaganda in the Soviet Union

Re-emergent scientific atheism bears the marks of its historical origins in the efforts of Bon-Bruevi and Jaroslavskij. The disciples of the Lenin generation use their fathers somewhat as second-level classics.     

Philosophie der Arrieregarde

Bulgarian philosophical life is particularly poor and fruitless. As well as in all communist countries the development of Bulgarian Marxism-Leninism was marked by some very sharp controversies between dogmatics and revisionists. Bulgarian Orthodoxes are particularly militant and intolerant and on the contrary, revisionists are in reality very moderate and rather conservative. Therefore the deviations are insignificant and the degree of the destalinization is very small.     

On the continuing utility of argument in a postmodern world

In this essay we contend that traditional theories of argument are consonant with and enrich the project of postmodernity. Reading postmodernity as a rhetoric underscores how the process of discursively resolving conflicts is occasionally threatened by politically motivated efforts to misuse the methods of argument; it alerts us to the egregious acts that are and can be performed in the name of, but not because of, rationality. Postmodernity is thus an attempt by a new generation of theorists to recast and draw attention to perennial philosophical problems in the context of contemporary political difficulties.     

THE MEDIA AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

The meanings of violence, political violence, and terrorism are briefly discussed. I then consider the responsibilities of the media, especially television, with respect to political violence, including such questions as how violence should be described, and whether the media should cover terrorism. I argue that the media should contribute to decreasing political violence through better coverage of arguments for and against political dissidents' views, and especially through more and better treatment of nonviolent means of influencing political processes. Since commercial pressures routinely conflict with media responsibility, I argue that society should liberate substantial amounts of culture from such pressures.     

From Brouwerian Counter Examples to the Creating Subject

The original Brouwerian counter examples were algorithmic in nature; after the introduction of choice sequences, Brouwer devised a version which did not depend on algorithms. This is the origin of the creating subject technique. The method allowed stronger refutations of classical principles. Here it is used to show that negative dense subsets of the continuum are indecomposable.     

Routes to action in reaction time tasks

Summary Two-choice tactile RTs are no faster than 8-choice tasks, implying the existence of a direct route. However, simple tactile RTs are much faster than choice tactile RTs (Leonard, 1959). In Experiment I we show that this is not due to subjects anticipating the stimulus in simple tactile RT tasks. Increasing probability of stimulus occurrence at a particular time led to equally decreased tactile RTs for simple and choice tasks.We suggest that an alternative route is available for simple RTs which is faster than the direct route available for choice tactile RTs. This route is faster because (a) the response can be specified in advance, and (b) the stimulus does not need to be identified. The subject needs merely to register that it has occurred. In Experiment II we show that simple RTs to a visual stimulus are decreased by a simultaneous uninformative tactile stimulus even when this is to the wrong finger. This confirms that exact stimulus identification is not necessary in the fast route. In Experiment III we show that a secondary task slows down simple tactile RTs to the same level as choice tactile RTs while the latter are hardly affected. This suggests that focussed attention is not needed for the direct route, but it is needed for the fast route. We propose that a useful distinction can be made between action largely controlled by external stimuli (the direct route) and action largely controlled by internal intentions of will (the fast route).     

Unique Events: The Underdetermination of Explanation

The paper explicates unique events and investigates their epistemology. Explications of unique events as individuated, different, and emergent are philosophically uninteresting. Unique events are topics of why-questions that radically underdetermine all their potential explanations. Uniqueness that is relative to a level of scientific development is differentiated from absolute uniqueness. Science eliminates relative uniqueness by discovery of recurrence of events and properties, falsification of assumptions of why-questions, and methodological simplification e.g. by explanatory methodological reduction. Finally, an overview of contemporary philosophical disputes that hinge on issues of uniqueness emphasizes its philosophical significance.     

Increasing correct identifications by children

Four new lineup procedures were examined with the goal of increasingchildren's identification accuracy. Participants (329 children aged 10 and11 years, 426 children aged 12 to 14 years, and 265 adults) were presentedwith either a target-present or target-absent lineup. Proceduralmodifications included providing a salient "I don't know" response option,extending standard instructions, and modeling correct responses eitherusing an identification demonstration video or a handout. These conditionswere compared to a standard (control) lineup procedure. Extendingstandard instructions increased correct identifications by the youngerchildren. Presenting a salient "I don't know" response increased overallchoosing for both target-present and target-absent lineups. Experimentalprocedures did not influence correct rejection rates. These data demonstratea variety of techniques that may be useful for improving the identificationaccuracy of child witnesses. Future directions are discussed.     

Three theories of nominalized predicates

By the term nominalization I mean any process which transforms a predicate or predicate phrase into a noun or noun phrase, e.g. feminine is transformed into feminity. I call these derivative nouns abstract singular terms. Our aim is to provide a model-theoretic interpretation for a formal language which admits the occurrence of such abstract singular terms.     

The relativity of perceptual knowledge

Since the most promising path to a solution to the problem of skepticism regarding perceptual knowledge seems to rest on a sharp distinction between perceiving and inferring, I begin by clarifying and defending that distinction. Next, I discuss the chief obstacle to success by this path, the difficulty in making the required distinction between merely logical possibilities that one is mistaken and the real (Austin) or relevant (Dretske) possibilities which would exclude knowledge. I argue that this distinction cannot be drawn in the ways Austin and Dretske suggest without begging the questions at issue. Finally, I sketch and defend a more radical way of identifying relevant possibilities that is inspired by Austin's controversial suggestion of a parallel between saying I know and saying I promise: a claim of knowledge of some particular matter is relative to a context in which questions about the matter have been raised.