The Place of Rawls in Political and Ethical Theory

The work of John Rawls is central to contemporary political philosophy. A Theory of Justice provides a model for the justification of substantive principles of justice, and it defends principles that reject utilitarianism. Ultimately, justification is a matter of what the participants in a relationship or an institution can justify to one another. Unlike utilitarianism, which assumes that there is one good that it is the job of morality to maximize, Rawls holds that there are multiple conceptions of the good associated with different individuals. Furthermore, he holds that there are multiple principles of morality associated with different relationships and institutions. His principles of justice are designed for one of these—the basic structure of society. They establish a moral minimum that all members of a society owe to one another, but additional principles are required to govern other special relationships.     

语义结构理论与临床推理

临床推理是医生的核心能力之一。临床推理的语义结构理论认为,语义轴由临床意义相反的两个词构成,能精确地表征临床知识并促进医生精确地回忆知识;语义轴是正确临床诊断的必要条件,医生使用语义轴的数量与其临床诊断的正确性呈正相关。应用语义结构理论进行医学教学改革可能有益于医学生临床推理能力的迅速提高。     

阈下语义启动的任务分离研究模式及其理论模型

阈下语义启动（subliminal semantic activation SSA）作为无意识研究的一个重要领域,目前已取得丰富的研究成果。在阈下语义启动研究中主要有一致和不一致模式、无直接效应的间接效应模式、大于直接效应的间接效应模式和回归分析模式等4种研究模式。研究者运用激活扩散模型﹑反应竞争模型和复合线索模型等理论模型对阈下语义启动的无意识机制进行理论解释。     

The Place of Dialogue Theory in Logic,Computer Science and Communication Studies

Dialogue theory, although it has ancient roots, was put forward in the 1970s in logic as astructure that can be useful for helping to evaluate argumentation and informal fallacies.Recently, however, it has been taken up as a broader subject of investigation in computerscience. This paper surveys both the historical and philosophical background of dialoguetheory and the latest research initiatives on dialogue theory in computer science. The main components of dialogue theory are briefly explained. Included is a classification of the main types of dialogue that, it is argued, should provide the central focus for studying many important dialogue contexts in specific cases. Following these three surveys, a concluding prediction is made about the direction dialogue theory is likely to take in the next century, especially in relation to the growing field of communication studies.     

Semantic Information and the Correctness Theory of Truth

Semantic information is usually supposed to satisfy the veridicality thesis: p qualifies as semantic information only if p is true. However, what it means for semantic information to be true is often left implicit, with correspondentist interpretations representing the most popular, default option. The article develops an alternative approach, namely a correctness theory of truth (CTT) for semantic information. This is meant as a contribution not only to the philosophy of information but also to the philosophical debate on the nature of truth. After the introduction, in Sect. 2, semantic information is shown to be translatable into propositional semantic information (i). In Sect. 3, i is polarised into a query (Q) and a result (R), qualified by a specific context, a level of abstraction and a purpose. This polarization is normalised in Sect. 4, where [Q + R] is transformed into a Boolean question and its relative yes/no answer [Q + A]. This completes the reduction of the truth of i to the correctness of A. In Sects. 5 and 6, it is argued that (1) A is the correct answer to Q if and only if (2) A correctly saturates Q by verifying and validating it (in the computer science’s sense of “verification” and “validation”); that (2) is the case if and only if (3) [Q + A] generates an adequate model (m) of the relevant system (s) identified by Q; that (3) is the case if and only if (4) m is a proxy of s (in the computer science’s sense of “proxy”) and (5) proximal access to m commutes with the distal access to s (in the category theory’s sense of “commutation”); and that (5) is the case if and only if (6) reading/writing (accessing, in the computer science’s technical sense of the term) m enables one to read/write (access) s. Sect. 7 provides some further clarifications about CTT, in the light of semantic paradoxes. Section 8 draws a general conclusion about the nature of CTT as a theory for systems designers not just systems users. In the course of the article all technical expressions from computer science are explained.     

塔斯基：语义性真理论与符合论

塔斯基语义性真理论是否为符合论是一个争论的热点。目前有两种观点认为它是符合论,其一是根据对象语言与元语言的区分,到目前为止此观点已受到激烈批评,其二是根据“满足”概念的递归定义,此观点到目前为止还没有被人详细地阐明。本文认为塔斯基的语义性真理论是符合论,为此将首先对第一种观点及其反对意见进行深入分析,并得出结论认为该观点不能成立,继而详细阐明第二种观点,表明它是塔斯基本人的意图。在讨论中本文将对一系列的逻辑哲学问题进行探讨。     

Compositionality and the Prospect of a Pluralistic Semantic Theory

A semantic theory is committed to semantic monism just in case every particular semantic property posited by the theory is a member of the same kind. The commitment to semantic monism appears to draw some support from the need to provide a compositional semantics, since taking a single kind of semantic property as key to a semantic theory affords a uniform pattern on the basis of which the meaning of any given sentence can be compositionally determined. This line of support highlights a tension between the principle of compositionality and taking a more pluralistic approach to semantic theorizing. In this essay, that tension is relieved, leaving open the prospect of a pluralistic semantic theory that observes the principle of compositionality.     

Situated Behavior and the Place of Measurement in Psychological Theory

Measured values of human behavior may entail contradictory attributes of wave and particle by analogy with the wave/particle attributes of the electron. 1/f scaling is the wave attribute in this analogy and punctate data points are the particle attribute. One consequence of the wave/particle duality in physics was to elevate measurement to a primary place in physical theory, and one purpose of the present analogy is to likewise elevate measurement to a primary place in psychological theory. Another purpose is to emulate Robert Shaw's creative use of analogies, consistent with the brief quotation that begins this article.     

Some Limitations to the Psychological Orientation in Semantic Theory

The psychological orientation treats semantics as a matter of idealized computation over symbolic structures, and semantic relations like denotation as relations between linguistic expressions and these structures. I argue that results similar to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and Tarski’s theorem on truth create foundational difficulties for this view of semantics.     

Dispositions Indisposed: Semantic Atomism and Fodor's Theory of Content

According to Jerry Fodor's atomistic theory of content, subjects' dispositions to token mentalese terms in counterfactual circumstances fix the contents of those terms. I argue that the pattern of counterfactual tokenings alone does not satisfactorily fix content; if Fodor's appeal to patterns of counterfactual tokenings has any chance of assigning correct extensions, Fodor must take into account the contents of subjects' various mental states at the times of those tokenings. However, to do so, Fodor must abandon his semantic atomism. And while Fodor has recently qualified his atomism, the cognitively holistic nature of dispositions continues to undermine his view.