A syntax of a major area of Middle English, this book seeks to bridge the gap between philology and linguistics. The historical study of English syntax has suffered from being at the meeting point of two traditions: the philological, which tends to focus on the analysis of texts and to avoid questions of linguistic interpretations, and a more recent linguistic one, which tends to focus on the grammatical systems of languages and often fails to appreciate the limitations of textual evidence (...) and the careful interpretation needed before grammatical account can be based confidently on textual evidence. The work is based on a study of the sermons of John Wyclif, so it is important for students not only of Middle English but also of the history of English, since the author argues that the language of the sermons is important step in the development of Standard English. The book also seeks to demonstrate an appropriate methodology for the writing of linguistically informed grammars of dead languages, and provides a major response to the work of Lightfoot on diachronic syntax. (shrink)

• Ann Taylor, Anthony Warner, Susan Pintzuk, and Frank Beths. York-Toronto-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose. Oxford Text Archive, first edition, 2003.

The concept of vulnerability has been subject to numerous different interpretations but accounts are still beset with significant problems as to their adequacy, such as their contentious application or the lack of genuine explanatory role for the concept. The constant failure to provide a compelling conceptual analysis and satisfactory definition leaves the concept open to an eliminativist move whereby we can question whether we need the concept at all. I highlight problems with various kinds of approach and explain why a (...) satisfactory account of vulnerability is unlikely ever to be offered if we wish the concept to play a genuinely explanatory role in bioethical contexts. I outline why an eliminativist position should be taken with regard to this concept in light of these concerns but mitigate some of the severity of this position by arguing that we can still make sense of retaining our widespread use of the term by viewing it as nothing more than a useful pragmatic linguistic device that acts as a marker to draw attention to certain kinds of issue. These issues will be entirely governed by other, better understood ethical concepts and theories. (shrink)

The transplantation of non-human organs into humans, or xenotransplantation (XTx), has recently garnered new attention and is being developed to help address the problem of organ scarcity in transplantation. Ethical issues surrounding XTx have been studied since initial interest arose decades ago and have experienced renewed discussion in the literature. However, the distinct and relevant differences when applied to children has largely been overlooked with few groups attending to the concerns that XTx in children raises. In this paper, we explore (...) ethical challenges to be expected in paediatric XTx, in particular exploring organ sizing concerns, infectious risks, psychological burdens, and issues of moral hazard. We review these domains with the aim of highlighting the implications of pursuing paediatric XTx and the cross-disciplinary approach needed to solve these issues. Children require a unique analysis from a bioethical perspective to best prepare for the issues XTx presents. (shrink)

The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying has recently been the topic of substantial media interest and also been subject to the independent Neuberger Review. This review has identified clear failings in some areas of care and recommended the Liverpool Care Pathway be phased out. I argue that while the evidence gathered of poor incidences of practice by the Review is of genuine concern for end of life care, the inferences drawn from this evidence are inconsistent with the causes for (...) the concern. Seeking to end an approach that is widely seen as best practice and which can genuinely deliver high quality care because of negative impressions that have been formed from failing to implement it properly is not a good basis for radically overhauling our approach to end of life care. I conclude that improvements in training, communication, and ethical decision-making, without the added demand to end the Liverpool Care Pathway would have resulted in a genuine advance in end of life care. (shrink)

There is no doubt that the model presented here is incomplete. Many important categories, particularly negation and the adverbials, have been entirely ignored, and the treatment of Tense and the affixes is certainly inadequate. It also remains to be seen how the many constructions that have been ignored here are to be accommodated within the framework that has been outlined. However, the fact that a standard categorial lexicon, plus the four rule schemata, seems to come close to exhaustively specifying the (...) main clause constructions of English, and also seems to explain a number of major constraints on transformations, encourages us to compare the theory with certain alternatives, and to examine its broader implications. (shrink)

Online debates typically possess a large number of argumentative comments. Most readers who would like to see which comments are winning arguments often only read a part of the debate. Many platforms that host such debates allow for the comments to be sorted, say from the earliest to latest. How can argumentation theory be used to evaluate the effectiveness of such policies of sorting comments, in terms of the actually winning arguments displayed to a reader who may not have read (...) the whole debate? We devise a pipeline that captures an online debate tree as a bipolar argumentation framework (BAF), which is sorted depending on the policy, giving a sequence of induced sub-BAFs representing how and how much of the debate has been read. Each sub-BAF has its own set of winning arguments, which can be quantitatively compared to the set of winning arguments of the whole BAF. We apply this pipeline to evaluate policies on Kialo debates, where it is shown that reading comments from most to least liked, on average, displays more winners than reading comments earliest first. Therefore, in Kialo, reading comments from most to least liked is on average more effective than reading from the earliest to the most recent. (shrink)

Introspective evidence is still treated with great suspicion in cognitive science. This work is designed to encourage cognitive scientists to take more account of the subject's unique perspective.

It has been proposed that performance in the think – no think task represents a laboratory analogue of the voluntary form of memory repression. The central prediction of this repression hypothesis is that performance in the TNT task will be influenced by emotional characteristics of the material to be remembered. This prediction was tested in two experiments by asking participants to learn paired associates in which the first item was either emotionally positive or emotionally negative . The second word was (...) always emotionally neutral . Consistent with the repression hypothesis, significant memory suppression was observed in both experiments following ‘no think’ instructions for memories associated with emotionally negative material. No suppression was observed for memories associated with emotionally positive information. Implications of these findings for the relationship between performance in the TNT task and the controversial notion of memory repression are considered. (shrink)

This book examines the notion of honor with an eye to dissecting its intellectual demise and with the aim of making a case for honor’s rehabilitation. Western intellectuals acknowledge honor’s influence, but they lament its authority. For Western democratic societies to embrace honor, it must be compatible with social ideals like liberty, equality, and fraternity. Cunningham details a conception of honor that can do justice to these ideals. This vision revolves around three elements—character , relationships , and activities and accomplishment (...) . Taken together, these elements articulate a shared aspiration for excellence. We can turn the tables on traditional ills of honor—serious problems of gender, race, and class—by forging a vision of honor that rejects lives predicated on power and oppression. (shrink)

An ethic of the fitting: a conceptual framework for nursing practiceNurses are expected to act within an ethos of care cognisant of duty, the right, and the good. Concepts of virtue theory, utilitarianism and deontology are used to outline a conceptual ethical framework for nurses in practice. This ‘Moebius’ framework aims to locate the virtues in a symbiotic relationship with the principles of utilitarianism and deontology. Under this framework, fitting ethical responses are sought. Within an ethic of the fitting, rules (...) and principles do not guarantee the most ethically justifiable outcomes. Within the Moebius approach, the nurse ought to respond with a sense of compassion that befits the moment rather than adhere to a rule at all costs. (shrink)

Focuses on the arguments that show the externalism of mental content. Discussion on the principle of knowledge identification; Account of basic self-knowledge; Interpretations of sentence content; Skepticism of knowledge content.

Nas universidades alemãs do período em que Nietzsche esteve intelectualmente ativo, a tradição kantiana foi amplamente substituída por duas escolas independentes e que, desde então, têm sido rotuladas de "neokantismo". Este artigo apresenta quatro teses principais da filosofia da história neokantiana, mostra como elas são uma decorrência de sua adaptação da tradição kantiana e como Nietzsche se envolve criticamente com os mesmos temas na formação de sua própria teoria histórica. Embora não haja uma influência muito direta entre estas escolas, o (...) contraste com a tradição neokantiana nos permite situar melhor a filosofia da história de Nietzsche em seu contexto apropriado. In the German academies of Nietzsche's period of writing, the Kantian tradition was largely displaced in favor of two independent schools that have since been labeled "Neo-Kantianism." This paper presents four key theses about philosophy of history from four Neo-Kantian thinkers, how they follow from their adaptation of the Kantian tradition, and how Nietzsche critically engaged the very same issues in the formation of his own historical theory. Although there is little direct influence between orthodox Neo-Kantianism and Nietzsche, their comparison on these points will illuminate their unique adaptations of the Kantian tradition. (shrink)

The Unspeakable Girl is more important for Agamben’s thought than its short length, antiquarianism, and belletristic format suggest. In discussing ancient initiation rites through an analysis of the figure of the Kore – the unspeakable girl – it suggests how we might conceive of initiation into form-of-life, thus addressing a pressing question that emerges from Agamben’s Homo Sacer project: if Agamben’s thought aims at the demystification of philosophy, yet mystery is the essence of philosophical initiation as traditionally conceived and philosophy (...) needs some kind of initiation, how could one conceive of an initiation into that which is without mystery – into the profane. Yet by insisting on an opposition between “authentic” interior gestures and their vulgar betrayal, Agamben undermines his own most radical insight. Such a distinction can never be drawn, and hence a different kind of initiation must be envisioned: not into the critical spectatorship of the dance, but into the dance itself. (shrink)

We examine the theory of the extended mind, and especially the concept of the “parity principle” (Clark and Chalmers in Analysis 58.1:7–19, 1998), in light of Hegel’s notion of objective spirit. This unusual combination of theories raises the question of how far one can extend the notion of extended mind and whether cognitive processing can supervene on the operations of social practices and institutions. We raise some questions about putting this research to critical use.

A. P. A. Hutchinson. What's the Point of Elucidation? Metaphilosophy, 2007, vol. 38, no. 5, pages 691-713. Published by and copyright Wiley-Blackwell Publishing. The definitive version of this article is available from http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/.

Archer recognizes that sexual selection theory is sensitive to the effects of ecologies on sex differences, yet he does not explain the impact of such variation. For example, to what degree are there sex differences in aggression in polygynous and monogamous societies? I demonstrate how differences in mating perceptions affect the traditional dichotomy that males compete for and females choose mates.

Paul Marshall takes extrovertive mystical experience seriously by providing a metaphysical framework inspired by Plotinus and Leibniz that aims to interpret it non-reductively and to explain it persuasively. However praiseworthy Marshall's intentions, his account fails for a variety of reasons, among them an inability to establish convincingly why natural objects appear as transfigured and alive, characteristics frequently encountered in the reports of nature mystics. An alternative approach, rooted in contemporary pan-experientialist philosophy of mind, is able to take extrovertive mysticism equally (...) seriously while accounting more successfully for its pre-eminent features at a less extravagant metaphysical cost. (shrink)

What makes a visually appealing landscape? How can the design and use of a landscape be harmonised? In this significantly revised and updated third edition of Simon Bell's seminal text, he further explores the answers to these questions by interrogating a range of design principles, applications and ideas. Written for students, instructors and professionals, the book unveils a visual design vocabulary for anyone involved with landscape aesthetics including landscape architects, architects, planners, urban designers, landscape managers, foresters, geographers and ecologists. Structured (...) around key design terms, which are explained and illustrated using an extensive range of examples from around the world, including North America, Europe and Asia, this book enables you to describe, debate and design the visual landscape. It starts with basic elements, before moving onto variable design components, and then the ways these elements are organized into compositions, in order to demonstrate how landscapes are created and how meanings and patterns are perceived within them. This new full colour edition contains over 240 images; an updated introduction; examples from China, Vietnam, and central Asia; a chapter on how to read and understand visual design elements in the landscape; a teaching model for instructors; and expanded appendix materials including a glossary, references and further reading. (shrink)

The Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy offers interpretive perspectives on the historical roots of American philosophy and on present innovative developments in American thought, including studies of values, naturalism, social philosophy, cultural criticism, and applied ethics. A comprehensive examination of the life, art, politics, religion, and imagination of one of the most renowned philosophers of the twentieth century.

In this paper I provide an account of the metaphysical foundations of mental illness in terms of a realism debate. I motivate the importance of such metaphysical analysis as a means of avoiding some intractable problems that beset discussion of the concept of mental illness. I apply aspects of the framework developed by Crispin Wright for realism debates in order to examine the ontological commitments to mental illness as a property that humans may exhibit and to examine the various arguments (...) that realists and anti-realists can use to defend their position on mental illness. I pay particular attention to characterising Szasz's account of mental illness as that of an anti-realist error-theory and present ways in which a realist may counter such a position. Ultimately I argue that in order to hold a realist position on mental illness one would have to adopt some form of realism towards values, such as moral realism. (shrink)