This book takes a fascinating look at the linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications of Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work with Kanzi--a bonobo who has achieved stunning cognitive and linguistic skills.

Classic analysis of the subject and the development of personal probability; one of the greatest controversies in modern statistcal thought. New preface and new footnotes to 1954 edition, with a supplementary 180-item annotated bibliography by author. Calculus, probability, statistics, and Boolean algebra are recommended.

The spirit of Aelius Donatus must be uneasy of late years; so many scholars have attempted to evoke his ghost. Professor H. J. Thomson professes to see in the additional notes to Servius an image once removed from the true Donatus. ‘The question’, he writes, ‘how far we can assume that the words of Donatus are directly reproduced [in the additions first published by Daniel ] can hardly be satisfactorily answered.’ That Donatus was not the immediate source of D, Thomson (...) endeavours to show from three instances, in two of which we know for certain, either from the Glossaries or from Servius himself, the substance of a part, at least, of the note of Donatus on these passages. In the other the argument rests on the comparative meagreness of the note in the enlarged Servius. In all three cases, according to this theory, we have a rehandling of the D comment. The note on the passage from the Aeneid has already been discussed by Professor Thomson in his study of the Virgil scholia in the Abstrusa glossary. The conclusions reached there are repeated, though perhaps not so positively, in the article under discussion. I hold with Professor Rand that we have in Servius auctus substantially the voice of Donatus, though in a fragmentary form, due to the work of a compiler who, with Servius as a basis, has worked in with more or less success explanatory matter which departed from, or was an addition to, the information supplied by an interpreter who himself derived most of his material from Donatus. (shrink)

People live and age together in social groups. Across a range of outcomes, research has identified interdependence in the cognitive and health trajectories of ageing couples. Various types of memory decline with age and people report using a range of internal and external, social, and material strategies to compensate for these declines. While memory compensation strategies have been widely studied, research so far has focused only on single individuals. We examined interdependence in the memory compensation strategies reported by spouses within (...) 58 older couples. Couples completed the Memory Compensation Questionnaire, as well as an open-ended interview about their memory compensation practices. We found that internal, intra-individual memory compensation strategies were not associated within couples, but external, extra-individual strategies showed interdependence. Individuals’ scores on material/technological compensation strategies were positively correlated with their partners’. Reported reliance on a spouse was higher for men and increased with age. Our open-ended interviews yielded rich insights into the complex and diverse resources that couples use to support memory in day-to-day life. Particularly evident was the extent of interaction and coordination between social and material compensation, such that couples jointly used external compensation resources. Our results suggest that individuals’ reports of their compensation strategies do not tell the whole story. Rather, we propose that older couples show interdependence in their memory compensation strategies, and adopt complex systems of integrated material and social memory compensation in their day-to-day lives. (shrink)

Harris, Barnier, Sutton and Savage examine the communication styles that boost the mnemonic consequences associated with conversations for long‐term married couples and the circumstances under which the couples form a TMS. Harris and colleagues demonstrated that specific communication styles (e.g., cueing each other) promote group memory success whereas others (e.g., correcting each other) did not enhance group recall performance. These results showed that even in well‐established and enduring distributed cognitive systems such as long‐term intimate couples (Harris, Barnier, Sutton & (...) Keil, 2014), memory benefits depend on effective communication and the specificities of the task performed (e.g., remembering lists of words vs. remembering shared, autobiographical experiences). (shrink)

This paper identifies ‘savage numbers’ – number-like or number-replacing concepts and practices attributed to peoples viewed as civilizationally inferior – as a crucial and hitherto unrecognized body of evidence in the first two decades of the Victorian science of prehistory. It traces the changing and often ambivalent status of savage numbers in the period after the 1858–1859 ‘time revolution’ in the human sciences by following successive reappropriations of an iconic 1853 story from Francis Galton's African travels. In response (...) to a fundamental lack of physical evidence concerning prehistoric men, savage numbers offered a readily available body of data that helped scholars envisage great extremes of civilizational lowliness in a way that was at once analysable and comparable, and anecdotes like Galton's made those data vivid and compelling. Moreover, they provided a simple and direct means of conceiving of the progressive scale of civilizational development, uniting societies and races past and present, at the heart of Victorian scientific racism. (shrink)

Evidence that an animal is capable of some degree of symbolic, human language processing supports the argument that the animal's consciousness is to some degree human-like. In this paper, we reinterpret the findings of Savage- Rumbaugh et al. using the twin tools of Deacon's referential hierarchy and Systemic Functional Linguistics, with a view to providing further corroborative evidence for a Bonobo ape's symbolic processing abilities, and as a result to open a window into the consciousness of at least one (...) non-human primate. (shrink)

We report the results of an experimental test of whether preaching the normative appeal of the sure-thing principle leads decision-makers to make choices that satisfy it. We use Allais-type decision problems to observe the incentive-compatible choices of 147 subjects, which either violate the sure-thing principle or adhere to it. Subjects are presented with normative arguments that support the counterfactual behaviour and then repeat their decisions. We observe violations of the sure-thing principle are robust to its normative justification. This result replicates (...) a famous small-sample observation using hypothetical tasks that was published by Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky almost half a century ago. We argue that this finding is as relevant now as it was then and that their design can be usefully applied to address contemporary issues in behavioural economics. (shrink)

Much of the progress in the fields constituting cognitive science has been based upon the use of explicit information processing models, almost exclusively patterned after conventional serial computers. An extension of these ideas to massively parallel, connectionist models appears to offer a number of advantages. After a preliminary discussion, this paper introduces a general connectionist model and considers how it might be used in cognitive science. Among the issues addressed are: stability and noise‐sensitivity, distributed decision‐making, time and sequence problems, and (...) the representation of complex concepts. (shrink)

No tragic poet uses the phrase μxs22EFνος πνxs22EFουσαν, except Aeschylus, who employs it in describing the Erinyes, not a Greek maiden. Similarly Homer of his ‘Mut-schnaubende’ heroes and of the savage steeds of Diomed. Hence, in the Sophoclean passage, some scribe may have mistaken the familiar ΜΕΝΟCΠΝΕΟΤCΑΝ for the more unusual ΜΕΝΕΙCΙCΤΝΟΤCΑΝ. Initial C attached itself to the preceding word, and ΤΝΟΤCΑΝ became ΠΝΟΤCΑΝ, which was promptly changed to πνxs22EFουσαν.

For Savage (1954) as for de Finetti (1974), the existence of subjective (personal) probability is a consequence of the normative theory of preference. (De Finetti achieves the reduction of belief to desire with his generalized Dutch-Book argument for Previsions.) Both Savage and de Finetti rebel against legislating countable additivity for subjective probability. They require merely that probability be finitely additive. Simultaneously, they insist that their theories of preference are weak, accommodating all but self-defeating desires. In this paper we (...) dispute these claims by showing that the following three cannot simultaneously hold: (i) Coherent belief is reducible to rational preference, i.e. the generalized Dutch-Book argument fixes standards of coherence. (ii) Finitely additive probability is coherent. (iii) Admissible preference structures may be free of consequences, i.e. they may lack prizes whose values are robust against all contingencies. (shrink)

Orthodox causal decision theory is unstable. Its advice changes as you make up your mind about what you will do. Several have objected to this kind of instability and explored stable alternatives. Here, I'll show that explorers in search of stability must part with a vestige of their homeland. There is no plausible stable decision theory which satisfies Savage's Sure Thing Principle. So those in search of stability must learn to live without it.

The paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between (...) “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes toitself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful. (shrink)

This article discusses a number of metaphors about the nature of science, in connection with three types of metaphysical realism: minimal, moderate and essentialistic realism. From the beginning, Kuipers accepts the first and rejects the third type of realism, but it is only later on that he endorses the second type. It is argued that this makes his remarks on essentialistic realism somewhat misleading; and his moderate realism is compared with some realist positions taken by other philosophers. It is further (...) argued that the metaphors of the mirror, the net and the map correspond to essentialistic, minimal and moderate realism, respectively. This explains why the map metaphor is by far the most suitable one in the context of Kuipers' theory of science. This does not imply, however, that it is the (only) true one and that the others are false. (shrink)

In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take (...) root, affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his Descent of Man. Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. The Evolving God concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon. (shrink)

Disrupting Journalism Ethics sets out to disrupt and change how we think about journalism and its ethics. The book contends that long-established ways of thinking, which have come down to us from the history of journalism, need radical conceptual reform, with alternate conceptions of the role of journalism and fresh principles to evaluate practice. Through a series of disruptions, the book undermines the traditional principles of journalistic neutrality and "just the facts" reporting. It proposes an alternate philosophy of journalism as (...) engagement for democracy. The aim is a journalism ethic better suited to an age of digital and global media. As a philosophical pragmatist, Stephen J. A. Ward critiques traditional conceptions of accuracy, neutrality, detachment and patriotism, evaluating their capacity to respond to ethical dilemmas for journalists in the 21st century. The book proposes a holistic mindset for doing journalism ethics, a theory of journalism as advocacy for egalitarian democracy, and a global redefinition of basic journalistic norms. The book concludes by outlining the shape of a future journalism ethics, employing these alternative notions. Disrupting Journalism Ethics is an important intervention into the role of journalism today. It asks: what new role journalists should play in today's digital media world? And what new mind-set, new aims, and new standards ought jounalists to embrace? The book aims to persuade--and provoke--ethicists, journalists, students, and members of the public to disrupt and invent. (shrink)

Because the evolution of speech production is beyond our expertise (and perhaps beyond everyone's expertise) we restrict our comments to areas in which data actually exist. We provide articulatory evidence consistent with the claims made about syllable structure in adult speech and infant babbling, but we also voice some disagreement about speech errors and the typing data.

Anachronistic values A value becomes anachronistic when it no longer fits current historical conditions (institutions, technology, culture, etc.). From an ‘idealist’ perspective, this fact does not tell against the old value (accepted as true), but rather against the new conditions. However, from a ‘naturalist’ perspective which takes values to be the product of human interests and (therefore) as interconnected with a given historical context, such a conflict seems to make a value obsolete. But this is neither an empirical law nor (...) a normative rule. A defence of anachronistic values might still be perfectly reasonable. It is argued that such reasonableness depends mainly on three criteria: (un)certainty, scope and weight. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 529-534 [Access article in PDF] Colin Adams and Ray Laurence, eds. Travel and Geography in the Roman Empire. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. x + 202 pp. 48 black-and-white figures. Cloth, $75. Five of the six contributions to this varied and valuable collection of essays originated as papers delivered at the 1999 Roman Archaeology Conference in Durham, England. The sixth and longest (...) piece, by Benet Salway, was then added, together with an introduction by one co-editor (Adams) and an afterword by the [End Page 529] other (Laurence). Notes follow each contribution, with a consolidated bibliography and index at the end. Although in black and white only, the range of photos, figures, and maps is appropriately extensive.The volume stems from due recognition that geographical knowledge and travel in the Roman world are topics at last attracting the serious attention they deserve. Between them, the contributions amply demonstrate how even some of the aspects most fundamental to our understanding stir deep controversy and how incomplete the exploitation of much of the diverse source material has been to date. Happily, the emergence of exciting new discoveries is prompting fresh examination of testimony long known and neglected.Useful, though limited in scope, is Anne Kolb's "Transport and Communication in the Roman State: The cursus publicus" (95-105), which mainly confines itself to identifying those categories of imperial officials and other individuals entitled to use the service (more properly referred to as vehiculatio during the Principate). By contrast, the support Kolb offers for the doubtful claim that transport of freight—other than baggage accompanying officials—was a "relatively unimportant" aspect of the service, even in the Late Empire (102), remains inadequate. Throughout, changes to the service over such a long span seem underappreciated (not least, for example, Nerva's removal of the burden from Italy).Adams modestly characterizes his contribution "'There and Back Again': Getting around in Roman Egypt" (138-66) as descriptive rather than analytical. His aim is to demonstrate the scope and value of the testimony preserved on papyri, and he does this engagingly, with unfailing regard for the impact of Egypt's unique geography and topography on travel there. Even though its publication dates back to 1952, few readers are likely to be familiar with the extensive archive preserving an itinerary and accounts for Theophanes' return journey from Antinoopolis to Antioch around 320 (160-62). Even fewer will be aware of the record of travelers and animals accommodated overnight, and rations issued to them, kept by the two large, busy mansiones in the Oxyrhynchite nome during the mid-fourth century and only published in 1994 (142-44). Vivid illustration of the multiple hazards awaiting travelers by road from causes both natural and human (154-56) can serve as a sobering counterbalance to the ideal conditions evoked by Aelius Aristides and quoted earlier by Adams (as eulogy) in the Introduction (1-2). One manifestation of "recreational" travel, which seems strangely absent from the discussion, on page 157 in particular, is pilgrimage (note, in general, Der Neue Pauly, s.v. Pilgerschaft 1).Jon Coulston's "Transport and Travel on the Column of Trajan" (106-37) is another predominantly descriptive contribution but one well geared to substantiate its conclusion: "The conflict is not simply between Romans and Dacians, Trajan and Decebalus. It is also a contest between Romans and barbarians, disciplina and perturbatio, labor and inertia, imperial virtues and enemy perfidy, civilisation and untamed nature, urbanisation and wilderness" (129-30). Description, moreover, is justified here when no other piece of Roman propaganda art, [End Page 530] before or after, depicts armies on the move—tents (for which soldiers were charged! [Tacitus Annals 1.17.4]), carts, pack animals, equipment, provisions, along roads, over bridges—with such amazing fullness and detail. We possess no more forceful illustration of the huge "train" that had to accompany every legion (118-19; the comparison made with Ottoman armies on campaign in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is instructive). Coulston's acute observation, lucid presentation, and reluctance to overinterpret... (shrink)