Cross-situational learning is a mechanism for learning the meaning of words across multiple exposures, despite exposure-by-exposure uncertainty as to the word's true meaning. We present experimental evidence showing that humans learn words effectively using cross-situational learning, even at high levels of referential uncertainty. Both overall success rates and the time taken to learn words are affected by the degree of referential uncertainty, with greater referential uncertainty leading to less reliable, slower learning. Words are also learned less successfully and more slowly (...) if they are presented interleaved with occurrences of other words, although this effect is relatively weak. We present additional analyses of participants’ trial-by-trial behavior showing that participants make use of various cross-situational learning strategies, depending on the difficulty of the word-learning task. When referential uncertainty is low, participants generally apply a rigorous eliminative approach to cross-situational learning. When referential uncertainty is high, or exposures to different words are interleaved, participants apply a frequentist approximation to this eliminative approach. We further suggest that these two ways of exploiting cross-situational information reside on a continuum of learning strategies, underpinned by a single simple associative learning mechanism. (shrink)

The articles in this theme issue seek to understand the evolutionary bases of social learning and the consequences of cultural transmission for the evolution of human behaviour. In this introductory article, we provide a summary of these articles and a personal view of some promising lines of development suggested by the work summarized here.

Smith gives an excellent overview on research in language evolution, in which he discusses several recent models of how linguistic systems and the cognitive capacities involved in language learning may have co‐evolved. He illustrates how combined pressures on language learning and communication/use produce compositionally structured languages. Once in place, a (culturally transmitted) communication system creates new selection pressures on the capacity for acquiring these systems.

Languages spoken in larger populations are relatively simple. A possible explanation for this is that languages with a greater number of speakers tend to also be those with higher proportions of non‐native speakers, who may simplify language during learning. We assess this explanation for the negative correlation between population size and linguistic complexity in three experiments, using artificial language learning techniques to investigate both the simplifications made by individual adult learners and the potential for such simplifications to influence group‐level language (...) characteristics. In Experiment 1, we show that individual adult learners trained on a morphologically complex miniature language simplify its morphology. In Experiment 2, we explore how these simplifications may then propagate through subsequent learning. We use the languages produced by the participants of Experiment 1 as the input for a second set of learners, manipulating (a) the proportion of their input which is simplified and (b) the number of speakers they receive their input from. We find, contrary to expectations, that mixing the input from multiple speakers nullifies the simplifications introduced by individuals in Experiment 1; simplifications at the individual level do not result in simplification of the population's language. In Experiment 3, we focus on language use as a mechanism for simplification, exploring the consequences of the interaction between individuals differing in their linguistic competence (as native and non‐native speakers might). We find that speakers who acquire a more complex language than their partner simplify their language during interaction. We ultimately conclude that adult learning can result in languages spoken by more people having simpler morphology, but that idiosyncratic simplifications by non‐natives do not offer a complete explanation in themselves; accommodation—by comparatively competent non‐natives to less competent speakers, or by native speakers to non‐natives—may be a key linking mechanism. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 3, March 2022.

Several evolutionary accounts of human social cognition posit that language has co-evolved with the sophisticated mindreading abilities of modern humans. It has also been argued that these mindreading abilities are the product of cultural, rather than biological, evolution. Taken together, these claims suggest that the evolution of language has played an important role in the cultural evolution of human social cognition. Here we present a new computational model which formalises the assumptions that underlie this hypothesis, in order to explore how (...) language and mindreading interact through cultural evolution. This model treats communicative behaviour as an interplay between the context in which communication occurs, an agent’s individual perspective on the world, and the agent’s lexicon. However, each agent’s perspective and lexicon are private mental representations, not directly observable to other agents. Learners are therefore confronted with the task of jointly inferring the lexicon and perspective of their cultural parent, based on their utterances in context. Simulation results show that given these assumptions, an informative lexicon evolves not just under a pressure to be successful at communicating, but also under a pressure for accurate perspective-inference. When such a lexicon evolves, agents become better at inferring others’ perspectives; not because their innate ability to learn about perspectives changes, but because sharing a language with others helps them to do so. (shrink)

We agree that language adapts to the brain, but we note that language also has to adapt to brain-external constraints, such as those arising from properties of the cultural transmission medium. The hypothesis that Christiansen & Chater (C&C) raise in the target article not only has profound consequences for our understanding of language, but also for our understanding of the biological evolution of the language faculty.

Coordination between speakers in dialogue requires balancing repetition and change, the old and the new. Interlocutors tend to reuse established forms, relying on communicative precedents. Yet linguistic interaction also necessitates adaptation to changing contexts or dynamic tasks, which might favor abandoning existing precedents in favor of better communicative alternatives. We explored this tension using a maze game task in which individual participants and interacting pairs had to describe figures and their positions in one of two possible maze types: a regular (...) maze, in which the grid‐like structure of the maze is highlighted, and an irregular maze, in which specific parts of the maze are salient. Participants repeated this task several times. Both individuals and interacting pairs were affected by the different maze layouts, initially using more idiosyncratic description schemes for irregular mazes and more systematic schemes for regular mazes. Interacting pairs, but not individuals, abandoned their unsystematic initial descriptions in favor of a more systematic approach, which was better adapted for repeated interaction. Our results show communicative conventions are initially shaped by context, but interaction opens up the possibility for change if better alternatives are available. (shrink)

If protolanguage was a holistic system where complex meanings were conveyed using unanalysed forms, there must be some process which delivered up the elements of modern language from this system. This paper draws on evidence from computational modelling, developmental and historical linguistics and comparative psychology to evaluate the plausibility of the analysis process. While some of the criticisms levelled at analysis can be refuted using such evidence, several areas are highlighted where further evidence is required to decide key issues. More (...) generally, the debate over the nature of protolanguage offers a framework for developing and showcasing a modern, evidence-based evolutionary linguistics. (shrink)

Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify shape, but not color, whereas substance nouns specify material but not shape. These regularities in the lexicon enable learners to generalize new words appropriately. How does the lexicon (...) come to have these helpful regularities? We test the hypothesis that systematic backgrounding of some dimensions during learning and use causes language to gradually change, over repeated episodes of transmission, to produce a lexicon with strong patterns of underspecification across these less salient dimensions. This offers a cultural evolutionary mechanism linking individual word learning and generalization to the origin of regularities in the lexicon that help learners generalize words appropriately. (shrink)

Speakers often overspecify by encoding more information than is necessary when referring to an object (e.g., “the blue mug” for the only mug in a group of objects). We investigated the role of a partner's linguistic behavior (whether or not they overspecify) on a speaker's own tendency to overspecify. We used a director–matcher task in which speakers interacted with a partner who either consistently overspecified or minimally specified in the color/size dimension (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), as well as with (...) a partner who switched behaviors midway through interaction (Experiments 4 and 5). We found that speakers aligned with their partner's linguistic behavior to produce overspecific or minimally specific descriptions, and we saw little evidence that the alignment was enhanced by lexical or semantic repetition across prime and target trials. Time‐course analyses showed that alignment increased over the course of the interaction, and speakers appeared to track a change in the partner's linguistic behavior, altering their reference strategy to continue matching that of their partner's. These results demonstrate the persistent influence of a partner's behavior on speakers across the duration of an interaction. (shrink)

The productivity of language is subserved by two structural properties: language is recursive, which allows the creation of an infinite number of utterances, and language is compositional, which makes the interpretation of novel utterances possible. A potential explanation for the linkage between the functional properties of compositionality and the compositional structure of language is that this fit arose through cultural, rather than biological, evolution. In order to argue that the compositional structure of language is a product of cultural evolution, it (...) is assumed that language is compositional, socially learned, and therefore culturally transmitted. A well-established solution to the problem of linkage in biological systems is that of evolution by natural selection: adaptation. Compositionality can be explained as a cultural adaptation by language to the problem of transmission through a learning bottleneck. (shrink)

Wilson et al. focus on one class of AGL tasks: the cognitively demanding task of detecting non‐adjacent dependencies (NADs) among items. They provide a typology of the different types of NADs in natural languages and in AGL tasks. A range of cues affect NAD learning, ranging from the variability and number of intervening elements to the presence of shared prosodic cues between the dependent items. These cues, important for humans to discover non‐adjacent dependencies, are also found to facilitate NAD learning (...) in several nonhuman animal species. (shrink)

Wilson et al. focus on one class of AGL tasks: the cognitively demanding task of detecting non‐adjacent dependencies (NADs) among items. They provide a typology of the different types of NADs in natural languages and in AGL tasks. A range of cues affect NAD learning, ranging from the variability and number of intervening elements to the presence of shared prosodic cues between the dependent items. These cues, important for humans to discover non‐adjacent dependencies, are also found to facilitate NAD learning (...) in several nonhuman animal species. (shrink)

The emergence of signaling systems has been observed in numerous experimental and real-world contexts, but there is no consensus on which shared mechanisms underlie such phenomena. A number of explanatory mechanisms have been proposed within several disciplines, all of which have been instantiated as credible working models. However, they are usually framed as being mutually incompatible. Using an exemplar-based framework, we replicate these models in a minimal configuration which allows us to directly compare them. This reveals that the development of (...) optimal signaling is driven by similar mechanisms in each model, which leads us to propose three requirements for the emergence of conventional signaling. These are the creation and transmission of referential information, a systemic bias against ambiguity, and finally some form of information loss. Considering this, we then discuss some implications for theoretical and experimental approaches to the emergence of learned communication. (shrink)

Colexification refers to the phenomenon of multiple meanings sharing one word in a language. Cross‐linguistic lexification patterns have been shown to be largely predictable, as similar concepts are often colexified. We test a recent claim that, beyond this general tendency, communicative needs play an important role in shaping colexification patterns. We approach this question by means of a series of human experiments, using an artificial language communication game paradigm. Our results across four experiments match the previous cross‐linguistic findings: all other (...) things being equal, speakers do prefer to colexify similar concepts. However, we also find evidence supporting the communicative need hypothesis: when faced with a frequent need to distinguish similar pairs of meanings, speakadjust their colexification preferences to maintain communicative efficiency and avoid colexifying those similar meanings which need to be distinguished in communication. This research provides further evidence to support the argument that languages are shaped by the needs and preferences of their speakers. (shrink)

We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions—color, movement, and shape—thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that (...) described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien‐attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien‐attribute assignments participants produced during test were used as the training materials for the next participant in the transmission chain. As information was repeatedly transmitted an increasingly simplified, learnable stereotype‐like structure emerged for targets who shared the same color, such that by the end of the chains targets who shared the same color were more likely to share the same attributes (a reanalysis of data from Martin et al., which we term Experiment 1). The apparent bias toward the formation of novel stereotypes around the color category dimension was also found for objects (Experiment 2). However, when the category dimension of color was made less salient, it no longer dominated the formation of novel stereotypes (Experiment 3). The current findings suggest that context and category salience influence category dimension salience, which in turn influences the cumulative cultural evolution of information. (shrink)

The expression “AI” has become as commonplace as “computer.” While many people have a relatively clear idea of what an AI system or a computer does or can do, fewer have an idea of how precisely th...

Language maps signals onto meanings through the use of two distinct types of structure. First, the space of meanings is discretized into categories that are shared by all users of the language. Second, the signals employed by the language are compositional: The meaning of the whole is a function of its parts and the way in which those parts are combined. In three iterated learning experiments using a vast, continuous, open-ended meaning space, we explore the conditions under which both structured (...) categories and structured signals emerge ex nihilo. While previous experiments have been limited to either categorical structure in meanings or compositional structure in signals, these experiments demonstrate that when the meaning space lacks clear preexisting boundaries, more subtle morphological structure that lacks straightforward compositionality—as found in natural languages—may evolve as a solution to joint pressures from learning and communication. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reasons, Responsibility, and FictionBenedict Smith (bio)Keywordsresponsibility, reflection, reasons, fictionCartwright's article considers two candidate theories of responsibility and examines their relative adequacy by assessing them in light of our reactions to a dramatic and horrifying set of circumstances. Cartwright initiates the dialectic by noting how our intuitions are in conflict. For instance, although we are instantly horrified by the murders Harris perpetrated, we might naturally experience quite different emotions (...) and reach different judgments when we reflect on the miserable and pathetic nature of Harris's upbringing and his experiences in adult life. Although we might think that Harris is responsible in a very clear sense for murdering his victims, we might feel also that his actions were the outcome of factors beyond his control, and for which he cannot be held responsible. In short, we think that Harris is and is not responsible.Overall, Cartwright's aim is to: "illuminate both the theory and practice of holding people responsible" (2006, 144). In the end, what is illuminated is that "the practice of responsibility unavoidably depends on one sort of pretence or another" (2006, 155). Although the two theories that Cartwright has chosen to consider differ in various ways, they share a common feature of being, in some sense, "fictitious." The article examines in some detail the two theories of responsibility and succeeds in providing insight to some potentially intricate material. In this brief commentary, I cannot address adequately the variety of interesting aspects and implications of Cartwright's paper. I do, however, offer some critical interpretation of Cartwright's construal of the theories under consideration, and also say a little about the status and role of fiction in Cartwright's analysis.Responsibility and the "Reflective Self"According to Cartwright, a central commitment of the "reflective self" view of responsibility is that a rational part of the self is responsible for deliberating about and reflecting on desires, and that the reflective self is the author of action (or at least authorizes the origins of action). The critical capacity of this part of the self endorses or rejects desires, and thus determines whether or not desires manifest in action and display constitutive elements of personality. The reflective self is autonomous with respect to the desiring part of the self; the former can arbitrate over desires precisely because it enjoys this sort of rational autonomy. This internalist conception of reflection and rationality has a long tradition, one that has exerted influence in a number of domains including [End Page 161] moral psychology and psychotherapy. It is well known that Anthony Kenny claimed that the very idea of "mental health" was Plato's invention (Kenny 1969, 229).1 The Platonic picture rests on understanding the soul as capable of proper functioning and in a state of health only when the relevant constitutive elements are brought into a form of cooperative harmony.2 Pivotal in reaching this harmony, is the extent to which desires are supervised by the capacity for rational self-governance. For the present context, the important claim is that there exists an autonomous and internal-to-subject faculty that specializes in rational reflection on desires, and that can be brought to bear on desires in such a way so as to motivate and justify subsequent action.This is close to the central commitment of the reflective self view that considers responsibility as primarily an internal matter of the relation between desires and rationality. Responsibility is connected to the ability of an agent to exercise some cognitive faculty that passes critical judgment on the desires that the agent possesses; such a faculty endorses or rejects desires. The reflective self view has at its center the thought that responsibility is related to the appropriate functioning of some internal process. However, unless the rational faculty of humans is infallible, there needs to be some account of the correctness of each act of desire endorsement or rejection. There must be something that explains why any particular endorsement, say, is justified; some further ground the appeal to which provides guidance and justification for the rational self. But this just pushes the explanatory burden further back and generates, as Cartwright notes, a regress. Nonetheless... (shrink)

Written by a team of distinguished scholars, this is an authoritative and comprehensive history of Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Illustrated with over 150 color and black-and-white pictures, chosen to illuminate and complement the text, this lively and readable work is an ideal introduction to philosophy for anyone interested in the history of ideas. From Plato's Republic and St. Augustine's Confessions through Marx's Capital and Sartre's Being and Nothingness, the extraordinary philosophical dialogue between great Western (...) minds has flourished unabated through the ages. Dazzling in its genius and breadth, the long line of European and American intellectual discourse tells a remarkable story--a quest for truth and wisdom that continues to shape our most basic ideas about human nature and the world around us. That quest is brilliantly brought to life in The Oxford History of Western Philosophy. With spectacular illustrations--including sixteen pages of full-color plates--this splendidly written volume takes the reader on a magnificient chronological tour through the revolutions of thought that have forged the Western philosophical tradition from ancient times to the present. Throughout, the six contributors--an internationally renowned team of philosophers including Roger Scruton, Anthony Quinton, and Anthony Kenny--bring the astonishingly diverse, wide-ranging landscape of intellectual history into sharp focus, emphasizing how notions seen today as part of an inevitable march of ideas were in their own time often considered radical, if not revolutionary. Thus we are treated, for example, to lively accounts of how Plato's "theory of forms" and Aristotle's pioneering exercises in logic broke with the past to irrevocably alter the course of Western thought. The authors also reveal the relationships between landmark thinkers, and the ways they drew on their intellectual heritage. They show, for instance, how St. Augustine and Aquinas, though advancing the cause of Christian doctrine, picked up where their pagan Greek forebears had left off. We witness how, during the Renaissance, the profound empiricist ideas underlying Descarte's famous utterance--"I think, therefore I exist"--lived in a tense but complementary relationship with Locke's rationalist theories. Moving into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the book explores how Hume greatly influenced Kant's conception of the "transcendental aesthetic," and how Hegel drew upon the lesser known (but groundbreaking) work of Fichte and Schelling. The authors bring the story up to our own time, vividly recounting the existential trend from Nietzsche ("God is dead") to Sartre, along with other increasingly fractious schools of thought. Along the way, we not only encounter the vast intellectual riches of the Western mind, but we also meet the personalities behind the great thoughts, from the saintly Hume (described by Adam Smith as having "come as near to perfection as anybody could") to the ill-mannered outcast Fichte. And the hundreds of maps and striking illustrations (including full-color reproductions of art ranging from medieval manuscripts to the works of Raphael, Ingres, and Magritte) form an integral part of the book, revealing the interweaving of art and ideas through the ages, as artists have striven to give visual immediacy to philosophical concepts. The Oxford History of Western Philosophy is the most authoritative single-volume account ever written for the general reader. Engagingly written and astonishingly far-reaching, it provides the consummate introduction to the intellectual bedrock upon which Western civilization is built. (shrink)

Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Smith, Gibbon, Bentham... These are among the great thinkers who contributed to the dramatic developments in religion, science, and philosophy that we now call the Enlightenment. Written by a world authority, this brief history of the Enlightenment concludes with a perceptive assessment of the cultural, religious, ethical, and political dimensions of its legacy.

Our topic suggests the existence of some uncertainty about the viability of natural theology, but it also invites a reassessment of the enterprise. The variety of current thinking in this area makes it difficult to find a single paradigm for structuring the discussion. The voices of such philosophers as Hartshorne, Kenny, Swinburne, Plantinga, Alston, and Joseph Owens, to mention but a few, do not form a chorus, even if they obviously share some of the same themes. The best procedure (...) is to set out from the traditional view about the aims and approaches of natural theology in an effort to determine whether this program can still be followed or whether some of its attendant problems may be cause for modifying it. (shrink)

It is often said nowadays that to understand pleasure we must understand it as affording us a reason for or an explanation of action. It is only from the standpoint of the agent that we can avoid being misled. Both Professor Nowell-Smith and Mr. Manser have argued along these lines; and Dr. Kenny has written that “pleasure is always a reason for action” and has elucidated what he means by a footnote: “I do not mean that a thing’s (...) being pleasant is always a sufficient reason for doing it; there may be strong reasons for abstaining. I mean merely that it is always silly to ask a man why he wants pleasure.” When I first saw this point made, I had the perhaps not uncommon philosophical experience of immediately finding it both lucid and convincing, but then, afterwards gradually becoming less and less clear about the source of my conviction. The reasons for my obfuscation are as follows. In one crucial sense anything can afford an agent with a reason for action. It depends upon what the agent wants and upon the projects in which he is engaged. Moreover, without having any strong reasons for abstaining from what will give me pleasure, I may not be at all moved by the prospect of pleasure. As I write this paper I can list a dozen activities or experiences which would afford me pleasure. I have no strong reason for abstaining; I do not particularly enjoy writing papers; I am not writing with a great sense of urgency; I have the time and the money to indulge myself. Yet I do not rush to open a Guinness or Mr. Alfred Grossman’s new novel. So that far from it being silly to ask me why I do not apparently want pleasure at the moment, it is a question that I find forced upon me. But if this question makes sense, there is at least a problem as to why “it is always silly to ask a man if he wants pleasure.” For one might expect the two questions to stand or fall together. This is the problem to which I address myself in this paper. But in order to do so I must first take up certain points from recent discussions which are in danger of preventing a solution. (shrink)

Taking Joyce’s (1998; 2009) recent argument(s) for probabilism as our point of departure, we propose a new way of grounding formal, synchronic, epistemic coherence requirements for (opinionated) full belief. Our approach yields principled alternatives to deductive consistency, sheds new light on the preface and lottery paradoxes, and reveals novel conceptual connections between alethic and evidential epistemic norms.

oise Baylis, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3P7. Tel.: (902)-494–2873; Fax: (902)-494-2924; Email: francoise.baylis{at}dal.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in public health and public health ethics. Much of this interest has been tied to efforts to draw up national and international plans to deal with a global pandemic. It is common for these plans to state the importance of drawing upon a well-developed (...) ethics framework and we argue that this framework should reflect the values and insights of feminist relational theory. More specifically, we argue that pandemic planning must be squarely situated in the larger realm of public health and that an ethics framework for public health will be one that recognizes the need to pay particular attention to the vulnerability of subpopulations lacking in social and economic power. We propose an ethics framework for public health that builds on the notions of relational personhood (including relational autonomy and social justice) and relational solidarity. In this way, we aim for a public health ethics that, as appropriate, promotes the public interest and the common good. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this paper, it will be argued that each time a procedure in a representational system is functioning adequately and automatically, the child steps up to a metaprocedural level and considers the procedure as a unit in its own right. Data will be drawn from microdevelopment in children's creation of external memory devices (i.e., changes in representation of a spatial task during a one hour's session) as well as from macrodevelopment in language acquisition (i.e., changes occurring over age in a (...) study of nominal determiners, pronouns and gender markers). These two aspects of development of representational systems are examined with respect to the spontaneous passage from concrete reference to abstract systems, from idiosyncratic to conventional notations, from redundant to economic marking, from unifunctional to plurifunctional meaningful units. These micro‐ and manodevelopmental changes take place in a spontaneous fashion despite the fact that the child's earlier system is adequate for successfully conveying the information required. A discussion will be made of the way in which children tend to indicate externally, by unifunctional markers, information which was implicit in their earlier use of an adult‐like system. They appear to be striving for the delicate balance between encoding and decoding efforts, ultimately leading to a felicitous representational system. Metaprocedural behavior is hypothesized to act as a control mechanism in the striving for this delicate balance of information content and information processing effort. It also appears to act as a control mechanism for the interprocedural organizotion of what was previously a plethora of juxtaposed, unconnected procedures yielding superficially analogous behavior. The stepping‐up to a metaprocedural level seems to occur each time the child has a handle on his currently functioning, goal‐oriented system. This enables the child to treat the system, or procedures which are part thereof, as units functioning in their own right. Thus there appears to be a deep‐rooted psychological tendency for a representational tool which functions well procedurally to become subsequently a problem‐space per se. (shrink)

Books reviewed:John Barton, Joel and Obadiah: A Commentary John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew, Volume III: Companions and CompetitorsWilliam E. Arnal, Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Setting of QRichard A. Horsley, Hearing the Whole Story: The Politics of Plot in Mark's GospelMaurice Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark's GospelPhilip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost its WayChristopher M. Tuckett, Christology and the New Testament: Jesus and His Earliest FollowersMarkus Bockmuehl, The Cambridge Companion to JesusShelly (...) Matthews, First Converts: Rich Pagan Women and the Rhetoric of Mission in Early Judaism and ChristianityStephen J. Davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late AntiquityJ. Nimmo Smith, A Christian's Guide to Greek Culture. The Pseudo‐Nonnus Commentaries on Sermons 4, 5, 39 and 43 by Gregory of Nazianzus: Introduction, Translation and Notes.David Thomas, Early Moslem Polemic Against Christianity: Abu Isa al‐Warraq's ‘Against the Incarnation’Thomas O'Loughlin, Celtic Theology: Humanity, World and God in Early Irish WritingsCaroline M. Baron and Jenny Stratford, The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R. B. Dobson Owen Chadwick, The Early Reformation on the Continent Benson Bobrick, The Making of the English BiblePeter Marhall and Alec Ryrie, The Beginnings of English ProtestantismRobert Tittler, The Reformation and the Towns in England. Politics and Political Culture, c. 1540–1640Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation EnglandNicholas Tyacke, Aspects of English Protestantism, c.1530–1700John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689William Gibson, The Church of England 1688–1832: Unity and AccordWarwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth and Twentieth CenturiesJames M. Byrne, God: Thoughts in an Age of Uncertainty Michael Palmer, The Question of God: An Introduction and SourcebookMichel René Barnes, The Power of God: ΔYNAMIΣ in Gregory of Nyssa's Trinitarian TheologyThomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on VirtueStanley M. Hauerwas, Wilderness Wanderings: Probing Twentieth‐Century Theology and PhilosophyDavid Toole, Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo: Theological Reflections on Nihilism, Tragedy, and ApocalypseJohn Sullivan, Catholic Education: Distinctive and InclusiveGeorge Dennis O'Brien, The Idea of a Catholic UniversityGunnar Skirbekk and Nils Gilje, A History of Western ThoughtEllen Wagner, Essays on Plato's PsychologyAnthony Kenny, Aquinas on BeingJame Daly, Deals and Ideals: Two Concepts of EnlightenmentManfred Kuehn, Kant: A BiographyP. Travis Kroeker and Bruce K. Ward, Remembering the End: Dostoevsky as Prophet to ModernityStephen Mulhall, Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, KierkegaardDavid Braybrooke, Natural Law ModernizedMaría Pía Lara, Rethinking EvilW. W. Meisner, Freud and PsychoanalysisJennifer Jackson, Truth, Trust and MedicineJeremy Sugarman and Daniel P. Sulmasy, Methods in Medical EthicsH. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Mark J. Cherry, Allocating Scarce Medical Resources: Roman Catholic PerspectivesMaura A. Ryan, The Ethics and Economics of Assisted Reproduction: The Cost of LongingMichael Walsh, Dictionary of Christian Biography. (shrink)

Norman Kemp Smith's The Philosophy of David Hume continues to be unsurpassed in its comprehensive coverage of the ideas and issues of Hume's Treatise. Now, after years of waiting, this currently out-of-print and highly sought-after classic is being re-issued. This ground-breaking book has long been regarded as a classic study by scholars in the field, yet a new introduction by Don Garrett places the book in its contemporary context, showing Humes's continuing importance in the field.

Culture is surely important in human learning. But the relation between culture and psychological mechanism needs clarification in three areas: (1) All learning takes place in real time and through real-time mechanisms; (2) Social correlations are just a kind of learnable correlations; and (3) The proper frame of reference for cognitive theories is the perspective of the learner.