One of the sub-branches of Central Semitic, Northwest Semitic, contains a number of languages with no established hierarchical relation among them: Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite, Deir Alla, and Samalian. Over the years, scholars have attempted to establish a more accurate sub-branching for Northwest Semitic or to suggest a different genetic affiliation for some languages, usually Ugaritic. In this paper, we will argue that Aramaic and Canaanite share a direct ancestor, on the basis of a number of morphosyntactic features: the fs demonstrative (...) *ðaˀt, the direct object marker *ˀayāt, the development of dative subjects with adjectival predicates, the use of the construct state with prepositions, the G imperfect inflection of geminate verbs, and the plural form of *bayt. We will also address arguments that Ugaritic is a Canaanite dialect, or that Canaanite and Ugaritic are more closely related. This proposal not only outlines a more coherent family tree for Northwest Semitic, but also accounts for numerous “Aramaic”-like features in some Canaanite dialects, primarily Biblical Hebrew, which have thus far been treated as the result of language contact in the early Iron Age. (shrink)

We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Although Sinai 357 is one of the longest and best-preserved early alphabetic inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem, these characteristics have not made it any easier to interpret. Most scholars read it as a command from a mining foreman to one of his subordinates, but this reading creates logical and contextual problems. To avoid these problems, I read Sinai 357 as a votive inscription to the Hurrian deity Teššob that employs language similar to first-millennium Northwest Semitic dedicatory inscriptions. Such a reading reflects (...) cultural and linguistic contact between speakers of Egyptian, Hurrian, and a Northwest Semitic language at the site of Serabit el-Khadem. (shrink)

This is a 5 page summary with three diagrams of the main objectives and some work in progress at the University of Birmingham Cognition and Affect project. involving: Professor Glyn Humphreys (School of Psychology), and Luc Beaudoin, Chris Paterson, Tim Read, Edmund Shing, Ian Wright, Ahmed El-Shafei, and (from October 1994) Chris Complin (research students). The project is concerned with "global" design requirements for coping simultaneously with coexisting but possibly unrelated goals, desires, preferences, intentions, and other kinds of motivators, (...) all at different stages of processing. Our work builds on and extends seminal ideas of H.A.Simon (1967). We are exploring "broad and shallow" architectures combining varied capabilities most of which are not implemented in great depth. The poster summarises some ideas about management and meta-management processes, attention filtering, and the relevance to emotional states involved "perturbances", where there is partial loss of control of attention. (shrink)

El neodualismo postanalítico atribuyó a Russell, el primer Wittgenstein y Popper una actitud radicalmente anti-fundamentalista, con posterioridad a la teoría de los juegos del lenguaje del segundo Wittgenstein, debido a tres motivos, al menos según Von Wright y Apel, a saber: la fundamentación dogmática inductivista del positivismo lógico en los dos primeros casos; las sucesivas refundaciones meramente hipotéticas del racionalismo crítico en Popper; y, finalmente, la fundamentación explicativo-comprensiva preconizada de un modo meliorista por el pragmatismo semántico en aquel último (...) caso. Pero a pesar de este acuerdo básico, von Wright y Apel discreparon acerca del sentido meramente pragmático, o más bien pragmático-transcendental que, a pesar de todo, se debería seguir otorgando a la noción de fundamentación en los seguidores de estas nuevas tendencias del neodualismo postanalítico. (shrink)

Reseña de Wright, E. O. (2020). Cómo ser anticapitalista en el siglo XXI. Traducción Cristina Piña Aldao, Akal Pensamiento Crítico (150 páginas).

En este trabajo se estudia la teoría del cambio revolucionario en dos autores inspirados por corrientes diferentes del marxismo. En el caso de Étienne Balibar se analiza su teoría de la violencia y la civilidad, mientras que en el de Erik Olin Wright se estudia su análisis de la depresión de transición. El artículo muestra cómo nuestros dos pensadores presentan una teoría convergente de abandono del modelo leninista de cambio social.

El objeto de este artículo es analizar el problema de la justificación del conocimiento básico y ofrecer una solución basada en un tipo de justificación deflacionaria no-evidencialista a partir de la noción de habilitación de T. Burge y la de _garantía racional_ de C. Wright. El problema, en el caso del conocimiento básico lógico, es que justificar las reglas lógicas inferencialmente supone utilizar principios lógicos, con lo cual se genera un círculo vicioso. Examinamos la viabilidad del enfoque no-inferencialista de (...) Wright y sostendremos que una garantía racional es una respuesta viable para el problema de la justificación del conocimiento lógico básico. (shrink)

A partir de la crítica de Michael Ruse a la concepción etiológica de la función biológica desarrollada por Larry Wright, según la cual esta explicación resulta incompleta dado que no aborda el trasfondo cultural y valorativo que hace posible la explicación teleológica, me propongo responder a una objeción a la concepción etiológica según la cual el cambio de función constituye una anomalía para ella. Mi argumento une las ideas de Ruse acerca de la relevancia de los valores en la (...) explicación teleológica con una reinterpretación, en un contexto filogenético hipotético, de un contra-ejemplo putativo para la función como efecto seleccionado. Mi conclusión es que no hay razones para abandonar, al menos para este caso, la concepción etiológica sobre la base de objeciones acerca de su poder explicativo del cambio de función. (shrink)

Crispin Wright afirma que tanto la norma que insta a afirmar lo verdadero como la que exhorta a afirmar lo justificado son distintivas de la práctica asertórica. A pesar de que ellas no son diferentes en la práctica, son distintas. Pero Richard Rorty argumenta que las razones ofrecidas obligarían a Wright a aceptar demasiadas reglas como propias de dicha práctica. Wright admitiría que las normas pueden ser ilimitadas, pero no que son ilimitadas las normas correctas. Para defender (...) esta posición, basta con distinguir, como hace, las normas descriptivas de las prescriptivas. A pesar de ello, la posición de Rorty es admisible, pues no parece haber ventajas visibles en distinguir ambas normas. Si no se exponen estas ventajas, la teoría resultante será más débil que una que no lo pretenda. (shrink)

RESUMENSe reconstruye la doble génesis semiótica y a la vez heurística de los proyectos programáticos del primer Wittgenstein y Popper, como ellos mismos se reprocharon mutuamente por razones éticas contrapuestas en el así llamado “incidente del atizador” de 1946. Por su parte Wright y Apel también prolongaron este tipo de análisis acerca de las mutuas relaciones de subalternación y autodiferenciación o, por el contrario, de fundamentación y complementariedad recíproca, que se deberían establecer entre las correspondientes críticas del sentido y (...) las subsiguientes éticas de la ciencia, analizándolas desde un enfoque neodualista postanalítico o estrictamente pragmáticotrascendental muy contrapuestos, dejando sin resolver numerosos problemas abiertos.PALABRAS CLAVESEMIÓTICA, HEURíSTICA, FALSACIONISMO, ANÁLISIS, NUEVO DUALISMOABSTRACTThis paper presents a reconstruction of the semiotic and heuristic double genesis of the programmatic projects by the early Wittgenstein and Popper, the way they both argued with each other due to conflicting ethical reasons in the so called “Wittgenstein’s Poker” incident in 1946. Wright and Apel also prolonged this type of analysis about mutual relationships of sub-alternation and auto-differentiation or, on the other hand, of foundation and reciprocal complementary, that should be established between the corresponding critics of meaning and the subsequent ethics of science, analysing them from a post analytical neo dualistic approach or a strictly pragmatic-transcendental approach –both radically opposed– leaving numerous rising problems unsolved.KEYWORDSEMIOTIC, HEURISTIC, FALSACIONISM, ANALySIS, NEW DUALISM. (shrink)

La discusión acerca de funciones es de larga data en filosofía. Normalmente se describe a la revolución científica del siglo XVII como eliminando las causas finales y la teleología de la física. Sin embargo, el lenguaje funcional cumple un papel central en ciertas áreas de la práctica biológica. Esto ha llevado a muchos filósofos a intentar elucidar el concepto de función, en algunos casos para defender la relevancia de estos usos, en otros para mostrar que se trata de meras formas (...) de hablar que podrían ser eliminadas sin pérdida de ningún tipo de información relevante. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es mostrar la necesidad de apelar a conceptos funcionales para una reconstrucción adecuada de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Pues, se utiliza lenguaje funcional en la conceptualización del campo de aplicación de esta teoría, y tal campo debe ser determinable con independencia la teoría de la selección natural. (shrink)

En "Legal Reasons, Sources and Gaps", Raz señala que las lagunas jurídicas existen sólo cuando el derecho habla con voz incierta o cuando habla con muchas voces, pero que no hay lagunas cuando el derecho guarda silencio. En este último caso habría reglas de clausura, analíticamente verdaderas, que impiden la ocurrencia de esas lagunas. Según Raz, si hay una laguna en un sistema jurídico, entonces no es verdadero ni falso que exista una razón concluyente para ejecutar cierta acción. Así, una (...) de las contribuciones más importantes de Raz a la solución del problema de las lagunas jurídicas es subrayar que el discurso jurídico no está completamente controlado por la bivalencia. Sin embargo, a menudo se sostiene que el rechazo de la bivalencia conduce a contradicciones. Si esta afirmación fuese verdadera, entonces la solución de Raz al problema de las lagunas jurídicas se vería seriamente amenazada. En este artículo mostramos, con ayuda de una herramienta analítica sofisticada, i.e., la lógica de la verdad de G.H. von Wright, que el rechazo de la bivalencia sólo nos compromete a aceptar la conclusión trivial de que puede haber proposiciones que no son verdaderas ni falsas. Por esta razón, el trabajo de Raz todavía puede ser considerado un buen punto de partida para analizar las relaciones entre normas, razonamiento práctico y lagunas jurídicas. Sin embargo, también mostramos que para admitir proposiciones que no son verdaderas ni falsas, las tesis de Raz deben ser reformuladas. De otra manera, la tesis de que no existen lagunas cuando el derecho guarda silencio no sería compatible con el rechazo de la bivalencia. /// In his paper "Legal Reasons, Sources and Gaps", Raz says that legal gaps only exist when law speaks with uncertain voice or when it speaks with many voices, but there are no gaps when law is silent. In this later case, rules of closure, which are analytically true, prevent from the occurrence of gaps. According to Raz, if there is a gap in a legal system, then both the claim that there is a conclusive legal reason to perform a certain action, and its negation are neither true nor false. Therefore, one of the Raz's most important contributions to the solution of the problem of legal gaps is to remark that legal discourse is not altogether governed by the principie of bivalence. However, philosophers often claim that the denial of bivalence leads to a logical inconsistency. If this claim were true, then Raz's solution to the problem of gaps would be seriously threatened. In this paper we show--with the aid of a sophisticated analytical tool, i.e., von Wright's truth-logic--that the rejection of bivalence only commits us to accept the trivial conclusion that propositions can lack truth-values. For this reason, Raz's paper can still be regarded as a good starting-point for analyzing the relationships between norms, practical reasoning and legal gaps. However, we also show that in order to admit propositions which are neither true nor false, Raz's theses must be reformulated. Otherwise, the claim that there is no gap when law is silent would not be compatible with the rejection of bivalence. (shrink)

En este trabajo presento un problema que afecta al programa neologicista que han defendido en varias ocasiones Crispin Wright y Bob Hale. En particular, argumento que Wright y Hale no han dado suficientes condiciones para separar las definiciones implícitas apropiadas como el principio de Hume de otras definiciones implícitas rivales como la aritmética de Peano de segundo orden. Sugiero, además, que esa tarea sólo puede realizarse adecuadamente si una de las condiciones propuestas es la condición de que toda (...) definición implícita sea unívoca. In this paper I consider a problem affecting the Neologicist Program advocated on many occasions by Bob Hale and Crispin Wright. In particular, I argue that Hale and Wright have not given enough conditions to separate appropriate implicit definitions such as Hume's Principle from rival implicit definitions like Second-Order Peano Arithmetic. I also suggest that this task can only be performed adequately if one of the proposed conditions is that every implicit definition be univocal. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se presenta una reconstrucción del episodio histórico de la cristalización del _management_ industrial a través de la introducción de la Teoría de la Dinámica de Sistemas de Jay Wright Forrester de la Sloan School of Management del MIT. Para ello, se utilizarán explícitamente las herramientas historiográficas provistos por el marco metateórico de Thomas Kuhn, por considerarlo de gran fertilidad para dar cuenta de los episodios de maduración de disciplinas científicas.

Este artículo discute el problema del ser y el deber ser a la luz de la relación entre lógica deóntica y lógica de normas. Los autores se centran primeramente en las soluciones no-cognoscitivistas de Weinberger y von Wright. Luego de refutar a ambas concepciones por considerarlas fallidas, defienden una concepción no-lingüística de las normas. Según esta última, normar es una especie de acto, norma es el producto de ese acto, y enunciado normativo es la expresión de una norma. | (...) El articulo se publicó en ingles en Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, Vol. LXXIII No. 3, 373–385. Sebastián Figueroa Rubio lo tradujo al español para Revus. (shrink)

La discusión sobre seguir una regla plantea cuestiones centrales sobre la naturaleza de nuestros conceptos. En el presente ensayo situamos y discutimos una tesis del enfoque de Crispin Wright, a saber: el seguimiento de reglas conlleva siempre un compromiso epistémico. De acuerdo a nuestro punto de vista, el seguimiento de reglas para los casos que Wright llama “casos básicos” (casos que no pueden reducirse a una estructura de razonamiento modus ponens) no conlleva un compromiso epistémico. Tales casos básicos (...) son compromisos lingüísticos que, sin ser verdaderos o falsos, permiten que el resto de nuestro edificio conceptual pueda juzgarse verdadero o falso. Así, acordamos con Wright en que todo caso de captación de regla es un caso que requiere de competencia racional pero discutimos su criterio para señalar la racionalidad de la regla. (shrink)

In the second Meditation, Descartes argues that, because he thinks, he must exist. What are his reasons for accepting the premise of this argument, namely that he thinks? Some commentators suggest that Descartes has a ‘logic’ argument for his premise: It is impossible to be deceived in thinking that one thinks, because being deceived is a species of thinking. In this paper, I argue that this ‘logic’ argument cannot contribute to the first certainty that supposedly stops the Cartesian doubt. Rather, (...) this certainty must be based on another type of access to our own minds, possibly a faculty of introspection. Applying this result to contemporary constitutive theories of self-knowledge (Wright), I show that these cannot be part of what justifies the ascription of particular mental states to a subject. -/- En la segunda de sus "Meditaciones metafísicas", Descartes argumenta que, porque piensa, debe existir. ¿Cuáles son sus razones para aceptar la premisa de este argumento, a saber el que piensa? Algunos comentaristas sugieren que Descartes tiene un argumento 'lógico' para su premisa: No es posible ser engañado en creer que uno piensa, porque el ser engañado también es una especie de pensamiento. En mi ponencia arguyo que este argumento 'lógico' no puede contribuir a la certeza que supuestamente para la duda cartesiana. Más bien, esta certeza debe fundarse en otro tipo de acceso, talvez de forma introspectiva, que tenemos a nuestra propia mente. Aplicando este resultado a teorías contemporáneas constitutivas del autoconocimiento (Wright), muestro que éstas no pueden contribuir a la justificación de la adscripción de estados mentales particulares. (shrink)

El trabajo comienza con una rápida revisión de las tesis escépticas de Francisco Sánchez para reformular una definición de su principio epistemológico. Poco después se examina el alcance del principio de Vico verum esse ipsum factum en conexión con los problemas que ha planteado Sánchez. Se considera una nueva definición de verdad a la luz del examen del principio de Vico y se termina considerando dos teorías sobre la acción humana, las de von Wright y Donald Davidson.The paper stars (...) with a quick perusal of Francisco Sánchez’s sceptical cristicism and sets forth a tentative definition of his epistemological principle. Shortly after Vico’s principle verum esse ipsum factum is examined in connexion with Sánchez’s esceptical thesis. A new definition of truth is considered and finally two theories on human action are compared with Vico’s principle. (shrink)

A work using Wittgenstein's concept of philosophy to argue against the possibility of theories that seek to define art. It claims that the problems about identification and evaluation of works of art is that these problems are not theoretical, but grow out of our artistic traditions and practice.

El artículo es un esbozo general de los procedimientos decisorios parafórmulas monádicas de primer grado tratados por Juan Bautista Ferro. Seinicia con una breve semblanza de Ferro. Luego trata el problema de ladecisión, y presenta los procedimientos decisorios de Quine (QS, QL y QM),Georg H. Von Wright (VW), Bernays Schonfinkel (BS), S.C. Kleene y elprocedimiento decisorio Ferro Herbrand (FH). Cada uno de estos métodos muestra el esfuerzo por reducir la lógica cuan ti ficacional monádica de primer orden a la (...) lógica proposicional; en este sentido, el método FH opera con mayores ventajas sobre los otros métodos. (shrink)

Here, Bob Hale and Crispin Wright assemble the key writings that lead to their distinctive neo-Fregean approach to the philosophy of mathematics. In addition to fourteen previously published papers, the volume features a new paper on the Julius Caesar problem; a substantial new introduction mapping out the program and the contributions made to it by the various papers; a section explaining which issues most require further attention; and bibliographies of references and further useful sources. It will be recognized as (...) the most powerful presentation yet of a neo-Fregean program. (shrink)

Background:The severity of the Coronavirus pandemic has led to lockdowns in different countries to reduce the spread of the infection. These lockdown restrictions are likely to be detrimental to mental health and well-being in adolescents. Physical activity can be beneficial for mental health and well-being; however, research has yet to examine associations between adolescent physical activity and mental health and well-being during lockdown.Purpose:Examine the effects of adolescent perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear on mental health and well-being and investigate the extent (...) to which physical activity can be a protective factor against these concerns.Methods:During United Kingdom lockdown restrictions, 165 participants (100 female, aged 13–19) completed an online questionnaire assessing perceived Coronavirus prevalence and fear, physical activity, and indicators of mental health and well-being (stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, vitality, and perceived health). Separate hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses (with age, gender, perceived Coronavirus prevalence, and fear entered in step 1, and physical activity in step 2) were run to predict each well-being outcome.Results:Regression analyses indicated that in general, while Coronavirus fear was a negative predictor, physical activity was a positive and stronger predictor of enhanced mental health and well-being outcomes.Conclusion:Findings suggest that physical activity during the Coronavirus pandemic can counteract the negative effects of Coronavirus fear on adolescent mental health and well-being. Therefore, physical activity should be promoted during lockdown to support good mental health and well-being. (shrink)

This book, the first to explore religious education and post-modernity in depth, sets out to provide a much needed examination of the problems and possibilities post-modernity raises for religious education.

Experiments (E), computer simulations (CS) and thought experiments (TE) are usually seen as playing different roles in science and as having different epistemologies. Accordingly, they are usually analyzed separately. We argue in this paper that these activities can contribute to answering the same questions by playing the same epistemic role when they are used to unfold the content of a well-described scenario. We emphasize that in such cases, these three activities can be described by means of the same conceptual framework—even (...) if each of them, because they involve different types of processes, fall under these concepts in different ways. We further illustrate our claims by presenting a threefold case study describing how a TE, a CS and an E were indeed used in the same role at different periods to answer the same questions about the possibility of a physical Maxwellian demon. We also point at fluid dynamics as another field where these activities seem to be playing the same unfolding role. We analyze the importance of unfolding as a general task of science and highlight how our description in terms of epistemic functions articulates in a noncommittal way with the epistemology of these three activities and accounts for their similarities and the existence of hybrid forms of activities. We finally emphasize that picturing these activities as functionally substitutable does not imply that they are epistemologically substitutable. (shrink)

Aristotle'sSophistical Refutations(=Soph. el.) seeks to uncover the workings of apparent deductive reasoning, and is thereby largely devoted to the caricature of dialectic that the ancients callederistic(ἐριστική), the art of quarrelling. Unlike antilogy (ἀντιλογία), which refers to a type of argumentation where two arguments are pitted against each other in a contradictory manner, eristic takes on in Aristotle an exclusively pejorative meaning, as is made clear, for example, by this passage fromSoph. el.: ‘For just as unfairness in a contest is a (...) definite type of fault, and is a kind of foul fighting, so the art of contentious reasoning is foul fighting in disputation.’. (shrink)

Understanding what numbers are means knowing several things. It means knowing how counting relates to numbers (called the cardinal principle or cardinality); it means knowing that each number is generated by adding one to the previous number (called the successor function or succession), and it means knowing that all and only sets whose members can be placed in one-to-one correspondence have the same number of items (called exact equality or equinumerosity). A previous study (Sarnecka & Carey, 2008) linked children's understanding (...) of cardinality to their understanding of succession for the numbers five and six. This study investigates the link between cardinality and equinumerosity for these numbers, finding that children either understand both cardinality and equinumerosity or they understand neither. This suggests that cardinality and equinumerosity (along with succession) are interrelated facets of the concepts five and six, the acquisition of which is an important conceptual achievement of early childhood. (shrink)

The agencies of the government of the United States of America, such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency, intervene in American society through the collection, processing, and diffusion of information. The Presidency of Barack Obama was notable for updating and redesigning the US government’s information infrastructure. The White House enhanced mass consultation through open government and big data initiatives to evaluate policy effectiveness, and it launched new ways of communicating with the citizenry. In this essay (...) we argue that these programs spelled out an emergent epistemology based on two assumptions: dispersed knowledge and a critique of judgment. These programs have redefined the evidence required to justify and design regulatory policy and conferred authority to a new kind of expert, which we call epistemic consultants. (shrink)

Universities and Colleges with a Christian affiliation have in recent years sought to renew and redefine their identities and almost all have rearticulated their mission for the modern age after a long and serious process of reappraisal. This process has been accompanied by an ongoing discussion of the nature and identity of higher education itself. This discussion has required leadership that is different from most secular leadership. This book provides a range of experienced voices, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, that (...) reflect on the character and mission of leadership in Christian higher education in the 21st Century. (shrink)

This collection contains hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Wittgenstein and the most important of his Cambridge friends and includes editorial notes based on archival material not previously explored. Incorporates many previously undiscovered unique and significant letters. A powerful record and intimate insight into Wittgenstein's life and thought. Extensive editorial annotations.

When we consider the issue of linguistic justice, we must define what we mean by language. Standardisation of languages is closely associated with the development of the nation state, and the de Saussurian conception of language as system is in concert with nationalism and its divisions. In the early twenty-first century, however, this view of the world as a mosaic of stable national monolingualisms is outdated. In a globalising world, much of the political, social and economic structure that is developing (...) is transnational and patterns of contact, both real and virtual, have become extraordinarily complex. In the resulting communities of communication of this superdiverse world, much language practice is more function driven than in the recent past. New practices mean that we cannot consider questions of linguistic justice in this new world order using the linguistic toolkit of the old. The flows, exchanges and networks of globalisation present us with a new paradigm and we need to recalibrate concepts. (shrink)