VOLUME 12 • 2013
RACIAL EPITHETS, CHARACTERIZATIONS, AND SLURS
ABSTRACT. Since at least 2008 linguists and philosophers of language have started paying more serious attention to issues concerning the meaning or use of racial epithets and slurs. In an influential article published in The Journal of Philosophy, for instance, Christopher Hom (2008) offered a seman..
WHEN PRAXIS BREAKS DOWN: WHAT HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY CONTRIBUTES TO UNDERSTANDING MISCUES AND LEARNING IN READING
ABSTRACT. Heidegger provides us with a unique view of learning within the context of our meaningful dealings with the use and breakdown of “equipment” and the subsequent revelatory ontological disclosure of “world” and Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. I attempt to show that Heidegger’s notion of breakdo..
A TRANSLATION PROBLEM: THE THING-AT-ITSELF IN LIGHT OF KANT’S PRAGMATISM
ABSTRACT. Taking its starting point from remarks by Peirce and Rescher on Kant’s pragmatism, the paper attempts to answer two questions. (1) Whether the Ding an sich plays any role in Kant’s pragmatics; and (2) whether the English rendering of the thing-in-itself has perhaps encouraged P. F. Strawso..
GENERAL PURPOSE INTELLIGENCE: ARGUING THE ORTHOGONALITY THESIS
ABSTRACT. In his paper “The Superintelligent Will,” Nick Bostrom formalized the Orthogonality thesis: the idea that the final goals and intelligence levels of artificial agents are independent of each other. This paper presents arguments for a (narrower) version of the thesis. It proceeds through th..
SAYING AND SHOWING: THE SINGLE SOLUTION OF ALL THE “PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY” ACCORDING TO WITTGENSTEIN’S TRACTATUS
ABSTRACT. In a famous letter to Russell, Wittgenstein asserts that the ‘main point’ of his Logish-philosophische Abhandlung lies in the demarcation between ‘what can be expressed [gesagt] by propositions’ and ‘what cannot be expressed by propositions, but only shown [gezeigt]’. Drawing correctly thi..
HUMBLE PRIMARY INTENSIONS: FIXING TWO-DIMENSIONAL SEMANTICS
ABSTRACT. Certain problems with standard two-dimensional semantics are addressed and cases in which these problems arise explored. In such cases the primary intension cannot be univocally mapped in one and only one indexical world, thus standard two-dimensional semantics cannot efficiently address t..
OBJECTIVITY AND NATURAL LAWS
ABSTRACT. The principle of the “uniformity of nature” states that reality is subject to natural laws. In this paper I argue that a weak version of the principle of the uniformity of nature is a necessary truth. According to this weakened principle, every reality for which the question of its subject..
THINKING THROUGH NIHILISM: THE RECLAMATION OF EMBODIED THOUGHT FOR ENHANCING CULTURAL PRACTICES
ABSTRACT. Drawing on Heidegger’s philosophy of the technological “world picture,” Dreyfus traces our contemporary nihilistic condition to what he terms “objectifying practices.” The drive for objective knowledge threatens to erode our “cultural practices,” a form of life expressing our most intimate..
THE ROLE LANGUAGE PLAYS IN SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
ABSTRACT. The main objective of this paper is to explore and describe the development of social reasoning, the relation of language use and cognition, the role of language variations in attitude change, and language as a set of complex, organized systems that operate in concert. This study is ground..
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACULTY PRACTICES AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND LEARNING
ABSTRACT. The purpose of this article is to gain a deeper understanding of cognitive load in visual displays, the value of inquiry learning as an educational method, the various ways to conceptualize thinking about cognitive, affective, and behavioral experiences, and the educational use of Web 2.0 ..
GENDER REPRESENTATION IN ADVERTISEMENTS
ABSTRACT. The theory that I shall seek to elaborate here puts considerable emphasis on women’s attitudes toward sex-themed advertising, the portrayal of women as sex objects in advertisements, advertising aimed at the midriffs, and the representation of women’s bodies in advertising. The mainstay of..
BARNETT ON NEW FORMS OF THE UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT. Barnett maintains that society needs both the most imaginative and the widest range of ideas of the university. The institution in society that should encourage imaginative thinking is tacitly working to diminish imaginative thinking, being characterized by a poverty of imagination about i..