K. L. WONG

Applying two-dimensional modal semantics, some philosophers, most recently Frank Jackson and David Chalmers among others, have sought to provide analyses of Kripke’s examples of the necessary a posteriori. Despite the massive amount of attention that two-dimensionalism has received of late, Robert Nozick’s recent accounting of Kripke’s examples, which bears striking similarities to these two-dimensionalist analyses but reached a different conclusion, has gone unnoticed. This paper argues that (a) underlying such a difference is a serious problem with the two-dimensionalist approach to the necessary a posteriori and (b) thinking through this problem will go a long way towards a proper understanding, and thus assessment, of this approach.

Over the past three decades or so, the teaching of critical thinking as an essential part of general education has exerted a significant influence on contemporary post secondary education. Critical thinking includes as a central part traditional logic but goes beyond it both in scope and in the conception of what the evaluation of arguments involves, or, to put it in another way, in the very conception of what constitutes the ability to reason well. Indeed one of the notable trends that characterize recent developments in informal logic and critical thinking has been ‘a move toward a broad conception of argumentation which extends the analysis of argumentation beyond the analysis of premises and conclusions’ (Groarke 2002: section 1). An important sign of this trend is the increasing number of scholarly journals in the field of informal logic and theory of argumentation — e.g.

In contrast to standard possible worlds semantics, possible worlds in a two-dimensional semantic framework play two kinds of roles, rather than just one. This allows the framework to assign two kinds of intensions to expressions, rather than just one. Its fruitful use in explicating modal operators and the meanings of referential expressions like indexicals has led to two-dimensional accounts that seek to revive the Fregean conception of meaning, or more specifically the descriptivist view of reference, which has fallen into disrepute due to intense criticisms, most famously, by Saul Kripk’s seminal work Naming and Necessity (1972). This entry provides a critical overview of the two most prominent of such accounts, proposed by Frank Jackson and David Chalmers. Unfortunately, there is not space to describe either account in detail, so I rely largely on brief descriptions and plenty of references to primary and secondary sources. More importantly, I rely on focusing on how the accounts explain the phenomenon of necessary a posteriori identity that Kripke’s well-known examples (such as ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus’) have brought to light. Focusing on and structuring our discussions around this phenomenon is by no means just an expository convenience. These cases are of central importance in themselves. They epitomize a large part of the contribution of Naming and Necessity to the theory of reference. This is why section 2 outlines Kripke’s critique of the Fregean theory of referential expressions and section 3 explains rigid designation and identity statements. Section 4 discusses rigidification and the notion of a world considered as actual, leading to the introduction of two-dimensional functions in Section 5. I discuss, finally, Frank Jackson’s and David Chalmers’ two-dimensionalism in Sections 6 and 7. Section 8 makes a few critical remarks on Jackson’s handling of the semantic argument. I conclude (Section 8) by discussing the important distinction between semantics and metasemantics

Humility, in a variety of forms, has been examined in educational contexts in recent years. However, its association with a particular pedagogical method remains an unexplored area of inquiry. Likewise, social justice and student voice are a concern in international education arenas, including in higher education, but are not usually connected to virtue acquisition or demonstration. The student voice for social justice (SVSJ) pedagogical method, based on the framework of Nancy Fraser, seeks to aid practitioners in higher education to ensure that social justice and student voice, mediated by notions of humility, are at the forefront of higher education practices across disciplines. This is accomplished by creating spaces for students’ active participation and voice in course content development and classroom learning. In this paper, we expand philosophical explorations of intellectual humility (IH) and cultural humility (CH) as virtues that mediate teaching and learning practices and interactions in classrooms during SVSJ implementation. This ensures that each student is recognised as an important knowledge holder and that diverse ways of knowing, knowledge systems and cultural traditions are valued in higher education teaching and learning spaces.

This essay applies John Searle’s account of weakness of will to explore the classical Chinese problem of weak-willed action. Searle’s discussion focuses on the shortcomings of the Western classical model of rationality in explaining weakness of will, so he naturally says little about the practical ethical problem of overcoming weak-willed action, the focus of the relevant Chinese texts. Yet his theory of action, specifically his notion of the Background, suggests a compelling approach to the practical issue, one that converges with a plausible account of the classical Chinese conception of agency. On this approach, the practical problem is due to weaknesses of the self in carrying out intentions. The key to overcoming the problem lies not in restructuring the agent’s affective states, as suggested by prominent interpreters of Chinese thought such as David Nivison, but in strengthening the agent’s Background capacities, much as we do when mastering new skills.

One of the success stories of formal semantics is explicating responsive moves like answers to questions. There is, however, a significant lacune concerning the characterization of _initiating utterances_, which are strongly tied to the conversational activity [language game (Wittgenstein), speech genre (Bakhtin)], or—our terminology—_conversational type_, one is engaged in. To date there has been no systematic proposal trying to account for the range of possible _language games_/_speech genres_/_conversational types_ and their global structure. In particular, concerning the range of subject matter that can and needs to be discussed and by whom—ultimately a semantic analogue of Laplace’s demon. We suggest that the subject matter problem for conversational types is a central task for any semantic theory for conversation. This paper develops a theory of conversational types, which embedded in the theory of conversational interaction KoS, enables this problem to be tackled for a wide range of conversational types drawn from the British National Corpus classification of conversational domains. The theory we develop treats conversational types as first class, not metatheoretical entities, in contrast to explications of corresponding notions in game theoretic approaches. We demonstrate that this allows us to explicate the possibilities interlocutors have to refer to and seek clarification about the types of conversations they are engaged in.

Phasic activity of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area or substantia nigra compacta has been suggested to encode reward-prediction error signal for reinforcement learning. Recent studies have shown that the lateral habenula neurons exhibit a similar response, but for nonrewarding or punishment signals. Hence, the transient signaling role of LHb neurons is opposite that of DA neurons and also that of several other brain nuclei such as the border region of the globus pallidus internal segment and the rostral medial tegmentum. Previous theoretical models have investigated the neural circuit mechanism underlying reward-based phasic activity of DA neurons, but the feasibility of a larger neural circuit model to account for the observed reward-based phasic activity in other brain nuclei such as the LHb has yet to be shown. Here, we propose a large-scale neural circuit model and show that parallel excitatory and inhibitory pathways underlie the learned neural responses across multiple brain regions. Specifically, the model can account for the phasic neural activity observed in the GPb, LHb, RMTg, and VTA/SNc. Based on sensitivity analysis, the model is found to be robust against changes in the overall neural connectivity strength. The model also predicts that striosomes play a key role in the phasic activity of VTA/SNc and LHb neurons by encoding previous and expected rewards. Taken together, our model identifies the important role of parallel neural circuit pathways in accounting for phasic activity across multiple brain areas during reward and punishment processing.

This paper takes Deleuze's idea ‘to green’ as a qualitative predicate which becomes a rhizomatic event where Jesper Hoffmeyer's ‘plant being’ contemplates through waves and rhythms, hence affects and percepts. The article then brings forward an intertwined group of Chinese ideograms which are designed with plant-radicals, making up an ecosystem towards the establishment of a new Chinese ecocriticism under the banner of biosemiotics. Such an effort will, hopefully, widen the scope and dimension of the new field of environmental humanities, with an emphasis on the scenario of affective attuning to the agency of vegetal life. The main purpose is to put Deleuze and Guattari's form-event assemblage within the stratification of regimes of signs in A Thousand Plateaus, in order to establish a ‘natureculture’ continuity not only between science and art, but also between a Western rethinking of language/culture and a Chinese ecosystem/ecocriticism.

Though Schelling makes the distinction between positive and negative philosophy in the later period, and starts to develop his positive philosophy mainly in his philosophy of religion (ca. 1840), this paper will try to show that there are already certain “positive” elements in the early writings. By “positive” it means twofold: first, that intuition and reality take priority over conceptual definition; second, the extreme conclusion that even nothingness is positive. It will show how Schelling gradually moves from the former to the latter. Since it is impossible to deal with his entire philosophical career in this short article, it will select four texts or periods for analysis, not strictly in chronological order, namely, Naturphilosophie (1799–1806), his idea of “productive intuition” in System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), his philosophy of time in Ages of the World (Weltalter, 1811–1815), and Philosophy of Mythology (1842). Special attention will be given to the role of time in his arguments, as it will show that time provides a major driving force for this positivity.

With Peach Blossom Spring and other poetical works written by Tao Qian in the 5th century, there was born a vision of utopia that remains forever etched into the Chinese collective imaginary. Thirteen centuries later, Cao Xueqin drew inspiration from it when he gave form to the ‘Grandview Garden’, a universe with fundamentally female characteristics and one of the centres for the plot of The Story of the Stone, a masterpiece of Chinese romantic fiction also known as ‘Dream of the Red Chamber/Mansions’. Reading the two works in parallel, in both the figurative and the literal sense, points up the message of the Daodejing that utopia cannot be planned or imposed. In fact it emerges from a spirit of openness, an attitude of patient waiting, listening with the ear of the other. This intuition leads to reflection on difference, based on Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream

This paper aims at engaging Kant’s and Schelling’s theories of time in dialogue. It begins with Schelling’s famous criticism of Kant’s theory of time in his Weltalter (Ages of the World). It will examine this question from four main perspectives, namely the unity of time; time and a unitary object of experience;subjectivity of time; and the problem of infinity of time. It will show that Schelling’s criticism may instigate some fundamental reflections on Kant’s theory oftime, the relation between objective and subjective time, and the possibilities of connecting Kant’s different meanings of time in his first Critique. Further, it willshow that despite the fundamental differences between Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophical systems, some of Schelling’s ideas about time may have their earlier expressions in Kant. While Schelling has gone further and radicalized some insights from Kant in his own version of idealism, his criticism of Kant may find possible responses from the latter’s first Critique.

The emergence of managed health care, especially when delivered by for-profit corporations, has prompted moral concerns over harm to patients. Critics allege that these organizations cannot properly honor their traditional medical role of healing patients, while attempting to honor their business obligations since it will be tempting to withhold necessary care in order to increase profits. ;While this issue has generated an emotional public response, the literature addressing the ethical implications of managed care is still in its infancy. Particularly notable is the dearth of scholarly efforts which properly address organizational ethics and responsibilities. In the few attempts which have been made to formulate an ethical framework for these organizations, they have usually been grounded in either traditional medical ethics or laissez-faire business models. As a result, important interests have been ignored. ;Based upon the conceptions of justice developed by John Rawls, this dissertation engages in a normative ethical analysis of the role of for-profit organizations in the delivery of managed care. In addition, an ethical framework with which to form specific behavioral guidelines and to draw social policy implications will be developed. ;I begin by assessing managed care in light of the available alternatives for medical delivery: fee-for-service arrangements, explicit rationing proposals, and the use of medical savings accounts. From this assessment, it can be seen that managed care is the most viable alternative given current constraints. I then proceed to a perform a systematic comparison of for-profit versus non-profit managed care models. I find that the two models are quite similar to the degree to which they can serve patient and societal interests. As a result, my argument is that for-profit models are morally viable entities in health care reform. However, my contention is that these organizations are only acceptable if they operate within an ethical framework which properly accounts for both their business and medical roles and serves to guide their behaviors in a manner that properly protects patients and societal interests. I conclude by developing such a model and delineating its organizational ethics and social policy implications.