Anscombe on Intentions and Commands

The title of this essay describes its topic. I open by discussing the two-knowledges/one-object worry that Anscombe introduces through her famous example of the water-pumper. This sets the context for my main topic, viz., Anscombe’s remarks in _Intention_ on the similarities and differences between intentions and commands. These remarks play a key role in her argument’s shift from practical knowledge to the form of practical reasoning and in its subsequent shift back to practical knowledge. The remarks should be seen as framing her account of practical reasoning’s distinctive logical form: they motivate the need for the account, and they then are then illuminated by the account in order to resolve the two-knowledges/one-object puzzle. I tackle these exegetical issues over the course of the essay, but my goals are not limited to exegesis. I think there are lessons both in the philosophy of mind and in ethics to be gleaned from a close study of these remarks on intentions and commands. Intentions, we discover, must not be understood as self-commands; once we see why, we can better understand Anscombe’s rather cryptic dismissal of Kantian ethics in "Modern Moral Philosophy ." The essay closes on this last point

Protest and Speech Act Theory

This paper attempts to explain what a protest is by using the resources of speech-act theory. First, we distinguish the object, redress, and means of a protest. This provided a way to think of atomic acts of protest as having dual communicative aspects, viz., a negative evaluation of the object and a connected prescription of redress. Second, we use Austin’s notion of a felicity condition to further characterize the dual communicative aspects of protest. This allows us to distinguish protest from some other speech acts which also involve a negative evaluation of some object and a connected prescription of redress. Finally, we turn to Kukla and Lance’s idea of a normative functionalist analysis of speech acts to advance the view that protests are a complex speech act constituted by dual input normative statuses and dual output normative statuses

An Annotated Checklist of the Freshwater Fishes of Texas, with Keys to Identification of Species

Forty-five families and 247 species of fishes are known to inhabit the freshwaters of Texas. We report on the distribution and status of these fishes and provide a key to their identification. Of the native fishes originally found in Texas, five taxa, Notropis orca (phantom shiner), Notropis simus simus (Rio Grande bluntnose shiner), Cyprinella lutrensis blairi (Maravillas red shiner), Gambusia amistadensis (Amistad gambusia) and Gambusia georgei (San Marcos gambusia) are apparently extinct, and three, Oncorhynchus clarki virginalis (Rio Grande cutthroat trout), Hybognathus amarus (Rio Grande silvery minnow) and Gambusia senilis (blotched gambusia) appear to be extirpated from the state. More than 20 percent of the remaining primary freshwater species appear to be in some need of protection.Integrative Biolog

Ibsen: Motivation, Method, and Influence

Although the Norwegian Dramatist Henrik Ibsen is a century removed from the happenings of the present day, the themes with which he dealt within his plays are relevant to today\u27s situations. This father of modern drama might possibly be called the originator of the women\u27s liberation movement with the revolutionary ideas he presented to the 19th century in his play A Doll\u27s House. Ibsen was even aware of the generation gap-a fact that is evident in his plays dealing with relations between parents and children. Arthur Miller summed up the source of Ibsen\u27s success in the following quote: There is one quality in Ibsen that no serious writer can afford to overlook. It lies at the very center of his force, and I found in it--as I hope others will--a profound source of strength. It is his insistence, his utter conviction, that he is going to say what he has to say, and that the audience, by God, is going to listen. It is the very same quality that makes a star actor, a great public speaker and a lunatic. Every Ibsen play begins with the unwritten words: \u27Now listen here!\u27 The works of Ibsen, the master of discussion, fall neatly into three distinct periods which will be discussed within this paper. Ibsen, as a chief example of the modern drama of ideas, had a marked influence on the modern trends in play writing when he dared to break with centuries old play writing traditions

The Rational Unity of the Self

The topic of my dissertation is selfhood. I aim to explain what a self is such that it can sometimes succeed and other times fail at thinking and acting autonomously. I open by considering a failure of autonomy to which I return throughout the dissertation. The failure is that of self-deception. I show that in common cases of self-deception the self-deceived individual fails, due to a motive on his part, to be able to explain the cause of some belief or action of his. There are several philosophical projects that arise when one reflects on this failure. They are presented by the following questions: what are our minds like, such that this failure is possible? For what should we criticize the self-deceived individual, given that he has a motivated lack of self-knowledge but does not know he is so motivated? Is the self-deceived individual epistemically criticizable for lacking explanatory self-knowledge in a way that he is not criticizable for lacking knowledge that would help him explain another's thoughts and actions? By answering these questions I provide an account of the rational unity that goes missing in self-deception and in the related phenomenon of epistemic akrasia. This unity can—and I argue, should—be present in bodily action as well. When a person acts without this unity, he acts in a weak-willed, akratic way. I provide an account of this disunity, which, when added to my account of the disunity of self-deception, reveals the rational unity of an autonomous agent, the rational unity of the self

The Contributions of Roger Williams to Religious Freedom and Democratic Ideals

Roger Williams is best known as the founder of Rhode Island. Few people realize that he was also a soldier, statesman, farmer, and preacher. Perhaps he is not well remembered because he is so hard to label. To him we owe the provisions in our government today of religious freedom and separation of church and state. Because of his new ideas and courage to express them, Roger Williams was considered a radical by many of the people of his day

Especially for Homemakers

Can you prove your were born? Or married? Lots of people can\u27t - because they have mislaid their family records. You might be surprised by some of Marcena VerPloeg\u27s recommendations for a 4-part record-filling system that combines maximum security with easy access

Inspecting Nitrate Silent Cinema: Case Studies from the John E. Allen Collection of the George Eastman Museum

This thesis emphasizes the need to conserve nitrate silent films and to raise awareness that digital copies are not the only solution. Digital copies cannot fulfill all conservation and preservation needs. After reviewing the work of a film historian, archival experts, and several academics in the field of film and archives, I chose silent nitrate films dating from the early 20th-century as case studies. The selected films, part of the John E. Allen Collection of the George Eastman Museum (GEM) in Rochester, NY are housed in the nitrate vaults at the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center in Chili, NY, although they were originally stored offsite before being brought to the nitrate vaults in the late 1990s. The films are considered orphan films, films without owners, they were abandoned and placed in poor conditions. The films have varying levels of decomposition. The methodology consists of inspecting the titles reel by reel and comparing the decomposition levels from previous inspection in 2000 to the present, 2018. The research and findings produced in this thesis show to what extent the storage conditions in the nitrate vaults have slowed decomposition and what conservation issues remain. In addition to researching the relevance of the particular films examined and the broader field of nitrate film studies, this thesis expresses the need for increased public awareness for conserving nitrate, in an effort to preserve nitrate silent films before they disappear