7,371 research outputs found
Crossing the symbolic threshold: a critical review of Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species
Terrence Deacon's views about the origin of language are based on a particular notion of a symbol. While the notion is derived from Peirce's semiotics, it diverges from that source and needs to be investigated on its own terms in order to evaluate the idea that the human species has crossed the symbolic threshold. Deacon's view is defended from the view that symbols in the animal world are widespread and from the extreme connectionist view that they are not even to be found in humans. Deacon's treatment of symbols involves a form of holism, as a symbol needs to be part of a system of symbols. He also appears to take a realist view of symbols. That combination of holism and realism makes the threshold a sharp threshold, which makes it hard to explain how the threshold was crossed. This difficulty is overcome if we take a mild realist position towards symbols, in the style of Dennett. Mild realism allows intermediate stages in the crossing but does not undermine Deacon's claim that the threshold is difficult to cross or the claim that it needs to be crossed quickly
Kinds of conversational cooperation
The Cooperative Principle was the organizing principle in Griceâs pragmatics. More recently, cooperation has played a reduced role in pragmatic theory. The principle has been attacked on the grounds that people are not always or generally cooperative. One response to that objection is to say that there are two kinds of cooperation and Griceâs principle only applies to the narrower kind, which concerns linguistic or formal cooperation. I argue that such a distinction is only defensible if it is accepted that linguistic cooperation can be determined by an extra-linguistic goal. To make distinctions among types of cooperation is helpful but this strategy does not remove all concerns about speakers who are not fully cooperative and in particular the operation of the principle needs to be qualified in situations of conflict of interest. I propose that the principle, once qualified, can have a significant continuing role in pragmatic theory
The Early Years Professional: holding a mirror up to policy makers
The importance of the early years for later life outcomes is increasingly being recognised. The former Labour Government (1997-2010) in England introduced a raft of policies aimed at raising the quality of early years provision and outcomes for the youngest children. As part of the changes a new graduate professional role and status, the Early Years Professional, was introduced evidencing a new era of involvement by policy makers in the professions. Government involvement in imposing and shaping the development makes the Early Years Professional vulnerable to political change; it was developed by government and could be removed. Indeed, political change in 2010 brought considerable uncertainty about whether the Coalition Government would continue to support the development, though they have now provided funding until 2015. Alongside this uncertainty, commissioned research evidence is emerging of the positive impact of the policy agenda of the former government. A situation that has not been formally recognised, rather it appears to have gone unnoticed by policy makers. Indeed, the current government have taken a range of actions to dismantle changes previously made and there is an emerging discourse reframing the early years as a period that supports the youngest children being âpreparedâ for education. This paper aims to address the challenges of this change of emphasis by drawing upon doctoral research critiquing the concept, implementation and impact of Early Years Professional Status as a new professional model. The research design was underpinned by Bronfenbrennerâs Bioecological Theory of Human Development and rather than being a linear development it has been impacted upon at every stage of development by instability in wider systems, therefore providing evidence that supports his under theorised âChaotic Systemâ and that childhood is not only a development phase but one shaped by political ideolog
Universities with a commitment to social change can shape the Post-2015 agenda
The University of Northampton is the only university in the UK to achieve a 'Changemaker Campus' status from Ashoka U. As a 'Changemaker Campus', the University of Northampton is at the forefront of social innovation and entrepreneurship in the UK and Europe, and in an elite consortium of 24 universities and colleges from around the world, including institutions such as Brown University and Duke University. That means in reality that we, as staff, have taken on board the underlying philosophy of social enterprise and believe that both ourselves and our students have the ability, and indeed a responsibility, to promote change for social good. And where better to start than Early Years
Near Infrared Spectroscopy of the Ultracompact HII region G45.12+0.13
We present complete, low resolution IJHK spectroscopy of the ultracompact HII
region, G45.12+0.13. From the observed HI line strengths, we derive a near
infrared extinction law that is slightly steeper than the average. After
correction with this extinction law, we find good agreement between the
observed line ratios of HeI, Fe+, Fe++, S+ and S++ and the available atomic
data. Our data show that the density within the core of G45.12+0.13 must be at
least 10^4/cm^3. This is consistent with the known radio structure of the HII
region and in considerable disagreement with previous work using mid and far
infrared lines. There must also be considerable opacity in the HeI 2 3P-2 3S
transition, and we show how the observed strengths of the other HeI lines are
consistent with this. From modelling the photoionisation structure, we find
good agreement with most of the observed data if the hottest star present has
Teff < 42000K. Consideration of the helium ionisation state places a lower
limit on this value so that we can also constrain Teff > 38000K. Discrepancies
still exist between some of the observed and model line ratios, but the most
obvious tend to be the mid-IR observations.Comment: 17 pages Latex source, 5 postscript figures and macros. gzipped tar
file. TO appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronimcal Society. Also
available by anonymous ftp from ftp://aaoepp.aao.gov.au/local/sll/g45.uu
(uuencoded gzipped tar file
Help! Virtue Profiles and Horses for Courses
Glen Pettigrove addresses the proportionality principle in ethics, the principle that âour actions, attitudes, or emotions should be proportional to the degree of value present in the object or events to which they are respondingâ [p. 1]. He argues this is inconsistent with some familiar features of common-sense morality. In response, he brings virtuous character into the picture, a move we support but wish to modify. We show that certain helping actions should be guided by whether one has the virtue profile most suited to the situation from amongst a surrounding network of people
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