Mathematical representations of sociolinguistic restraints on three-person conversations

This paper applies group theory and a statistical analysis by questions to the examination of sociolinguistic restraints on three-person conversation. It is shown in four situations of increasing generality that conversational invariance under permutation of participant roles implies restriction of conversational changes to description by a small subgroup of all possible transformations. The last of the four situations is n-person conversation; hence, the mathematical techniques here used are applicable to situations of greater complexity than the three-person conversations on which the present article focuses. A final section discusses possible applications to situations in descriptive phonology and grammar

TWO HERMENEUTICAL TENSIONS IN EVANGELICAL FEMINISM

This article shows that there are at least two key hermeneutical tensions in evangelical feminist interpretation of the Bible. The first hermeneutical tension concern the issue of readers' prejudices. Feminists remind us that readers are always disposed to read texts against the background of their own expectations, customs, and world views. And the second hermeneutical tension, namely the tension over the nature of the actual practices of the first century church. Evangelical feminists have tended to give different answers depending on the passage that they are interpreting. In sum, feminism in its hermeneutical principles alerts us to the role of reader prejudice and social background in understanding texts. KEYWORDS: Hermeneutic, feminist, prejudice, Christia

Christianity as Public Religion::A Justification for using a Christian Sociological Approach for Studying the Social Scientific Aspects of Sport

The vast majority of social scientific studies of sport have been secular in nature and/or have tended to ignore the importance of studying the religious aspects of sport. In light of this, Shilling and Mellor (2014) have sought to encourage sociologists of sport not to divorce the ‘religious’ and the ‘sacred’ from their studies. In response to this call, the goal of the current essay is to explore how the conception of Christianity as ‘public religion’ can be utilised to help justify the use of a Christian sociological approach for studying the social scientific aspects of sport. After making a case for Christianity as public religion, we conclude that many of the sociological issues inherent in modern sport are an indirect result of its increasing secularisation and argue that this justifies the need for a Christian sociological approach. We encourage researchers to use the Bible, the tools of Christian theology and sociological concepts together, so to inform analyses of modern sport from a Christian perspective

Science as Allegory

The universe is God’s choral poem, and science is a system of allegories within it. That is the thesis that I propose to expound and defend. Yet it is not a “thesis” at all, if the word “thesis” commits me to a certain kind of strict logical defense. I am not putting forward my thesis that science is allegory as the endpoint of a deductive or inductive argument. Rather, it is a springboard for a program of exploration and reflection that turns upside-down some conventional ways of thinking about science

Mathematics as Rhyme

Using the analogy between the universe and a choral poem, one may view mathematics as the “rhyme” of the universe. In that perspective new light is thrown on the unique subject matter of mathematics, the a priori character of its truths, and the relation of mathematics to other areas of knowledge. A route is thereby opened for richer use of creativity in mathematics