Truth­-Makers

During the realist revival in the early years of this century, philosophers of various persuasions were concerned to investigate the ontology of truth. That is, whether or not they viewed truth as a correspondence, they were interested in the extent to which one needed to assume the existence of entities serving some role in accounting for the truth of sentences. Certain of these entities, such as the Sätze an sich of Bolzano, the Gedanken of Frege, or the propositions of Russell and Moore, were conceived as the bearers of the properties of truth and falsehood. Some thinkers however, such as Russell, Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, and Husserl in the Logische Untersuchungen, argued that instead of, or in addition to, truth-bearers, one must assume the existence of certain entities in virtue of which sentences and/or propositions are true. Various names were used for these entities, notably 'fact', 'Sachverhalt', and 'state of affairs'. (1) In order not to prejudge the suitability of these words we shall initially employ a more neutral terminology, calling any entities which are candidates for this role truth-makers

The Policy Debate Over the Bailout Plan

This paper analyzes the policy debate over the Federal Government’s bailout of the financial industry in 2008

High school choral directors’ habitus and the choral editions of Maynard Klein

The purpose of this study is to describe how an editor of choral editions, Maynard Klein (1910–1990), influenced the formation of the educational choral canon and educators’ practices. A secondary purpose is to investigate the choral literature selection practices of educators from 1950–1975. The questions that were used to guide the study were: 1. How did the editions of Maynard Klein influence choral directors at the time? 2. How do choral directors who were active during 1950–1975 describe how they selected choral literature? What were the influences on their selection? To answer these questions, three choral directors who were active during 1950–1975 were interviewed about their selection processes for their materials. The interviews were analyzed using two theoretical concepts of Pierre Bourdieu, habitus and field. The present study used the editions of Maynard Klein to determine whether an editor impacted the habitus of choral directors active prior to 1975 and the field of educational choral literature. An analysis of Klein’s editorial work and the interview transcripts showed that as an editor, Klein impacted directors as well as the educational choral canon by making his editions accessible in several ways. Klein provided tools such as a piano reduction and English translation that made their classroom work easier. These tools influenced the repertoire decisions of teachers and impacted the canon of educational choral music at an important time in its formation

Wahrmacher

Als zu Beginn des Jahrhunderts der Realismus wieder ernst genommen wurde, gab es viele Philosophen, die sich mit der Ontologie der Wahrheit befaßten. Unabhängig von der Bestimmung der Wahrheit als Korrespondenzbeziehung wollten sie herausfinden, inwieweit zur Erklärung der Wahrheit von Sätzen besondere Entitäten herangezogen werden müssen. Einige dieser Entitäten, so zum Beispiel Bolzanos ‘Sätze an sich’, Freges ‘Gedanken’ oder die ‘propositions’ von Russell und Moore, wurden als Träger der Eigenschaften Wahrheit und Falschheit aufgefaßt. Einige Philosophen jedoch, wie Russell, Wittgenstein im ›Tractatus‹ und Husserl in den ›Logischen Untersuchungen‹, argumentierten, zusätzlich zu den Wahrheitsträgern bzw. an ihrer Stelle müßten Entitäten angenommen werden, auf Grund deren Sätze und/oder ‘Propositionen’ wahr sind. Solchen Entitäten gab man verschiedene Namen, insbesondere ‘fact’, ‘Tatsache’, ‘state of affairs’ und ‘Sachverhalt’. 1 Wir wollen einer Entscheidung über die Angebrachtheit dieser Ausdrücke nicht vorgreifen und daher zunächst eine neutralere Terminologie verwenden: Alle Entitäten, die für diese zweite Rolle in Frage kommen, wollen wir ‘Wahrmacher’ nennen

What's wrong with contemporary philosophy?

Philosophy in the West divides into three parts: Analytic Philosophy (AP), Continental Philosophy (CP), and History of Philosophy (HP). But all three parts are in a bad way. AP is sceptical about the claim that philosophy can be a science, and hence is uninterested in the real world. CP is never pursued in a properly theoretical way, and its practice is tailor-made for particular political and ethical conclusions. HP is mostly developed on a regionalist basis: what is studied is determined by the nation or culture to which a philosopher belongs, rather than by the objective value of that philosopher's work. Progress in philosophy can only be attained by avoiding these pitfall

The Learning Library in Context: Community, Integration, and Influence

The learning library is a construct based on the sociocultural theories of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Lave. These theories hold that learning happens through social interaction, that learners move through increasingly complex zones of development through the assistance of more capable others, and that real learning is situated only in specific cultural environments. The learning library bases its programs and services on these ideas through programmatic partnerships with specific groups such as learning communities and cohorts of students; through curricular integration so that learning about information resources is situated within the daily life of the college or university; through using the library as a locus for, and facilitator of, sustained interactions among students, faculty, and librarians; and by using the social interactions developed among communities of learners to extend the influence of the library throughout the institution. This article examines how these facets of the learning library are reflected in four programmatic models at George Mason University's Johnson Center Library: the course-integrated model (New Century College, NCC), the course-related model (English 101: Composition), the orientation/peer advising model (University 100: University Life), and the information/term paper counseling and coaching model (partnership with the University's Writing Center, WC). © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.No embarg

Deep circulation in the Lau Basin and Havre Trough of the western South Pacific Ocean from floats and hydrography

A system of meridional ridges in the western South Pacific Ocean frame the Lau Basin and Havre Trough, and form a barrier to direct communication between the far western South Pacific basins and the interior South Pacific Ocean. The eastern side of this system comprises the Tonga and Kermadec Ridges, the location of the main deep western boundary current entering the Pacific Ocean. Observations from floats released in the Lau Basin as part of the RIDGE2000 program suggested the presence of a western boundary current along the Lau Ridge exiting into the North Fiji Basin. Those observations, together with Argo sub-surface float data and repeat hydrographic sections, confirm and expand the boundary current observations along the Lau Ridge throughout the Lau Basin and into the Havre Trough, along the Colville Ridge. The observations also reveal two previously unrecognized westward flowing jets bisecting the Lau Basin and Havre Trough. Using an extension to the classic Stommel-Arons abyssal circulation model, the predicted strength and location of these boundary currents and their bifurcation is compared with the float observations. The model provides a simplified view of the dynamics controlling the boundary current structure in the deep basins. A comparison of transport within the western boundary current derived from float data, hydrographic sections, and the idealized analytical model indicates that roughly 4 Sv (below 1,000 db) is transported northward through the Lau Basin, exiting into the North Fiji Basin

Collaborative Research: Interactive Effects of Chronic N deposition, Acidification, and Phosphorus Limitation on Coupled Element Cycling in Streams

The overarching goal of this project is to understand how chronic acidification and nitrogen enrichment of watersheds influences coupled biogeochemical cycling in streams. Embedded in the project were two primary research elements: 1) examining nitrogen satuartion and the extent of coupling between nitrogen and phosphorus cycling and 2) resolving the interactions among acidification, phosphorus bioavailability and biotic demand for nitrogen and phosphorus. The research involved a series of stable isotope tracer experiments to document nitrogen uptake under ambient and elevated phosphrous conditions and examination of a suite of key microbial processes (denitrification, decomposition, microbial enzyme activity) at two whole-watershed experiment sites. A microcosm experiment was used to examine the influence of acidity stress on animal and microbial stoichiometry

La correction de l'expression écrite en langue étrangère et son exploitation pédagogique

L'enseignant de langues étrangères dispose de nombreux supports pour soutenir l'apprentissage de ses élèves. Cette contribution se centre sur un support particulier : le texte rédigé par l'élève et corrigé par l'enseignant. Les corrections ont entre autres pour but d'améliorer la maitrise linguistique de la langue étrangère de l'élève. Mais l'enseignant atteint-il toujours ce but ? Les résultats de la recherche exploratoire que nous avons menée dans une classe d'anglais langue étrangère de Belgique francophone montrent que tous les élèves de la classe ciblée ne sont pas à même de comprendre la majorité de leurs erreurs, et que le dispositif didactique mis en place par l'enseignant ne permet pas nécessairement de pallier le caractère potientiellement inéquitable de la correction des erreurs.The foreign language teacher has a lot of teaching aids at his disposal to support his students' learning. This paper focuses on one particular aid: the text written by the student and corrected by the teacher. The corrections aim, among other things, at improving the student's linguistic command of the foreign language. But does the teacher always reach this goal? The results of the exploratory study that we carried out in a foreign language class in Belgium's French-speaking community show that not all the students in the targeted class manage to understand their mistakes, and the didactic device that the teacher implemented does not necessarily allow overcoming the inequitable nature of the error correction process

PTSD Symptoms and Alcohol-Related Problems among Veterans: Temporal Associations and Vulnerability

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with elevated risk of both alcohol use disorder (AUD) and related conduct problems, which are associated with behavioral and emotional dysregulation. We conducted an intensive longitudinal burst design study with 10 weeks of experience sampling over the course of 1.5 years with 250 veterans of recent conflicts. We tested time-series models of daily associations between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), alcohol dependence syndrome, and conduct problems. Exacerbations of PTSS predicted higher dependence syndrome and conduct problems the next day. This effect was significant after controlling for both concurrent (i.e., same-day) associations between drinking and the outcomes as well as the strength of associations between the outcomes from one day to the next (i.e., autoregression). Affect lability and disinhibition were hypothesized vulnerability factors increasing the strength of within-person predictors of dependence syndrome and conduct problems. Lability and disinhibition were associated with greater dependence syndrome symptoms and conduct problems over the follow-up period. Consistent with expectation, lability rather than disinhibition increased the association between drinking and dependence syndrome as well as the strength of association between dependence syndrome symptoms from one day to the next. Moderating effects of disinhibition in the conduct problems model were not significant. Importantly, results indicated reciprocal associations over time. Lability potentiated the association between dependence syndrome symptoms and next-day PTSS, whereas disinhibition potentiated the association between conduct problems and next-day PTSS. Results demonstrate complex dynamic associations between PTSS, AUD symptoms, and conduct problems over time indicative of broad regulatory impairments