Predication and the Frege–Geach problem

Several philosophers have recently appealed to predication in developing their theories of cognitive representation and propositions. One central point of difference between them is whether they take predication to be forceful or neutral and whether they take the most basic cognitive representational act to be judging or entertaining. Both views are supported by powerful reasons and both face problems. Many think that predication must be forceful if it is to explain representation. However, the standard ways of implementing the idea give rise to the Frege-Geach problem. Others think that predication must be neutral, if we’re to avoid the Frege-Geach problem. However, it looks like nothing neutral can explain representation. In this paper I present a third view, one which respects the powerful reasons while avoiding the problems. On this view predication is forceful and can thus explain representation, but the idea is implemented in a novel way, avoiding the Frege-Geach problem. The key is to make sense of the notion of grasping a proposition as an objectual act where the object is a proposition

W.E.B. DuBois\u27s The Comet and Contributions to Critical Race Theory: An Essay on Black Radical Politics and Anti-Racist Social Ethics

No longer considered the exclusive domain of legal studies scholars and radical civil rights lawyers and law professors, critical race theory has blossomed and currently encompasses and includes a wide range of theory and theorists from diverse academic disciplines. Its most prominent practitioners, initially law professors and left scholars, most of them scholars of color employing the work of the breathtakingly brilliant African American lawyer, scholar, and activist Derrick Bell (2005) as their primary point of departure, borrowed from many of the political and theoretical breakthroughs of black nationalism, anti-racist feminism, poststructuralism, and postmodernism. They also employed and experimented with new cutting-edge literary techniques and social science methodologies that shaped and shaded their work and burgeoning socio-legal discourse, ultimately giving it a fierceness and flair unheard of in the history of legal studies. Early critical race theorists\u27 work acutely accented the vexed bond between law and racial power (Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995, p. xiii). The emphasis on race and power quickly led them to the critique of white supremacy and the subordination of people of color, not simply in the legal system, but in society as a whole (p. xiii)

The Role of Childhood Trauma History in Relation to Decent Work

This study used structural equation modeling to examine the impact of childhood trauma on decent work. Childhood trauma was added as an exogenous variable in the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) model and hypothesized to have direct and indirect effects on decent work. An online sample of 643 working adults completed PWT measures and a measure on childhood trauma. Additionally, participants completed a single Likert-type item measure assessing negative impact of COVID-19 on work so that model invariance could examined among two high and low impact groups. Group invariance was satisfied at the configural, metric, and scalar levels, and the sample as a whole was examined. The fit of the measurement model of the sample satisfactory, and the structural model both demonstrated a good fit to the data. Childhood trauma was shown to have a significant direct effect on decent work. Additionally, a bootstrap procedure used to examine indirect effects showed that childhood trauma had an indirect effect on decent work through work volition, but not through career adaptability. All together, adding childhood trauma to the PWT model as an exogenous contextual factor accounted for an additional 3.4% of variance in decent work. Implications of the findings are discussed both as they relate to future research and clinical practice of vocational psychology. Findings suggest that incorporating a trauma-informed approach into career counseling is warranted

The Effect of Leaves and Steel Support Cables on The Dynamic Properties of Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra) with Co-Dominant Trunks

Natural frequency and damping ratio were measured for ten forest grown northern red oak trees with co-dominant trunks. Steels support cables were installed in the canopies of five of the sample trees prior to measurement. Free vibration testing was performed during periods when leaves were and were not present. An accelerometer mounted at the base of the co-dominant union measured the acceleration time history during the free vibration testing. Natural frequency was determined from the acceleration time history using power spectral density analysis. Damping ratios were calculated from the power spectral density plots using the half power bandwidth method. Trees with steel support cables had higher natural frequencies than trees without steel support cables. Sample trees had higher natural frequencies in the leaf off condition than the leaf on condition. The increase in natural frequency associated with the steel support cable was less pronounced in the leaf on condition. There was no difference between the damping ratios of cabled and non-cabled trees. Trees in the leaf on condition had significantly higher damping ratios than trees in the leaf off condition

Combinatorial Interpretations of Fibonomial Identities

The Fibonomial numbers are defined by $$\begin{bmatrix}n \\ k \end{bmatrix} = \frac{\prod_{i=n-k+1} ^{n} F_i}{\prod_{j=1}^{k} F_j}$$ where $F_i$ is the $i$th Fibonacci number, defined by the recurrence $F_n=F_{n-1}+F_{n-2}$ with initial conditions $F_0=0,F_1=1$. In the past year, Sagan and Savage have derived a combinatorial interpretation for these Fibonomial numbers, an interpretation that relies upon tilings of a partition and its complement in a given grid.In this thesis, I investigate previously proven theorems for the Fibonomial numbers and attempt to reinterpret and reprove them in light of this new combinatorial description. I also present combinatorial proofs for some identities I did not find elsewhere in my research and begin the process of creating a general mapping between the two different Fibonomial interpretations. Finally, I provide a discussion of potential directions for future work in this area

Predictors of PTSD symptoms for criterion A and non-criterion A events

This study evaluated the current DSM-IV conceptualization of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It examined predictors (i.e., event, person, and cognitive characteristics) and the factor structure of PTSD symptoms for events that do and do not meet criterion A. Event, person, and cognitive variables included in this study explained 47% of the variance in PTSD symptoms for the criterion A group and 56% of the variance in PTSD symptoms for the noncriterion A group. In both groups, cognitive variables explained the majority of variance in PTSD symptom severity. Although predictors of PTSD symptoms varied for criterion A and non-qualifying events, the factor structure was similar, suggesting that trauma responses to nonqualifying events may look very similar to trauma responses to criterion A events. This study suggests that a reevaluation of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD is warranted

The Souls of White Folk: W.E.B. DuBois\u27s Critique of White Supremacy and the Contributions to Critical White Studies

Traditionally white supremacy has been treated in race and racism discourse as white domination of and white discrimination against non-whites, and especially blacks. It is a term that often carries a primarily legal and political connotation, which has been claimed time and time again to be best exemplified by the historic events and contemporary effects of: African holocaust, enslavement and colonization; the failure of reconstruction, the ritual of lynching and the rise of Jim Crow segregation in the United States; and, white colonial and racial rule throughout Africa, and especially apartheid in South Africa (Cell, 1982; Fredrickson, 1981; Marx, 1998; Shapiro, 1988). Considering the fact that state-sanctioned segregation and black political disenfranchisement have seemed to come to an end, white supremacy is now seen as classical nomenclature which no longer refers to contemporary racial and social conditions. However, instead of being a relic of the past that refers to an odd or embarrassing moment in the United States and South Africa\u27s (among many other racist nations and empires\u27) march toward multicultural democracy, it remains one of the most appropriate ways to characterize current racial national and international conditions. Which, in other words, is to say that white supremacy has been and remains central to modernity (and postmodernity ) because modernity (especially in the sense that this term is being used in European and American academic and aesthetic discourse) reeks of racial domination and discrimination (Goldberg, 1990, 1993; Mills, 1998, 2003; Outlaw, 1996, 2005). It is an epoch (or aggregate of eras) which symbolizes not simply the invention of race, but the perfection of a particular species of global racism: white supremacy. Hence, modernity is not merely the moment of the invention of race, but more, as Theodore Allen (1994, 1997) argues in The Invention of the White Race, it served as an incubator for the invention of the white race and a peculiar pan-Europeanism predicated on the racial ruling, cultural degradation and, at times, physical decimation of the life-worlds of people of color

Causal attributions and posttraumatic stress disorder: The relationships among dispositional attributional style, trauma-specific attributions, and PTSD

The learned helplessness model (Seligman, 1975) and its various revisions suggest that both dispositional attributional style and event-specific attributions may influence people’s responses to events. Attribution theory has been applied to the search for risk and resiliency factors in trauma survivors, but few studies have compared dispositional attributional style with traumaspecific attributions in relation to posttraumatic stress symptoms. In addition, studies of attributions and PTSD fail to take into account the importance to the individual of the events about which attributions are made. The importance of the situation is a key component of the hopelessness model. Attributions for causes of events that are highly important to the individual and whose outcomes are perceived to be highly negative are predicted to be more significant in influencing a person’s response than attributions for events that are considered to be less important and whose outcomes are perceived to be less negative (Abramson, Metalsky, & Alloy, 1989). This study compared dispositional attributional style for relatively commonplace events, attributional style for hypothetical traumatic events, and attributions for experienced traumatic events in order to determine the relationship between attributions and PTSD symptoms. Results indicated that attributions for experienced traumas were most predictive of PTSD symptoms, and the globality dimension of all attribution categories was consistently predictive of PTSD, even after controlling for depression. This study provides support for theory linking attributions with PTSD symptoms