bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Pasch entre Klein et Peano: empirisme et idéalité en géométrie
Authors: Gandon Sébastien
Published: April 2009

Pasch is usually credited with having presented the first axiomatization of a geometrical theory, but theVorlesungen über neuere Geometrie (1882)contains many features which do not fit the Hilbertian paradigm. Thus Pasch, while axiomatizing his“elementary geometry,”claims that it is an empirically true theory. Scholars usually regard the discrepancies between Pasch and the post-Hilbertian standard method as mere inconsistencies of Pasch's theory. On the contrary, this article aims at reconstructing the coherence and originality of theVorlesungen.We will first display the historical background of this work and then try to reconcile Pasch's logical axiomatic claim with his empiricist stance. More importantly, we will insist on the remarkable logical procedures worked out by Pasch in order to adapt his mathematical development to the strictures of his broad philosophical position.
A Sceptical Rejoinder to Sensitivity-Contextualism
Authors: Murphy Peter
Published: April 2009

This article offers a novel sceptical argument that the sensitivity-contextualist must say is sound; moreover, she must say that the conclusion of this argument is true at ordinary standards. The view under scrutiny has it that in different contexts knowledge-attributing sentences express different propositions, propositions which differ in the stretch of worlds across which the subject is required to track the truth. I identify the underlying reason for the sceptical result and argue that it makes sensitivity-contextualism irremediably flawed. Contextualists, I conclude, should abandon sensitivity for some other piece of epistemic machinery.
Self-Consciousness and Phenomenal Character
Authors: Janzen Greg
Published: April 2009

This article defends two theses: that a mental state is conscious if and only if it has phenomenal character, i.e., if and only if there is something it is like for the subject to be in that state, and that all state consciousness involves selfconsciousness, in the sense that a mental state is conscious if and only if its possessor is, in some suitable way, conscious of being in it. Though neither of these theses is novel, there is a dearth of direct arguments for them in the scholarly literature and the relationship between them has so far gone underrecognized. This article attempts to remedy this lack, advancing the claim that if all conscious states have phenomenal character, then all state consciousness involves self-consciousness.
L'arrière-plan de l'intentionnalité selon John Searle
Authors: Sauvé Denis
Published: April 2009

John Searle upholds the idea of a “background” of intentionality. In his view there is an ensemble of non-representational (or non-intentional) mental capacities that make every form of intentionality possible (that is to say, without these mental capacities there would not be any beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.). I examine both his reasons to believe that there are non-representational mental capacities and the arguments he gives in support of the most important claim (according to him) that an intentional state cannot be this particular state unless the said “background” existe.
Les propositions invérifiables ont-elles un sens? Probabilité, action et signification chez Hans Reichenbach
Authors: Bienvenu Alexis
Published: April 2009

Hans Reichenbach argued inExperience and Prediction (1938)that the theory of meaning defended by Logical Positivism, i.e., “strict verificationism,” failed to give a relevant criterion for cognitive meaningfulness. He replaces it with a wholly probabilistic criterion that allows us to establish a pragmatic connection between language and action. But serious difficulties arise in the justification of his theory. The aim of this article is to assess some of these difficulties and to indicate a way to solve them in a “reichenbachian” way.
See the World: McDowell and the Normative Trilemma
Authors: Russell Luke
Published: April 2009

McDowell argues that the shortcomings of recent theories of experience are the product of the modern scientistic conception of nature. Reconceive nature, he suggests, and we can explain how perceptual experience can be an external constraint on thought that, moreover, has conceptual import. In this article I argue that McDowell's project is unsuccessful. Those wishing to construct normative theories, including theories of perceptual experience, face the normative trilemma—they must choose one of three styles of theory, each of which exhibits a distinctive weakness. If we view McDowell's approach in light of this choice, we see that he cannot adequately explain the link between experience and the world itself. I conclude that the real problem with theories of experience flows not from scientistic naturalism, but rather from the inconsistent demands we place on normative theories in general.
La question de l'objectivité de la réalité pratique des idées de la raison pure
Authors: Grapotte Sophie
Published: April 2009

My aim in this article is to demonstrate that the reality of ideas of pure reason (liberty, God, and the immortality of the soul) in the practical use of reason is less objective than the reality of pure concepts of understanding in their function of determining the object. To this end I explain how the objective reality of ideas of God and the immortality of the soul can be qualified as “subjective,” and in what sense the objective reality of the idea of liberty as a res facti can be considered as incomplete in terms of theoretical objectivity. Finally, I propose that the acquisition of practical objective reality does not entail expanding our theoretical knowledge of the objects of these three ideas.
Heidegger en dialogue: par-delà Ernst Jünger, un retour à Nietzsche
Authors: Béland Martine
Published: April 2009

This article investigates Martin Heidegger's intellectual relation to Ernst Jünger. In order to show that Heidegger's appraisal of Jünger is directly related to his understanding of Nietzsche's pre-eminent standing in the history of Western philosophy, I situate Jünger in the Heideggerian reconstruction of the history of metaphysics. It is because Jünger belongs to the Nietzschean paradigm that Heidegger believes he is worth reading—but also worth criticizing. Indeed, Jünger did not overtake the philosophical project that Nietzsche made possible by accomplishing the end of metaphysics. This is the very project adopted by Heidegger, first by thinking beyond metaphysics, and second by hoping Germany would turn towards a spiritual renewal of its civilization. Thus, since Nietzsche is the central figure who stands between Heidegger and Jünger, this article wishes to show that through his critical reading of Jünger, Heidegger in fact fosters a fundamental and uninterrupted dialogue with Nietzsche.
Propositions et états de choses chez Twardowski
Authors: Betti Arianna
Published: April 2009

Twardowski'sOn the Content and Object of Presentations(1894) is one of the most influential works that Austrian philosophy has left to posterity. The manuscriptLogik(1894–1895) supplements that work and allows us to reconstruct Twardowski's theory of judgement. These texts raise several issues, in particular whether Twardowski accepts propositions and states of affairs in his theory of judgement and whether his theory is acceptable. This article presents Twardowski's theory, shows that he accepts states of affairs, that he has a notion of proposition, and that his theory is interesting and sophisticated.
Quel Arrière-plan pour l'esprit?
Authors: Steiner Pierre
Published: April 2009

This article analyzes the notion of background capacities as developed by John Searle during the last twenty years in philosophy of mind. Broadly construed, this notion designates non-representational mental capacities as the means by which mental representations are given a precise semantic content and thus are able to be expressed. Though novel and relevant, I intend to show that, according to Searle's description, this notion proves inadequate to attain its descriptive and explicative goals. I go on to regard background capacities in a perspective both externalist and (minimally) representationalist.
Individualisme et responsabilité selon Emmanuel Lévinas
Authors: Haché Étienne , Dubost Matthieu
Published: April 2009

Emmanuel Lévinas is unquestionably the philosopher of ethics par excellence. One of the major themes of his thought, or rather the key to understanding his work—work that spans over many fields—is one's responsibility toward the Other. This article attempts to reconsider this determining aspect of his writings from the perspective of contemporary individualism. We argue that Lévinas's ethics of responsibility in no way obliterates “the share of the Ego in the eminence of the Other.” On the contrary, in his approach to otherness, he takes the Self entirely into account. In other words, our interpretation is that the commonly held view that Lévinas's philosophy consists of normative interpretation of the human condition leading to the sacrifice of the self is imputable to a misunderstanding caused by the polysemous and ambivalent character of the concept of individualism.
Departmental Boundaries within the Corporate Body of Theory: Quine on the Holistic Foundations of Logic
Authors: Godden David M.
Published: April 2009

This article argues that Quine's holistic and naturalized semantics provides an inadequate account of the foundations of logical expressions and misrepresents the internal structure of theories. By considering a Quinean model of theoretical revision, I identify the status and foundation holism provides to the propositions of logic. I contend that a central tenet of Quinean holism—the Revisability Doctrine—cannot be held consistently, and that the inconsistencies surrounding it mark a series of pervasive errors within naturalized holism. In response, I propose that semantic theories must reflect the different linguistic functions of different types of expressions and the specific relationships that individual concepts within a theory or language have to one another.
Hermeneutics as a … Foundationalism?
Authors: Tucker Chris
Published: April 2009

It is commonly assumed, at least by continental philosophers, that epistemological hermeneutics and foundationalism are incompatible. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. If I am correct, the analytic and continental traditions may be closer than is commonly supposed. Hermeneutics, as I will argue, is a descriptive claim about human cognition, and foundationalism is a normative claim about how beliefs ought to be related to one another. Once the positions are stated in this way, their putative incompatibility vanishes. Also, to inspire further research I include an appendix which contains an unfinished prototype of a hermeneutic foundationalism.
Khortos gasteriou le bonheur est dans le pré: éthique et politique cyniques selon un poème de Cratès de Thèbes
Authors: Flores-Júnior Olimar
Published: April 2009

This commentary on a poem of Crates of Thebes, which was transmitted in Julian's Oration VII, To the Cynic Herakleios,and Oration IX [VI], To the Uneducated Cynics,intends to rediscuss the notions of happiness, pleasure, wealth, and justice in the context of thekata phusinlife as viewed by the Cynics. The “minimal ethics” proposed by the cynic philosophers, which many would consider as a kind of voluntary experience of suffering, appears as a possible way to secure both individual happiness and political justice.
A New Puzzle about Believed Fallibility
Authors: Benbaji Yitzhak
Published: April 2009

I shall consider the phenomenon of believing ourselves to have at least one false belief: a phenomenon I call believed fallibility. I shall first present a paradoxical argument which appears to show that believed fallibility is incoherent; second, note that this argument assumes that we are committed to the conjunction of all our beliefs; third, sketch a more intuitive notion of commitment in which we are not committed to the conjunction of all our beliefs and argue that the original paradoxical argument is now defused; fourth, construct a new paradoxical argument showing that if we believe that we have at least one false belief we are committed to a contradiction, employing the preferable notion of commitment; and, fifth, suggest that perhaps we might avoid the new paradox by denying that closing our beliefs under conjunction is required by rationality.
Moral Being in Contemporary Views of the Self
Authors: Vance Robert L.
Published: April 2009

Recent discussions of the nature of mind, emotion, and self have often intersected with renewed interest in the sources of morals and morality. In this article I examine proposals on these matters by Charles Taylor and two of his interlocutors, Thomas Wren and Justin Oakley. I describe and compare the “holistic” epistemological approaches of these three in their searches for the “moral self,” and then evaluate the adequacy of their correlative ontological proposals. Finally, I discuss the meta-ethical implications of these emotive views of selfhood in terms of the objective or subjective status of moral values to determine whether these views meet the philosophers' own criteria for moral plausibility.
Does It Matter that Nothing We Do Will Matter in a Million Years?
Authors: Brill Skott
Published: April 2009

People have inferred that our lives are absurd from the supposed fact that nothing we do will matter in a million years. In this article, I critically discuss this argument for absurdity. After explaining how two refutations in the literature fail to undermine the best version of the argument, I produce several considerations that together do take much of the force out of the argument. I conclude by suggesting that these considerations not only refute this argument for absurdity, but also constitute a motivation to be moral.
Peut-on fonder l'arithmétique sur la logique pure? La controverse entre Natorp et Rickert
Authors: Dewalque Arnaud
Published: April 2009

In this article, I try to shed light on the (Fregean) project of a logic of arithmetic—as discussed by Natorp and Rickert—by outlining three main questions. Is the number a logical object? Is arithmetic reducible to logic? Is it possible to deduce the arithmetical operations from purely logical laws? I argue that rigorous distinction between these three questions makes it possible to elucidate many problems affecting the program of a logic of arithmetic. The Neo-Kantian contribution to this program is at the same time considered in a new light.
Wittgenstein Listens to Mahler: How to Do Philosophy and Compose Music in the Breakdown of Tradition?
Authors: Szabados Béla
Published: April 2009

This article retrieves, situates, and interprets Ludwig Wittgenstein's overlooked remarks about the composer Gustav Mahler, and connects them with Wittgenstein's philosophical perspective and practice, as well as with his musical aesthetics.
Why There Are No Epistemic Duties
Authors: Wrenn Chase B.
Published: April 2009

Epistemic duties would be duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgement from propositions, and they would be grounded in purely evidential considerations. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no epistemic duties. Though people may have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgement from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations. Rather, allegedly epistemic duties are a species of moral duty.
Consonnes et voyelles: les fonctions de l'Être et de l'Autre dans le Sophiste de Platon (251a–259e)
Authors: Teisserenc Fulcran
Published: April 2009

This article aims at understanding the functions of the forms of Being and the Other in Plato's Sophist. In contrast with a linguistic interpretation purporting to draw a distinction between uses of the verb “to be,” I shed light on the ontological role ascribed to “the great genus” in the interweaving of forms. Focusing on the vowel analogy, I argue that the roles of Being and the Other respectively are that of a connector and a separator actualizing the participations and the differences between the forms. The outcome of this analysis is to offer an explanation of the dialectical methods described in that dialogue in a rather obscure, abstract way; the much-debated question of self-predication can be settled without recourse to selfparticipation.
Actions, Reasons, and Intentions: Overcoming Davidson's Ontological Prejudice
Authors: McGuire John Michael
Published: April 2009

This article defends the idea that causal relations between reasons and actions are wholly irrelevant to the explanatory efficacy of reason-explanations. The analysis of reason-explanations provided in this article shows that the so-called “problem of explanatory force” is solved, not by putative causal relations between the reasons for which agents act and their actions, but rather by the intentions that agents necessarily have when they act for a reason. Additionally, the article provides a critique of the principal source of support for the thesis that reason-explanations are causal explanations, namely, Davidson's argument in “Actions, Reasons, and Causes.” It is shown that Davidson's argument for this thesis rests crucially on two mistakes: his definition of intentional action and his ontological prejudice against intentions.
Locke vs. Hume: Who Is the Better Concept-Empiricist?
Authors: Weintraub Ruth
Published: April 2009

According to the received view, Hume is a much more rigorous and consistent concept-empiricist than Locke. Hume is supposed to have taken as a starting point Locke's meaning-empiricism, and worked out its full radical implications. Locke, by way of contrast, cowered from drawing his theory's strange consequences. The received view about Locke's and Hume's concept-empiricism is mistaken, I shall argue. Hume may be more uncompromising (although he too falters), but he is not more rigorous than Locke. It is not because of (intellectual) timidity that Locke does not draw Hume's conclusions from his empiricism. It is, rather, because of his much sounder method.
Guerre et paix selon Leibniz
Authors: Griard Jérémie
Published: April 2009

This article deals with Leibniz's dynamic conception of political order. Leibniz reduces the sovereignty of States to the monopoly of coercion by setting apart jurisdictional monopoly and sovereignty. With this new definition of sovereignty however, war becomes the core of international relations. The sovereigns' ability to make war is the condition to take part in law of nations, whose precise aim is to prevent wars. Peace can only exist if there is a balance between opposite forces of similar magnitude that cancel each other.
The Right to Life after Death
Authors: Simpson Evan
Published: April 2009

Imagining a future world in which people no longer die provides a helpful tool for understanding our present ethical views. It becomes evident that the cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, and courage are options for reasonable people rather than rational requirements. On the assumption that the medical means to immortality are not universally available, even justice becomes detached from theories that tie the supposed virtue to the protection of human rights. Several stratagems are available for defending a categorical right to life under these circumstances, but none is compelling. Justice and human rights should therefore be understood as social conventions whose stability depends upon rejecting a tyranny of the immortals in favour of cultural traditions that connect rights and liberties with the means for their enjoyment.
Une critique d'explication par les causes finales: l'anticontractualisme de Hume. Une histoire naturelle du politique
Authors: Bonicco Céline
Published: April 2009

This article proposes to show how David Hume's critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i.e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume's political theory—either positive or negative—and epistemology cannot be dissociated.
The Pragmatics of Empty Names
Authors: Wyatt Nicole
Published: April 2009

Fred Adams and collaborators advocate a view on which empty-name sentences semantically encode incomplete propositions, but which can be used to conversationally implicate descriptive propositions. This account has come under criticism recently from Marga Reimer and Anthony Everett. Reimer correctly observes that their account does not pass a natural test for conversational implicatures, namely, that an explanation of our intuitions in terms of implicature should be such that we upon hearing it recognize it to be roughly correct. Everett argues that the implicature view provides an explanation of only some of our intuitions, and is in fact incompatible with others, especially those concerning the modal profile of sentences containing empty names. I offer a pragmatist treatment of empty names based upon the recognition that the Gricean distinction between what is said and what is implicated is not exhaustive, and argue that such a solution avoids both Everett's and Reimer's criticisms.
Heidegger et la destruction du scepticisme
Authors: Schürch Franz-Emmanuel
Published: April 2009

In this article, I wish to shed a new light on Heidegger's philosophical position toward idealism and realism. This will be accomplished through an analysis of Heidegger's account of the problem of scepticism in §43 ofSein und Zeit.Heidegger's position toward scepticism has often been overlooked or treated candidly by scholars and, as a result, misunderstood in the larger philosophical world, who frequently equated Heidegger's philosophy with some form of scepticism. By highlighting some crucial ambiguities in the unfolding of §43, I show that inSein und ZeitHeidegger is elaborating a radical refutation of scepticism even though it will ultimately only be accomplished in theBeiträge zur Philosophie.
Ethical Consumption, Consumer Self-Governance, and the Later Foucault
Authors: Quastel Noah
Published: April 2009

This article analyzes the later work of Michel Foucault on ethics, freedom, and self-governance as it applies to the ethics of consumption and to new ethical consumerist movements such as fair-trade coffee. Foucault's emphasis on practices of the self helps elucidate the virtue ethics involved in consumption choices. Ethical consumption is cast as a set of practices of self-development: through critical activity and the quest for freedom, persons seek to transform themselves to live in reciprocal relationships with other persons and nature. This requires public deliberation and collective action to effect change within ourselves and our practical systems of consumption and production.
Mopes, Dopes, and Tropes: A Critique of the Trope Solution to the Problem of Mental Causation
Authors: Alward Peter
Published: April 2009

A popular strategy for resolving Kim's exclusion problem is to suggest that mental and physical property tropes are identical despite the non-identity of the mental and physical properties themselves. I argue that mental and physical tropes can be identified without losing the dispositional character of mentality only if a dual-character hypothesis regarding the intrinsic characters of tropes is endorsed. But even with this assumption, the causal efficacy of the wrong dispositions is secured.
L'interprétation du principe de la propriété de soi au sein du libertarisme de gauche
Authors: Dietsch Peter
Published: April 2009

Any substantive notion of self-ownership presupposes well-defined property rights over external resources. Left-libertarians usually limit this category to natural resources. I argue that in a specialized economy, substantive selfownership equally needs to be complemented by a definition of property rights to the cooperative surplus. The natural way for left-libertarianism to provide such a definition is to view the cooperative surplus as an external resource and to distribute it equally. The second part of the article makes the general point that a complete theory of justice needs to take a stance on distribution in various contexts. Articulating the differences between these contexts allows us to gain a better understanding of how left-libertarianism relates to other theories of justice.
Toward a Modest Correspondence Theory of Truth: Predicates and Properties
Authors: Marino Patricia
Published: April 2009

Correspondence theories are frequently charged with being either implausible—metaphysically troubling and overly general—or trivial—collapsing into deflationism's “‘P’ is true iff P.” Philip Kitcher argues for a “modest” correspondence theory, on which reference relations are causal relations, but there is no general theory of denotation. In this article, I start by showing that, understood this way, “modest” theories are open to charges of triviality. I then offer a refinement of modesty, and take the first steps toward articulating a modest correspondence theory, giving a particular account of the relation between predicates, properties, and extensions. Finally, I argue that my account does not collapse into a deflationary one.
Romantic Love and Knowledge: Refuting the Claim of Egoism
Authors: Foster Gary
Published: April 2009

Romantic love and its predecessor eros have both been characterized as forms of egoistic love. Part of this claim is concerned specifically with the relation between love and knowledge. Real love, it is claimed, is prior to knowledge and is not motivated by it. Romantic love and eros according to this view are egoistic in that they are motivated by a desire for knowledge. Agapic love characterized by bestowal represents a true form of love unmotivated by selfish desires. I argue that such an emphasis on bestowal at the expense of knowledge or appraisal of the beloved is problematic. The knowledge dimension of romantic love, rather than contributing to selfishness, can be a means of freeing us from egoism when we understand identity in its relational or social form.
Communauté et société, Collingwood contre les sociologues
Authors: Jaffro Laurent
Published: April 2009

The opposition between community and society set out by Collingwood in hisNew Leviathan(1942) should be compared with the distinction betweenGemeinschaftandGesellschaftthat Tönnies had introduced in 1887. The debate on ideal types of social organizations apparently pertains to «pure sociology» and was continued by Durkheim and Weber. However, Collingwood's use of this distinction may be construed as an attack on the very idea of sociology in the name of the primacy of rational will.
Wittgenstein on Colours and Logical Multiplicities, 1930–1932
Authors: Blank Andreas
Published: April 2009

This article explores Wittgenstein's little known remarks on colour from his notebooks of the early 1930s. It emphasizes the importance of the notion of logical multiplicity contained in these remarks. The notion of logical multiplicity indicates that Wittgenstein, as in the years of the Tractatus, is committed to a theory of logical space in which every colour is embedded. However, logical multiplicities in his remarks of the early 1930s do not depend on an apparatus of simple objects, states of affairs, and elementary propositions. I suggest that, in this period, the logical multiplicity of colour space is a matter of how we see colours.
Conceiving of Pain
Authors: O'Sullivan Brendan , Hanks Peter
Published: April 2009

In this article we aim to see how far one can get in defending the identity thesis without challenging the inference from conceivability to possibility. Our defence consists of a dilemma for the modal argument. Either “pain” is rigid or it is not. If it is not rigid, then a key premise of the modal argument can be rejected. If it is rigid, the most plausible semantic account treats “pain” as a natural-kind term that refers to its causal or historical origin, namely, C-fibre stimulation. It follows that any phenomenon that is not C-fibre stimulation is not pain, even if it is qualitatively similar to pain. This means there could be phenomena that feel like pain but are not pain since they are not C-fibre stimulation. These possible phenomena can be used to explain away the apparent conceivability of pain without C-fibre stimulation. On either horn of the dilemma, the identity theorist has ample resources to respond to Kripke's argument, even without wandering into the contentious territory of conceivability and possibility.
Strategic Reliabilism and the Replacement Thesis in Epistemology
Authors: Buckareff Andrei A.
Published: April 2009

In their recent book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, M. Bishop and J. D. Trout have challenged Standard Analytic Epistemology (SAE) in all its guises and have endorsed a version of the “replacement thesis”—proponents of which aim at replacing the standard questions of SAE with psychological questions. In this article I argue that Bishop and Trout offer an incomplete epistemology that, as formulated, cannot address many of the core issues that motivate interest in epistemological questions to begin with, and so is not a fit replacement.
LaCritique de la raison pureface aux scepticismes cartésien, baylien et humien
Authors: Smith Plinio Junqueira
Published: April 2009

In his critical period, Kant thought that scepticism was a threat to the metaphysical enterprise of Enlightenment. He consequently tried to tackle three of its species: Baylean scepticism, which doubts that reason could establish any truth concerning its ideas; Humean scepticism, which must be distinguished from Hume's formulation of the problem if we want to show that synthetica priorijudgements are possible; and Cartesian scepticism, which puts in doubt the reference of empirical concepts to things in the external world. Kant's treatment reveals the fundamental role played by scepticism in his critical enterprise not only as a triple challenge to the critical project, but also as an ally against idealist dogmatism.
Foucault, Weber et l'histoire du sujet économique
Authors: Steiner Philippe
Published: April 2009

This article deals with Michel Foucault's 1977–79 lectures on political economy. In the first part, we highlight his views on the market, which is equated to a social device instrumental in governing individuals so that they are induced to allow the ruler to reach his goal, which is providing security to the population. In the second part, we consider together Foucault's and Weber's views on the economy, since Foucault's concept of technique of the self is similar to Weber's concept of life conduct, which is central in his sociology of religion. This opens the way to a history of the modern economic behaviour considered as a form of ascetism.
Williamson and the Argument from Luminosity
Authors: Monaghan P. X.
Published: April 2009

Many of the results of Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits depend upon his argument that many, if not all, of our mental states fail to be luminous in the sense that if we are in them, then we are in a position to know that we are in them. The purpose of this article is to show that his argument is unsound. I conclude by distinguishing between partial and total luminosity, and by arguing that even if mental states are not totally luminous, they are at least partially so.
Molecular cloning and evolutionary analysis of the GJA1 (connexin43) gene from bats (Chiroptera)
Authors: WANG LI , LI GANG , WANG JINHONG , YE SHAOHUI , JONES GARETH , ZHANG SHUYI
Published: April 2009

Gap junction protein connexin43 (Cx43), encoded by the GJA1 gene, is the most abundant connexin in the cardiovascular system and was reported as a crucial factor maintaining cardiac electrical conduction, as well as having a very important function in facilitating the recycling of potassium ions from hair cells in the cochlea back into the cochlear endolymph during auditory transduction processes. In mammals, bats are the only taxon possessing powered flight, placing exceptional demand on many organismal processes. To meet the demands of flying, the hearts of bats show many specialties. Moreover, ultrasonic echolocation allows bat species to orientate and often detect and locate food in darkness. In this study, we cloned the full-length coding region of GJA1 gene from 12 different species of bats and obtained orthologous sequences from other mammals. We used the maximum likelihood method to analyse the evolution of GJA1 gene in mammals and the lineage of bats. Our results showed this gene is much conserved in mammals, as well as in bats' lineage. Compared with other mammals, we found one private amino acid substitution shared by bats, which is located on the inner loop domain, as well as some species-specific amino acid substitutions. The evolution rate analyses showed the signature of purifying selection on not only different classification level lineages but also the different domains and amino acid residue sites of this gene. Also, we suggested that GJA1 gene could be used as a good molecular marker to do the phylogenetic reconstruction.
A study on the mapping of quantitative trait loci in advanced populations derived from two inbred lines
Authors: KAO CHEN-HUNG , ZENG MIAO-HUI
Published: April 2009

In genetic and biological studies, the F2population is one of the most popular and commonly used experimental populations mainly because it can be readily produced and its genome structure possesses several niceties that allow for productive investigation. These niceties include the equivalence between the proportion of recombinants and recombination rates, the capability of providing a complete set of three genotypes for every locus and an analytically attractive first-order Markovian property. Recently, there has been growing interest in using the progeny populations from F2(advanced populations) because their genomes can be managed to meet specific purposes or can be used to enhance investigative studies. These advanced populations include recombinant inbred populations, advanced intercrossed populations, intermated recombinant inbred populations and immortalized F2populations. Due to an increased number of meiosis cycles, the genomes of these advanced populations no longer possess the Markovian property and are relatively more complicated and different from the F2genomes. Although issues related to quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping using advanced populations have been well documented, still these advanced populations are often investigated in a manner similar to the way F2populations are studied using a first-order Markovian assumption. Therefore, more efforts are needed to address the complexities of these advanced populations in more details. In this article, we attempt to tackle these issues by first modifying current methods developed under this Markovian assumption to propose anad hocmethod (the Markovian method) and explore its possible problems. We then consider the specific genome structures present in the advanced populations without invoking this assumption to propose a more adequate method (the non-Markovian method) for QTL mapping. Further, some QTL mapping properties related to the confounding problems that result from ignoring epistasis and to mapping closely linked QTL are derived and investigated across the different populations. Simulations show that the non-Markovian method outperforms the Markovian method, especially in the advanced populations subject to selfing. The results presented here may give some clues to the use of advanced populations for more powerful and precise QTL mapping.
GENERALISED FERMAT HYPERMAPS AND GALOIS ORBITS
Authors: COSTE ANTOINE D. , JONES GARETH A. , STREIT MANFRED , WOLFART JÜRGEN
Published: April 2009

We consider families of quasiplatonic Riemann surfaces characterised by the fact that – as in the case of Fermat curves of exponentn– their underlying regular (Walsh) hypermap is an embedding of the complete bipartite graphKn,n, wherenis an odd prime power. We show that these surfaces, regarded as algebraic curves, are all defined over abelian number fields. We determine their orbits under the action of the absolute Galois group, their minimal fields of definition and in some easier cases their defining equations. The paper relies on group – and graph – theoretic results by G. A. Jones, R. Nedela and M. Škoviera about regular embeddings of the graphsKn,n[7] and generalises the analogous results for maps obtained in [9], partly using different methods.
GROUPS IN WHICH NORMAL CLOSURES OF ELEMENTS HAVE BOUNDEDLY FINITE RANK
Authors: LONGOBARDI PATRIZIA , MAJ MERCEDE , SMITH HOWARD
Published: April 2009

It is proved that if the normal closure of every element of a group G has rank at most r, then the derived subgroup of G has r-bounded rank.
MODULES WITH FI-EXTENDING HULLS
Authors: BIRKENMEIER GARY F. , PARK JAE KEOL , RIZVI S. TARIQ
Published: April 2009

It is shown that every finitely generated projective module PR over a semiprime ring R has the smallest FI-extending essential module extension $H_{\frak{FI}}(P_R)$ (called the absolute FI-extending hull of PR) in a fixed injective hull of PR. This module hull is explicitly described. It is proved that $\widehat{Q}_{\frak{FI}}({\rm End}(P_R))\cong {\rm End}(H_{\frak{FI}}(P_R))$, where $\widehat{Q}_{\frak{FI}}({\rm End}(P_R))$ is the smallest right FI-extending right ring of quotients of End(PR) (in a fixed maximal right ring of quotients of End(PR). Moreover, we show that a finitely generated projective module PR over a semiprime ring R is FI-extending if and only if it is a quasi-Baer module and if and only if End(PR) is a quasi-Baer ring. An application of this result to C*-algebras is considered. Various examples which illustrate and delimit the results of this paper are provided.
ON MINIMAL SUBGROUPS OF FINITE GROUPS
Authors: ASAAD M.
Published: April 2009

Let G be a finite group. A minimal subgroup of G is a subgroup of prime order. A subgroup of G is called S-quasinormal in G if it permutes with each Sylow subgroup of G. A group G is called an MS-group if each minimal subgroup of G is S-quasinormal in G. In this paper, we investigate the structure of minimal non-MS-groups (non-MS-groups all of whose proper subgroups are MS-groups).
EXISTENCE OF POSITIVE SOLUTION FOR A QUASI-LINEAR PROBLEM WITH CRITICAL GROWTH IN N+
Authors: ALVES CLAUDIANOR O. , DE HOLANDA ANGELO R. F. , FERNANDES JOSÉ A.
Published: April 2009

In this paper we show existence of positive solutions for a class of quasi-linear problems with Neumann boundary conditions defined in a half-space and involving the critical exponent.
RADICAL FORMULA AND WEAKLY PRIME SUBMODULES
Authors: AZIZI A.
Published: April 2009

Let B be a submodule of an R-module M. The intersection of all prime (resp. weakly prime) submodules of M containing B is denoted by rad(B) (resp. wrad(B)). A generalisation of 〈E(B)〉 denoted by UE(B) of M will be introduced. The inclusions 〈E(B)〉 ⊆ UE(B) ⊆ wrad(B) ⊆ rad(B) are motivations for studying the equalities UE(B) = wrad(B) and UE(B) = rad(B) in this paper. It is proved that if R is an arithmetical ring, then UE(B) = wrad(B). In Theorem 2.5, a generalisation of the main result of [11] is given.
SCALAR CURVATURE OF HYPERSURFACES WITH CONSTANT MEAN CURVATURE IN A SPHERE
Authors: CHENG QING-MING , HE YIJUN , LI HAIZHONG
Published: April 2009

Let M be an n-dimensional closed hypersurface with constant mean curvature H satisfying |H| ≤ ϵ(n) in a unit sphere Sn+1, n ≤ 7, and S the square of the length of the second fundamental form of M. There exists a constant δ(n, H) > 0, which depends only on n and H, such that if S0 ≤ S ≤ S0 + δ(n, H), then S ≡ S0 and M is isometric to a Clifford hypersurface, where ϵ(n) is a sufficiently small constant depending on n and $S_0=n+\frac{n^3}{2(n-1)}H^2+\frac{n(n-2)}{2(n-1)}\sqrt{n^2H^4+4(n-1)H^2}$.
Proceedings of the Fourth Meeting of the EURO Working Group on Operational Research (OR) in Agriculture and Forest Management (EWG-ORAFM)
Authors: SANDARS D. L. , PLÀ L. M.
Published: April 2009

This working group, which is concerned with operational research methods and applications to agricultural science in its broad meaning (i.e. including Forest Management and Fisheries), was formed in 2003 within the European Association of Operational Research Societies (EURO). The first meeting of the group was held at the former Silsoe Research Institute in 2004. The group holds regular meetings in Europe at approximately yearly intervals, usually within the EURO Conferences. The next meeting will be held at the EURO XXIII conference in Bonn in 2009 followed by the EURO XXIV conference in Lisbon in 2010.

The fourth meeting of the working group was a joint meeting with the British Operational Research Society's special interest group on Agriculture and Natural Resources. It was chaired by D. L. Sandars of Cranfield University and Dr L. M. Plà of the University of Lleida and organized as a stream within the OR50 Conference, and was held at the University of York from 9 to 11 September 2008 where the following papers were read.
Anterior cervical osteophytes resulting in severe dysphagia and aspiration: two case reports and literature review
Authors: Kos M P , van Royen B J , David E F , Mahieu H F
Published: April 2009

Objective:

We report two cases in which dysphagia and aspiration, caused by anterior cervical osteophytes, were so severe that surgical resection was performed.

Method:

Case reports and a review of the world literature concerning dysphagia caused by anterior cervical osteophytes, in regard to pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment.

Results:

Two patients, aged 71 and 70 years, had long-standing, slowly progressive dysphagia and aspiration; one patient had recurrent episodes of aspiration pneumonia as a result. Both patients were diagnosed on videofluoroscopy with large bony anterior cervical osteophytes. Immediate relief of symptoms was obtained after resection of the osteophytes via an anterolateral, extrapharyngeal approach. Anterior cervical osteophytes are relatively common in the elderly, although not frequently diagnosed, and are mostly seen in cases of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis. If therapy is indicated it is mainly conservative; resection is rarely needed.

Conclusion:

In patients with anterior cervical osteophytes, surgical treatment is indicated only for selected cases with large, bony osteophytes and severe symptoms.
British English pronunciation preferences: a changing scene
Authors: Wells J. C.
Published: April 2009

A poll of BrE pronunciation preferences was carried out in late 1998, based on a self-selected sample of nearly 2000 ‘speech-conscious’ respondents, who answered a hundred questions about words of uncertain or controversial pronunciation. The findings allow us to answer questions about lexical incidence and sound changes in progress. (This is a revised and considerably extended version of the report published as Wells 1999.)
Where is Female Synthetic Speech?
Authors: Henton Caroline
Published: April 2009

There is widespread, immediate and enduring demand for high quality, natural, intelligible synthetic female voices in the expanding speech technology industry. Yet synthetic female voices are scarce, both in parametric text-to-speech (TTS) systems and in concatenative ones. Current female synthetic speech largely lacks naturalness, pleasantness and tolerability. Some acoustic specifications of female voices that are relevant to synthesis are discussed in detail. Recent research pertaining to female voice quality is reported and a ranking of these various considerations is proposed. This paper reviews the present situation and considers why there is a paucity of female voice synthesis.
Guaraní Voiceless Stops in Oral versus Nasal Contexts: An Acoustical Study
Authors: Walker Rachel
Published: April 2009

This acoustic study investigates voiceless stops in Guaraní that are described as transparent to nasal harmony. Voiceless stops in oral versus nasal contexts are examined in relation to theoretical issues of locality and phonetic implementation. First, the oral/nasal and voicing properties of the stops are considered in connection to proposals in phonological theory that feature spreading produces strictly continuous spans of a spreading property. The stops are discovered to display the acoustic attributes of voiceless oral obstruents; no evidence of nasal airflow energy was observed during closure nor was the closure fully voiced. These results suggest that strict continuity of a spreading featural property is not always found in the phonetic output. Second, the timing of the voicelessness is addressed. Interestingly, the duration of voicelessness of the stops [p, t] remains the same across oral/nasal environments, although the voiceless interval shifts to persevere longer into the following vowel in nasal contexts. The velar stop does not exhibit an increased perseverance of voicelessness after closure release—it displays the longest VOT of all places of articulation, and its VOT remains unaffected by oral/nasal context. It is suggested that incorporating a notion of conflicting realizational requirements in models of phonetic implementation is important in interpreting these results.
The phonetic status of the labial flap
Authors: Olson Kenneth S. , Hajek John
Published: April 2009

The labial flap is a speech sound which has received little attention in the literature. In this paper, we document the articulation of the sound, including audio and video data from Mono (D.R. Congo, Ubangian). The sound is attested in over sixty languages and has been incorporated into the phonological system of at least a dozen of them. The sound is easily describable in terms of values of phonological features or phonetic parameters, and it appears to have arisen independently in at least two regions of the world. These factors argue for the inclusion of the sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Double articulations in some Mangbutu-Efe languages
Authors: Demolin Didier , Soquet Alain
Published: April 2009

This paper examines double articulations in three African languages, Mamvu, Lese and Efe, all belonging to the Central Sudanic language family. The phonetic inventory of these languages exhibits some very interesting facts, among which the most striking are voiceless labial velar stops with double bursts, and a labial uvular stop which shows the combination of a voiceless and a voiced part in the same consonant. Acoustic and aerodynamic measurements describing the production of these sounds are presented.
The dialect of Maastricht
Authors: Gussenhoven Carlos , Aarts Flor
Published: April 2009

Maastricht (Mosae Trajectum in Roman times) is the capital of the Dutch province of Limburg and one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands. Situated in the extreme south, close to the Belgian border, the city is fairly small, with a population of just over 120,000. Maastricht enjoys a world-wide reputation as the place where the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992. The dialect of Maastricht belongs to the south-eastern dialect group (Weijnen 1966: §§ 166, 173), which shares a number of properties with dialects in Belgium and Germany. A more recent classification (Belemans, Kruijsen & van Keymeulen 1998) assigns the dialect to Central Limburgian, which comprises seven subgroups in the Netherlands and Belgium, more particularly to Trichterlands. Two earlier descriptions are Houben (1905), which is historically oriented, and van Buuren (1991).