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Spending time alone is a virtually inevitable part of daily life that can promote or undermine well-being. Here, we explore how the language used to describe time alone – such as “me-time”, “solitude”, or “isolation” – influences how it is perceived and experienced. In Study 1 (N = 500 U.S adults), participants evaluated five common labels for time alone. Descriptive and narrative evidence revealed robust interindividual variability and significant mean differences in how these labels were evaluated. Overall, “me-time” was rated (...) most positively, and “isolation” was rated least positively (but not negatively). In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the linguistic framing of time alone, describing it as either “me-time” or “isolation”. Participants (N = 176 U.S undergraduates) then spent 30 min physically alone without in-person or digital interaction. Notably, positive affect increased for “me-time” participants but decreased for “isolation” participants. Negative affect decreased in both conditions, but the magnitude of the decrease was greater after “me-time”. People’s beliefs about being alone improved after “me-time” but not after “isolation”. Further, we explored participants’ behaviours and thoughts while alone. These findings demonstrate meaningful variation in how people perceive different time alone labels and provide preliminary evidence that simple linguistic shifts may enhance subjective experiences of time alone. (shrink)

The Platonic MS. Vat. gr. 225 contains tetr. I, VI. 3, 4, II–IV, while its companion volume in the same hand Vat. gr. 226 contains V–VI. 2, VIII. 3, VII, Spp., VIII. 1, 2. Posts states that for tetr. I and VI. 3 A is close to Vind. suppl. gr. 7 and thereafter derives from the Clarkianus . I am here concerned only with the testimony of Δ in. 2 . This manuscript has been largely ignored by commentators and editors. (...) Schanz does not quote it, nor does Bekker . Alline is scornful about it. Neither Burnet nor Croiset quotes it—and indeed Burnet claims that it is merely an interpolated apograph of W. Stallbaum seems to be the only editor who quotes it for Apol. This appears to be an unwarranted neglect since A has, in fact, a good claim to be considered as a primary witness in this dialogue. (shrink)

The notion of an algebraic semantics of a deductive system was proposed in [3], and a preliminary study was begun. The focus of [3] was the definition and investigation of algebraizable deductive systems, i.e., the deductive systems that possess an equivalent algebraic semantics. The present paper explores the more general property of possessing an algebraic semantics. While a deductive system can have at most one equivalent algebraic semantics, it may have numerous different algebraic semantics. All of these give rise to (...) an algebraic completeness theorem for the deductive system, but their algebraic properties, unlike those of equivalent algebraic semantics, need not reflect the metalogical properties of the deductive system. Many deductive systems that don't have an equivalent algebraic semantics do possess an algebraic semantics; examples of these phenomena are provided. It is shown that all extensions of a deductive system that possesses an algebraic semantics themselves possess an algebraic semantics. Necessary conditions for the existence of an algebraic semantics are given, and an example of a protoalgebraic deductive system that does not have an algebraic semantics is provided. The mono-unary deductive systems possessing an algebraic semantics are characterized. Finally, weak conditions on a deductive system are formulated that guarantee the existence of an algebraic semantics. These conditions are used to show that various classes of non-algebraizable deductive systems of modal logic, relevance logic and linear logic do possess an algebraic semantics. (shrink)

Dai Zhen’s philosophy of language took the opportunity of a transition in Chinese philosophy to develop a form of humanist positivism, which was different from both the Song and Ming dynasties’ School of Principles and the early Qing dynasty’s philosophical forms. His philosophy of language had four primary manifestations: It differentiated between “names pointing at entities and real events” and “names describing summum bonum and perfection”; In discussing the metaphysical issue of “the Dao,” it was the first to introduce a (...) syntax analysis of linguistics, clearly differentiating between the different roles of predicate verbs “zhi wei” and “wei zhi” in Classical Chinese; In criticizing Confucian thought during the Song and Ming dynasties, it adopted specific philological skills such as the analysis of phraseology, the meaning of sentences and the thread of words in texts; and It re-interpreted the meaning of Confucian classics by studying characters and language, adopting a positivist and philological manner to seek metaphysical sense in philosophy. In this way, his philosophy was different from the scholars of the School of Principles during the Song and Ming dynasties and from the goal of Western linguistic philosophy in the 20th century, which refuted metaphysics. Accordingly, it helped to develop 18th century Chinese philosophy as it turned towards linguistic philology. (shrink)

The conceptual framework and core courses of the certificate program in Preventive Engineering and Social Development of the Centre for Technology and Social Development at the University of Toronto are briefly described. Preventive approaches for the engi neering, management, and regulation of technology examine how technology fits into, interacts with, and depends on human life, society, and the biosphere in order to apply this understanding in a negative feed back mode to avoid or reduce harmful effects to these contexts. These (...) approaches represent a new paradigm for engineering education and practice enriched through STS. (shrink)

This paper contains a defense against anti-realism in mathematics in the light both of incompleteness and of the fact that mathematics is a ‘cultural artifact.’. Anti-realism (here) is the view that theorems, say, of aritltmetic cannot be taken at face value to express true propositions about the system of numbers but must be reconstrued to be about somctliiiig else or about nothing at all. A ‘bite-the-bullet’ aspect of the defease is that, adopting new axioms, liitherto independent, is not. a matter (...) of recognizing trutlis wliich had previoasly been unrecognized, but of extending the domain of what is true. (shrink)

Gap junction intercellular communication channels permit the exchange of small regulatory molecules and ions between neighbouring cells and coordinate cellular activity in diverse tissue and organ systems. These channels have short half‐lives and complex assembly and degradation pathways. Much of the recent work elucidating gap junction biogenesis has featured the use of connexins (Cx), the constituent proteins of gap junctions, tagged with reporter proteins such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and has illuminated the dynamics of channel assembly in live cells (...) by high‐resolution time‐lapse microscopy. With some studies, however, there are potential short‐comings associated with the GFP chimeric protein technologies. A recent report by Gaietta et al., has highlighted the use of recombinant proteins with tetracysteine tags attached to the carboxyl terminus of Cx43, which differentially labels ‘old’ and ‘new’ connexins thus opening up new avenues for studying temporal and spatial localisation of proteins and in situ trafficking events.1 BioEssays 24:876–880, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

"Aristotle was a systematic writer who often cross-referred to the definitions of terms given elsewhere in his work. Book 5 of the Metaphysics is important because it consists of definitions of the main uses of key terms in Aristotle's philosophy, and it is extremely valuable to have a commentary on this important text by Alexander of Aphrodisias, the leading commentator of his school. Alexander provides a detailed commentary on all of the thirty terms analysed in Book 5, weighing alternative interpretations (...) of what Aristotle says one against another, defending Peripatetic views against actual and possible criticisms, and attempting to integrate what is said in Book 5 into the context of the Metaphysics as a whole."--Bloomsbury Publishing. (shrink)

There is a widespread belief, more often implied than explicitly asserted, that Hume considered all necessary propositions to be analytic.Of course Hume did not use the analytic-synthetic distinction explicitly. This only come to the forefront with Kant; and it is Kant who is probably the main source of the above-mentioned belief. Kant ascribed to Hume the view that mathematical propositions are, in his terminology, analytic. If this is correct, then since mathematics was for Hume the paradigm of a body of (...) necessary truths, it is plausible to infer that he considered necessary propositions to be one and all analytic. The absence in Hume's writings of the analytic-synthetic terminology is by no means decisive: though he did not have the terms he may well have possessed the concepts, as evidenced by his use of them. (shrink)