Previous accounts of hedges assume that they cause language to become vague or fuzzy ; however, hedges can actually sharpen numerical concepts by giving explicit information about approximation, especially where bare numbers appear misleadingly round or precise. They can also tell hearers about the direction of approximation. This article provides a first empirical account of interactions between hedging and rounding in numerical expressions. We demonstrate that hedges occur more commonly with round numbers than with non-round ones. However, we also provide (...) evidence from user studies that in the absence of hedges, readers interpret round numbers as approximations and non-round ones as precise; and that placing a hedge before a round number has no effect on its interpretation, whereas placing it before a non-round number shifts people’s interpretations from precise towards approximate. We attempt to explain this conundrum. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL USES OF DISCOURSE IN THE REPRESENTATION OF GOD IN HIS SEMINAL work on the theory of signs, Charles Morris affirms that human beings are " the dominant sign-using animals" and that" the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs-if indeed mentality is not to be identified with such functioning." 1 By means of acculturation we learn to use and interpret signs, both linguistic and (...) non-linguistic; and by virtue of these capacities we can appropriately designate the human animal as homo symbolicus, homo loquens, and homo sapiens. Indeed, all forms of human culture presuppose the ability to use and interpret signs, including that form of human culture which leads us to speak of ourselves as homo religious. Over the years I have come to understand and speak of religion as a community with its cultus. There is the community, be it triba1, national, or universal with its polity or structure and ongoing history; and there is the cultus with its organic system of linguistic and nonlinguistic signs, encompassing ·such elements as stories, creeds, scriptures, doctrines, theologies, confessions, prayers, chants, songs, rites, rituals, sacraments, artifacts, etc. Like any other cultural system, scheme or network of signs one can characterize a religious cultus as an inter -subjective set of signs whose usage is determined by the implicit or explicit rules that govern the relations of signs to each other; the relations of the signs to the objects which the signs designate or denote, or stand for in some way; and the relations of signs to the users or interpreters of these signs and to those who are affected by these signs in some way. 1 Charles W. Morris, FoundatioJi of the Theory of Signs, in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), p. L 6~7 628 WILLIAM L. POWER: Given this understanding of community and cultus, one can describe a religion as an organized group of socially interdependent human beings which uses or employs ·a system of linguistic and nonlinguistic signs to represent reality in its various modalities and mixtures of good and evil and to affect human ways of life on the basis of that representation. Altering the terminology somewhat, one could say that a religious community uses its cultus to proclaim, enact, and display a comprehensive worldview.and to form and tr:msform the ethospathos of human beings in their solidarity and solitude. Expressed semiotically, there is the system of signs of a particular community, the intended signification of these signs, and the significance of these signs for those who use and are affected by them. What distinguishes a religion from other forms of human culture is that a rel·igious cultuml sy•stem or a religious community with its cultus is primarily concerned with ultimate or supreme reality or with that which is divine, holy, or sacred and that reality's bearing on and relevance for human life and well-being. In short, a religion is a cultural system which functions to map the whole of re.ality and to acculturate in desirable ways or to civilize. If a religion is a cultural system, then one can identify three distinct yet inseparably related dimensions of every religion. There is 1) the cultural dimension consisting of the interrelruted signs, symbols and expressions of a cultus; 2) the reality and value dimension consisting of the ontological and axiological purport of the cultus; and 3) the experiential dimension consisting of the existential import of the cultus. It is this thioo dimension which has led many in the past and in the present to speak of religion as piety, consciousness of things divine, ultimate concern, religiousness, etc. In the tradition of Peircian semiotics, one can speak of these three dimensions as the syntactic, semantic, and praigmatic dimensions of a religion; and they can be analyzed and studied with the aid of syntactics or syntax, semantics, and pr:agmatics, which as a unity LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL USES OF DISCOURSE 629 constitute the discipline of semiotics. As Peirce recognized, modem semiotics is continuous with the Medieval trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric-the semiotics of almost a millennium a;go... (shrink)

In this article, I present a case for a kind of existential theology which would be philosophical and metaphysical, though not broadly Platonic and classical, and biblical though not illogical. What I present will be an attempt to clarify and justify what I call "existential hayatological theism". In so doing I will draw on insights from what Edmond La B Cherbonnier and Claude Tresmontant designated as "biblical philosophy" and "biblical metaphysics" as well as from the neo-classical philosophies of Charles Hartshorne (...) and Alfred North Whitehead, especially that of Whitehead. (shrink)

One of the oldest conceptions of theology is discourse of the poets about the gods and its philosophical interpretation. Judaism and Christianity borrowed this Greek understanding of theology and revised it only slightly to reflect its own monotheistic vision of God and God’s relations to and with the world of nature and human existence. The question as to which philosophy best explicates and justifies the oral and written mythopoetic discourse of the imaginative bards of Israel and the early Christian community (...) became a fundamental issue and has remained so through the centuries. The aim of this essay is to explore this question once again in the context of post-liberal theology in general, the works of Abraham Heschel, Claude Tresmontant, and the Japanese theologian Tetsaturo Ariga on an implicit biblical philosophy and the explicit metaphysical theism of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. The outcome of this exploration will be a rational reconstruction or ideal type of neo-classical theism or what I have chosen to call existential-hayatological theism. (shrink)

Franklin I. Gamwell, Existence and the good: metaphysical necessity in morals and politics Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9347-4 Authors William L. Power, Department of Religion, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

ObjectiveTo examine how physical and psychological childbirth experiences affect maternal perceptions and experiences of early infant behavioural style.BackgroundUnnecessary interventions may disturb the normal progression of physiological childbirth and instinctive neonatal behaviours that facilitate mother–infant bonding and breastfeeding. While little is known about how a medicalised birth may influence developing infant temperament, high impact interventions which affect neonatal crying and cortisol levels could have longer term consequences for infant behaviour and functioning.MethodsA retrospective Internet survey was designed to fully explore maternal experiences (...) of childbirth and her postnatal perceptions of infant behaviour. Data collected from 999 mother–infant dyads were analysed using Pearson’s correlations and multiple analyses of covariance, employing the Bonferroni method of correction to establish initially significant variables. Multiple linear regressions were conducted to determine major perinatal contributors to perceived early infant temperament.ResultsMultiple regression analyses on each of the eight Mother and Baby Scales outcome variables indicated that early infant behavioural style was largely predicted by subjective maternal states during and post-childbirth, postnatal depression scores, maternal personality traits and infant age. For example, infant age was the most significant predictor of Alert-Responsive infant behaviour, followed by maternal Postnatal Positive experience. In contrast, depression scores were the most significant predictor of Unsettled-Irregular infant behaviour, followed by Anxious-Afraid Birth Emotions and infant age. Mothers also perceived their infants as more Alert-Responsive and Easier overall after a Supported birth experience.ConclusionMaternal and infant outcomes were influenced by multiple physical and psychological perinatal variables. The mother’s subjective experience appeared to be of equal significance to more objective factors. Social support enhanced the mother’s childbirth experience, benefitting her perceptions of her baby’s early temperament. These findings provide further support for current World Health Organisation intrapartum guidelines on the importance of making childbirth a ‘positive experience’ for women. (shrink)

Although numerical systems have been regarded as static models of a symbolic system and treated as mythological behavior, it is postulated that these systems are more profitably analyzed as dynamic models, better understood as ritual behavior. As ritual, numerical systems, limited in number and expressive of rhythmicity, contribute to the biogenetic structuralist's notion of “equilibration” between the central nervous system and the environment.The relationship between concrete and abstract numeration is also examined, showing that counting behavior, requiring asymmetrical use of the (...) hands, may contribute to understanding the relationships between handedness and brain hemisphericity, as well as enumeration and memorization. (shrink)

The Power of Ideals examines the lives and work of six 20th century moral leaders who pursued moral causes ranging from world peace to social justice and human rights, and uses these six cases to show how people can make choices guided by their moral ideals rather than by base emotion or social pressures.

Powers often depend on structures. It is because of the eye’s structure that it confers the power of sight; destroy that structure, and you destroy the power. I sketch an antireductive yet broadly naturalistic account of the relation between powers and structures. Powers, it says, are embodied in structures. When applied to philosophy of mind, this view resembles classic emergentist theories. I nevertheless argue that it differs from them in crucial respects that insulate it from the problems (...) that beset them – including the problem of emergence and the problem of mental causation. (shrink)

Baker argues that quantitative parsimony—the principle that hypotheses requiring fewer entities are to be preferred over their empirically equivalent rivals—is a rational methodological criterion because it maximizes explanatory power. Baker lends plausibility to his account by confronting it with the example of postulating of the neutrino in order to resolve a discrepancy in Beta decay experiments. Baker’s account is initially attractive, but I argue that its details are problematic and that it yields undesirable consequences when applied to the case of (...) astrophysical dark matter. Baker has not succeeded in showing why quantitative parsimony is a theoretical virtue. (shrink)

Neil E. Williams develops a systematic metaphysics centred on the idea of powers, as a rival to neo-Humeanism, the dominant systematic metaphysics in philosophy today. Williams takes powers to be inherently causal properties and uses them as the foundation of his explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality.

Power, Value, and Conviction constructs a realistic Christian ethic while tackling the twin challenges of our time -- namely, moral pluralism in a time of globalization, and increased human power by means of technology.

Power theorists are divided on the question of whether individual powers are single-track (for a single manifestation type) or are multi-track (capable of producing distinct manifestation types for distinct stimuli). EJ Lowe has recently defended single-tracking, arguing that the multi-tracker can provide no adequate reason for treating powers as capable of having multiple manifestation types, and claiming that putative instances of multi-track powers are either single-track powers in need of unifying descriptions or are merely several single-track (...) powers. I respond to Lowe on behalf of the multi-tracker, first by arguing that he overlooks the extra-empirical features of the debate, then by posing a dilemma for any single-track account of powers concerning the single-tracker’s ability to appropriately deal with fine-grained manifestation types. Finally I provide the aforementioned reason for thinking that there are multi-track powers. (shrink)

Scott Williams’s Latin Social model of the Trinity holds that the trinitarian persons have between them a single set of divine mental powers and a single set of divine mental acts. He claims, nevertheless, that on his view the persons are able to use indexical pronouns such as “I.” This claim is examined and is found to be mistaken.

The wave function of quantum mechanics can be understood in terms of the dispositional role it plays in the dynamics of a distribution of matter in three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional spacetime). There is more than one way, however, of specifying its dispositional role. This paper considers Suárez’s theory of ‘Bohmian dispositionalism’, in which the particles are endowed with their own ‘Bohmian dispositions’, and Simpson’s theory of ‘Cosmic Hylomorphism’, in which the particle configuration comprises a hylomorphic substance which has an intrinsic (...) power. I argue that Bohmian dispositionalism fails to capture intuitively correct counterfactuals about what would happen in Small Worlds which have only a small number of particles, but that this problem is avoided by Cosmic Hylomorphism, in which the cosmic power manifests a teleological process. (shrink)

Three concepts—authority, obedience and obligation—are central to understanding law and political institutions. The three are also involved in the legitimation of the state: an apology for the state has to make a normative case for the state’s authority, for its right to command obedience, and for the citizen’s obligation to obey the state’s commands. Recent discussions manifest a cumulative scepticism about the apologist’s task. Getting clear about the three concepts is, of..

– The conjunction of three plausible theses about the nature of causal powers—that they are intrinsic, that their effects are produced mutually, and that the manifestations they are for are essential to them—leads to a problem concerning the ability of causal powers to work together to produce manifestations. I call this problem the problem of fit. Fortunately for proponents of a power-based metaphysic, the problem of fit is not insurmountable. Fit can be engineered if powers are properties (...) whose natures are determined holistically. However, this power holism does not come without a cost, as a power-based metaphysic must be supplemented by a certain amount of additional machinery in order to avoid the problem. (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

“A wise person makes a distinction or says nothing.” There are few distinctions as important as the nature (divided or united) of power. Pluralism becomes clear when divided into DP visitor pluralism and UP insular pluralism.