A few weeks of practice in writing reports, slanted reports, and reports slanted both ways will improve powers of obser- vation, as well as ability to recognize soundness of observa- tion in the writings of others. A sharpened sense for the dis- tinction between facts and judgments, facts and inferences, will reduce susceptibility to the flurries of frenzied public opinion which certain people find it to their interest to arouse.
Alarming judgments and inferences can be made to appear inevitable by means of skillfully slanted reports. A reader who is aware of the technique of slanting, however, cannot be stampeded by such methods.
He knows too well that there may be other relevant facts which have been left out. Who worries now about the "snooping into private lives" and the "establishment of an American Gestapo" that were supposed to result from the census? Yet peo- ple worry about such things at the time. Here are a number of statements which the reader may attempt to classify as judgments, inferences, or reports.
Since the distinctions are not always clear-cut, a one-word answer will not ordinarily be adequate. She goes to church only in order to show off her clothes. A penny saved is a penny earned. Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough. In the old days, newspapers used to tell the truth. The German-American Bund Nazi propaganda agency.
Belgium has been called the Niobe of nations. Senator Smith has for a long time secretly nursed presidential ambitions, i.
S They are mostly noise, and an honest man has the advantage, because truth and tolerance simply are not in them. This is a necessary preliminary to "slanting both ways at once," which is obviously an impossi- ble task for anyone who can see things only in one way. Thus a person might look up a foreign word and be quite satisfied with the meaning "bullfinch" without the slightest ability to identify or describe this Under- bird.
Dictionary definitions permit us to hide from ourselves and others the extent of our igno- rance. Few people ask by what authority the writers of dictionaries and grammars say what they say. The docility with which most people bow down to the dictionary is amazing, and the person who says, "Well, the dictionary is wrong! He's really quite sane otherwise. The task of writing a dictionary begins with the reading of vast amounts of the hterature of the period or sub- ject that it is intended to cover.
For a really big job of dictionary writing, such as the Oxford English Dictionary usually bound in about twenty-five volumes , millions of such cards are col- lected, and the task of editing occupies decades. As the cards are collected, they are alphabetized and sorted. When the sorting is completed, there will be for each word anywhere from two or three to several hundred illustrative quotations, each on its card.
To define a word, then, the dictionary editor places before him the stack of cards illustrating that word; each of the cards represents an actual use of the word by a writer of some literary or historical importance. He reads the cards carefully, discards some, re-reads the rest, and divides up the stack ac- cording to what he thinks are the several senses of the word.
Finally, he writes his definitions, following the hard-and-fast must be based on what the quota- rule that each definition tions in front of him meaning of the word. He must work according to the cards, or not at all. The writing of a dictionary, therefore, is not a task of setting up authoritative statements about the "true meanings" of words, but a task of recording, to the best of one's ability, what various words have meant to authors in the distant or immediate past.
The writer of a dictionary is a historian, not a law-giver. If, we had been writing a dictionary for example, in , or even as late as , we could have said that the word "broadcast" means "to scatter," seed and so on; but we could not have decreed that from on, the commonest meaning of the word should become "to disseminate audible messages, etc.
In choosing our words when we speak or write, we can be guided by the historical record afforded us by the dictionary, but we cannot be bound by it, because new situa- tions, new new inventions, new feelings, are experiences, always compelling us to give new uses to old words.
Looking under a "hood," we should ordinarily have found, five hun- dred years ago, a monk; today, we find a motorcar engine. Let us say that we have never heard the word "oboe" before, and we overhear a con- versation in which the following sentences occur: He used to be the best oboe player in town. I saw him one day at the music shop, buying a new reed for his oboe.
He never Hked to play the clarinet after he started playing the oboe. He said it wasn't so much fun, because it was too easy. Although the word may be unfamiliar, its meaning becomes clear to us as we listen. After hearing the first sentence, we know that an "oboe" is "played," so that it must be either a game or a musical instrument.
With the second sentence the possibility of its being a game is eliminated. With each suc- ceeding sentence the possibilities as to what an "oboe" may be are narrowed down until we get a fairly clear idea of what is meant. This how we learn by verbal context. Let us say that we are playing golf and that we have hit the ball in a certain way with certain unfortu- nate results, so that our companion says to us, "That's a bad slice.
If we are reasonably bright, we learn in a very short time to say, when it happens again, "That's a bad slice. As soon as we make the distinc- tion, we have added still another word to our vocabulary. The result is that after nine holes of golf, we can use both these words accurately —and perhaps several others as well, such as "divot," "number-five iron," "approach shot," with- out ever having been told what they mean.
We meanings of practically all our words which learn the are, it remembered, will be merely complicated noises , not from dictionaries, not from definitions, but from hearing these noises as they accompany actual situations in life and learning to associate certain noises with certain situations.
Even as dogs learn to recognize "words," as for example by hearing "biscuit" at the same time as an actual biscuit is held before their noses, so do we all learn to interpret language by being aware of the happenings that accompany the noises people make at us —by being aware, in short, of contexts.
The "definitions" given by little children in school show clearly how they associate words with situations; they almost always define in terms of physical and social contexts: "Punishment is when you have been bad and they put you in a closet and don't let you have any supper. The main reason that they cannot be used in dictionaries is that they are too specific; it would be impossible to list the myriads of situations in which every word has been used.
For this reason, dictionaries give definitions on a high level of abstraction; that is, with particular references left out for the sake of conciseness. This is another reason why it is a great mistake to regard a dic- tionary definition as "telling us all about" a word.
That is to say, the extensional meaning is something that cannot be expressed in words, because it is that which words stand for. An easy way to remember this is to put your hand over your mouth and point whenever you are asked to give an extensional meaning.
The meaning of a word or expression, on the intensional other hand, is which is suggested connoted inside one's that head. Roughly speaking, whenever we express the meaning of words by uttering more words, we are giving intensional meaning, or connotations.
To remember this, put your hand over your eyes and let the words spin around in your head. Utterances may have, of course, both extensional and in- tensional meaning. If they have no intensional meaning at — all that is, if they start no notions whatever spinning about — in our heads they are meaningless noises, Hke foreign lan- guages that we do not understand.
On the other hand, it is possible for utterances to have no extensional meaning at all, in spite of the fact that they may start many notions spinning about in our heads. Since this point will be discussed more fully in Chapter 5, perhaps one example will be enough: the statement, "Angels watch over my bed at night," is one that has intensional but no extensional meaning. This does not mean that there are no angels watching over my bed at night.
When we say that the statement has no extensional meaning, we are merely saying that we cannot see, touch, photograph, or in any scientific manner detect the presence of angels.
The result is that, if an argument begins on the subject 1 The words extension and intension are borrowed from logic; denotation and connotation are borrowed from literary criticism. The former pair of terms will ordinarily be used, therefore, when we are talking about people's "thinking habits"; the latter, when we are talking about words themselves. Therefore, whether we believe in angels or not, knowing in advance that any argument on the subject will be both endless and futile, we can avoid getting into fights about it.
When, on the other hand, statements have extensional con- tent, as when we say, "This room is fifteen feet long," argu- ments can come to a close. No matter how many guesses there are about the length of the room, all discussion ceases when someone produces a tape measure.
This, then, is the important difference between extensional and intensional meanings: namely, when utterances have extensional meanings, discus- sion can be ended and agreement reached; when utterances meanings only and no extensional meanings, have intensional arguments may, and often do, go on indefinitely. Such argu- ments can result only in irreconcilable conflict. Among indi- viduals, they may result in the breaking up of friendships; in society, they often split organizations into bitterly opposed groups; among nations, they may aggravate existing tensions so seriously as to become contributory causes of war.
Arguments of this kind may be termed "non-sense argu- ments," because they are based on utterances about which no sense data can be collected. Needless to say, there are occa- sions when the hyphen may be omitted that depends on — one's feelings toward the particular argument under considera- tion. The reader is requested to provide his own examples of "non-sense arguments.
Usually, people regard this as a misfortune, because it "leads to sloppy thinking" and "mental confusion. Thereupon it will occur to them that we simply cannot make people agree in this way, even if we could set up an ironclad dictatorship under a com- mittee of lexicographers who could place censors in every newspaper office and dictaphones in every home. The situa- tion, therefore, appears hopeless.
Such an impasse is avoided when we start with a new premise altogether —one upon which modern of the premises linguistic thought is based: namely, that no word ever has exactly the same meaning twice.
The extent to which this premise fits the facts can be demonstrated in a number of ways. First, if we accept the proposition that the contexts of an utterance determine its meaning, it becomes apparent that since no two contexts are ever exactly the same, no two mean- ings can ever be exactly the same. How can we "fix the mean- ing" even for as common an expression as "to believe in" when it can be used in such sentences as the following?
I believe in you I have confidence in you. I believe in democracy I accept the principles implied by the term democracy. When Peter says "kettle," how- ever, its intensional meanings to him are the common charac- teristics of all the kettles he remembers. Finally, let us examine utterances in terms of extensional meanings.
If John, Peter, Harold, and George each say "my typewriter," we would have to point to four different type- writers to get the extensional meaning in each case: John's new Underwood, Peter's old Corona, Harold's L.
Smith, and the undenotable intended "typewriter" that George plans some day to buy: "My typewriter, when I buy one, will be a noiseless. Although we can say, then, that the differences in the meanings of a word on one occasion, on another occa- sion a minute later, and on still another occasion another minute later, are negligible, we cannot say that the meanings are exactly the same. All we can know in advance is approximately what it will mean.
After the utter- ance, we interpret what has been said in the light of both verbal and physical contexts, and act according to our inter- pretation. An examination of the verbal context of an utter- ance, as well as the examination of the utterance itself, di- rects us to the intensional meanings; an examination of the physical context directs us to the extensional meanings.
Interpretation must be based, therefore, on the totality of contexts. If it were otherwise, we should not be able to account for the fact that even if we fail to use the right customary words in some situations, people can very frequently under- stand us.
For example: A. Gosh, look at that second baseman go! B looking. You mean the shortstop? Yes, that's what I mean. There must be something wrong with the oil line; the engine has started to balk. Don't you mean "gas line"? Yes —didn't I say gas line?
Contexts sometimes indicate so clearly what we mean that often we do not even have to say what we mean in order to be understood. At its worst, it can be a vicious practice. A common example is the sensational newspaper story in which a few words by a public personage are torn out of their context and made the basis of a com- pletely misleading account. There is the incident of an Armi- stice Day speaker, a university teacher, who declared before a high-school assembly that the Gettysburg Address was "a powerful piece of propaganda.
However, the local newspaper, completely ignoring the context, presented the account in such a way as to con- vey the impression that the speaker had called Lincoln a liar. On this basis, thenewspaper began a campaign against the instructor.
You said the Gettysburg Address was propaganda, didn't you? Similar prac- tices may be found in advertisements. A reviewer may be quoted on the jacket of a book as having said, "A brilliant work," while reading of the context may reveal that what he really said was, "It just falls short of being a brilliant work.
Instead of complaining, they should accept it as a matter of course. It would be startling indeed if the word "justice," for example, were to have the same meaning to the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court; we should get nothing but unanimous decisions.
As it is, however, we are all too likely to have signal reactions to certain into people's remarks meanings that words and read were never intended. There are cases of intellectual dishonesty and of the abuse of words, of course, but they do not always occur in the places where peo- ple think they do. In the study of history or of cultures other than our own, contexts take on special importance. To say, "There was no running water or electricity in the house," does not condemn an EngHsh house in , but says a great deal against a house in Chicago in Again, if we wish to understand the Con- stitution of the United States, it is not enough, as our histori- ans now tell us, merely to look up all the words in the dic- tionary and to read the interpretations written by Supreme Court justices.
We must see the Constitution in its historical context: the conditions of life, the current ideas, the fashion- able prejudices, and the probable interests of the people who drafted the Constitution. After all, the words "The United States of America" stood for quite a different-sized nation and a different culture in from what they stand for today. When it comes to very big subjects, the range of con- texts to be examined, verbal, social, and historical, may be- come very large indeed.
Any word in a sentence —any sentence in a para- graph, any paragraph in a larger unit —whose meaning is re- vealed by its context, is itself part of the context of the rest of the text. All words within a given context interact upon one another. Realizing, then, that a dictionary is a historical work, we should understand the dictionary thus: "The word mother has most frequently been used in the past among English-speak- ing people to indicate a female parent.
A dictionary definition, therefore, is an invaluable guide to interpretation. Words do not have a single "correct meaning"; they apply to groups of similar situations, which might be called areas of meaning. It is for definition in terms of areas of meaning that a dictionary is useful. In each use of any word, we examine the particular context and the extensional events denoted if possible to discover the point intended within the area of meaning.
It has been said in this chapter that to say that one word should have one meaning or that we can know meaning the of aword in advance of its utterance is nonsense. Here are some examples of the uses of the word air. To see how differ- ent they actually are, translate the sentences into other words. She had an air of triumph. John left the casting director's office walking on air.
On summer nights the air was warm and fragrant. He gave her the air. Want some air in your tires, Mister.? There was a suspicious air about the whole thing. Slum children benefit from getting out into the air and sun- light. A gentle air was moving the curtains at the open window. In change was in the air. At that she just went up in the air. High up in the air a hawk was circling. The doctors say he needs a change of air.
It would be better if this whole dirty business were brought out into the open air. There's nothing better in such cases than the free air of public discussion.
Jonathan was always building castles in the air. As they left the theater, half of the audience was whisding the catchy air. When he got across the border he filled his lungs with the air of freedom. The Philharmonic is on the air every Sunday afternoon. Provide contexts, in this case sentences, which illustrate some of the various areas of meaning you can find in the following words: arm dog flight frog date people rich free 3.
Sitting where you are, say the words, "Come here. Is the extensional meaning of the words still the same.? Has the intensional meaning been aflected? Take a blank sheet of paper and sign your name ten or a dozen times. There are now before you ten or a dozen exam- ples of the extensional meaning of the words "my signature.
You might cut them apart and match them up against a light. Are the extensional meanings in any two cases the same.? Would they be the same if they were printed.? After the potatoes have been peeled, parboil them and place them in the pan with the roast to brown. When done, serve the potatoes with gravy made from the juices of the meat. Certainly not! They fulfil a social function and that is their principal aifn, but they are neither the result of intellectual reflection, nor do they necessarily arouse reflection in the listener.
WHAT all is complicates the problems of interpretation above that often words are not used informatively at all. In fact, we have every reason to believe that the ability to use noises as symbols was developed only recently in the course of our evolution. Long before we developed language as we know it, we probably made, like the lower animals, all sorts of animal cries, expressive of such internal conditions as hunger, fear, triumph, and sexual desire.
We can recognize a variety of such noisesand the conditions they indicate in our domestic animals. Gradually these noises seem to have become more and more difTerentiated consciousness ex- : panded. Grunts and gibberings became symbolic language. But, although we developed symbolic language, the habit of making noises expressing, rather than reporting, our internal conditions has remained.
These presymboKc uses of lan- guage coexist with our symbolic systems, and we still have constant recourse to them in the talking we do in everyday life. The presymbolic character of much of our talk is most clearly illustrated in cries expressive of strong feeling of any kind. If, for example, we carelessly step ofT a curb when a car is coming, it doesn't much matter whether someone yells, "Look out!
It is the fear expressed in the loudness and the tone of the cry that conveys the neces- sary sensations, and not the words. Similarly, commands given sharply and angrily usually produce quicker results than the same commands uttered tonelessly.
The quality of the voice itself, that is to say, has a power of expressing feel- ings that is almost independent of the symbols used. We can say, "I hope you'll come to see us again," in a way that clearly indicates that we hope the visitor never comes back. Or again, if a young lady with whom we are strolling says, "The moon is bright tonight," we are able to tell by the tone whether she is making a meteorological observation or indicating that she wants to be kissed.
Many of our muscular activities are involuntary. Human beings, however, probably because they con- sider it beneath their dignity to express their anger in purely animalistic noises, do not ordinarily growl Uke dogs, but sub- stitute series of words, such as "You dirty double-crosser! That is to say, "She's the sweetest girl in all the world" is not a statement about the girl, but a revelation of the speaker's feelings —a revelation such as is made among lower animals by wagging the tail or purring.
Similarly, the ordinary oratorical and editorial denunciation of "Reds," "Wall Street," "corporate interests," "radicals," "economic royalists," and "fifth columnists," are often only protracted snarls, growls, and yelps, with, however, the sur- face appearance of logical and grammatical articulation. These series of "snarl-words" and "purr-words," as it will be con- venient to call them, are not reports describing conditions in the extensional world, but symptoms of disturbance, un- pleasant or pleasant, in the speaker.
Indeed, what we have called "judgments" in Chapter 3 words expressive of our likes and dislikes are extremely com- — phcated snarls and purrs. Their principal function is to indi- cate the approval or disapproval felt by the speaker, although, to be sure, they often indicate at the same time the reasons for those feelings.
To call judgments snarls and purrs may seem to be unduly disrespectful of the human race, but such disrespect is not intended. This is an important point to remember in controversy. For example, let us suppose that Smith has said, "Senator Booth is a fourflusher," and that Jones has said, "Senator Booth is a great statesman.
Each will deny or belittle the facts advanced by the other. Their voices will become louder; they will start to gesticulate wildly; they will start shaking their fists under each other's noses.
Finally, their friends may have to separate them. Such a conclusion, as we have seen, is inevitable when questions without extensional content, or non-sense questions, are argued. Disputes about presymbolic utterances should therefore be avoided. Often such snarls and purrs are not merely a matter of a few words, but of paragraphs, of entire editorials or speeches, and sometimes of entire books. The question to be discussed should never take the form, "Is Hitler really a beast as the speaker says?
All this is not to say that we should not snarl or purr. In the first place, we couldn't stop ourselves if we wanted to; and in the second, there are many occasions that demand good violent snarls, as well as soft purrs of delight. Subtle and dis- criminating judgments, made by sensitive and intelligent indi- viduals, are well worth listening to, since they contribute to our moral sensitivity. Sometimes we talk simply for the sake of hearing ourselves talk; that is, for the same reason that we play golf or dance.
The activity gives us a pleasant sense of being alive. Children prattUng, adults singing in the bathtub, are alike enjoying the sound of their voices. Sometimes large groups make noises together, as in group singing, group recitation, or group chanting, for similar presymbolic reasons. In all this, the sig- nificance of the words used is almost completely irrelevant.
We often, for example, may chant the most lugubrious words about a desire to be carried back to a childhood home in old Virginia, when in actuality we have never been there and haven't the slightest intention of going. What we call "social conversation" is again presymbolic in character. When we are at a tea or dinner party, for example, we all have to talk —about anything: the weather, the per- formance of the Chicago White Sox, Thomas Mann's latest book, or Myrna Loy's last picture. It is typical of these con- versations that, except among very good friends, few of the remarks made on these subjects are ever important enough to be worth making for their informative value.
Nevertheless, it is regarded as "rude" to remain silent. Indeed, in such matters as greetings and farewells: "Good morning" "Lovely day" —"And how's your family these days? There are numberless not daily situations in which we talk simply because it would be impolite not to. Every social group has its own form of this kind of talking —"the art of conversation," "small talk," or the mutual "kidding" that Americans love so much. We talk together about nothing at all and thereby estabUsh friendships.
The purpose of the talk is not the communication of information, as the symbols used would seem to imply "I see the Dodgers are out in the lead again" , but the establishment of communion. Human beings have many ways of establishing communion among themselves: breaking bread together, playing games together, working together.
But talking together is the most easily arranged of all these forms of collective activity. Among these ritual activities is always included a number of speeches, either traditionally worded or specially composed for the occasion, whose princi- pal function is not to give the audience information it did not have before, not to create new ways of feeling, but something else altogether.
Let us look at what happens at a "pep rally" such as precedes college football games. The members of "our team" are "introduced" to a crowd that already knows them.
Called upon to make speeches, the players mutter a few in- coherent and often ungrammatical remarks, which are re- ceived with wild applause. The leaders of the rally make fan- tastic promises about the mayhem to be performed on the opposing team the next day. The crowd utters "cheers," which normally consist of animalistic noises arranged in extremely primitive rhythms.
No one comes out any wiser or better informed than he was before he went in. To some extent religious ceremonies are equally puzzling at first glance. The priest or clergyman in charge utters set speeches, often in a language incomprehensible to the con- gregation Hebrew in orthodox Jewish synagogues, Latin in the Roman Catholic Church, Sanskrit in Chinese and Japa- nese temples , with the result that, as often as not, no infor- mation whatsoever is communicated to those present.
If we approach these linguistic events as students of lan- guage trying to understand what is happening and if we examine our own reactions when we enter into the spirit of such occasions, we cannot help observing that, whatever the words used in ritual utterance may signify, we often do not think very much about their signification during the course of the ritual.
Most of us, for example, have often re- peated the Lord's Prayer or sung "The Star-spangled Banner" without thinking about the words at all. As children we are taught to repeat such sets of words before we can under- stand them, and many of us continue to say them for the rest of our lives without bothering about their signification. Only the superficial, however, will dismiss these facts as "simply showing what fools human beings are.
We may come out of church, for example, with no clear memory of what the sermon was about, but with a sense nevertheless that the service has some- how "done us good. Such utterances rarely make sense to anyone not a member of the group. The abracadabra of a lodge meeting is absurd to anyone but a member of the lodge. When language becomes ritual, that is to say, its effect be- comes to a considerable extent independent of whatever sig- nifications the words once possessed.
They can even be performed without recog- nizable speech at all. Group feeling may be estabUshed, for example, among animals by collective barking or howling, and among human beings by college cheers, community sing- ing, and such collective noise-making activities. Indications of friendliness such as we give when we say "Good morning" or "Nice day, isn't it? But the use of verbal symbols is more customary among hu- man beings, so that instead of expressing our feelings by knocking a man down, we often verbally blast him to perdi- tion; instead of drowning our sorrows in drink, we perhaps write poems.
To understand the presymbolic elements that enter into our j everyday language is extremely important. We cannot restrict our speech to the giving and asking of factual information; we cannot confine ourselves strictly to statements that are literally true, or we should often be unable to say even "Pleased to meet you" when the occasion demanded.
The intellectually persnickety are always telling us that we "ought to say what we mean" and "mean what we say," and "talk only when we have something to talk about. Ignorance of the existence of these presymbolic uses of lan- guage is not so common among uneducated people who often perceive such things intuitively as it is among those "educated" people who, having a great contempt for the stupidity of others, have a correspondingly high opinion of their own perspicacity.
Such "enlightened" people listen to the chatter at teas and receptions and conclude from the triviality of the conversation that all the guests except them- selves are fools.
They may discover that people often come away from church services without any clear memory of the sermon and conclude that church-goers are either fools or hypocrites. They may hear the political oratory of the opposi- tion party, wonder "how anybody can believe such rot," and conclude therefrom that people in general are so unintelligent that it would be impossible for democracy to be made to work.
One further illustration may make this clearer. Let us sup- pose that we on the roadside struggling with a flat tire. In a similar many situations in life as well as in literature demand ;ivay, jthatwe pay no attention to what the words say, since the tneaning may often be a great deal more intelligent and intelligible than the surface sense of the words themselves.
It is probable that a great deal of our pessimism about the world, about humanity, and about democracy may be due in part to the fact that unconsciously we apply the standards of sym- bolic language to presymbolic utterances. This exer- cise is recommended only to those whose devotion to science and the experimental method is greater thao their desire to keep their friends.
Considering language from the point of view of the hearer, we can say that report language informs us and that pre- symbolic language affects us — that is, afFects our feelings. When language is affective, it has the character of a kind of force. A spoken insult, for example, provokes a return insult, just as a blow provokes a return blow; a loud and peremptory command compels, just as a push compels; talking and shout- ing are as much a display of energy as the pounding of the chest.
Another affective element in language is rhythm. Rhythm is the name we give to the effect produced by the repetition of auditory or kinesthetic stimuli at fairly regular intervals. From the primitive beat of the tomtom to the most subtle delicacies of civilized poetry and music, there is a continuous development and refinement of man's responsiveness to rhythm.
To produce rhythm is to arouse attention and inter- est; so aflfective is rhythm, indeed, that it catches our atten- tion even when we do not want our attention distracted.
Score: 4. Language in Thought and Action Author : S. This book tries to approach these traditional goals by the methods of modern semantics, that is, through an understanding in biological and functional terms of the role of language in human life, and through an understanding of the different uses of language: language to persuade and control behaviour, language to transmit information, language to create and express social cohesion, and the language of poetry and the imagination.
Hayakawa scrambling onto a sound truck parked in front of San Francisco State College amid campus unrest. Hayakawa had hoped to use this soapbox to address the assembled demonstrators, but instead he ended up ripping out speaker wires and halting an illegal campus demonstration?
She aims to dispel various myths about experts who proceed without anyunderstanding of what guides their action, and she analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control and explicit monitoring of one's movements impedes well practiced skills. Montero explores a wide range of real-life examples of optimal performance, in sports, the performing arts, healthcare, the military, and other fields, and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to offer a refreshing and persuasive view of expertise, according towhich expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective.
Wittgenstein and Davidson are two of the most influential and controversial figures of twentieth-century philosophy. However, whereas Wittgenstein is often regarded as a deflationary philosopher, Davidson is considered to be a theory builder and systematic philosopher par excellence. Consequently, little work has been devoted to comparing their philosophies with each other.
In this volume of new essays, leading scholars show that in fact there is much that the two share. By focusing on the similarities between Wittgenstein and Davidson, the essays present compelling defences of their views and develop more coherent and convincing approaches than either philosopher was able to propose on his own. They show how philosophically fruitful and constructive reflection on Wittgenstein and Davidson continues to be, and how relevant the writings of both philosophers are to current debates in philosophy of mind, language, and action.
This new volume on the model he created with Graham Hitch discusses the developments that have occurred within the model in the past twenty years, and places it within a broader context. Working memory is a temporary storage system that underpins our capacity for coherent thought. Some 30 years ago, Baddeley and Hitch proposed a way of thinking about working memory that has proved to be both valuable and influential in its application to practical problems. This book updates the theory, discussing both the evidence in its favour, and alternative approaches.
In addition, it discusses the implications of the model for understanding social and emotional behaviour, concluding with an attempt to place working memory in a broader biological and philosophical context. Inside are chapters on the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, the central executive and the episodic buffer.
There are also chapters on the relevance to working memory of studies of the recency effect, of work based on individual differences, and of neuroimaging research. The broader implications of the concept of working memory are discussed in the chapters on social psychology, anxiety, depression, consciousness and on the control of action. Finally, Baddeley discusses the relevance of a concept of working memory to the classic problems of consciousness and free will.
This new volume from one of the pioneers in memory research will doubtless emulate the success of its predecessor, and be a major publication within the psychological literature. This second volume in the series Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science brings a pragmatic perspective to the discussion of the unity of science.
Contemporary philosophy and cognitive science increasingly acknowledge the systematic interrelation of language, thought and action. The principal function of language is to enable speakers to communicate their intentions to others, to respond flexibly in a social context and to act cooperatively in the world. This book will contribute to our understanding of this dynamic process by clearly presenting and discussing the most important hypotheses, issues and theories in philosophical and logical study of language, thought and action.
Among the fundamental issues discussed are the rationality and freedom of agents, theoretical and practical reasoning, individual and collective attitudes and actions, the nature of cooperation and communication, the construction and conditions of adequacy of scientific theories, propositional contents and their truth conditions, illocutionary force, time, aspect and presupposition in meaning, speech acts within dialogue, the dialogical approach to logic and the structure of dialogues and other language games, as well as formal methods needed in logic or artificial intelligence to account for choice, paradoxes, uncertainty and imprecision.
This volume contains major contributions by leading logicians, analytic philosophers, linguists and computer scientists. It will be of interest to graduate students and researchers from philosophy, logic, linguistics, cognitive science and artificial intelligence. There is no comparable survey in the existing literature. The Eighth Edition of Contemporary Curriculum: In Thought and Action prepares readers to participate in the discussion of curriculum control and other matters important to K and university educators.
The text highlights major philosophies and principles, examines conflicting conceptions of curriculum, and provides the intellectual and technical tools educators and administrators need for constructing and implementing curriculum. This collection of original essays examines the controversy over and attacks on rationality in the methodologies of the humanities and the physical and social sciences. These essays represent the thinking of a wide variety of philosophers, psychologists, historians, classicists, and economists about the role of rationality in thought and action.
Reflecting the differing perspectives of their authors' disciplines, as well as the centrality of rationality to those disciplines, they are important additions to a debate that has been going on for some twenty years.
Beginning with an introductory essay in which K. Irani covers the various ways in which rationality can be approached, the body of the book is divided into five sections dealing with various aspects of the issue. Respectively, they are concerned with rationality as it relates to ethical and social thought and action; general scientific thought and the particular disciplines of economics, history, and law; the analytic and hermenutic approaches to communications and learning; and the contrasting classical traditions of ancient Greece and China.
In the final section, two differing theories concerning the nature of rationality itself are presented. A list of suggested further readings completes the volume. Models of human nature and causality; Observational learning; Enactivelearning; Social diffusion and innovation; Predictive knowledge and forethought; Incentive motivators; Vicarious motivators; Self-regulatory mechanisms; Self-efficacy; Cognitive regulators. Psychologists regard the relationship between attitudes and behavior as a key to understanding human behavior.
Here leading researchers discuss basic and applied issues relating to how human thought translates into action. The contributors focus on the theory of planned behavior, a model of attitude-behavior relations that takes into account not just attitudes, but also the influence of significant others around us, issues of personal agency, and motivation.
The book begins with an overview of the theory of planned behavior, from the initial impetus to better understand attitude-behavior relations, through the theory of reasoned action, to the theory of planned behavior.
Among the applied issues discussed in subsequent chapters are using the model to predict homeless persons' use of services, understanding the motivation underpinning suicide in an at-risk sample, and experimentally manipulating antecedents of risky driving behavior.
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