Narrative Rationality and the Logic of Good Reasons

Narratives, or stories with a plot and characters who interact over time, are important parts to every tradition of communication. The ubiquity of narrative use among human societies has led communication and rhetorical theorists to posit that human reason is narrative in form and function. One of the best known accounts of human narrative reasoning is offered by Walter Fisher. Fisher's theory of narrative attempts to explain how narrative functions not only as a way of constructing messages, but also as a way that humans innately evaluate narrative appeals. His theory is important in that it attributes argumentative force to narratives. They can move us to new actions or beliefs, or solidify our existing actions or beliefs. Thus, Fisher's account of narrative rationality is thoroughly rhetorical in that it focuses on narratives as bearers of good reasons for action and/or belief. Criticisms and defenses of narrative rationality are discussed.

IT is trite law that good reasons must be given to justify infringements of fundamental rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, as incorporated into domestic law by the Human Rights Act 1998. But what reasons can one count as good reasons? In Re Brewster's Application [2017] UKSC 8; [2017] 1 W.L.R. 519, the United Kingdom Supreme Court addressed the question of how much deference courts should afford to post hoc rationalisations of decisions challenged for non-compliance with the Convention. The answer given by Lord Kerr, with whom Lady Hale, Lord Wilson, Lord Reed and Lord Dyson agreed, is interesting in its own terms and may have implications outside the confines of the Convention.

Let me begin by very warmly thanking the organizers of the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (spelt) International Congress for inviting me to speak here today. This occasion is indeed special1. We are celebrating two decades of the Society’s life during which it has distinguished itself by introducing innovations and improvements in language teaching and learning across the country. Indeed the theme of the present conference – Teaching Learning, Learning Teaching – sums up the Society’s quest well. So, special congratulations are in order on this special occasion. But this situation is somewhat problematic for me: I have come here planning to speak On the process of teaching, which seems something like bringing coals to Newcastle. I assure you I gave the matter serious thought – but I have decided to hang on to my title for one good reason – a reason that makes sense in the context of this special occasion.

This article extends the work of conceptual revision of the narrative paradigm in order to more directly and completely account for the inventional possibilities of new narratives, the rhetorical revision of old narratives, and the appeal and acceptance of improbable narrative accounts. It does so by reconceptualizing Burke's concept of identification in the narrative paradigm by expanding identification's critical range. Reconceptualizing identification in the narrative paradigm further expands narrative rationality beyond “the logic of good reasons,” provides a theoretical mechanism that accounts for and complements prior theoretical extensions advanced in revision of the narrative paradigm, and provides greater conceptual flexibility for the critical use of narrative in light of poststructuralism. Reconceptualizing the role of identification in the narrative paradigm enriches our understanding of how narratives foster beliefs, attitudes, and actions by accounting more fully for the range of the symbolic resources and processes of identification.

Family’s Social Capital: definition, measurement and subsidies (by Riccardo Prandini) - The first purpose of this essay is to explain why in the debate about Social capital, which spread across the social scientific community in the last two decades, the family as a social relationship had no real import. In the first part of the essay, Prandini finds the answer in what he calls the modernist theoretical bias, a set of sociological prejudices (operative in different theories: rational choice, functionalism, system theory, structuration theory, etc.) which considers the family relationship as a sort of organic relict of pre-modern societies, a constraint for social development and an obstacle for the full deployment of less bonding social relations. Prandini criticizes this way of thinking and, in the second part of the essay, tries to suggest a new way for defining, measuring and subsidizing the family social capital. The family’s social capital, now embedded in the relational approach, is defined as a property and a quality of social relationships and not as an attribute of individuals or social structures; it is not a mixture of the two either. It represents that reciprocal orientations of the family’s members which, through processes of social condensation, are able to generate trustworthiness and so to engender cooperative actions ad experiences. This special kind of Social capital must be differentiated in: 1) nuclear social capital, and 2) kinship social capital (the latter including relationships with non-co-resident relatives). Furthermore, the former (nuclear social capital) can be analytically examined, differentiating it in conjugal social capital, parental social capital and brotherly social capital. Only by distinguishing these different kinds of social capital is it possible to study their actual relationships. Studying the interplay between nuclear and kinship social capital also means that the sociologists has to include time in his concepts and analysis. Only in this way is it possible to observe the generations and degenerations, the morphogenesis and morphostasis of family social capital. The third part of the essay is dedicated to the operazionalizations and measurements of social capitals. The Author suggests that each operazionalization depends upon the research design, and that it is not useful to introduce only one way to do it. Moreover, there are good reasons for utilizing a certain kind of definitions and measurement in order to develop quantitative research, and various other good reasons when the sociologist carries out a qualitative research. Nowadays network analysis provides new methodologies and measurement systems that are particularly useful to develop in deep research about social capital. The Author concludes his essay calling for new ways of subsidizing the family social capital. He suggests that the modern social welfare system is currently not skilled enough to sustain the processes that generate social capital, and that it is time to shift to a new kind of welfare, one we may call societal and pluralistic.

This essay explores the assumptions underlying the role of values in rhetorical interactions, the meaning of “logic” in relation to “good reasons,” a reconceptualization of “good reasons,” implementation of a “logic of ‘good reasons’,” and the uses of hierarchies of values in assessing rhetorical reasoning.

(1968). A New Attribution for the Madonna Enthroned in the Thyssen Bornemisza Collection. The Art Bulletin: Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 354-356.

The Sino-French War of 1884-85 appears to have been forgotten by the French people, despite large quantities of veritable memoirs, archives, documents and researches resulting in an acceptable history of this war that have been done over the past 120 year. These efforts tend to fade away from the collective memory of the French people and are likely to disappear eventually. After all, only the past colonial Indochina has remained their main concern, whereas the Keelung and Tamsui Battles in Taiwan were but just some of the episodes in the nearly forgotten war. In China, by contrast, there is a bulk of published books, documents and researches concerning the Sino-French War. These accounts include several major historical events which provoked heated debates and are not yet clarified in the related literature. Futhermore, there are inconsistencies in the relevant evaluations. As time passes by, the story/history of the Sino-French War is still clouded in a complete fog of nationalism in China, as described by Hegel: ”People create history, but they don't understand the history created by them.” Taiwan was involved in this war of 1884-85 for no good reason but for the gage. The diplomatic failure or the disobedience of the generals, which led to the battles in Taiwan, showed the absurdity of this war. This paper first compares the battles in Keelung and Tamsui by popular pictorial newspapers available at that time in China and France, and further indicates the differences between the historical events and their collective memory/memories. Selected memory, motivational omission, fabrication and/or exaggeration might be one or more of the mechanisms for the distortion in collective memory. They tend to give simplified explanations and to obtain a self-satisfied image by exaggerating or embellishing the historical context. The research findings on the related literature have been published continuously, but these do not seem to have crucial effect on the people's collective memory of the period, particularly when their emotions and religious beliefs are involved. This makes clarifications in the historical events very difficult. All in all, objective research must seek truths from facts, and the public shouldn't be misled even by official records and writings.

Nicholas Wolterstorff has given us an illuminating account of the development and main claims of Reformed Epistemology. Reformed Epistemology, he has stressed, seeks to provide an account of the epistemological status of theistic belief, not an overall philosophy of religion. In the 1980s, its project was primarily negative aiming to overcome the evidentialist challenge, alleging that theistic belief is lacking in warrant or entitlement if it is not supported by good reasons. So this phase was brush-clearing, seeking to clear away evidentialist bramble. In the 1990s, its project has become more positive, aiming, we might say, to grow, in the place of the bramble, a garden of new epistemological insights about what gives theistic belief its various doxastic merits, and what makes it deeply relevant to the theoretical and interpretive disciplines.

‘There’s a good reason they are called al- Qaeda in Iraq. They are al- Qaeda . . . in . . . Iraq.’ The impossibility of a global counter- terrorism strategy, or the end of the nation state

Ten years ago I was a junior faculty member in a UK university, doing research into the theoretical foundations of multiagent systems. I enjoyed the research, but not the salary. The opportunity arose to work for a startup company at three times my university salary, and the company had already hired some excellent agent researchers that I knew, respected, and liked from conferences and workshops. The job seemed too good to be true; and of course, it was.

Geological Carbon Dioxide Sequestration requires a fundamental understanding of \nmodeling multiphase flows in fractured media. Subsurface flow is highly dependent \nupon the rock structure within the flow domain, with high permeability and \nfractured regions dominating the transport of the fluids. Discrete-fracture \nsimulators often assume the cubic law relationship for single phase flow through a \nsmooth set of parallel plates, and with good reason. The number of fractures that \nneed to be modeled at the reservoir scale may greatly exceed 10,000; and the \nrelationship between the pressure field and the fluid flow needs to be easily \ndescribable in order for the model to be computationally efficient. The work \ndescribed in this paper examines two-phase, immiscible flows through rough \nfractures. Computations are performed utilizing the full multiphase Navier-Stokes \nequations for flow through CT scanned fractures in Berea sandstone. A number of \ncomputer simulations are performed, and an empirical model is generated that is \nsimilar to the cubic law, yet accounts for the roughness of the fracture and the \ninteraction of the invading and defending fluids and the effect of capillary \nforces. The fracture roughness and capillary forces are shown to restrict the \nflow; hence the standard cubic law tends to over-estimate the flow rate of the \ninvading fluid.

Mobility does not happen without a good reason and therefore it is of the greatest importance that those persons interested in NICE mobility can anticipate that their expectations regarding the mobility experience will be met.

Despite interest in bioethics being arguably at its highest, the history, development, and tasks of this practice remain elusive to many medical practitioners. This ambiguity is not without good reason; unlike its clinical counterparts, bioethics is not exclusively a child of medicine. Rather, bioethics also belongs to theology, philosophy, sociology, and the law. Its intellectual assumptions are multi-disciplinary and wide-reaching, in contrast to those of medicine-neatly delineated and perfected by the scientific method. Indeed, bioethics is contemplative where medicine is active, inquisitive where medicine is decisive, and measured where medicine is efficient. Although at first glance, bioethics may not appear to share much with medicine, the discipline has become an essential conduit of moral medical practice. This manuscript gives an account of the history and development of contemporary bioethics in both the Islamic and Western world, its current state of affairs, its tasks, and its future. Ultimately, it is hoped that this work will demystify the practice of bioethics and elucidate the role of the bioethicist as a partner to the practitioner, an ally to the patient, and an advocate for the moral practice of medicine.

National Security Letters (NSLs) are administrative subpoenas that the FBI uses to demand information from Internet service providers without prior judicial approval. They almost always include nondisclosure orders, commonly called “gags,” which prohibit the recipient from discussing the letter’s contents or even its mere existence. Courts and commentators have expressed concern that these gags may be overbroad prior restraints that violate the First Amendment and shroud government surveillance in undue secrecy. On November 30, 2015, an NSL gag order was lifted in full for the first time after a federal district judge found no “good reason” to retain it. This Note considers the related rights of NSL targets. It argues that the FBI should provide notice of NSL investigations to targets and the public once government interests in secrecy abate. Specifically, once a nondisclosure order is lifted, thereby authorizing the recipient of the NSL to reveal any information about it that she desires, the government should disclose that same information. Enhancing transparency about government surveillance in this manner would not risk harm or cause undue administrative burden. It would harmonize with longstanding, closely related domestic criminal statutes. And it would advance core principles that underlie the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the First Amendment offers ready balancing tests that can easily and reasonably be applied to guide government notice practices. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15779/Z38DK0M © 2016 Rebecca Wexler. † Rebecca Wexler is a member of the Yale Law School J.D. Class of 2016 and a Fellow of the Information Society Project. This Note received the 2015 Judge William E. Miller Prize for best paper concerning the Bill of Rights at Yale Law School. It also won first place in the 2015 Berkeley Technology Law Journal student writing competition. The author is deeply grateful to Akhil Reed Amar for his inspiration and generous guidance. Orin Kerr, Jonathan Manes, Peter Swire, and Lee Tien provided thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. Jack Balkin, Philip Bobbitt, Cindy Cohn, Mark M. Jaycox, Daniel Solove, and Patrick Toomey offered helpful feedback over email and conversations, as did Jane Ostrager and Bradley Silverman. The author especially thanks Waqas Akmal, Erica Fisher, and the editors of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal for their support and excellent editorial suggestions. 326 BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 31:1