Interpretation Of Arguments Research Articles

On the structure of the liquid state of triglycerides

Neutron diffraction data on trilaurin were recently presented by Cebulaet al. [Cebula, D.J., D.J. McClements, M.J.W. Povey and P.R. Smith,J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc. 69:130 (1992)] with an interpretation of a liquid structure related to the nematic state of liquid crystals. Arguments for an alternative interpretation, consistent with curved stacks of bilayer units proposed earlier, are presented in this paper, based mainly on the analogy in diffraction behavior with polar lipid liquids/L2‐phases.

British Industry in the 1980's

British industry has had a turbulent decade, and it is hard to assess how far it has come over the 1980's. The BBC's Money Programme wanted to enlighten public debate on the subject, and commissioned London Business School researchers to furnish them with as much data as possible. This article catalogues the data and summarises many arguments of interpretation around it.

The Problem of Political Order in Early Republican Spanish America

The persistent instability and disorder of Spanish American polities in the post-Independence period was undoubtedly one of the most perplexing concerns of Spanish American elites in the nineteenth century. It has remained a subject of interpretive debate by twentieth-century students of the area. The following article sketches several general approaches to the problem among twentieth-century interpreters, compares contemporary nineteenth-century analyses with the salient twentieth-century interpretations, and offers a critical commentary on the various sorts of twentieth-century analytical frameworks.The three salient twentieth-century interpretations of political disorder in the nineteenth century are: (1) those that emphasise deeply embedded characteristics of Spanish American culture as underlying causes of political instability; (2) those that attribute political disorder to structural problems, particularly to weaknesses in the economic structure or shifts in the social structure; (3) those that see political instability as a reflection of conflicting ideologies, economic interests, and/or the aspirations or fears of identifiable social groups.The distinctive feature of cultural interpretations of Latin American politics is their common belief that cultural characteristics are indelible and more-or-less unchangeable. And, since such cultural interpretations emphasise what might be considered ‘negative’ aspects of Spanish or Spanish American culture in order to explain defects in Spanish American politics, their assumption that cultures do not change over time tends to imbue such interpretations with a certain pessimism about the future of Spanish American politics.An early twentieth-century exponent of cultural approaches to understanding Spanish-American political disorder was Francisco García Calderón, who, thinking particularly of the phenomenon of caudillismo, emphasised Spanish authoritarian individualism.

How to Analyze the American State: [Rejoinder

I am fortunate to have the opportunity to respond to these three challenging critiques.' I think it would be helpful to begin by describing more fully how the kind of constitutional theory presented in my article differs from much of contemporary constitutional theory, at least the theory that is done by academic lawyers. This will make it easier to show how my approach to constitutional theory differs from Tulis's, and will serve to answer some of his and Forbath's objections. Ronald Dworkin has argued persuasively that the kind of legal argument typically employed by lawyers and judges is not descriptive or evaluative, but a combination of both he calls interpretive.2 Legal arguments do not sharply distinguish between reports of the existing law and appeals to change the law. This sort of argument is common enough in constitutional law. Scholars often argue that the Constitution and Supreme Court precedents have created certain rights not yet recognized by the Court. While there may be good reasons to use interpretive arguments in the legal system, the effect of such arguments in the world of scholarship is deadly. The combination of description and evaluation inherent to such arguments produces two deleterious effects. On the one hand, scholars

The End of Mass Culture

The 1980s?the era of Reagan and Thatcher?produced a renaissance in the study of popular or mass in the universities of the United States and United Kingdom. Though this discovery by intellectuals of the culture of the people was by no means unprecedented (indeed, a key text in the recent renaissance ? Peter Burke's Popular in Early Modern Europe [1978] ?opened with an account of the first modern discovery of popular culture), it stood both as a symptom of our political and cultural situation and as a distinctively new inter pretation of the terrain called variously popular, mass, commercial, or vernacular culture. This interpretation began from an impasse, a sense of an intractable antinomy in cultural criticism. Choosing one's term?mass or popular culture?was choosing a side. In the United Kingdom, the opposition was coded as one between structuralism and culturalism1; in the United States, between the Frankfurt critique of the industry and populism.2 The attempt to transcend these oppositions dominated theoretical, historical, and interpretative arguments. Perhaps the most influential formulations were two essays of 1979?Fredric Jameson's Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture and Stuart Hall's Notes on deconstructing 'the popular'.3 Their central arguments ? that mass cultural artifacts are at one and same time ideological and Utopian, and that popular is neither simply a form of social control nor a form of class expression, but a contested terrain ?are by now commonplace, the opening moves in many recent discussions of popular culture.4 The fixed poles of the late 1970s have lost their magnetic force; few left cultural critics or historians are driven to denounce or celebrate mass culture. No longer are considerations of popular merely occasions for jeremiads on cultural degeneration or for self-conscious cultural slumming. Rather the study of popular culture?understood as that contested terrain structured by the industries, the state cultural apparatuses, and the symbolic forms and practices of the subaltern classes?has become the center of cultural studies generally. In this essay I want to consider the consequences of this shift. Is it simply the establishing of a new academic paradigm, a way of producing new research on formerly despised materials? Does it retain any connection to a wider critique of culture, let alone to a project of cultural reconstruction? Or is it, as skeptics and cynics put it, a way for left academics to find resistance and subversive moments in Dallas and Dynastyl5 What is the relation of this rethinking of mass to

Treaty Interpretation: A Comment

The key question in the treaty interpretation debate is: what standards are correct for judging whether the President is bound to an interpretation of a treaty under domestic law because of the manner in which the treaty was presented to the Senate? Professor Koplow's analysis of the treaty interpretation issue is more accurate than that of most of the prior critics of the Reagan Administration's views on this subject. Like so many of the Administration's critics, however, Professor Koplow misstates my position and that of the Administration on some issues, particularly on the straw man called the Sofaer doctrine. The alleged Sofaer doctrine is no more than a polemical device, utilized in a political controversy, and has never had any basis in fact. I realize that disputes between the political branches will not always be fought by Roberts' Rules. I take responsibility, in fact, for any misunderstandings that might have existed on the part of certain Senators. But I cannot accept Professor Koplow's reliance on the Sofaer Doctrine, as he purports to present a scholar's account. He should have limited his criticisms to those areas in which we truly hold different positions, rather than exploiting a politically generated mischaracterization of my position.1 It is, however, apparent that Professor Koplow has conceded

Descartes' Proof of the Existence of Matter

The primary purpose of this paper will be to offer an interpretation of Descartes' proof of the existence of matter as found in Meditation VI-an interpretation that is, I believe, the only one consistent with the relevant texts. The one guiding principle I use in offering this interpretation is the principle of charity, that is, when one interprets any philosopher's argument, an unsound argument should not be accepted as his unless there is no alternative interpretive argument that is both sound and consistent with the relevant texts of that philosopher. ' A secondary goal of this paper is to raise and discuss briefly some questions that I believe must be raised if the interpretation of Descartes' proof offered in this paper is correct. These questions have to do with the status of proof and of clear and distinct ideas in Descartes' metaphysics. The answers to these questions are beyond the scope of the present paper, yet they are raised here in order to suggest some of the more important ramifications that the present interpretation of Descartes' proof has for Cartesian philosophy. The central question of the proof of the existence of matter is, 'What causes the ideas of sense which I experience?' After Descartes rejects the possibility that the self is the unknown cause, and after he poses the three possibilities of a body, God, or an angel as the cause, Descartes continues his proof as follows:

Max Weber on Churches and Sects in North America: An Alternative Path toward Rationalization

following essay by Max Weber, Churches and Sects in North America, appears here in English for first time, which is curious given manifest relevance of its subject matter. reason for this oversight would seem to be existence of later, revised versions of essay, especially The Protestant Sects and Spirit of Capitalism.' latter, regarded in words of one leading interpreter as the attempt to give a more comprehensive scope to his empirical observations [from Churches and Sects] and to give them a scientific underpinning,2 was among first of Weber's essays to be translated.3 implication seems to be that later version is more comprehensive and sophisticated, hence that original is superfluous. We disagree, believing that original is remarkable in a number of ways, and even, in certain important respects, far superior.4 First, essay sheds new light on Weber's intellectual biography and contours of his scientific development. Second, it has significant implications for interpretive debates which rage around Weber corpus. Finally, it retains contemporary empirical and theoretical significance in its own right. Its implications for a range of different specialities are striking indeed.s

Law as Interpretation

Law as Interpretation

Understanding judicial discretion

The main aim of this paper is to clarify the dispute over judicial discretion by distinguishing the different senses in which claims about judicial discretion can be understood and by examining the arguments for these various interpretations. Three different levels of dispute need to be recognized. The first concerns whether judges actually do exercise discretion, the second involves whether judges are entitled to exercise discretion, and the third is about the proper institutional role of judges. In this context, the views of Dworkin, Raz, Perry, Greenawalt, and Sartorius are examined. Finally, it is suggested that a resolution of the judicial discretion controversy requires a satisfactory theory of the justification of judicial decisions.

Aspects of the geology of the Skellefte field, northern Sweden

Abstract Promoted by the existence of economic sulphide deposits, much interest through the years has been focused on the geology of the Skellefte field and consequently several hypotheses on the geological evolution of the area have been proposed. This paper summarizes results gained through the work of the Geological Survey of Sweden in the area during the last decade. The importance of the depositional environment for volcanics and sediments is stressed, the latter having been laid down at or close to the boundary between a continental domain to the north and a marine domain to the south. Certain arguments for a plate tectonic interpretation of the observed conditions are presented.

Apollo in Sophokles’ Elektra

Sophokles’ Elektra has been the subject of considerable interpretative debate this century. Is it a tragedy that ends on a note of clear and unequivocal triumph for the two children engaged in avenging their father and recovering their rightful heritage? Or are we to detect a much more ambivalent attitude to the matricide and to perceive a thread of darkness and ruin running through the play as we see the disintegration of Elektra as a person? The divine element is an important aspect of every one of Sophokles’ extant plays; and for Elektra that means Apollo above all. Other gods are invoked in prayers or alluded to occasionally — especially Zeus at 1095-7 — but Apollo is the deity most frequently in our minds throughout this drama.

Observational assessment systems use for basic and applied research

Three observational assessment systems, the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist, the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph, and the Clinical Frequencies Recording System, are shown to have remarkable utility for a wide range of basic and applied research questions. The assessment systems have already been employed to measure independent and dependent variables in a number of treatment outcome and staff training studies and as measures in more basic studies of environmental history effects for chronic mental patients. Current and planned investigations employing the observational measures are outlined. These include psychometric studies of the instruments themselves, investigations of various parameters of ongoing treatment programs, and empirical validations of proposed nosological diagnostic schemas. Finally, several metamethodological issues germaine to observational assessment, in general, are noted, including the observation vs. interpretation debate and the role of precise observational measurement in applied research contexts.

The syncarpous gynoecium

Abstract Recent proposals to extend the concept of the acarpellary gynoecium to most syncarpous ovaries are examined. It is concluded that the morphogenesis of these ovaries is compatible with the classical interpretation of fused carpels, and that the arguments for the alternative interpretation of them as acarpellary structures are inconclusive.

The Irony of Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea: Its Form and Function

AbstractPart of Goethe’s intention in Hermann und Dorothea is to awaken in the reader a disturbing sense of discrepancy between form and content. Systematic, statistically controlled analysis of the poem’s meter, along with a treatment of specific Homeric allusions in the text, leads to this conclusion, also supported by less rigorous but no less valid interpretive arguments. This discrepancy, moreover, is left unresolved, creating a feeling of pervasive irony, but not in the sense of satire or mockery. The reader is encouraged to adopt a superior critical perspective toward the bourgeois values in the poem, but, in that this perspective itself becomes an object of irony, he is also invited to affirm such values. Although this contradiction, like the tension between form and content, is never resolved, it can be understood as expressing an idea of the historical need for bourgeois stability, however banal, in the period depicted.

Gothic ai and au Again

The purpose of the present brief note is twofold: to correct in certain respects the analysis outlined in my recent note in MLN 71.265-9 (1956),1 while taking account of the relative spate, of late, of published views on this subject; and to carry the analysis a bit farther. 1. Sehrt, in Festgabe fur Theodor Frings 1-11 (1956), has recently argued the old interpretation, which may be summarized as follows (3): 'Dass also die Zeichen ai, au zwei Lautwerte haben, wird wohl kaum zu bestreiten sein.' I see nothing especially fresh in his arguments for a dual interpretation. His reasoning is based entirely on etymological or morphophonemic considerations or on explicit inattention to dialect provenience. Penzl long ago disposed of such arguments, in JEGP 49.228-30 (1950). The main problem outstanding for Sehrt seems to be the decision between a diphthongal or monophthongal, long or short interpretation of supposed older long diphthongs. Again, Sehrt's arguments are all etymological and morphophonemic. Moreover, his solution is a variation on an old theme; for a handy reference to earlier notions on a 'Hiatusgesetz', see Penzl 227 fn. 41. It should be noted that Penzl subscribed to a dual phonemic value, long and short /E/ and /b/.2 This is of course the same as Moss6's view of 1942. While I explicitly declined (265) either to affirm or deny this position, I implicitly chose a unitary SHORT interpretation /e o/ for ai au as the simplest expression of all the observed facts. A further implication of the above, which was not at issue in my earlier note, is that I conceived /e o/ (ai au) to contrast with long /e: o :/ (graphic e o). More recently, Marchand in his review of Moss6's second edition in Lg. 33.236 (1957), has advanced the view that if we accept Wulfila's orthography as being essentially phonemic and if we interpret the digraphs ai and au as being simple monophthongs, there is no room for any long-vowel interpretations at all. One can only applaud the rigor of Marchand's reasoning; on reflection, it seems hard to understand how so many people-for views have been converging on the monophthongal interpretation from a multitude3 of viewpoints-could have missed

Physik und realität

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner.