Simple Assertion Research Articles

John C. Calhoun's argumentation in defense of slavery

This article draws together Calhoun's scattered statements in defense of slavery, organizes them, and evaluates the reasoning used in developing them. The authors conclude that Calhoun was guilty of using enthymematic reasoning based on unsupported and unacceptable premises and inductive reasoning based on simple assertions, biased samples, or faulty analysis.

On the "Genesis of Modern Management"

recipient of the Newcomen Society Prize in 1967 for his Genesis of Modern Management (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), Sidney Pollard is without question deserving of the honor. His study represents a major contribution to the history of the British Industrial Revolution and therefore at the same time to industrial and economic history in general. It is a compendium of scholarly work that has been completed; it also draws heavily on unpublished materials. Hardly a name of prominence among the entrepreneurs of the English Industrial Revolution is omitted. As a summation of published work this book holds a position somewhat similar to the much shorter, excellent methodological essay of R. M. Hartwell, The Causes of the Industrial Revolution... (Economic History Review, 2d ser. 18 [1965], recently reprinted in a paperback, Causes of the Industrial Revolution in England [London, 1967]). To Pollard's and Hartwell's contribution should be added Phyllis Deane's First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, 1965) as the necessary preliminary work that any student of industrial revolutions must undertake today. These studies all concentrate on the phenomenon as it existed in England and tend to ignore the Continental experience, leading to the possible and unjustified, oversimplified conclusion that industrial progress outside of England did not exist or at best was a derivative of the English. While it is not to be denied that nowhere in Continental Europe did there occur such a broad, revolutionary change as that which took place in England, nevertheless advanced industrial plants and technology were to be found there and may possibly have had some effect on Britain. Pollard categorically asserts that the Continental experience was irrelevant for British organizational development in industry. And well it may have been-but a simple assertion even when only a repetition of what numerous other authors have said is still not conclusive proof. Merely recalling the great interest with which the British engineer, John

Affectual dynamics in simple sentences.

Original attitudes toward words predict attitudes resulting when words are combined into simple assertions. For example, attitudes toward father, kill, and uncle predict how one feels toward all three after assertion the father killed uncle. prediction equation involves terms for original subject attitude (S), original verb attitude (V), and interaction of V and object attitudes (Q). level of prediction is high, with original attitudes accounting for two-thirds of total variance in resultant attitudes. Activity connotations can be predicted in same way, except that a V X Q interaction term is unnecessary. Potency connotations also appear to be predictable, but obtained data do not permit firm generalizations. Recent research by Heider (1967) and Gollob (196S, 1968) has set attitude-balance theory in a linguistic framework, with attitude change being analyzed as a function of attitude combination in sentences. A basic innovation in approach is recognizing that verbs as well as nouns have attitudinal associations, and so a sentence like The Senator kissed baby is to be analyzed in terms of three attitudes rather than in terms of two attitude objects which are associated or dissociated. verb attitude enters into attitude dynamics both additively and through a multiplicative interaction with object. Gollob's research suggests that considering verb attitudes explicitly and quantitatively yields attitude-change predictions of high accuracy. present study builds on insights developed by Heider and Gollob, replicating some of their research and extending it in several directions. Since Gollob's study is more quantitative, it serves as more important guideline and comparison standard for analyses here. An effort is made to replicate Gollob's finding that attitude toward subject of a sentence can be predicted from attitudes associated with each word of sentence. However, in present study original word attitudes are measured directly rather than inferred as in 1 Computations on CDC 1604 computer were supported by National Science Foundation and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

The Verbal-Loop Hypothesis: Conventional Figures

A question of continuing practical and theoretical interest is the following: "What makes one stimulus simple, well-organized, easy to handle, while another stimulus is complex, poorly-organized, difficult to handle ?" The verbal-loop hypothesis answers this question by making a specific and simple assertion concerning the S's use of language and then by spelling out the implications of that assertion.' The answer differs markedly from the answers given by gestalt and information-theory approaches to perceptual organization.

The Relativity of ‘Meaning’

DR. W. ROSS ASHBY1 has made the interesting assertion that the meaning of a message carrying information depends on the context of the message. Thus, if someone sends A of two possible telegrams, A, “How we wish you were here” and B, “The weather is fine”, the meaning of the message is different from that of the same message chosen from three messages A, B and a third one, C, “Do come and join us”. This may well be true in a coding system as usable in mechanical information transfer, but it is not true of ordinary human assertions, messages and speech, except possibly in a few odd cases. If a radio message is sent, “The flowers are blooming”, and it is the expected message instructing a submarine commander to release a torpedo, it is arbitrary that this particular sentence was prearranged as the message. It could have been a bell sounding, or a man blowing his nose that was the message. If I wish to convey the information that the cat is on the mat, in English, it is not arbitrary what message I use. As the corollary of this, it would be absurd to say that one of the possible meanings of the English sentence, “The flowers are blooming”, is that it is an order to fire torpedos. It is similarly absurd to say, as Ashby does, that one of the possible meanings of “How we wish you were here” in English is “We wish to be cordial but do not require your company”. The meaning of a simple assertion does not change when the speaker is a liar.

XXI.—Flying-fish flight, and an unfixed law of nature

THE controversy amongst naturalists as to whether flying-fish do or do not flap their wings in flight has become so one-sided as almost to represent extinction as a controversy. It is desirable, if possible, to revive it a little, by carrying the argument into new ground: first, because the one side which is at present believed in would appear to be the wrong one; and, secondly, because it seems to have escaped the notice of the other that this is capable of proof. The arguments, if they may be so called, hitherto in use are simple assertion and denial, and may be summed up into:Flying-fish do fly, moving their wings with extreme rapidity. I have carefully and frequently watched them and there can be no doubt whatever about it. And the converse: Flying-fish do not flap their wings, but use them as aeroplanes, like swallows when in skimming or sailing flight. I have carefully and frequently watched them, and there can be no doubt whatever about it. Somewhat similar remarks will be heard in any ordinary group of ship's passengers watching the fish. Some will insist that they see the wings flapping, and some will aver that they are quite still.

Antedated Books

I AM ready to give the Editor of the Zoological Society's Transactions credit for desiring to set a good and not a bad example; but, since a man seldom thinks that which he does to be wrong, the simple assertion of his opinion that it is the former and not the latter is not enough. Whether the papers in those Transactions are antedated by one month (as he admits) or by several months is merely a matter of detail. The practice of antedating is equally faulty in principle. If their editor would add the correct date of publication on the covers of the several parts, as is done with the Proceedings of the Royal and the Journal of the Linnean Society, he might give whatever date he pleases anywhere else as that of his latest revision.