Traditional Truth Research Articles

And-parentheticals

Utterances containing detached and-conjncts seem to pose a difficulty for both traditional truth conditional accounts of the semantics of and and for recent pragmatic accounts. In this paper I analyze a range of constructed and actual examples and show that they can be accommodated in Blakemore and Carston's relevance theoretic account of the interpretation of and-utterances. I argue that while the interpretive differences between standard two-conjunct coordinated utterances and utterances containing parenthetical and-conjuncts can be explained in terms of the fact these conjuncts are detached from their hosts, the role played by and in the interpretation of utterances containing detached conjuncts is precisely the same as the role that it plays in standard sentential coordination. I also distinguish between two ways in which and-parentheticals may contribute to interpretation, and will suggest that this difference may be related to Bolinger's [Bolinger, Dwight D., 1989. Intonation and Its uses. Edward Arnold, London] characterization of the functional difference between compressed and expanded parentheticals.

Higher Education's Role in the Dialogue on Race

The university is a logical locus for discussionof the role race has played in our society. Perhaps noAmerican institution is more committed to free andopen dialogue than the university. Higher educationcan thus provide a context for the recognition ofissues as well as a forum for the resolution ofinitiatives. To date, however, university attempts atdiversity training have often imbued recipients withself-consciousness, usurping the unity implicit in theword `university' and evoking an even greater tendencytoward separatism. The university's traditional questfor truth has been subverted by a subtle and pervasivesense that some views are more correct than others,that openness is dangerous, and that some issues mighteven be taboo. At best, such an approach to diversityleads to a fragile stalemate among self-containedenclaves. By championing President Clinton's call fora dialogue on race, the university can restore itselfas an institution that puts honesty above all else.Not only is there a resonant rationale for theuniversity's central responsibility in this debate,but there is also a pedagogical means by which itsrole can be realized. This paper proposes a model forethnic dialogue relevant to either a text-based orissues-based class. Borrowing from pedagogy developedin professional schools, we believe that the tenets ofthe `case method' can create a climate conducive tothe substantive scrutiny of race, ethnicity, andprejudice in general. We argue that this dialogueshould not be a mere add-on to college life, butintegrated into existing curricula in the socialsciences, literature, and history. Heated debate canthen occur without anger, and race/ethnicity can bediscussed without fear of recrimination.Paradoxically, the very expression of ethnicity may bethe catalyst that eventually moves multiculturalismtoward interculturalism – where differences are nolonger articulated, measurable or even discernible.

En middelalderdronning og en tysk bunkersoldat. Om myte, sandhed og narrative substanser i museumsudstillinger

This article breaks with a traditional truth–lie dichotomy in an attempt to remove the phenomena of the myth from the lie. The authors relate parts of the postmodern discussion of the role of history and Ankersmit’s narrative substances to empirical material in the form of two recent exhibitions challenging myths – about a Danish medieval queen and a German Nazi soldier in a fortified bunker in Denmark, respectively. This unfolds perspectives about how museums add to myth as well as putting myths into perspective, which in turn points to the role of the museum as a place where narratives are constructed through selective processes every day. From an identity perspective, this shifts interest from a positivist-influenced approach to whether stories told by museums can be said to be true or false to a question of producing exhibitions to which visitors can relate and usefully discuss.

Dr. Coomaraswamy on Art

An age which applauds the specialist and the genius will not acknowledge the master. Applause, we might say, costs nothing whereas the master is there to enforce a responsibility. And if modern man pays with a handclap all the debt he acknowledges to genius, from the master he must submit to learn a truth.Dr. Coomaraswamy is a master in the philosophy of art, as his great pupil, Eric Gill, was a master in stone carving and letter cutting. As a master he embodies in his work the whole positive weight of traditional truth, and in acknowledging him we affirm the spiritual foundations of our civilization.If this were a tribute merely to the man, to the person, Ananda Coomaraswamy, it would be no more than flattery; but Dr. Coomaraswamy’s position is clearly indicated in an incisive answer to critics printed among the present collection of essays : ‘If I assert . . ., etc., ... I am not necessarily wrong merely because this position was “earlier” maintained by Plato and in the Bhagavad Gita . . . The sooner mv critics realise .... that I am not out to express any views, opinion or philosophy of my “ own,” the sooner will they find out what I am talking about.’ For if the principles he argues and explains are common to Europe and the East, to Aquinas and (implicitly) to all save the essentially commercial eras of human civilisation : to Maori portraiture and the Neolithic cave drawings no less than to Chartres : it is precisely because Dr. Coomaraswamy has not invented them. Neither is the basis of such agreement sought in any type of common-denominator doctrine, humanist or modernist.

Crime from a Psychiatrist's Point of View

Psychology is the last of the sciences to become useful. Formerly, under the influence of scholasticism, it was purely theoretical. Profomundly educated men, born with a metaphysical trend, who held themselves aloof from the study of natural history, as it was then called, and looked with some disdain on chemists and physicists, as rather inferior persons who wasted time studying matter, studied, by introspection, their own mental processes and excogitated hypotheses to explain thought. Many were unconsciously biased by the theological training they received at home, in school and at the universities; some, born conservatives, consciously believed it was their duty to fight for traditional truth against all comers; a few, born with the spirit of revolt, broke loose and tried to disprove, by reason, beliefs with which reason has no relation, but which can only be accepted or rejected by faith. The old, scholastic psychology has gone somewhat out of favor, because of new methods of study, partly resulting from, and partly causing, the changed attitude of men of science of today. The psychology of today has a wider field, and has welcomed aid from other sciences. The first step forward, or, at least, in breaking away from traditional methods of study, was in accepting the results of the study of cerebral physiology as throwing light on such questions as sensation, the special senses, speech and motion. The discovery that certain parts of the brain have special functions, caused a change in the psychologic point of view. A very vital and important step was combining the study of psychiatry with psychology, in the hope that each would illuminate the other. So far, the result has not been as fruitful as was hoped, but it was a tremendous step in advance to realize that a diseased mind is not a mind that has been acted on by some mysterious thing, but a machine out of order. The study of child psychology and the careful observation of the development and growth of the mind from infancy, through adolescence and up to maturity is bound to lead to improvements in methods of education, and may throw some light on processes of thought. For