In this response to Pinker and Jackendoff's critique, we extend our previous framework for discussion of language evolution, clarifying certain distinctions and elaborating on a number of points. In the first half of the paper, we reiterate that profitable research into the biology and evolution of language requires fractionation of "language" into component mechanisms and interfaces, a non-tri...

The study of heuristics and biases in judgement has been criticized in several publications by G. Gigerenzer, who argues that "biases are not biases" and "heuristics are meant to explain what does not exist" (1991, p. 102). The article responds to Gigerenzer's critique and shows that it misrepresents the authors' theoretical position and ignores critical evidence. Contrary to Gigerenzer's centr...

SITE MAP The art of boundary crossing Finally, spring is in the air. The winter has been unusually long and cold and April the usual flop. Now that May's here, we definitely want to see a different picture; more sun, more colors, more fun! Thank God, May makes everything new, or does it? Maybe it takes a little help from us. Why not take that "Spring is in the air" theme literally and see what ...

Carnahan and McFarland critique the situationist account of the Stanford prison experiment by arguing that understanding extreme action requires consideration of individual characteristics and the interaction between person and situation. Haslam and Reicher develop this argument in two ways. First, they reappraise historical and psychological evidence that supports the broader "banality of evil...

Paul Mattick's work still awaits a working-class movement which will find in it a historical understanding of a phase in capitalist history ("the mixed economy" of the postwar era) that will allow the working class to make sense of the newness and distinctiveness of its revolutionary aspirations. Paul Mattick realized that this movement may never come, that his message in a bottle may remain fo...

Contemporary science with its strong positivism tends to trivialize the nature of boundaries. Boundaries are supposedly real and our ability to recognize them as such is regarded as a straightforward exercise. This by-product is a direct result of science’s focus on the quantifiable and mathematizable (Goodwin, 2000). Given such a naïve belief in the (ontological) status of boundaries, it is ea...

comment étudier les textes romanesques français si nombreux depuis la formation définitive de la langue française au xviie siècle? c'est la question à laquelle les critiques ont essayé de répondre. pourtant, de la critique traditionnelle à celle moderne, le chercheur est confronté à une diversité vertigineuse qui ne cesse de croître. suite à la nouvelle critique rassemblant les jeunes critiques...

In his teleological antinomy in the Dialectic of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment, Kant presents two competing views of the explanatory power of causal mechanism for a science of origins. Kant expresses both the positive (thesis) view and the negative (antithesis) view in the guise of merely “regulative principles for the reflecting power of judgment”. The regulativity of thes...

In this paper we reflect on a project called 'Synthetic Aesthetics', which brought together synthetic biologists with artists and designers in paired exchanges. We - the STS researchers on the project - were quickly struck by the similarities between our objectives and those of the artists and designers. We shared interests in forging new collaborations with synthetic biologists, 'opening up' t...

This paper argues that Frith's (1992) account of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia in terms of a disruption of metarepresentational self-monitoring is inadequate in several specific ways. More generally, this paper argues against top-down explanations for the loss of the sense of agency in such symptoms. In addition, even if delusions of control might be explained by problems involved in m...