Showing papers on "Exemplification published in 1996"

Reason and rhetoric in the philosophy of Hobbes

Abstract: Quentin Skinner presents a fundamental reappraisal of the political theory of Hobbes. Using, for the first time, the full range of manuscript as well as printed sources, it documents an entirely new view of Hobbes's intellectual development, and re-examines the shift from a humanist to a scientific culture in European moral and political thought. By examining Hobbes's philosophy against the background of his humanist education, Professor Skinner rescues this most difficult and challenging of political philosophers from the intellectual isolation in which he is so often discussed. This book presents a splendid exemplification of the 'Cambridge' contextual approach to the study of intellectual history with which Professor Skinner himself is especially associated. It will be of interest and importance to a wide range of scholars in history, philosophy, politics, and literary theory. Professor Skinner has been awarded the Balzan Prize Life Time Achievement Award for Political Thought, History and Theory. Full details of this award can be found at http://www.balzan.it/News_eng.aspx?ID=2474.

Effects of Victim Exemplification in Television News on Viewer Perception of Social Issues

Abstract: Two broadcast news stories were manipulated to show victimization (food poisoning, handgun violence) in one of three versions: without victim exemplification, with exemplification by unemotional vi...

Effects of Exemplification in News Reports on the Perception of Social Issues.

Abstract: A news report on the plight of a minority of American family farmers was manipulated to create versions differing in the degree of precision of general information (precise, imprecise) and in the use of exemplifying case histories (selective, blended, representative). Selective exemplification featured only histories of failing farms, representative exemplification a distribution of histories of failing and successful farms proportional to their actual occurrence. Respondents reported their own views concerning the farmers' plight either shortly after reading or after a delay of one or two weeks. The accuracy of estimates of failing farms was found to be highest for representative and lowest for selective exemplification—despite the availability of corrective general information. These effects were stable over time.

Displays and Fragments Embodiment and the Configuration of Social Worlds

Abstract: This paper draws a distinction between the concepts of embodiment and the body. It focuses upon embodiment as a central condition of social life, through which individuals are able to symbolize their world. The physically bounded body is often seen as a matter relating either to individual experiences of corporeality, or to social evaluations and constraints concerning its scope of action. Embodiment, however, is fundamental to how people collectively and individually `take a stand' towards each other, and in so doing define or propose the worlds in which they meet. The paper explores this idea through an examination of display in social life, drawing upon the work of Goffman and of Geertz on expression, Simmel on style and Goodman on exemplification. It argues that display enables us to reconfigure possible `ways of life'. This involves us, as embodied beings, in entering into and transforming the present moment. This refiguring of everyday experience is achieved by virtue of our appearing as exemplars o...

Three hypothetical strategies in philosophical writing

Abstract: This paper qualitatively examines a small number of linked research articles in the field of the philosophy of mind and identifies discourse strategies involving the use of hypothetical constructs of three kinds: short narrative fictions, imaginary worlds differing from our own in one crucial respect and fictitious debates. I dub these respectively: tales, twin-Earth fantasies and imaginary conversations. For purposes of comparison, brief reference is also made to economics articles past and present and to classical philosophy. Two types of explanation are offered for the existence of these strategies: the first is of an overt functional communicative nature, involving such phenomena as facilitation of rigorous argument and clarification of difficult concepts by exemplification and analogy. The second is less obvious and is to do with the social interactions of practitioners within the field. The prevalence of humour and playfulness in these texts is superficially untypical of research genres in general, but, paradoxically, it can be adduced as evidence for the appropriateness of positing a sociology of science explanation in line with Myers' analyses of biological research papers

“Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” and Rationality

Abstract: While many researchers claim that the phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecy is a product of false definition of the situation, some argue that it is explained by the mechanism involving weak (subjective) rationality. Using Boolean analysis, this paper explores various mechanisms leading to the phenomenon.The results of the analysis show that weak rationality itself is not sufficient to explain the phenomenon ; actor's believing the prophecy is also important. Revising R. K. Merton's exemplification, we can describe consistently the phenomenon as social dilemma under the condition that actors receive a prophecy threatening their interests.

A influência da estratégia de familiarização lexical no processo de inferência de palavras-chave

Abstract: The biggest problem in the reading of texts in English, according to the students is their lack of vocabulary The aim of this paper is to study the strategy of lexical inference, based on contextual clues offered by an author of technical texts The research investigated six categories of lexical familiarization proposed by Bramki & Williams (1984): exemplification, explanation, definition, stipulation, synonym and illustration The subjects were 51 students of a technical course in Electronics and two texts were used in the research: one text about a subject already studied by the informants and another one about a supposed unknown subject, ie, not studied in the specific area The analysis of the results showed that the strategy of context is more used when the subjects do not have previous knowledge about the content of the text