bookkeeping
Today (May 7) was Israel's 60th birthday! I'm sad to have missed it... but I'll be there for Israel's 60th Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Channukah, Tu Bishvat, Purim, ve'Pesach. (I am so excited.)
It's thundering out tonight - it reminds me of home.
You know, back when I was starting to read for my philosophy thesis, I promised to keep a reading log and asked if people were interested. Lots of people responded, but I never made it happen, partly because it was summer and I ended up doing almost all my work outside (which means no laptop). But I was thinking that the same people who wanted to read my notes last summer might be interested in reading my finished philosophy thesis. And maybe some people might want to read my ling thesis too. Anyway, I like publishing my papers on livejournal: they're the writing I work hardest on, and people always leave really thoughtful comments. But I don't want to fill up people's friends-pages with stuff.
So I'm going to post both of my theses under filters, probably in installments. If you'd like to be on the filter for the philosophy thesis, comment with the word philosophy; if you want to be on the filter for the linguistics thesis, comment with linguistics. Neither one entails a commitment to comment or even to read what I post.
Abstract for my philosophy thesis:Frames straddle the boundaries between active and passive modes of engagement, between theoretical and practical reasoning, and between belief and imagination. My thesis aims to articulate a conception of framing as a holistic, intentional and transformative norm-governed process, and above all, a process which makes it possible for us to exercise autonomy over the passive elements of our moral character. I argue that framing is governed by normative pressures of coherence, epistemic adequacy and strategy. None of the three normative pressures is expendable; rational framing is sustained by a balancing of the three norms. This view has broad ramifications for moral psychology and practical reasoning.
Abstract for my linguistics thesis:My paper explicates and engages the dispute between literalism and contextualism. Siding with the contextualists, I argue that the truth-conditions of an utterance are not independent of the intentions of the speaker who utters it. I draw from Grice’s theory of primary intentions and Stalnaker’s account of common belief and common ground to present four objections to the literalist picture of semantics. I conclude by sketching some possible revisions to the traditional conception of semantics, which follow from my contextualist position.
So that's what's going on with my brains. As for my heart - lately I'm pre-gaming my own nostalgia: walking around campus, thinking, "God, it's been so long! But being back here on this campus, I almost feel like it's the end of the spring semester of my senior year...." When I pass by people I don't know, I always think - look at them; the campus belongs to them now, but once it belonged to us.
All of my biggest projects are turned in now. I have three oral exams on the 22nd and one on the 23rd, and between now and then I have to write two final papers: a rant about Deaf rights for ASL, and an extension of this paper (I think) for Moral Philosophy. Tomorrow I'll be able to put my whole to-do-list on one hand.
It's thundering out tonight - it reminds me of home.
You know, back when I was starting to read for my philosophy thesis, I promised to keep a reading log and asked if people were interested. Lots of people responded, but I never made it happen, partly because it was summer and I ended up doing almost all my work outside (which means no laptop). But I was thinking that the same people who wanted to read my notes last summer might be interested in reading my finished philosophy thesis. And maybe some people might want to read my ling thesis too. Anyway, I like publishing my papers on livejournal: they're the writing I work hardest on, and people always leave really thoughtful comments. But I don't want to fill up people's friends-pages with stuff.
So I'm going to post both of my theses under filters, probably in installments. If you'd like to be on the filter for the philosophy thesis, comment with the word philosophy; if you want to be on the filter for the linguistics thesis, comment with linguistics. Neither one entails a commitment to comment or even to read what I post.
Abstract for my philosophy thesis:Frames straddle the boundaries between active and passive modes of engagement, between theoretical and practical reasoning, and between belief and imagination. My thesis aims to articulate a conception of framing as a holistic, intentional and transformative norm-governed process, and above all, a process which makes it possible for us to exercise autonomy over the passive elements of our moral character. I argue that framing is governed by normative pressures of coherence, epistemic adequacy and strategy. None of the three normative pressures is expendable; rational framing is sustained by a balancing of the three norms. This view has broad ramifications for moral psychology and practical reasoning.
Abstract for my linguistics thesis:My paper explicates and engages the dispute between literalism and contextualism. Siding with the contextualists, I argue that the truth-conditions of an utterance are not independent of the intentions of the speaker who utters it. I draw from Grice’s theory of primary intentions and Stalnaker’s account of common belief and common ground to present four objections to the literalist picture of semantics. I conclude by sketching some possible revisions to the traditional conception of semantics, which follow from my contextualist position.
So that's what's going on with my brains. As for my heart - lately I'm pre-gaming my own nostalgia: walking around campus, thinking, "God, it's been so long! But being back here on this campus, I almost feel like it's the end of the spring semester of my senior year...." When I pass by people I don't know, I always think - look at them; the campus belongs to them now, but once it belonged to us.
All of my biggest projects are turned in now. I have three oral exams on the 22nd and one on the 23rd, and between now and then I have to write two final papers: a rant about Deaf rights for ASL, and an extension of this paper (I think) for Moral Philosophy. Tomorrow I'll be able to put my whole to-do-list on one hand.