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In this Element, the author set out to answer a twofold question concerning the importance of music to Wittgenstein's philosophical progression and the otherness of this sort of philosophical importance vis-à-vis philosophy of music as practiced today in the analytic tradition. The author starts with the idea of making music together and with Wittgenstein's master simile of language-as-music. The author traces these themes as they play out in Wittgenstein early, middle, and later periods. The author argues that Wittgenstein's overarching reorientation of the concept of depth pertaining to music in the aftermath of his anthropological turn, and against the backdrop of the outlook of German Romanticism, culminates in his unique view of musical profundity as 'knowledge of people.' This sets Wittgenstein's view in sharp contrast with certain convictions and debates that typify current analytically inclined philosophy of music.
The evolution of language has developed into a large research field. Two questions are particularly relevant for this strand of research: firstly, how did the human capacity for language emerge? And secondly, which processes of cultural evolution are involved both in the evolution of human language from non-linguistic communication and in the continued evolution of human languages? Much research on language evolution that addresses these two questions is highly compatible with the usage-based approach to language pursued in cognitive linguistics. Focusing on key topics such as comparing human language and animal communication, experimental approaches to language evolution, and evolutionary dynamics in language, this Element gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of language evolution research and discusses how cognitive linguistics and research on the evolution of language can cross-fertilise each other. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Interacting biological systems at all organizational levels display emergent behavior. Modeling these systems is made challenging by the number and variety of biological components and interactions – from molecules in gene regulatory networks to species in ecological networks – and the often-incomplete state of system knowledge, such as the unknown values of kinetic parameters for biochemical reactions. Boolean networks have emerged as a powerful tool for modeling these systems. This Element provides a methodological overview of Boolean network models of biological systems. After a brief introduction, the authors describe the process of building, analyzing, and validating a Boolean model. They then present the use of the model to make predictions about the system's response to perturbations and about how to control its behavior. The Element emphasizes the interplay between structural and dynamical properties of Boolean networks and illustrates them in three case studies from disparate levels of biological organization.
Spoken language is a rapidly unfolding signal: a complex code that the listener must crack to understand what is being said. From the structures of the inner ear through to higher-order areas of the brain, a hierarchy of interlinked processes transforms the acoustic signal into a linguistic message within fractions of a second. This Element outlines how we perceive speech and explores what the auditory system needs to achieve to make this possible. It traces a path through the system and discusses the mechanisms that enable us to perceive speech as a coherent sequence of words. This is combined with a brief history of research into language and the brain beginning in the nineteenth century, as well as an overview of the state-of-the-art neuroimaging and analysis techniques that are used to investigate phonetics in the brain today. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element explores the history of urban planning, city building, and city life in the socialist world. It follows the global trajectories of architects, planners, and ideas about socialist urbanism developed during the twentieth century, while also highlighting features of everyday life in socialist cities. The Element opens with a section on the socialist city as it took shape first in the Soviet Union. Subsequent sections take a comparative and transnational approach to the history of socialist urbanism, tracing socialist city development in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The Black Hebrew Israelite movement claims that African Americans are descendants of the Ancient Israelites and has slowly become a significant force in African American religion. This Element provides a general overview of the BHI movement, its diverse history/ies, ideologies, and practices. The Element shows how different factions and trends have taken the forefront at different periods over its 140-year history, leading to the current situation where diverse iterations of the movement exist alongside each other, sharing some core concepts while differing widely. In particular, the questions of how and why BHI has become a potent and attractive movement in recent years are addressed, arguing that it fulfils a specific religious need to do with identity and teleology, and represents a new and persistent form of Abrahamic religion.
This Element looks at the contemporary debate on the nature of mathematical rigour and informal proofs as found in mathematical practice. The central argument is for rigour pluralism: that multiple different models of informal proof are good at accounting for different features and functions of the concept of rigour. To illustrate this pluralism, the Element surveys some of the main options in the literature: the 'standard view' that rigour is just formal, logical rigour; the models of proofs as arguments and dialogues; the recipe model of proofs as guiding actions and activities; and the idea of mathematical rigour as an intellectual virtue. The strengths and weaknesses of each are assessed, thereby providing an accessible and empirically-informed introduction to the key issues and ideas found in the current discussion.
Responding to Russell is a constant throughout Wittgenstein's philosophizing. This Element focuses on Wittgenstein's criticisms of Russell's theories of judgment in the summer of 1913. Wittgenstein's response to these criticisms is of first-rate importance for his early philosophical development, setting the path to the conceptions of proposition and of logic in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. This Element also touches on further aspects of Wittgenstein's responses to Russell: the rejection of Russell's and Frege's logicisms in the Tractatus, the critique of Russell's causal-behavioristic philosophy of mind in Wittgenstein's 'middle' period, the Russellian origins of notions of privacy dialectically treated in Philosophical Investigations, and the discussion of 'surveyability' of mathematical proof in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, which is, again, a response to Russellian logicism.
The visual world is full of detail. This Element focuses on this variability in perception, asking how it affects performance in visual tasks and how the variability is represented by human observers. The authors highlight different methods for assessing representations of variability and suggest that understanding visual variability can be elusive when straightforward explicit methods are used, while more implicit methods may be better suited to uncovering such processing. The authors conclude that variability is represented in far more detail than previously thought and that this aspect of perception is vital for understanding the complexity of visual consciousness.
The last decade has seen a proliferation of research bolstering the theoretical and methodological rigor of the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), one of the most prolific theories of agenda-setting and policy change. This Element sets out to address some of the most prominent criticisms of the theory, including the lack of empirical research and the inconsistent operationalization of key concepts, by developing the first comprehensive guide for conducting MSF research. It begins by introducing the MSF, including key theoretical constructs and hypotheses. It then presents the most important theoretical extensions of the framework and articulates a series of best practices for operationalizing, measuring, and analyzing MSF concepts. It closes by exploring existing gaps in MSF research and articulating fruitful areas of future research.
Possible worlds have revolutionised philosophy and some related fields. But, in recent years, tools based on possible worlds have been found to be limited in many respects. Impossible worlds have been introduced to overcome these limitations. This Element aims to raise and answer the neglected question of what is characteristically impossible about impossible worlds. The Element sheds new light on the nature of impossible worlds. It also aims to analyse the main features and utility of impossible worlds and examine how impossible worlds can capture distinctions which are unavailable if we limit ourselves to possible world-based tools.
How did early moderns experience sense and space? How did the expanding cultural, political, and social horizons of the period emerge out of those experiences and further shape them This Element takes an approach that is both global expansive and locally rooted by focusing on four cities as key examples: Florence, Amsterdam, Boston, and Manila. They relate to distinct parts of European cultural and colonialist experience from north to south, republican to monarchical, Catholic to Protestant. Without attempting a comprehensive treatment, the Element aims to convey the range of distinct experiences of space and sense as these varied by age, gender, race, and class. Readers see how sensory and spatial experiences emerged through religious cultures which were themselves shaped by temporal rhythms, and how sound and movement expressed gathering economic and political forces in an emerging global order. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Covering vast swathes of Europe, the Bell Beaker Phenomenon has enjoyed a privileged status in the history of archaeology and is often referred to as a key period in the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age partly due to the emergence of social élites. After a brief presentation of the historiography of the Bell Beaker phenomenon, this Element offers a synthetic account of the available evidence structured on a regional basis. Following the renewed interest in human mobility generated by stable isotopes and ancient DNA studies, the central thesis developed here is that the Bell Beaker Phenomenon can adequately be described as a metapopulation, a concept borrowed from population ecology. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Foreign ministers are prominent actors in foreign affairs, often second only to heads of government in their influence. Yet, despite the growing awareness of the importance of key actors, and their backgrounds, in the study of international relations, foreign ministers remain understudied. In this Element, we make an important empirical contribution by presenting an original dataset on the personal and professional background of foreign ministers, spanning thirteen countries and more than 200 years. We use these data to answer three questions: who are the foreign ministers, why are foreign ministers with particular features appointed, and why do some foreign ministers have longer tenure than others? We find that foreign ministers tend to be men of politics who are appointed both on the basis of their affinity to, and to complement the experiences of, the head of government. We also find that foreign ministers stay longer in office when they perform well or are expected to do so, but that they are more likely to lose their posts when conditions make heads of government more prone to 'pin blame' on them to deflect criticism from foreign policy failures.
Neurolaw is an area of interdisciplinary research on the meaning and implications of neuroscience for the law and legal practices. This Element addresses the potential contributions of neuroscience, and the brain sciences more generally, to criminal justice decision-making and policy. It distinguishes between three different areas and domains of investigation in neurolaw: assessment, intervention, and revision. The first concerns brain-based assessments, which may be used for predicting future violence, lie detection, judging legal insanity, and the like. The second concerns potential treatments and other interventions that aim at rehabilitating criminals and/or preventing crime before it occurs. The third investigates the ways that neuroscience may impact the law by changing or revising commonsense views about human nature and the causes of human action.
Statistical process control methodology was developed by Walter Shewhart in the 1920s as part of his work on quality control in industry. Shewhart observed that quality is about hitting target specifications with minimum variation. While every process is subject to variation, that variation can arise from 'common cause' variation, inherent in the process, or 'special cause' variation which operates from outside of that process. This distinction is crucial because the remedial actions are fundamentally different. Reducing common cause variation requires action to change the process; special cause variation can only be addressed if the external cause is identified. Statistical process control methodology seeks to distinguish between the two causes of variation to guide improvement efforts. Using case studies, this Element shows that statistical process control methodology is widely used in healthcare because it offers an intuitive, practical, and robust approach to supporting efforts to monitor and improve healthcare. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This Element argues for the importance of extended reality as an innovative force that changes the understanding of theatre and Shakespeare. It shows how the inclusion of augmented and virtual realities in performance can reconfigure the senses of the experiencers, enabling them to engage with technology actively. Such engagements can, in turn, result in new forms of presence, embodiment, eventfulness, and interaction. In drawing on Shakespeare's dramas as source material, this Element recognises the growing practice of staging them in an extended reality mode, and their potential to advance the development of extended reality. Given Shakespeare's emphasis on metatheatre, his works can inspire the layering of environments and the experiences of transition between the environments both features that distinguish extended reality. The author's examination of selected works in this Element unveils creative convergences between Shakespeare's dramaturgy and digital technology.
This Element examines the role of mobile banking in accessing public services in Bangladesh. It also identifies the key influencing factors and challenges in accessing public services through mobile banking and suggests policy measures to overcome these challenges. Based on a survey of 300 people, the study finds that mobile banking facilitates access to public services, which is beneficial and effective for both rural and urban users, as technology can increase the quality of work. Despite the benefits, some individuals are reluctant to use the service due to high transaction costs and a lack of digital literacy.
Dimensional quantities such as length, mass and charge, i.e., numbers combined with a conventional unit, are essential components of theories in the sciences, especially physics, chemistry and biology. Do they represent a world with absolute physical magnitudes, or are they merely magnitude ratios in disguise? Would we notice a difference if all the distances or charges in the world suddenly doubled? These central questions of this Element are illustrated by imagining how one would convey the meaning of a kilogram to aliens if one were only allowed to communicate via Morse code.
Theatre is the most ephemeral of art forms. It is a truism that the ephemeral performance text is divorced from the static published play text. This Element is of the eighteenth-century performance history of The Fair Penitent demonstrates the interrelation of print and performance and models how readers can recover elements of performance through close attention to text. Traces of performance adhere to the mediascape in playbills and puffs, reviews and accounts. The printed text also preserves traces of performance in notation and illustration. By analysing traces found in performance trends, casting decisions, publication histories and repertory intertexts, this Element recovers how The Fair Penitent was interpreted at different points in the century and explains how a play that bombed in its first season could become a repertory staple.