1.
Aristotle
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Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidice, on the northern periphery of Classical Greece. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, at seventeen or eighteen years of age, he joined Platos Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty-seven. Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, teaching Alexander the Great gave Aristotle many opportunities and an abundance of supplies. He established a library in the Lyceum which aided in the production of many of his hundreds of books and he believed all peoples concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. Aristotles views on natural sciences represent the groundwork underlying many of his works, Aristotles views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages into the Renaissance, some of Aristotles zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as The First Teacher and his ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotles philosophy continue to be the object of academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues – Cicero described his style as a river of gold – it is thought that only around a third of his original output has survived. Aristotle, whose means the best purpose, was born in 384 BC in Stagira, Chalcidice. His father Nicomachus was the physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Aristotle was orphaned at a young age, although there is little information on Aristotles childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy. At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Platos Academy and he remained there for nearly twenty years before leaving Athens in 348/47 BC. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor, there, he traveled with Theophrastus to the island of Lesbos, where together they researched the botany and zoology of the island. Aristotle married Pythias, either Hermiass adoptive daughter or niece and she bore him a daughter, whom they also named Pythias. Soon after Hermias death, Aristotle was invited by Philip II of Macedon to become the tutor to his son Alexander in 343 BC, Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. During that time he gave not only to Alexander
2.
Prior Analytics
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The Prior Analytics is Aristotles work on deductive reasoning, which is known as his syllogistic. Being one of the six extant Aristotelian writings on logic and scientific method, modern work on Aristotles logic builds on the tradition started in 1951 with the establishment by Jan Lukasiewicz of a revolutionary paradigm. The term analytics comes from the Greek words ἀναλυτός and ἀναλύω, however, in Aristotles corpus, there are distinguishable differences in the meaning of ἀναλύω and its cognates. There is also the possibility that Aristotle may have borrowed his use of the analysis from his teacher Plato. Therefore, Analysis is the process of finding the reasoned facts, Aristotles Prior Analytics represents the first time in history when Logic is scientifically investigated. On those grounds alone, Aristotle could be considered the Father of Logic for as he says in Sophistical Refutations. When it comes to this subject, it is not the case that part had been worked out before in advance and part had not, instead, some scholars prefer to use the word deduction instead as the meaning given by Aristotle to the Greek word συλλογισμός syllogismos. In the Analytics then, Prior Analytics is the first theoretical part dealing with the science of deduction, Prior Analytics gives an account of deductions in general narrowed down to three basic syllogisms while Posterior Analytics deals with demonstration. In the Prior Analytics, Aristotle defines syllogism as, a deduction in a discourse in which, certain things being supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so. In modern times, this definition has led to a debate as to how the word syllogism should be interpreted, scholars Jan Lukasiewicz, Józef Maria Bocheński and Günther Patzig have sided with the Protasis-Apodosis dichotomy while John Corcoran prefers to consider a syllogism as simply a deduction. In the third century AD, Alexander of Aphrodisiass commentary on the Prior Analytics is the oldest extant, in the sixth century, Boethius composed the first known Latin translation of the Prior Analytics. No Westerner between Boethius and Bernard of Utrecht is known to have read the Prior Analytics, the so-called Anonymus Aurelianensis III from the second half of the twelfth century is the first extant Latin commentary, or rather fragment of a commentary. The Prior Analytics represents the first formal study of logic, where logic is understood as the study of arguments, an argument is a series of true or false statements which lead to a true or false conclusion. In the Prior Analytics, Aristotle identifies valid and invalid forms of arguments called syllogisms, a syllogism is an argument that consists of at least three sentences, at least two premises and a conclusion. Although Aristotles does not call them categorical sentences, tradition does, he deals with them briefly in the Analytics, each proposition of a syllogism is a categorical sentence which has a subject and a predicate connected by a verb. In his formulation of syllogistic propositions, instead of the copula, belongs to/does not belong to all/some. Is said/is not said of all/some, there are four different types of categorical sentences, universal affirmative, particular affirmative, universal negative and particular negative. Depending on the position of the term, Aristotle divides the syllogism into three kinds, Syllogism in the first, second and third figure
3.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
4.
Vernacular
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Some linguists use vernacular and nonstandard dialect as synonyms. The use of vernacular is not recent, here vernacular, mother language and dialect are already in use in a modern sense. The figurative meaning was broadened from the diminutive extended words vernaculus, varro, the classical Latin grammarian, used the term vocabula vernacula, termes de la langue nationale or vocabulary of the national language as opposed to foreign words. In general linguistics, a vernacular is contrasted with a lingua franca, for instance, in Western Europe until the 17th century, most scholarly works had been written in Latin, which was serving as a lingua franca. Works written in Romance languages are said to be in the vernacular, the Divina Commedia, the Cantar de Mio Cid, and The Song of Roland are examples of early vernacular literature in Italian, Spanish, and French, respectively. In Europe, Latin was used instead of vernacular languages in varying forms until c. 1701, in its latter stage as New Latin, in Catholicism, vernacular bibles were later provided, but Latin was used at Tridentine Mass until the Second Vatican Council of 1965. Certain groups, notably Traditionalist Catholics, continue to practice Latin Mass, in India, the 12th century Bhakti movement led to the translation of Sanskrit texts to the vernacular. In science, a user of the vernacular was Galileo. 1600, though some of his works remained in Latin, a later example is Isaac Newton, whose 1687 Principia was in Latin, but whose 1704 Opticks was in English. Latin continues to be used in fields of science, notably binomial nomenclature in biology, while other fields such as mathematics use vernacular. In diplomacy, French displaced Latin in Europe in the 1710s, certain languages have both a classical form and various vernacular forms, with two widely used examples being Arabic and Chinese, see Varieties of Arabic and Chinese language. In the 1920s, due to the May Fourth Movement, Classical Chinese was replaced by written vernacular Chinese, the vernacular is also often contrasted with a liturgical language, a specialized use of a former lingua franca. Similarly, in Hindu culture, traditionally religious or scholarly works were written in Sanskrit or in Tamil in Tamil country. With the rise of the movement from the 12th century onwards, religious works were created in the other languages, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu. These circumstances are a contrast between a vernacular and language variant used by the same speakers, according to one school of linguistic thought, all such variants are examples of a linguistic phenomenon termed diglossia. In it, the language is bifurcated, i. e. the speaker learns two forms of the language and ordinarily uses one but under special circumstances the other. The one most frequently used is the low variant, equivalent to the vernacular, the concept was introduced to linguistics by Charles A. Ferguson, but Ferguson explicitly excluded variants as divergent as dialects or different languages or as similar as styles or registers
5.
Dialectic
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The term dialectic is not synonymous with the term debate. While in theory debaters are not necessarily emotionally invested in their point of view, debates are won through a combination of persuading the opponent, proving ones argument correct, or proving the opponents argument incorrect. Debates do not necessarily require promptly identifying a clear winner or loser, however clear winners are determined by either a judge. The term dialectics is also not synonymous with the term rhetoric, concepts, like logos or rational appeal, pathos or emotional appeal, and ethos or ethical appeal, are intentionally used by rhetoricians to persuade an audience. Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion, ergo, Socrates valued rationality as the proper means for persuasion, the discovery of truth, and the determinant for ones actions. To Socrates, truth, not aretē, was the greater good, therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof. Different forms of reasoning have emerged throughout history from the Indosphere. These forms include the Socratic method, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian dialectics, Marxist, Talmudic, the purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is resolution of disagreement through rational discussion, and, ultimately, the search for truth. One way to proceed—the Socratic method—is to show that a given hypothesis leads to a contradiction, thus, another dialectical resolution of disagreement is by denying a presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis, thereby, proceeding to sublation to synthesis, a third thesis. Fichtean/Hegelian dialectics is based upon four concepts, Everything is transient and finite, gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one force overcomes its opponent force. The concept of dialectic existed in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, hence, the history of the dialectical method is the history of philosophy. In classical philosophy, dialectic is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions and counter-propositions. The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or of a synthesis, or a combination of the opposing assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue. Moreover, the term dialectic owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method. According to Kant, however, the ancient Greeks used the word dialectic to signify the logic of false appearance or semblance, to the Ancients, it was nothing but the logic of illusion. In Platos dialogues and other Socratic dialogues, Socrates attempts to examine someones beliefs, at times even first principles or premises by which we all reason, Socrates typically argues by cross-examining his interlocutors claims and premises in order to draw out a contradiction or inconsistency among them. According to Plato, the detection of error amounts to finding the proof of the antithesis. However, important as this objective is, the aim of Socratic activity seems to be to improve the soul of his interlocutors
6.
Post-classical history
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Post-classical history is the period of time that immediately followed ancient history and preceded modern history. Depending on the continent, the era generally falls between the years 200–600 and 1200–1500, the major classical civilizations the era follows are Han China, the Western Roman Empire, the Gupta Empire, and the Sasanian Empire. The post-classical era itself was followed by the modern era, and forms the middle period in a three-period division of world history, ancient, post-classical. The era is thought to be characterized by invasions from Central Asia, the development of the world religions. The name of this era of history derives from antiquity of Europe. In European history, post-classical is synonymous with the time or Middle Ages. Art and architecture were characterized by Christian themes, several attempts by the Crusades to recapture the Holy Land for Christianity were unsuccessful. East Asia experienced the establishment of power of Imperial China, which established several prosperous dynasties influencing Korea, Vietnam. Religions such as Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism spread, gunpowder was originally developed in China during the post-classical era. The invention of gunpowder led to the invention of fireworks, then to its use in warfare, also, the invention spread around the world. The Mongol Empire greatly affected much of Europe and Asia, the latter of which was conquered in many areas, the Mongols were able to create safe trade and stability between the two regions, but inadvertently encouraged the spread of the Black Plague. The timelines of the civilizations of the Americas – Maya, the Aztec. In Europe, it is called the Middle Ages in the sense of being between the two periods in time, ancient times and modern times. Humanist historians argued that Renaissance scholarship restored direct links to the classical period, the term first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas. In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, first recorded in 1604, English is the only major Western European language that retains the plural form. Medieval historians did not, of course, think of themselves as being in the middle of history, instead, they wrote history from a universal and theological perspective. They divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires and they considered the Roman period, especially the time of the Apostles, a historical peak, followed by a long slide toward the Apocalypse. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, from Petrarchs Italian perspective, this new period was an age of national eclipse
7.
Epistemology
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Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief, the term Epistemology was first used by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. However, according to Brett Warren, King James VI of Scotland had previously personified this philosophical concept as the character Epistemon in 1591 and this philosophical approach signified a Philomath seeking to obtain greater knowledge through epistemology with the use of theology. The dialogue was used by King James to educate society on various concepts including the history, the word epistemology is derived from the ancient Greek epistēmē meaning knowledge and the suffix -logy, meaning a logical discourse to. J. F. Ferrier coined epistemology on the model of ontology, to designate that branch of philosophy which aims to discover the meaning of knowledge, and called it the true beginning of philosophy. The word is equivalent to the concept Wissenschaftslehre, which was used by German philosophers Johann Fichte, French philosophers then gave the term épistémologie a narrower meaning as theory of knowledge. Émile Meyerson opened his Identity and Reality, written in 1908, in mathematics, it is known that 2 +2 =4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person, place, thing, or activity. Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between knowing that, knowing how, and acquaintance-knowledge, with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these, while these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are defined explicitly in other languages. In French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch to know is translated using connaître, conhecer, conocer, modern Greek has the verbs γνωρίζω and ξέρω. Italian has the verbs conoscere and sapere and the nouns for knowledge are conoscenza and sapienza, German has the verbs wissen and kennen. The verb itself implies a process, you have to go from one state to another and this verb seems to be the most appropriate in terms of describing the episteme in one of the modern European languages, hence the German name Erkenntnistheorie. The theoretical interpretation and significance of linguistic issues remains controversial. In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy Bertrand Russell stressed the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance, gilbert Ryle is also credited with stressing the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. This position is essentially Ryles, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how leads to infinite regress and this includes the truth, and everything else we accept as true for ourselves from a cognitive point of view. Whether someones belief is true is not a prerequisite for belief, on the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself, epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer
8.
Thomas Fowler (academic)
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Thomas Fowler, was an English academic and academic administrator, acting as President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Fowler was born 1832 in Burton upon Stather, Lincolnshire, son of William Henry Fowler and his wife and he was educated at King Williams College on the Isle of Man, and obtained a Postmastership at Merton College, Oxford. In 1855, Fowler was elected to a Fellowship in Lincoln College, in 1862, he held the office of Junior Proctor, and in 1873 he was selected Professor of Logic, and held that chair until 1889. He belonged to their school of University politics, on the Liberal side in the conflicts of the time and he enjoyed university business, and was not a profound and original thinker. He had the gift of writing lucid and scholarly English, M. Wilson as Wilson ever managed to put on paper. The work is Fowlers own, but it was inspired by Wilson. In 1886, he was awarded a Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity, in 1881, Fowler was elected, rather unexpectedly, to succeed Professor John Matthias Wilson as President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He wrote its history in a well-researched volume displaying much patient research which was published by the Oxford Historical Society and he was Vice-Chancellor from 1899 to 1901. His health then failed, and he died unmarried at 12.30 p. m. on 21 November 1904, Clarendon Press, Oxford The Principles of Morals Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Part II Progressive Morality, an Essay in Ethics Macmillan and Co. Oxford Shaftesbury and Hutcheson Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington Archival material relating to Thomas Fowler, Works by Thomas Fowler at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Fowler at Internet Archive
9.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
10.
Norman language
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Norman is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon. The name Norman-French is sometimes used to not only the Norman language. For the most part, the forms of Norman and modern French are intercomprehensible. Norman is spoken in mainland Normandy in France where it has no official status and it is taught in a few colleges near Cherbourg-Octeville. In the Channel Islands, the Norman language has developed separately, Jèrriais and Guernésiais are recognized as regional languages by the British and Irish governments within the framework of the British–Irish Council. Sercquiais is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the colonists from Jersey who settled the then uninhabited island. The last first language speakers of Auregnais, the dialect of Norman spoken on Alderney, died during the 20th century, the dialect of Herm also lapsed, at an unknown date. An isogloss termed the Joret line separates the northern and southern dialects of the Norman language, there are also dialectal differences between western and eastern dialects. Three different standardized spellings are used, continental Norman, Jèrriais and these represent the different developments and particular literary histories of the varieties of Norman. Norman may therefore be described as a pluricentric language, the Anglo-Norman dialect of Norman was a language of administration in England following the Norman conquest of England in 1066. This left a legacy of Law French in the language of English courts, in Ireland, Norman remained strongest in the area of south-east Ireland, where the Hiberno-Normans invaded in 1169. Norman is still in use for very formal legal purposes in the UK, such as when the monarch gives Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament using the phrase. The Norman conquest of southern Italy also brought the language to Sicily and the part of the Italian Peninsula. See, Norman French and French influence on Sicilian, literature in Norman ranges from early Anglo-Norman literature through the 19th-century Norman literary renaissance to modern writers. Today, the Norman language is strongest in the accessible areas of the former Duchy of Normandy, the Channel Islands and the Cotentin Peninsula in the west. In time, the communities converged, so that Normandy continued to form the name of the region while the original Normans became assimilated by the Gallo-Romance people, later when conquering England, the Norman rulers in England would eventually assimilate, thereby adopting the speech of the local English. However, in cases, the élites contributed elements of their own language to the newly enriched languages that developed in the territories. In Normandy, the new Norman language inherited vocabulary from Old Norse, the influence on phonology is more disputed, although it is argued that the retention of aspirated /h/ and /k/ in Norman is due to Norse influence
11.
Linguistic prescription
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Linguistic prescription is the practice of elevating one variety or manner of language use over another. It may imply that some forms are incorrect, improper, or illogical, or lack communicative effect, sometimes informed by linguistic purism, these normative practices may address such linguistic aspects as spelling, grammar, semantics, pronunciation, and syntax. They may also include judgments on socially proper and politically correct language use, Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard language, teach what a particular society perceives as a correct form, or advise on effective communication. If usage preferences are conservative, prescription might appear resistant to change, if radical. Prescriptive approaches to language are often contrasted with linguistics, which observes. The basis of research is text analysis and field study. Description, however, may include researchers observations of their own language usage, the chief aim of linguistic prescription can be to specify standard language forms in a way that is easily taught and learned. Prescription may apply to most aspects of language, including spelling, grammar, semantics, pronunciation, syntax, while such a lingua franca may evolve by itself, the desire to formulate and define it is widespread in most parts of the world. Writers or communicators often adhere to prescriptive rules to make their communication clearer, similarly, stability of a language over time helps one to understand writings from the past. In addition, it is useful to have a standard so as to be able to decide whether or not a speaker or writer is using an educated form of the language. Linguistic prescription may also be used to impose a political ideology, during the second half of the 20th century, politically motivated efforts driven by various advocacy groups had considerable influence on language use under the broad banner of political correctness. These successfully imposed special rules for anti-sexist, anti-racist or generically anti-discriminatory language, george Orwell criticized the use of euphemisms and convoluted phrasing as a means of hiding insincerity in Politics and the English Language. His fictional Newspeak is a parody of ideologically motivated linguistic prescriptivism, prescription presupposes authorities whose judgment may be followed by other speakers and writers. The Duden grammar has a status for German. Although lexicographers often see their work as purely descriptive, dictionaries are widely regarded as prescriptive authorities, books such as Lynne Trusss Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which argues for stricter adherence to prescriptive punctuation rules, also seek to exert an influence. Linguistic prescription is regulated formally in some places, the Académie française in Paris is a French national body whose recommendations are widely respected, though not legally enforceable there. In Germany and the Netherlands, recent spelling reforms were devised by teams of linguists commissioned by the government, some met with significant dissent, for example the German orthography reform of 1996. Other kinds of authorities exist in specific settings, such as establishing a house style specifying preferred spellings or grammatical forms
12.
Ambiguity
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Ambiguity is a type of uncertainty of meaning in which several interpretations are plausible. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be resolved according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps. The concept of ambiguity is contrasted with vagueness. In ambiguity, specific and distinct interpretations are permitted, whereas with information that is vague, context may play a role in resolving ambiguity. For example, the piece of information may be ambiguous in one context. The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase pertains to its more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. Meaning here refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary, for instance, the word bank has several distinct lexical definitions, including financial institution and edge of a river. Another example is as in apothecary, one could say I bought herbs from the apothecary. This could mean one actually spoke to the apothecary or went to the apothecary, the context in which an ambiguous word is used often makes it evident which of the meanings is intended. If, for instance, someone says I buried $100 in the bank, however, some linguistic contexts do not provide sufficient information to disambiguate a used word. Lexical ambiguity can be addressed by algorithmic methods that automatically associate the meaning with a word in context. The use of multi-defined words requires the author or speaker to clarify their context, the goal of clear concise communication is that the receiver have no misunderstanding about what was meant to be conveyed. Ambiguity is a tool of political science. More problematic are words whose senses express closely related concepts, good, for example, can mean useful or functional, exemplary, pleasing, moral, righteous, etc. I have a daughter is not clear about which sense is intended. The various ways to apply prefixes and suffixes can also create ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can have two different meanings because of the structure of the sentence—its syntax. This is often due to an expression, such as a prepositional phrase. He ate the cookies on the couch, for example, could mean that he ate those cookies that were on the couch, to get in, you will need an entrance fee of $10 or your voucher and your drivers license
13.
Catch-22 (logic)
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A catch-22 is a paradoxical situation from which an individual cannot escape because of contradictory rules. The term was coined by Joseph Heller, who used it in his 1961 novel Catch-22, an example would be, How am I supposed to gain experience if Im constantly turned down for not having any. Catch-22s often result from rules, regulations, or procedures that an individual is subject to but has no control over because to fight the rule is to accept it. Another example is a situation in which someone is in need of something that can only be had by not being in need of it. One connotation of the term is that the creators of the situation have created arbitrary rules in order to justify. Joseph Heller coined the term in his 1961 novel Catch-22, which describes absurd bureaucratic constraints on soldiers in World War II and this phrase also means a dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. Different formulations of Catch-22 appear throughout the novel, the term is applied to various loopholes and quirks of the military system, always with the implication that rules are inaccessible to and slanted against those lower in the hierarchy. In chapter 6, Yossarian is told that Catch-22 requires him to do anything his commanding officer tells him to do, besides referring to an unsolvable logical dilemma, Catch-22 is invoked to explain or justify the military bureaucracy. For example, in the first chapter, it requires Yossarian to sign his name to letters that he censors while he is confined to a hospital bed. One clause mentioned in chapter 10 closes a loophole in promotions, through courts-martial for going AWOL, he would be busted in rank back to private, but Catch-22 limited the number of times he could do this before being sent to the stockade. At another point in the book, a prostitute explains to Yossarian that she marry him because he is crazy. She considers any man crazy who would marry a woman who is not a virgin, captain Black asks Milo, Youre not against Catch-22, are you. In chapter 40, Catch-22 forces Colonels Korn and Cathcart to promote Yossarian to Major and they fear that if they do not, others will refuse to fly, just as Yossarian did. Heller originally wanted to call the phrase by other numbers, but he, the number has no particular significance, it was chosen more or less for euphony. The title was originally Catch-18, but Heller changed it after the popular Mila 18 was published a short time beforehand, the term catch-22 has filtered into common usage in the English language. In a 1975 interview, Heller said the term would not translate well into other languages, james E. Combs and Dan D. Nimmo suggest that the idea of a catch-22 has gained popular currency because so many people in modern society are exposed to frustrating bureaucratic logic. They write, Everyone, then, who deals with organizations understands the bureaucratic logic of Catch-22, along with George Orwells doublethink, Catch-22 has become one of the best-recognized ways to describe the predicament of being trapped by contradictory rules. A significant type of definition of medicine has been termed a catch-22
14.
Circular definition
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A circular definition is one that uses the term being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined. There are several kinds of circular definition, and several ways of characterising the term, such definitions lead to a need for additional information that motivated someone to look at the definition in the first place and, thus, violate the principle of providing new or useful information. Here are some examples, Suppose we define oak as a tree which has catkins and grows from an acorn, to someone who does not know which trees are oaks, nor which nuts are acorns, the definition is inadequate. If someone wants to know what a phone is, telling them that it is a phone that is cellular will not be especially illuminating. Much more helpful would be to explain the concept of a cell in the context of telecommunications, similarly, defining dialectical materialism as materialism that involves dialectic is unhelpful. Consequently, when constructing systems of definitions, authors should use good practices that avoid producing viciously circular definitions, in many learners dictionaries, circular definitions are greatly reduced by writing definitions using only the words in a constrained defining vocabulary. The circular definition object, a thing → thing, an entity → entity, the classic genus-difference dictionary definition is in terms of nearest kind and specific differences. This genus-difference description may be involved in producing circular definitions of part and kind relationships, for example, rake, tine, a sharp spike at the end of a rake. In practice, an approach is often taken in considering the effects of circularity in dictionary definitions. From a linguistic point of view, some intuitively circular definitions in the derivation of words can easily be shown to be non-circular, for example, sometimes a definition like musicality, the quality or state of being musical is said to be circular. But strictly speaking, the condition the term being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined is false in this case, a definition chain which ends is not circular. In each case, the terms to be defined and the terms in the definition are different, formal approaches to characterizing circular definitions are found in logic, mathematics and in computer science. A branch of mathematics called non-well-founded set theory allows for the construction of circular sets, circular sets are good for modelling cycles and, despite the fields name, this area of mathematics is well founded. Computer science allows for procedures to be defined by using recursion, such definitions are not circular as long as they terminate. Dictionary entries are given as examples of apparent circular definitions. Thus, the example of a definition of oak given above is not completely useless, even if acorn and catkin are defined in terms of oak, in that it supplies additional concepts in the definition. While a dictionary might produce a circle among the terms, oak, catkin, in another case it might produce a true circle. Taken as a whole, dictionaries are circular because each and every word is defined in terms of words that are contained within the dictionary
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Fallacies of definition
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Fallacies of definition are the various ways in which definitions can fail to explain terms. The phrase is used to suggest an analogy with an informal fallacy, definitions that fail to have merit because they are overly broad, use obscure or ambiguous language, or contain circular reasoning are called fallacies of definition. Three major fallacies are overly broad, overly narrow, and mutually exclusive definitions, a fourth is incomprehensible definitions and it is a fallacy because by using a synonym in the definiens the reader is told nothing significantly new. A definition intended to describe a set of individuals fails if its description of matching individuals is incongruous. For example, a shape with four sides of length is not a good definition for square, because squares are not the only shapes that can have four sides of equal length. If a cow were defined as an animal with horns, this would be overly broad, while if a cow were defined as a black-and-white quadruped, definitions can go wrong by using ambiguous, obscure, or figurative language. If beauty is defined as aesthetically successful, one must continue to break down and this can lead to circular definitions. Definitions should be defined in the most prosaic form of language to be understood, failure to elucidate provides fallacious definitions. An example is Samuel Johnsons definition for oats, A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, the definiens of mutually exclusive definitions list characteristics which are the opposite of those found in the definiendum. An example would occur if a cow were defined as an animal with no legs. Definitions may fail by imposing conflicting requirements, making it impossible for them to apply to anything at all, an example would occur if a cow were defined as a legless quadruped. The definist fallacy is a fallacy, coined by William Frankena in 1939. Inscrutability of reference Equivocation Persuasive definition Fallacy Fallacy of division Fallacy of equivocation Fallacies of inference Formal fallacy
16.
Tautology (logic)
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In logic, a tautology is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921, a formula is satisfiable if it is true under at least one interpretation, and thus a tautology is a formula whose negation is unsatisfiable. Unsatisfiable statements, both through negation and affirmation, are known formally as contradictions, a formula that is neither a tautology nor a contradiction is said to be logically contingent. Such a formula can be either true or false based on the values assigned to its propositional variables. The double turnstile notation ⊨ S is used to indicate that S is a tautology, Tautology is sometimes symbolized by Vpq, and contradiction by Opq. Tautologies are a key concept in logic, where a tautology is defined as a propositional formula that is true under any possible Boolean valuation of its propositional variables. A key property of tautologies in propositional logic is that a method exists for testing whether a given formula is always satisfied. The definition of tautology can be extended to sentences in predicate logic, in propositional logic, there is no distinction between a tautology and a logically valid formula. The set of formulas is a proper subset of the set of logically valid sentences of predicate logic. In 1800, Immanuel Kant wrote in his book Logic, The identity of concepts in analytical judgments can be explicit or non-explicit. In the former case analytic propositions are tautological, here analytic proposition refers to an analytic truth, a statement in natural language that is true solely because of the terms involved. In 1884, Gottlob Frege proposed in his Grundlagen that a truth is analytic if it can be derived using logic. But he maintained a distinction between analytic truths and tautologies, in 1921, in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed that statements that can be deduced by logical deduction are tautological as well as being analytic truths. Henri Poincaré had made remarks in Science and Hypothesis in 1905. It has got to be something that has some quality, which I do not know how to define. Here logical proposition refers to a proposition that is using the laws of logic. During the 1930s, the formalization of the semantics of propositional logic in terms of truth assignments was developed, the term tautology began to be applied to those propositional formulas that are true regardless of the truth or falsity of their propositional variables. Some early books on logic used the term for any proposition that is universally valid, propositional logic begins with propositional variables, atomic units that represent concrete propositions
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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The Imaginary Invalid
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The Imaginary Invalid is a three-act comédie-ballet by the French playwright Molière with dance sequences and musical interludes by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It premiered on 10 February 1673 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris and was choreographed by Pierre Beauchamp. The play is known as The Hypochondriac, an alternative translation of the French title. Molière had fallen out with the court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, with whom he had pioneered the comédie-ballet form a decade earlier. Le malade imaginaire would turn out to be Molières last work and he collapsed during his fourth performance as Argan on 17 February and died soon after. Angélique, daughter of Argan, in love with Cléante, Louison, Argans young daughter, sister of Angélique. Thomas Diafoirus, his son, betrothed to Angelique by her father, the play opens with Argan, a severe hypochondriac, going through the bill from his apothecary item by item. He pays out only half of what is on the bill. That done, he calls for his maid, Toinette, when she fails to appear immediately he shouts and calls her name until she arrives. Toinette is not interested in putting up with Argans temper, so she mocks his rage, eventually he gives up trying to scold her and asks her to call in his daughter, Angelique. Angelique is ready to talk to him, but Argan must leave the room for a short while, while he is out, Angelique takes the opportunity to talk to Toinette. We quickly find out that she has been talking almost non-stop about the qualities of a man named Cléante since she met him at a play six days ago. She expects Cléante to ask her if he can marry her. Argan returns and expects to surprise his daughter when he tells her someone has asked to marry her. He is shocked to find that she not only knows about it, Toinette asks him why, with all his money, Argan would want a doctor for a son-in-law. He replies that since he is ill, he thought it would be a good idea to have a doctor in the family. Then he could have Thomas Diaforious’ services as all the time, not to mention the services of his father. Toinette will not take his hypochondria seriously and tells him that she knows Angelique will never agree to that marriage, more than that, Toinette downright forbids the union to happen
19.
Opium
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Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy. The latex also contains the closely related opiates codeine and thebaine, the word meconium historically referred to related, weaker preparations made from other parts of the opium poppy or different species of poppies. The production of opium has not changed since ancient times, through selective breeding of the Papaver somniferum plant, the content of the phenanthrene alkaloids morphine, codeine, and to a lesser extent thebaine has been greatly increased. For the illegal trade, the morphine is extracted from the opium. It is then converted to heroin which is two to four times as potent, and increases the value by two to four times, the reduced weight and bulk make it easier to smuggle. Evidence from ancient Greece indicate that opium was consumed in several ways, including inhalation of vapors, suppositories, medical poultices, Opium is mentioned in the most important medical texts of the ancient world, including the Ebers Papyrus and the writings of Dioscorides, Galen, and Avicenna. Widespread medical use of unprocessed opium continued through the American Civil War before giving way to morphine and its successors, Opium has been actively collected since prehistoric times. Though western scholars typically estimate this to be around 1500 BCE, Indian scholars maintain that the verses and the history contained in them have been orally transmitted thousands of years before. A common name for males in Afghanistan is Redey, which in Pashto means poppy and this term may be derived from the Sanskrit words rddhi and hrdya, which mean magical, a type of medicinal plant, and heart-pleasing, respectively. The upper Asian belt of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northern India, numerous finds of P. somniferum or P. setigerum from Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have also been reported. The first known cultivation of poppies was in Mesopotamia, approximately 3400 BCE, by Sumerians, who called the plant hul gil. Tablets found at Nippur, a Sumerian spiritual center south of Baghdad, described the collection of juice in the morning. Opium production continued under the Babylonians and Egyptians, Opium was used with poison hemlock to put people quickly and painlessly to death, but it was also used in medicine. The Ebers Papyrus, c. 1500 BCE, describes a way to stop a child using grains of the poppy plant strained to a pulp. Spongia somnifera, sponges soaked in opium, were used during surgery, the Egyptians cultivated opium thebaicum in famous poppy fields around 1300 BCE. Opium was traded from Egypt by the Phoenicians and Minoans to destinations around the Mediterranean Sea, including Greece, Carthage, and Europe. By 1100 BCE, opium was cultivated on Cyprus, where surgical-quality knives were used to score the poppy pods, and opium was cultivated, traded, Opium was also mentioned after the Persian conquest of Assyria and Babylonian lands in the 6th century BCE. From the earliest finds, opium has appeared to have ritual significance, and anthropologists have speculated ancient priests may have used the drug as a proof of healing power
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Hypnotic
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This group is related to sedatives. Whereas the term sedative describes drugs that serve to calm or relieve anxiety, because these two functions frequently overlap, and because drugs in this class generally produce dose-dependent effects they are often referred to collectively as sedative-hypnotic drugs. Hypnotic drugs are prescribed for insomnia and other sleep disorders. When prescribed, hypnotic medication should be used for the shortest period of time necessary, most hypnotics prescribed today are either benzodiazepines or nonbenzodiazepines. Among individuals with sleep disorders,13. 7% are taking or prescribed nonbenzodiazepines, while 10. 8% are taking benzodiazepines, early classes of drugs, such as barbiturates, have fallen out of use in most practices but are still prescribed for some patients. In children, prescribing hypnotics is not yet acceptable unless used to treat night terrors or somnambulism, falling outside of the above-mentioned categories, the neuro-hormone melatonin has a hypnotic function. Research about using medications to treat insomnia evolved throughout the last half of the 20th century, treatment for insomnia in psychiatry dates back to 1869 when chloral hydrate was first used as a soporific. Barbiturates emerged as the first class of drugs that emerged in the early 1900s, although the best drug family at the time they were dangerous in overdose. During the 1970s, quinazolinones and benzodiazepines were introduced as alternatives to replace barbiturates. Benzodiazepines are not without their drawbacks, substance dependence is possible, questions have been raised as to whether they disturb sleep architecture. Nonbenzodiazepines are the most recent development, although its clear that they are less toxic than their predecessors, barbiturates, comparative efficacy over benzodiazepines have not been established. Without longitudinal studies, it is hard to determine, however some psychiatrists recommend these drugs, other sleep remedies that may be considered sedative-hypnotics exist, psychiatrists will sometimes prescribe medicines off-label if they have sedating effects. Examples of these include mirtazapine, clonidine, quetiapine, and the over-the-counter sleep aid diphenhydramine, off-label sleep remedies are particularly useful when first-line treatment is unsuccessful or deemed unsafe. Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can produce a wide spectrum of effects. They are also effective as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and anticonvulsants, barbiturates also have analgesic effects, however, these effects are somewhat weak, preventing barbiturates from being used in surgery in the absence of other analgesics. They have dependence liability, both physical and psychological, however, barbiturates are still used in general anesthesia, for epilepsy, and assisted suicide. Barbiturates are derivatives of barbituric acid, the principal mechanism of action of barbiturates is believed to be positive allosteric modulation of GABAA receptors. Examples include amobarbital, pentobarbital, phenobarbital, secobarbital, and sodium thiopental, quinazolinones are also a class of drugs which function as hypnotic/sedatives that contain a 4-quinazolinone core
21.
Richard Whately
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Richard Whately was an English rhetorician, logician, economist, academic and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a range of topics, a flamboyant character. He was born in London, the son of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Whately and he was educated at a private school near Bristol, and at Oriel College, Oxford from 1805. He obtained a B. A. in 1808, with double honours, and the prize for the English essay in 1810, in 1811 he was elected Fellow of Oriel. After graduation he acted as a tutor, in particular to Nassau William Senior who became a close friend. After his marriage in 1821, Whately lived in Oxford and he had had to give up his college fellowship, which could not be held by married men, and at this period lived by tutoring and his pen. An uncle, William Plumer, presented him with a living, Halesworth in Suffolk, Whately returned to Oxford, though giving up only in 1831 the Suffolk living, where he had seen the social effects of unemployment. A reformer, Whately was initially on friendly terms with John Henry Newman and they fell out over Robert Peels candidacy for the Oxford University seat in Parliament. Newman later spoke of his Catholic University as continuing in Dublin the struggle against Whately which he had begun at Oxford, in 1829 Whately was elected as Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford in succession to Nassau William Senior. His tenure of office was cut short by his appointment to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831 and he published only one course of Introductory Lectures in two editions. Whatelys appointment by Lord Grey to the see of Dublin came as a political surprise, the aged Henry Bathurst had turned the post down. The new Whig administration found Whately, well known at Holland House and effective in a parliamentary committee appearance speaking on tithes, behind the scenes Thomas Hyde Villiers had lobbied Denis Le Marchant on his behalf, with the Brougham Whigs. The appointment was challenged in the House of Lords, but without success and he enforced strict discipline in his diocese, and he published a statement of his views on Sabbath. He lived in Redesdale House in Kilmacud, just outside Dublin and he was concerned to reform the Church of Ireland and the Irish Poor Laws. He considered tithe commutation essential for the Church, in 1841 Catholic archbishops William Crolly and John MacHale debated whether to continue the system, with Crolly who supported Whately gaining papal permission to go on, given some safeguards. In 1852 the scheme broke down, on the opposition of the new Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Whately felt himself constrained to withdraw from the Education Board the following year. During the famine years of 1846 and 1847 the archbishop and his family tried to alleviate the miseries of the people, on 27 March 1848, Whately became a member of the Canterbury Association. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts, from 1856 onwards symptoms of decline began to manifest themselves in a paralytic affection of Whatelys left side
