PSYCOLOQUY (Announcements: 312 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY
longer emailed. Please find them directly at:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy
PSYCOLOQUY ISSN 1055-0143 day, 18th September 2001, Newsletter Section
(1) Announcement: Open Letter from Jordan Peterson.
(2) Announcement: Evolution of Language.
(3) Announcement: History and Theory of Psychology.
(4) Announcement: FLAIRS 2002.
(5) Employment: Research Fellow (Psycholinguistics)
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From: Jordan Peterson (pete...@psych.utoronto.ca)
Subject: Open Letter from Jordan Peterson.
Please read the following letter, if you have a moment. I am hoping it
might represent the views of the majority of the academic
establishment. If you agree, please add your name and send it
discriminately to a colleague, or to several colleagues.
Perhaps this letter might be forwarded back to me if and when it
acquires 250 names.
Jordan
To President G.W. Bush and the Members of the U.S. Congress:
The events of the past few days have made everyone understand how
vulnerable a free and open society is to mass destruction and terror.
But this terrible vulnerability is part of the strength of such a
society, not a hallmark of its weakness. It takes courage to allow the
free movement of people and ideas. That courage is predicated on
voluntary acceptance of great risk, and not upon ignorance of its
likelihood.
The immediate response to such a catastrophe is anger and hatred. But
the system of laws that supports the US and its allies has been
designed by generations of great men to ensure that anger and hatred
are never given the final word. Justice, truth, and respect for
individual differences are principles whose power far outweighs the
primitive and thoughtless desire for revenge. More importantly, revenge
breeds revenge. It seems terribly dangerous to provide individuals
motivated precisely by the desire to increase pain and suffering
without end the luxury of the war they so much desire.
Such a war turns them from rigid, totalitarian cowards to soldiers;
from failures who are willing to prey upon the innocent to heroic
exemplars of the fight against overwhelming external oppression.
The craven acts of terrorism perpetrated in New York and Washington are
dignified intolerably by their classification as acts of war. The
individuals who perpetrated these appalling events must be regarded and
treated as criminals, as international pariahs, who have committed
crimes against humanity, and who must be brought publicly and
rationally to justice.
Our great technological power makes us increasingly vulnerable to the
rigid madness of the ideologically committed and resentful. To turn
against such madness with indiscriminate revenge-seeking is merely to
react in the same primitive and deadly manner. To risk the slaughter of
innocent people in the hunt for such revenge is to absolutely ensure
that constant episodes of international terror will come to be the
hallmark of 21st century existence.
The entire world stands behind the US, in the hope that the commission
of crimes against civilization can be exterminated. Such solidarity was
absolutely unthinkable even fifteen years ago. The US therefore has an
unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate its unshakeable commitment to
its own principles, particularly under such conditions of extreme
duress, and to provide the world with the hope that democracy and
freedom can truly rise above the parochial ideological madness of the
past. Such a demonstration would truly lift the American state above
all past national institutions, and would continue the tradition of
great spirit that allowed for the rehabilitation of Germany and Japan
after the Second World War.
Perhaps the events of September 11 might therefore be regarded as the
last war of the second Christian millennium, instead of the first war
of the third.
In consequence, we implore you to react with discrimination, to target
only those truly responsible, and to avoid the cruel and thoughtless
errors characterizing humanity^s blind and ethnocentric past.
Please punish only the guilty, and not the innocent. Otherwise the
cycle of terror that seems an ineradicable part of human existence will
never come to an end.
Sincerely,
1. Jordan B. Peterson, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
pete...@psych.utoronto.ca
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From: Jim Hurford (j...@ling.ed.ac.uk)
Subject: Evolution of Language.
EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE: Fourth International Conference, 2002.
Harvard University, Wednesday March 27th - Saturday March 30th.
You can always get the most up-to-date information from the website:
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/evolang2002/
CONFIRMED PLENARY SPEAKERS:
Leslie Aiello (University College, London)
David Caplan (Harvard University & Massachusetts General Hospital)
Ray Jackendoff (Brandeis University)
Philip Lieberman (Brown University)
Partha Niyogi (University of Chicago)
Amotz Zahavi (Tel Aviv University)
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION:
Noam Chomsky (MIT)
Marc Hauser (Harvard University)
Michael Studdert-Kennedy (Haskins Laboratories)
This roundtable discussion, on the future of Language Evolution
studies, will take place on the last day of the conference (March 30th)
and will last for about two hours. Participation from the audience is
expected.
SYMPOSIUM:
On Costly Signalling Theory: Implications for the Origins of Language.
This one-day symposium is being organized by Chris Knight, as part of
the conference. The plenary talk by Amotz Zahavi will initiate the
symposium, after which the symposium will run in parallel with other
sessions of the conference.
ABSTRACTS RECEIVED:
We have already received four abstracts, but don't worry, the deadline
is still October 31st.
PUBLICITY:
At the risk of annoying all your friends and colleagues, help us to
publicize the conference by sending a notice to any relevant newslists
you can think of.
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From: Chris Green (chr...@yorku.ca)
Subject: History and Theory of Psychology.
It is my pleasure to announce the official launch of the History &
Theory of Psychology E-Print Archive (HTP Prints):
...a new publication vehicle dedicated to research in our areas of
interest. HTP Prints is intended to supplement the current array of
traditional print journals in two ways. First, it will enable articles
that are "in press" to be made more quickly and more widely available
than in the past. Second, it will allow for the rapid distribution of
documents that for one reason or another are not suited to traditional
academic journals, but are of interest to members of the discipline
nevertheless (e.g., conference papers, highly illustrated papers,
longer essays, literature reviews, papers with a highly specific
focus).
HTP Prints is based on the model set by such ground-breaking for
electronic archives as arXiv (for phsyics/math/computer science,
http://www.arXiv.org/), CogPrints (for cognitive science,
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/), and the PhilSci Archive (for
philosophers of sciecne, http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/). It runs on
Eprints software (http://www.eprints.org/) and is compatible with Open
Archives Initiative protocols (http://www.openarchives.org/).
To view the articles that are currently available at HTP Prints, set
your web browser to http://htpprints.yorku.ca/ and click either the
"Browse by Subject" link or the "Search the Archive" link on the HTP
Prints front page. (Because the site has just been launched, there are
currently only a dozen documents in the archive at this time.
Naturally, we expect this to grow rapidly in the very near future.)
If you wish to become a part of this new initiative yourself by
depositing your own documents into the HTP Prints archive, just click
the "Register" link (on the side bar). After you have filled in a brief
form, you can deposit your document(s) immediately. HTP Prints does
not peer-review documents (though it does identify documents that have
been peer-reviewed elsewhere, to facilitate searching). Your document
will simply be checked for appropriateness of topic, and then deposited
in the archive where it will immediately be available to all other HTP
Prints users.
Some people will naturally enough be concerned about copyright and
publication policies before depositing their documents at HTP Prints.
Please note that the American Psychological Association has recently
liberalized its publication policy in such a way that articles which
are "in press" with APA-owned journals (such as History of Psychology
and Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology) may be posted on
the author's website (see http://www.apa.org/journals/posting.html for
details). Deposting an html page at HTP Prints with a link to the
document will give the author all the benefits of having deposited the
whole document with HTP Prints (i.e., inclusion in the HTP Prints
index, availability to all HTP Prints users) without violating American
Psychological Association policy. John Wiley (publisher of Journal of
the History of the Behavioral Sciences) and U. Illinois Press
(published of the American Journal of Psychology) have broadly similar
policies (see their copyright transfer forms for details). Sage
(publisher of Theory & Psychology and History of the Human Sciences)
consider requests for such permission on a case-by-case basis. I have
not yet determined the policies of Routledge (publisher of
Philosophical Psychology) and Swets & Zeitlinger (publisher of Journal
of the History of the Neurosciences).
HTP Prints will succeed only with your participation. The format has
already proven itself in physics, cognitive science, philosophy of
science, and a host of other disciplines. It is only a matter of time
before it becomes a mainstay of history and theory of psychology as
well. I hope to see your work at HTP Prints soon!
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From: Colette Faucher (colette...@wanadoo.fr)
Subject: FLAIRS 2002.
FLAIRS 2002
15th International Florida Artificial Intelligence Research Society
Conference, Pensacola, Florida, USA.
May 16-18, 2002
Special Track : "Categorization and Concept Representation : Models and
Implications"
This track seeks to bring together researchers working on issues
related to categorization and concept representation in the areas of
Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Psychology.
Track Website
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http://perso.wanadoo.fr/colette.faucher/categorization.html
FLAIRS 2002 Website
--------------------
http://altair.coginst.uwf.edu/~jkolen/Flairs2002/intro.php3
For any problems or questions, please contact the track chair, Colette
Faucher, at:
colette...@iuspim.u-3mrs.fr
colette...@wanadoo.fr
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From: Alan Garnham (al...@biols.susx.ac.uk)
Subject: Research Fellow (Psycholinguistics).
RESEARCH FELLOW (PSYCHOLINGUISTICS): Local Focus and NP Interprtation.
LABORATORY OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
Applications are invited for a RESEARCH FELLOW to work with Prof Alan
Garnham on a project entitled "Local Focus and NP Interpretation:
Testing the Informational Load Hypothesis". The project investigates
factors that make a second reference to a person or thing easy or
difficult to understand, and contrasts different theoretical approaches
to this issue. The main duties of the postholder will be to design,
run and analyse experiments, and to help prepare the results for
publication. Research experience (and a Ph.D) in experimental
psycholinguistics or a closely related area would, therefore, be an
advantage. The project is funded by the UK Economic and Social
Research Council.
The Laboratory of Experimental Psychology is part of the School of
Biological Sciences which received a rating of 5 in the last two
Research Assessment Exercises.
The post is available from Jan 1st 2002 and will run for two and a
half years to June 30th 2004.
Appointment will be on the Research and Analogous Faculty 1A scale,
17,451 - 26,229 UK pounds sterling.
Starting salary will not be more than 19,486 pounds.
Closing date: Friday 19th October, 2001.
Informal enquires and applications, including a CV and the names and
addresses (preferably e-mail) of two referees, should be directed to:
Alan Garnham
Laboratory of Experimental Psychology
School of Biological Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QG
United Kingdom
+44-(0)1273-678337
al...@biols.sussex.ac.uk
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