Search

Two isolated and taxonomically unassigned populations of short-tailed shrews (Blarina) exist in Texas, 1 in the Lost Pines region including Bastrop County and 1 at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast. Molecular and morphological methods were used to determine the systematic status of the 2 disjunct Texas populations. Multivariate analyses of size-influenced cranial measurements were unsuccessful in identifying specimens from these populations at the species level. Phylogenetic analyses of the mitochondrial cytochrome-b gene revealed that the samples from disjunct Texas populations form a monophyletic sister clade to B. hylophaga from Kansas and Nebraska; there is little divergence between the 2 Texas populations. Genetic divergence between Texas and Kansas--Nebraska B. hylophaga is comparable to taxonomically recognized east--west divisions within B. brevicauda and B. carolinensis. Therefore, the name Blarina hylophaga plumbea, which originally was applied to the Aransas County population, also should include the Bastrop County population. Key words: Aransas, Blarina, Lost Pines, short-tailed shrew, Texas

Donald Davidson argues that his interpretivist approach to meaning shows that accounting for the intentionality and objectivity of thought does not require an appeal, as John McDowell has urged it does, to a specifically rational relation between mind and world, Moreover, Davidson claims that the idea of such a relation is unintelligible. This paper takes issue with these claims. It shows, first, that interpretivism, contra Davidson's express view, does not depend essentially upon an appeal to a causal relation between events in the world and speakers' beliefs. Second, it shows that interpretivism essentially, if implicitly, depends upon interpreters' appealing to facts taken in in perception, and that such facts are suited to provide a rational connection between mind and world. The paper then argues that none of Davidson's legitimate epistemological arguments tell against the idea that experience, in the form of the propositional contents of perception, can play a role in doxastic economy. Finally, it argues that granting experience such a role is consistent with Davidson's cohentist slogan that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief.

An analysis is presented on the conflict between New Zealand's National Administration Guidelines (NAG) and Maori social management regarding students at a school located on lands under Maori territorial authority. It is posited that the NAG do not take into account local history complexities, thereby complicating school compliance with those guidelines.

A consumer with diminishing marginal utility in consumption, who can search for lower prices, will balance the gains from spreading consumption evenly through time against the benefits of delaying consumption until lower prices are revealed. Optimal programs of consumption, savings and price are characterized for a general formulation of this problem. Intertemporal substitutability is measured by relative-risk aversion. That relative-risk aversion is small is sufficient for the intuitive solution: As the best current price rises, more search and less consumption is done. The general model is adapted to special cases. Among other things, this shows that linear utility and sequential search implies ex nte calculable reservation prices and consumption only when search stops. However, this characterization is a consequence of the restriction to linear utility. Outside of this context reservation prices and consumption may not be calculable, ex ante. Keywords: Consumer; Relative risk aversion; Reservation prices; Search

In response to criticism of the Causal Theory of aesthetic criticism by Roger Shiner, it is argued that Shiner is at fault by making a distinction between aesthetic and taste judgements. Shiner believes that to vindicate aesthetic judgement, criterial, rather than causal, justification is involved. It is argued that there is no reason to separate aesthetic and taste judgement.

In 1983, I told Richard Manning about Gale and Shapley's beautiful 1962 paper on matching. He asked whether in the Gale-Shapley it was in the interest of all participants to tell the truth. We rather quickly showed that in general it is not in the interest of the recipients of offers to be truthful. In fact we were able to show that no mechanism can guarantee efficient assignments and be cheatproof. We were very pleased. We sent it to a journal, only to learn that Al Roth had beat us to it in a paper that was to appear in JET in 1984. Roth's paper was not only earlier, but deeper and better than ours. But our proof is different from his and our example might still be of interest.