Langue, langage et interactions culturelles

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Nicholas Rescher

Nicholas Rescher presents an original pragmatic defense of the issue of objectivity. Rescher employs reasoned argumentation in restoring objectivity to its place of prominence and utility within social and philosophical discourse. By tracing the source of objectivity back to the very core of rationality itself, Rescher locates objectivity's reason for being deep in our nature as rational animals. His project rehabilitates the case for objectivity by subjecting relativistic and negativistic thinking to close critical scrutiny, revealing the flaws and fallacies at work in the deliberations of those who dismiss objectivity as obsolete and untenable. Rescher takes to task the cultural relativism of contemporary social science and social theory, as well as that of liberalistic political correctness and the postmodern aversion to the normative. In holding such relativistic thinking up to the light of rational argument, he demonstrates that a rejection of objectivity is in fact unreasonable. Rescher further reveals that a relativistic apathy to truth and rightness actually destroys, in effect, the very conception it presumably elucidates.

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Fikret Berkes

Papers presented at the Conference on Conservation and Development : Implementing the World Conservation Strategy, held at Ottawa in June 1986 and Fourth International Congress of Ecology, held at Syracuse in August 1986.

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Aileen Fisher. Designed and

Discusses in rhyme the camouflage effected by a moth against a tree, a rabbit in a meadow, bobwhites among leaves, and other animals.

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Richard Gass

Mathematica is a powerful computer language that allows the tight integration of symbolic, numeric, and graphic techniques. In Mathematica for Scientists and Engineers: Using Mathematica to do Science, Richard Gass provides a guide for scientific researchers, engineers, and students on using the power of Mathematica to solve scientifically interesting problems. On the left, for instance, is a nonuniform cross-section of a pipe, the partial differential equation that governs wave motion in the pipe, the Mathematica code that solves the equation, and a density plot of the excess pressure in the pipe.