Although the past plays a large part in election campaigns, predictions and promises are its lifeblood, with the various parties promising great things if elected and predicting doom if not. Indeed the `manifestos' usually published at the beginning of an election campaign are a study in pledges, promises and wishes that parties use to entice the electorate to vote for them. Whilst talk of the future often dominates election discourse, one aspect of the future that is largely passed over without (...) comment is the actual make up of the result, despite the relentless publication of opinion polls results. However, towards the end of the general election campaign in the UK in 2001, the Conservative Party began to warn of the dangers of the Labour Party winning the election by a large majority. The media gave wide prominence to this event, seen as tantamount to conceding defeat to the Labour Party, though the reaction of all the main political parties was to downplay its significance. In this article, we explore the discursive manipulation of temporal relations in the 2001 election campaign, and the politicians' work in gaining political capital out of the Conservative Party `breach' in the routine election prediction structure. (shrink)

This article examines how genetic counselors and clients jointly negotiate possible scenarios (e.g., inheritability, desirability of predictive tests, uncertainty about late onsets) based on available evidence (e.g., family tree, scan results,and population risk figures).Based on an analytic philosophical perspective, two potential meanings of probability can be identified: the degree of commitment and the notion of range/normalcy. These two levels of meaning become conflated in the formulation of probability as signalled in the use of hedging, disclaimers, and markers of frequency and (...) distribution.The analysis focuses on how indirect evidence and inductive inferencing are systematically recruited by geneticists in the production of probability statements as they strive to maintain a nondirective stance.The data are drawn from two clinical sessions where the geneticists are fairly confident of “no-risk� scenarios, and yet, the discussion centers around the (un)likelihood of the genetic condition being inherited by future generations. (shrink)

First published in 1973, Rules and Meanings is an anthology of works that form part of Mary Douglas' struggle to devise an anthropological modernism conducive to her opposition to reputedly modernizing trends in contemporary society. The collection contains works by Wittgenstein, Schutz, Husserl, Hertz and other continentals. The underlying themes of the anthology are the construction of meaning, the force of hidden background assumptions, tacit conventions and the power of spatial organization to reinforce words. The work serves to complement the (...) philosophers' work on everyday language with the anthropologists' theory of everyday knowledge. (shrink)