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©2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
1856 I Sydney Opera House ► Symonds
ties. It is dominated by Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the biggest single¬ span bridges in the world, and the Sydney Opera House. The city is widely known for its water sports, recreational facilities, and cultural life. It is the site of the Universities of Sydney (1850) and New South Wales (1949), and Macquarie University (1964). Sydney was the host of the 2000 Sum¬ mer Olympic Games.
Sydney Opera House Performing-arts centre on the harbour in Syd¬ ney, Australia. Its dynamic, imaginative design by Danish architect Jpm Utzon (b. 1918) won a competition in 1957 and brought Utzon interna¬ tional fame. Construction posed a variety of problems, many resulting from the bold design consisting of a series of glittering white shell-shaped roofs. After several years of research, Utzon gave the vaults a more spheri¬ cal geometry, making them easier and more economical to build. The roofs are made up of precast concrete sections held together by cables. The centre finally opened in 1973.
Sydow \'se-do,\ Swedish VsiE-dov\, Max von orig. Carl Adolf von Sydow (b. April 10, 1929, Lund, Swed.) Swedish actor. After studying at Stockholm’s Royal Dramatic Theatre School (1948-51), he became a noted stage actor in Malmo and Stockholm. He is best known for his dour, brooding characterizations in Ingmar Bergman’s films, notably The Sev¬ enth Seal (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), Winter Light (1963), Shame (1968), and The Passion of Anna (1969). His numerous U.S. and inter¬ national movies include The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Exor¬ cist (1973), Pelle the Conqueror { 1988), What Dreams May Come (1998), and Minority Report (2002).
syllable Segment of speech usually consisting of a vowel with or with¬ out accompanying consonant sounds (e.g., a, I, out, too, cap, snap, check). A syllabic consonant, like the final n sound in button and widen, also constitutes a syllable. Closed (checked) syllables end in a consonant, open (free) syllables in a vowel. Syllables play an important role in the study of speech and in phonetics and phonology.
syllogism Vsi-lo-ji-zomX Form of argument that, in its most commonly discussed instances, has two categorical propositions as premises and one categorical proposition as conclusion. An example of a syllogism is the following argument: Every human is mortal (every M is P); every phi¬ losopher is human (every S is M); therefore, every philosopher is mortal (every S is P). Such arguments have exactly three terms (human, philoso¬ pher, mortal). Here, the argument is composed of three categorical (as opposed to hypothetical) propositions, it is therefore a categorical syllo¬ gism. In a categorical syllogism, the term that occurs in both premises but not in the conclusion (human) is the middle term; the predicate term in the conclusion is called the major term, the subject the minor term. The pattern in which the terms S, M, and P (minor, middle, major) are arranged is called the figure of the syllogism. In this example, the syllogism is in the first figure, since the major term appears as predicate in the first premise and the minor term as subject of the second.
syllogistic \,si-b-'jis-tik\ Formal analysis of the syllogism. Developed in its original form by Aristotle in his Prior Analytics c. 350 bc, syllogistic represents the earliest branch of formal logic. Syllogistic comprises two domains of investigation. Categorical syllogistic confines itself to cat¬ egorical propositions and their variation with respect to modalities. Non- categorical syllogistic is a form of logical inference using whole propositions as its units, an approach traceable to the Stoics but only fully developed by John Neville Keynes (1852-1949).
Sylvester II orig. Gerbert of Aurillac (b. c. 945, near Aurillac, Auvergen, France—d. May 12, 1003, Rome) First French pope (999- 1003). Renowned as a scholar of logic and mathematics, he became arch¬ bishop of Reims (991) and of Ravenna (c. 998). Appointed pope by his former student, Otto III, Sylvester worked closely with Otto, strengthen¬ ing papal authority in distant states such as Kiev and Norway as well as in Italy. He denounced SIMONY, demanded clerical celibacy, and limited the power of the bishops. He wrote textbooks on mathematics, the sci¬ ences, and music and the philosophical work De rationali et de ratione uti (“Concerning the Rational and the Use of Reason”). According to leg¬ ends that emerged shortly after his death, his great learning was the result of magical arts or the Devil’s coaching.
symbiosis Any of several living arrangements between members of two different species, including commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism. The species involved are called symbionts. In commensalism, one species (the commensal) obtains nutrients, shelter, support, or locomotion from the
host species, which is substantially unaffected (e.g., remoras obtain loco¬ motion and food from sharks). In mutualism, both species benefit. Many mutualistic relationships are obligative; neither species can live without the other (e.g., protozoans in the gut of termites digest the wood ingested by the termites).
symbol Element of communication intended to represent or stand for a person, object, group, process, or idea. Symbols may be presented graphi¬ cally (e.g., the red cross and crescent for the worldwide humanitarian agency) or representationally (e.g., a lion representing courage). They may involve associated letters (e.g., C for the chemical element carbon), or they may be assigned arbitrarily (e.g., the mathematical symbol °o for infinity). Symbols are devices by which ideas are transmitted between people sharing a common culture. Every society has evolved a symbol system that reflects a specific cultural logic; and every symbolism func¬ tions to communicate information between members of the culture in much the same way as, but more subtly than, conventional language. Symbols tend to appear in clusters and to depend on one another for their accretion of meaning and value. See also semiotics.
symbolic interactionism See interactionism
Symbolism In art, a loosely organized movement that flourished in the 1880s and ’90s and was closely related to the Symbolist movement in lit¬ erature. In reaction against both Realism and Impressionism, Symbolist paint¬ ers stressed art’s subjective, symbolic, and decorative functions and turned to the mystical and occult in an attempt to evoke subjective states of mind by visual means. Though aspects of Symbolism appear in the work of Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and the Nabis, its leading expo¬ nents were Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Though associated primarily with France, it flourished all over Europe, had great international impact, and influenced 20th-century art and lit¬ erature.
Symbolist movement Literary movement that originated with a group of French poets in the late 19th century, spread to painting and the theatre, and influenced Russian, European, and American arts of the 20th century. Reacting against the rigid conventions of traditional French poetry, as seen in the precise description favoured by the Parnassian poets, Symbolist poets sought to convey individual emotional experience through the subtle, suggestive use of highly metaphorical language. The arcane and indirect meaning of the symbol is evoked as a substitute for the increasingly attenuated sense of collective and universal meanings. Principal Symbolist poets included the Frenchmen Stephane Mallarme, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud, and the Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren. Many Symbolists were also identified with the Decadent movement. Just as Symbolist painters avoided concrete representation in favour of fan¬ tasy and imagination, Symbolist dramatists relied on myth, mood, and atmosphere to reveal only indirectly the deeper truths of existence.