A Clifford-algebraic interpretation is proposed of the charge, mass, spin relationship found recently by Cooperstock and Faraoini, which was based on the Kerr–Newman metric solutions of the Einstein–Maxwell equations. The components of the polymomentum associated with a Clifford polyparticle in four dimensions provide for such a charge, mass, spin relationship without the problems encountered in Kaluza–Klein compactifications which furnish an unphysically large value for the electron charge. A physical reasoning behind such charge, mass, spin relationship is provided, followed (...) by a discussion on the geometrical derivation of the fine structure constant by Wyler, Smith, Gonzalez-Martin and Smilga. To finalize, the renormalization of electric charge is discussed and some remarks are made pertaining the modifications of the charge–scale relationship, when the spin of the polyparticle changes with scale, that may cast some light into the alleged Astrophysical variations of the fine structure constant. (shrink)

The magnetic dipole moment of the Kerr–Newman metric, defined by mass \, electrical charge \ and angular momentum \, is \, corresponding, for all values of \, to a gyromagnetic ratio \, which is also the value of the intrinsic gyromagnetic ratio of the electron, as first noted by Carter. Here, we argue that this result can be understood in terms of the particle-wave complementarity principle. For \ can only be defined at asymptotic spatial infinity, where the (...) class='Hi'>metric appears to describe a spinning point particle, and therefore setting \, \, we necessarily have a model of the electron. From the Dirac equation we can construct a covariantly conserved four-current \ that is the source of the electromagnetic field generated by the charge \. The result \ then follows from the minimal gauge principle \ which is implicit in the formulation of the spinorial wave equation, and which can also be justified from the line action for a spin-1/2 point particle interacting with an external electromagnetic field, due to Berezin and Marinov. By contrast, analysis of the gyrogravito-magnetic effect, investigated classically by Wald and quantum mechanically by Adler et al., yields the result \ in all non-relativistic cases, which can be explained from the principle of equivalence. The results are in accord with the correspondence principle. (shrink)

De Cock and Kerre, in considering Poincaré paradox, observed that the intuitive notion of "approximate similarity" cannot be adequately represented by the fuzzy equivalence relations. In this note we argue that the deduction apparatus of fuzzy logic gives adequate tools with which to face the question. Indeed, a first-order theory is proposed whose fuzzy models are plausible candidates for the notion of approximate similarity. A connection between these structures and the point-free metric spaces is also established.

This paper deals with those time travels mostly considered by physics, namely those in the form of the so-called closed timelike curves. Some authoritative scholars have raised doubts about the status of these journeys as proper time travels. By using David Lewis’ famous definition of time travels proposed in 1976, we show that this proper status may actually be recovered, at least in some cosmological contexts containing spacetime regions, such as those concerning black holes described by the Kerr–Newman (...) class='Hi'>metric, that allow the formation of local closed curves. But, the mathematical incompatibility between ordinary black hole solutions to Einstein field equations and the cosmological solutions induces us to take into consideration the more general issue pertaining to the slippery interplay between models related to local and global aspects of the world, highlighting, in particular, the different notions of time that these domains inevitably imply. This leads us to think that time is not a univocal entity of the world, but is a scale-related characteristic which claims the adoption, when investigating its ontological status, of a sort of regional approach. We also briefly dwell upon the most appropriate form of realism that such a kind of dispute between local and global models may involve. (shrink)

We continue to explore the consequences of Thermal Relativity Theory to the physics of black holes. The thermal analog of Lorentz transformations in the tangent space of the thermodynamic manifold are studied in connection to the Hawking evaporation of Schwarzschild black holes and one finds that there is no bound to the thermal analog of proper accelerations despite the maximal bound on the thermal analog of velocity given by the Planck temperature. The proper entropic infinitesimal interval corresponding to the (...) class='Hi'>Kerr–Newman black hole involves a \ non-Hessian metric with diagonal and off-diagonal terms of the form \^2 = g_{ ab } d Z^a dZ^b\), where \ are the mass, charge and angular momentum, respectively. Since the computation of the scalar curvature associated to this metric is very elaborate, to simplify matters, we focused on the singularities of the metric and found that they correspond to the extremal Kerr–Newman black hole case \ with vanishing temperature. Black holes in asymptotically Anti de Sitter spacetimes are more subtle to study since the mass turns out to be related to the enthalpy rather that the internal energy. We finalize with some remarks about the thermal-relativistic analog of proper force, the need to extend our analysis of Gibbs-Boltzmann entropy to the case of Reny and Tsallis entropies, and to complexify spacetime. (shrink)

Altruism is generally understood to be behavior that benefits others at a personal cost to the behaving individual. However, within evolutionary biology, different authors have interpreted the concept of altruism differently, leading to dissimilar predictions about the evolution of altruistic behavior. Generally, different interpretations diverge on which party receives the benefit from altruism and on how the cost of altruism is assessed. Using a simple trait-group framework, we delineate the assumptions underlying different interpretations and show how they relate to one (...) another. We feel that a thorough examination of the connections between interpretations not only reveals why different authors have arrived at disparate conclusions about altruism, but also illuminates the conditions that are likely to favor the evolution of altruism. (shrink)

Objective: To examine lay persons’ ability to identify methods of random allocation and their acceptability of using methods of random allocation in a clinical trial context.Design: Leaflets containing hypothetical medical, non-medical, and clinical trial scenarios involving random allocation, using material from guidelines for trial information leaflets.Setting and participants: Adults attending further education colleges , covering a wide range of ages, occupations, and levels of education.Main measures: Judgements of whether each of five methods of allocation to two groups was random in (...) a medical or non-medical scenario. Judgements of whether these allocation methods were acceptable in a randomised clinical trial scenario, with or without a scientific justification for randomisation.Results: The majority of our group of participants judged correctly that allowing people their preference was not random, and that the following were random: using a computer with no information about the individual , tossing a coin, drawing a name out of a hat. Judgements were split over allocating people in turn . Judgements were no different in medical and non-medical scenarios. Few of the correctly identified random methods were judged to be acceptable in a clinical trial scenario. Inclusion of a scientific justification for randomising significantly increased the acceptability of only one random method: allocation by computer.Conclusions: Current UK guidelines’ recommended description of random allocation by computer seems warranted. However, while potential trial participants may understand what random allocation means, they may find it unacceptable unless offered an acceptable justification for its use. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a renewed debate over the importance of groupselection, especially as it relates to the evolution of altruism. Onefeature of this debate has been disagreement over which kinds ofprocesses should be described in terms of selection at multiple levels,within and between groups. Adapting some earlier discussions, we presenta mathematical framework that can be used to explore the exactrelationships between evolutionary models that do, and those that donot, explicitly recognize biological groups as fitness-bearing entities.We show a fundamental set (...) of mathematical equivalences between these twokinds of models, one of which applies a form of multi-level selectiontheory and the other being a form of ``individualism.'' However, we alsoargue that each type of model can have heuristic advantages over theother. Indeed, it can be positively useful to engage in a kind ofback-and-forth switching between two different perspectives on theevolutionary role of groups. So the position we defend is a``gestalt-switching pluralism.''. (shrink)

Accounting educators are being called on to provide a greater emphasis on ethics education. This paper examines three important issues concerning ethics education in accounting. First, the question of whether ethics can indeed be taught is examined. Next, several innovative approaches are presented which have been used by accounting educators to integrate ethics into the classroom. Finally, results of a survey of students concerning their perspectives of ethical issues in accounting education, the accounting profession, and society at large are presented (...) and discussed. Survey results reveal that students consider a lack of ethics damaging to the accounting profession and society. Results also indicate that accounting students are seeking ethical and moral direction. (shrink)

Kerr-Lawson discusses the reconstruction of knowledge Santayana undertakes in the second half of SAF. Kerr-Lawson explains Santayana’s general approach to the reconstruction, as well as his treatment of a priori knowledge, factual knowledge, and the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief.

My starting point is that discussions in philosophy about the ontology of technical artifacts ought to be informed by classificatory practices in engineering. Hence, the heuristic value of the natural-artificial distinction in engineering counts against arguments which favour abandoning the distinction in metaphysics. In this chapter, I present the philosophical equipment needed to analyse classificatory practices and then present a case study of engineering practice using these theoretical tools. More in particular, I make use of the Collectivist Account of Technical (...) Artifacts (CAT) according to which there are different classificatory practices for natural, artificial, and social objects. I demonstrate that in the community studied, artificial kinds are marked by distinctive classificatory practices. The presence of these distinctive classificatory practices in engineering with regard to artificial kinds should inform discussions about the ontology of technical artifacts just as the distinctive classificatory practices in natural science inform discussions about natural kinds. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) pervades humanity in 2022, and it is notoriously difficult to understand how certain aspects of it work. There is a movement—_Explainable_ Artificial Intelligence (XAI)—to develop new methods for explaining the behaviours of AI systems. We aim to highlight one important philosophical significance of XAI—it has a role to play in the elimination of vagueness. To show this, consider that the use of AI in what has been labeled _surveillance capitalism_ has resulted in humans quickly gaining the capability (...) to identify and classify most of the occasions in which languages are used. We show that the knowability of this information is incompatible with what a certain theory of vagueness—_epistemicism_—says about vagueness. We argue that one way the epistemicist could respond to this threat is to claim that this process brought about the end of vagueness. However, we suggest an alternative interpretation, namely that epistemicism is false, but there is a weaker doctrine we dub _technological epistemicism_, which is the view that vagueness is due to ignorance of linguistic usage, but the ignorance can be overcome. The idea is that knowing more of the relevant data and how to process it enables us to know the semantic values of our words and sentences with higher confidence and precision. Finally, we argue that humans are probably not going to believe what future AI algorithms tell us about the sharp boundaries of our vague words unless the AI involved can be explained in terms understandable by humans. That is, if people are going to accept that AI can tell them about the sharp boundaries of the meanings of their words, then it is going to have to be XAI. (shrink)

When you hear music, you experience a repeating pulse that you naturally tap along to—you feel a beat. But you can feel a beat differently under sounds you hear as otherwise alike. Heard each way, things sound different. But, heard each way, nothing seems to change. So why do things sound different? I argue that, surprisingly, the usual theories of perception have no good answer. I then develop a view on which different ways of feeling a beat are different ways (...) of perceiving the same mind-independent features of things. On this view, feeling a beat is hearing sounds as organized within periods of time. And just as we can represent the same events using different calendars, we can perceive the same events using different beats. (shrink)

Among the many fruitful and challenging sites for mutual engagement of theology and philosophy, the renewed study of St. Thomas Aquinas has proven to be both lively and controversial. Given particular impetus in recent years by the widespread assessment of modernity that occupies many academic disciplines today, this study is both interesting and relevant to a number of intellectual debates, even as it demands for itself the highest level of scholarship. This collection reflects the state of Aquinas studies throughout North (...) America, Britain, and Northern Europe, and provides an introduction to this diversity for a general and scholarly readership. Widely differing and often starkly contrasting and even contradictory interpretations of Aquinas are to be found here, which by their very differences invite readers to go deeper into the background from which each emerges and so to find for themselves a way to contemplate Aquinas. "This excellent collection of rich, sometimes controversial papers is an attempt to set the study of Thomas Aquinas in context and to extend our understanding of Aquinas's thought in the process. It is indispensable reading for anyone interested in the contemporary state of Thomistic studies and its history." --Eleonore Stump, Henle Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University "This is a fine collection further demonstrating the sheer variety and vitality of contemporary Thomistic studies. By challenging and unsettling established assumptions the essayists help to free the work of one of the greatest educators in the ways of Christian wisdom to speak with fresh relevance. The result is an invaluable resource for teachers and students of theology alike." --Paul D. Murray, Durham University. (shrink)

This book explores the mediatory competence of human communication. By analyzing and enacting rhetorical strategies, the author invites the reader to logical discussion and political discourse.

The book is a translation from the Fergus Kerr book published at Oxford University Press.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 772-794, September 2021.

Distant things look smaller, in a sense. Why? I argue that the reason is not that our experiences have a certain subject matter, or are about certain mind-independent things and features. Instead, distant things look smaller because of our way of perceiving them. I go on to offer a hypothesis about which specific way of perceiving explains why distant things look smaller.

Thomas Aquinas is one of the giants of medieval philosophy, a thinker who had--and who still has--a profound influence on Western thought.

There is a strong case to be made for thinking that an obscure logic, KR, is better than classical logic and better than any relevant logic. The argument for KR over relevant logics is that KR counts disjunctive syllogism valid, and this is the biggest complaint about relevant logics. The argument for KR over classical logic depends on the normativity of logic and the paradoxes of implication. The paradoxes of implication are taken by relevant logicians to justify relevant logic, but (...) considerations on the normativity of logic show that only some of the paradoxes of implication are genuine. KR avoids all the genuine paradoxes of implication, unlike classical logic. Overall, KR avoids the genuine paradoxes of implication and avoids the major objection to relevant logics. This combination of features provides strong reason to give KR a place in the conversation about the right logic. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to consider the project of analytical Thomism with particular regard to Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse. My overall conclusion is that Thomas’s thought on esse is part and parcel of a way of philosophizing that is alien to analytical philosophy and is such that analytical philosophy is constitutionally unable to come to terms with it. In order to argue for such a conclusion, I begin with a presentation of Aquinas’s metaphysics of esse. I then respond to (...) the objection that arguably some analytical philosophers have already arrived at the same thought at which Aquinas arrived, thereby blocking the way to my denial of the possibility of an encounter between analytical philosophy and Thomist esse. Having removed that obstacle, I argue that analytical philosophy is constitutionally unable to come to terms with Thomist esse. (shrink)

In recent years, the idea has been gaining ground that our traditional conceptions of knowledge and cognition are unduly limiting, in that they privilege what goes on inside the ‘skin and skull’ of an individual reasoner. Instead, it has been argued, knowledge and cognition need to be understood as embodied, situated, and extended. Whether these various interrelations and dependencies are ‘merely’ causal, or are in a more fundamental sense constitutive of knowledge and cognition, is as much a matter of controversy (...) as the degree to which they pose a challenge to ‘traditional’ conceptions of cognition, knowledge and the mind. In this paper we argue that when the idea of ‘extendedness’ is applied to a core concept in epistemology and the philosophy of science—namely, scientific evidence—things appear to be on a much surer footing. The evidential status of data gathered through extended processes—including its utility as justification or warrant—do not seem to be weakened by virtue of being extended, but instead are often strengthened because of it. Indeed, it is often precisely by virtue of this extendedness that scientific evidence grounds knowledge claims, which individuals may subsequently ascribe to themselves. The functional equivalence between machine-based gathering, filtering, and processing of data and human interpretation and assessment is the crucial factor in deciding whether evidence has been gathered, rather than the distinction between intra- and extracranial processes or individual and social processes. To prioritize biological processes here, and to assert the superiority of human cognitive capacities seems both arbitrary and unwarranted with respect to gathering evidence, and ultimately would lead to an unattractive skepticism about many of the methods used in science to gather evidence. In other words, conceiving of scientific evidence as ‘impersonal’ not only better captures the character of evidence-gathering in practice, but also makes sense of a large amount of evidence-gathering that ‘personal’ accounts fail to either acknowledge or accurately describe. Whilst we suggest it is likely that all internally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are merely contingently internal processes, a significant number of externally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are necessarily externally-distributed. Some evidence can only be gathered by extended epistemic agents. (shrink)

The philosophy of religion, as commonly understood by Christians in both the Catholic and Reformed traditions, whether they think it a worthwhile enterprise or not, begins with arguments for the existence of a deity, proceeds to show that this deity is necessarily unique, eternal, and suchlike, and leaves it to reflection on divine revelation to consider whether this deity might be properly designated as ‘three persons in one nature’. Much later, after discussing the metaphysical implications of the incarnation of the (...) second person of the triune godhead, one would arrive at theories about the death of Jesus Christ as putatively redemptive, and describable as sacrificial, atoning and the like. (shrink)

Can robots or AIs operating independently of human intervention or oversight diminish our privacy? There are two equal and opposite reactions to this issue. On the robot side, machines are starting to outperform human experts in an increasing array of narrow tasks, including driving, surgery, and medical diagnostics. This is fueling a growing optimism that robots and AIs will exceed humans more generally and spectacularly; some think, to the point where we will have to consider their moral and legal status. (...) On the privacy side, one sees the very opposite: robots and AIs are, in a legal sense, nothing. The received view is that since robots and AIs are neither sentient nor capable of human-level cognition, they are of no consequence to privacy law. This article argues that robots and AIs operating independently of human intervention can and, in some cases, already do diminish our privacy. Epistemic privacy offers a useful analytic framework for understanding the kind of cognizance that gives rise to diminished privacy. Because machines can actuate on the basis of the beliefs they form in ways that affect people’s life chances and opportunities, I argue that they demonstrate the kind of cognizance that definitively implicates privacy. Consequently, I conclude that legal theory and doctrine will have to expand their understanding of privacy relationships to include robots and AIs that meet these epistemic conditions. An increasing number of machines possess epistemic qualities that force us to rethink our understanding of privacy relationships with robots and AIs. (shrink)

How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally-sound and equitable agricultural development. Yet there are few examples of curricula that support the co-development of knowledge with farmers. While transdisciplinary and participatory techniques are considered key components of agroecology, how to do so is rarely specified and few materials are available, especially those relevant to smallholder farmers with limited formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The few training materials that exist provide appropriate methods, such as (...) compost making, but do not explain relationships and synergies between nutrition, social inequalities, climate change and agroecology. Some food sovereignty and agroecology courses aim at popular political education for those with more formal education. Here we describe the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for smallholders in southern Africa with limited formal education. The curriculum is highly participatory; we use concepts in popular education, transformative and experiential-based learning, and theatre. It is also integrative; we link agroecology with climate change, human and soil nutrition, gender, and related components of social equity. Developed in partnership with Malawian farmers, community development experts and academics from five countries, the curriculum was piloted with 520 smallholder farming households in Malawi and Tanzania, and evaluated using qualitative techniques. Clashes of language, cultural norms, and terminology were as great of a challenge as agreeing on and conveying technical information, to weave into a coherent whole. However, farmers who participated in the curriculum training demonstrated high interest, comprehension of material and interest in immediate application to their lives. (shrink)

This book contains a collection of selected papers from the 2017 Farm-to-Plate: Uniting for a Just and Sustainable Food System conference in Ithaca, New York, which explored what different advocates, stakeholders, growers, and community members today prioritize when it comes to justice, action, and transformation in the agri-food system. The research presented at this symposium shows the diverse range of approaches scientists have taken to investigate this aforementioned question. The papers represent a combined effort to creatively educate, share, and connect (...) work being done by stakeholders on food system transformation. Previously published in Agriculture and Human Values Volume 36, issue 4, December 2019. (shrink)