In 1973, Sette presented a calculus, called P1, which is recognized as one of the most remarkable paraconsistent systems. The aim of this paper is to propose a new axiomatization of P1. The axiom schemata are chosen to show that P1 behaves in a paraconsistent way only at the atomic level, i.e. the rule: α, ~α / β holds in P1 only if α is not a propositional variable.

With the help of event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study used an oddball paradigm to investigate how both individual and target power modulate neural responses to angry expressions. Specifically, participants were assigned into a high-power or low-power condition. Then, they were asked to detect a deviant angry expression from a high-power or low-power target among a series of neutral expressions, while behavioral responses and electroencephalogram (EEG) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that high-power individuals responded faster to detect angry expressions (...) than low-power individuals. The ERP analysis showed that high-power individuals showed larger P3 amplitudes in response to angry expressions than low-power individuals did. Target power increased the amplitudes of the P1, VPP, N3, and P3 in response to angry expressions did, but decreased the amplitudes of the N1 and N170 in response to angry expressions. The present study extended previous studies by showing that having more power could enhance individuals’ neural responses to angry expressions in the late-stage processes, and individuals could show stronger neural responses to angry expressions from high-power persons in both the early‐ and late-stage processes. (shrink)

Prior studies suggest that psychological difficulties arise from higher trait rejection sensitivity (RS)—heightened vigilance and differential detection of social rejection cues and defensive response to. On the other hand, from an evolutionary perspective, rapid and efficient detection of social rejection cues can be considered beneficial. We conducted a survey and an electrophysiological experiment to reconcile this seeming contradiction. We compared the effects of RS and rejection detection capability (RDC) on perceived interpersonal experiences (Study 1) and on neurocognitive processes in response (...) to cues of social rejection (disgusted faces; Study 2). We found that RS and RDC were not significantly related, although RS was positively related to perceived social rejection experiences and RDC was positively related to perceived social inclusion experiences. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) revealed that higher RS was related to cognitive avoidance (i.e., P1) and heightened motivated attention (i.e., late positive potential: LPP), but not to facial expression encoding (i.e., N170) toward disgusted faces. On the other hand, higher RDC was related to heightened N170 amplitude, but not to P1 and LPP amplitudes. These findings imply that sensitivity to rejection is apparently distinct from the ability to detect social rejection cues and instead reflects intense vigilance and defensive response to those cues. We discussed an alternative explanation of the relationship between RS and RDC from a signal detection perspective. (shrink)

Adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP) was identified in 1970 as the transmitter responsible for non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic neurotransmission in the gut and bladder and the term ‘purinergic’ was coined. Purinergic cotransmission was proposed in 1976 and ATP is now recognized as a cotransmitter in all nerves in the peripheral and central nervous systems. P1 (adenosine) and P2 (ATP) receptors were distinguished in 1978. Cloning of these receptors in the early 1990s was a turning point in the acceptance of the purinergic signalling hypothesis. There (...) are both short-term purinergic signalling in neurotransmission, neuromodulation and secretion and long-term (trophic) purinergic signalling of cell proliferation, differentiation and death in development and regeneration. Much is known about the mechanisms of ATP release and its breakdown by ectonucleotidases. Recently, there has been emphasis on purinergic pathophysiology, including neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Purinergic therapeutic strategies are being developed for treatment of gut, kidney, bladder, lung, skeletal and reproductive system disorders, pain and cancer. (shrink)

Attentional bias towards threat can be demonstrated by enhanced processing of threat-related targets and/or greater interference when threat-related distractors are present. These effects are argued to reflect processing within the orienting and executive control networks of the brain respectively. This study investigated behavioural and electrophysiological correlates of early selective attention and top-down attentional control among females with high or low spider fear. Participants completed a novel flanker go/nogo task in which a central schematic flower or spider stimulus was flanked by (...) either congruent or incongruent distractors. Participants responded to green stimuli and withheld response to yellow stimuli. High fear participants demonstrated significantly shorter reaction times and greater P1 amplitude to spider targets, suggesting specific hypervigilance towards threat-relevant stimuli. In contrast to predictions, there was little evidence for behavioural interference effects or differences in N2 amplitude when distractor stimuli were threat-relevant. (shrink)

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 8.5px Times} My thesis is that current cities and the way that cities are beingdeveloped is unsustainable and poses global problems for the long-termflourishing of the world’s inter-related and interdependent economies, formatters of justice and happiness in socio-cultural relations between peoples,and for the health of our natural environments. I argue that ‘urbandesertification’ happens in the complex relationship between cities (both urbanand suburban) and rural environments that support them as both a natural andethical phenomenon (...) that I study using a form of analysis calledphenomenological ethics. First, I briefly present sketches of phenomenologyand sustainability in order to introduce the method of phenomenological ethicsto develop a more adequate understanding of urban sustainability. Then, I makea connection between desertification and urbanisation. Finally, I focus on thecity of El Paso, Texas in order to provide an empirical and relevant case studyof the existing problems of desertification and sustainability. (shrink)

My argument: P1: If my personhood is caused by Truth then, Truth is a person. P2: My personhood is caused by Truth. C: Therefore, Truth is a person. The argument hinges on the Causal Principle: A cause is, at least, as powerful as its effect. I can get 1 from 10, but I cannot get 10 from 1; therefore, the causal principle is vindicated. Truth is more than a person as you and I are, He is the archetype of personhood (...) by and in which all other personhoods move and have their being. Unlike Descartes who was unable to stop a slide into ever more skepticism, the Archimedean point of Truth - though, I am not directly going into math and logic here I believe them to function likewise as bulwarks against skepticism – does just that. The tsunami of skepticism has been unable to sweep up this hill. We can indeed know with surety, which is absolute certainty, that Truth exists and by extension God, who is Truth, and the rest of what Descartes builds back as sure i.e., the external, sensory world. (shrink)

Suppose someone (P1) does something that is wrongful only in virtue of the risk that it will enable another person (P2) to commit a wrongdoing. Suppose further that P1’s conduct does indeed turn out to enable P2’s wrongdoing. The resulting wrong is agentially mediated: P1 is an enabling agent and P2 is an intervening agent. Whereas the literature on intervening agency focuses on whether P2’s status as an intervening agent makes P1’s conduct less bad, I turn this issue on its (...) head by investigating whether P1’s status as an enabling agent makes P2’s conduct more bad. I argue that it does: P2 wrongs not just the victims of ϕ but P1 as well, by acting in a way that wrongfully makes P1 accountable for ϕ. This has serious implications for compensatory and defensive liability in cases of agentially mediated wrongs. (shrink)

Rawls afirma o P1 sublinhando que todas as pessoas devem ter um direito igual ao maior sistema de liberdades básicas iguais possível, de modo que o sistema de liberdades de uma pessoa seja compatível com as das demais. Esse princípio seria escolhido dentro da posição original, uma situação de imparcialidade onde as partes não teriam acesso as suas características sociais, econômicas e até mesmo psicológicas. No que diz respeito ao seu P1, Rawls afirma uma lista de liberdades básicas iguais que (...) precisariam ser asseguradas em uma sociedade bem ordenada. E destaca que as liberdades podem ser limitadas quando entrarem em conflito com as outras liberdades, desse modo elas não são vistas como absolutas. Porém o filósofo estadunidense afirma que as liberdades políticas possuem uma natureza especial, fazendo do primeiro princípio de justiça como equidade um princípio de igual participação política. Habermas, por sua vez, crítica Rawls afirmando que as liberdades políticas, no pensamento de Rawls, desempenham meramente um papel instrumental, assim como o fato de que o desenho da posição original não conseguiria explicar e assegurar o ponto de vista da avaliação imparcial de princípios de justiça entendidos de modo deontológico. Nesse trabalho ter-se-á como objetivo central investigar se as críticas apresentadas por Habermas se seguem, sobre as quais se argumentará que as objeções do pensador alemão à Rawls, apesar de terem apresentado importantes desafios ao liberalismo político rawlsiano, não se seguem. (shrink)

We thank the commentators for their thoughtful responses to our article.1 Due to space constraints, we will confine our discussion to just three key issues. The first issue relates to the central ethical conundrum for clinicians working with young people like Phoenix: namely, how to respect, value and defer to a person’s own account of their identity and what is needed for their well-being, while staying open to the possibility that such an account may reflect a work in progress. This (...) conundrum thus relates both to what will be beneficial for that person and what constitutes respecting their autonomy, and clinicians must dwell on these questions when deciding what forms of medical intervention to offer. D’Angelo,2 Lemma3 and Wren4 highlight the importance of considering Phoenix (or, indeed, any person pursuing gender-affirming interventions) as a ‘whole person in context’ (p5)2 prior to initiating treatment or care. In this way, they advocate for a process of ‘therapeutic exploration’ (p1),4 which includes taking sufficient time to explore Phoenix’s personhood with them so as to support them in achieving an ‘authentic self-discovery’ (p5).2 We agree with these authors that identity (including gender identity) development is a complex, life-long process that is influenced by biological, psychosocial and relational aspects, all of which may contribute to an individual’s desire to pursue gender-affirming interventions. To explore the various factors—both conscious and unconscious—that might be motivating Phoenix’s decision to pursue ongoing puberty suppression (OPS), D’Angelo,2 Lemma3 and Wren4 describe a comprehensive psychological approach to working with transgender (trans) and gender diverse (TGD) individuals and propose questions to guide such discussions. Consistent with this approach, we stipulated that Phoenix had undergone regular psychological counselling and that the psychologist had judged that ‘Phoenix’s distress is significant and enduring…not a symptom …. (shrink)

Savage's framework of subjective preference among acts provides a paradigmatic derivation of rational subjective probabilities within a more general theory of rational decisions. The system is based on a set of possible states of the world, and on acts, which are functions that assign to each state a consequence€. The representation theorem states that the given preference between acts is determined by their expected utilities, based on uniquely determined probabilities (assigned to sets of states), and numeric utilities assigned to consequences. (...) Savage's derivation, however, is based on a highly problematic well-known assumption not included among his postulates: for any consequence of an act in some state, there is a "constant act" which has that consequence in all states. This ability to transfer consequences from state to state is, in many cases, miraculous -- including simple scenarios suggested by Savage as natural cases for applying his theory. We propose a simplification of the system, which yields the representation theorem without the constant act assumption. We need only postulates P1-P6. This is done at the cost of reducing the set of acts included in the setup. The reduction excludes certain theoretical infinitary scenarios, but includes the scenarios that should be handled by a system that models human decisions. (shrink)

I present a cumulative case for the thesis that we only know propositions that are certain for us. I argue that this thesis can easily explain the truth of eight plausible claims about knowledge: -/- (1) There is a qualitative difference between knowledge and non-knowledge. (2) Knowledge is valuable in a way that non-knowledge is not. (3) Subjects in Gettier cases do not have knowledge. (4) If S knows that P, P is part of S’s evidence. (5) If S knows (...) that P, ~P is epistemically impossible for S. (6) If S knows that P, S can rationally act as if P. (7) If S knows that P, S can rationally stop inquiring whether P. (8) If S knows each of {P1, P2, … Pn}, and competently deduces Q from these propositions, S knows that Q. -/- I then argue that the skeptical costs of this thesis are outweighed by its explanatory power. (shrink)

In 1999, da Silva, D'Ottaviano and Sette proposed a general definition for the term translation between logics and presented an initial segment of its theory. Logics are characterized, in the most general sense, as sets with consequence relations and translations between logics as consequence-relation preserving maps. In a previous paper the authors introduced the concept of conservative translation between logics and studied some general properties of the co-complete category constituted by logics and conservative translations between them. In this paper we (...) present some conservative translations involving classical logic, Lukasiewicz three-valued system L3, the intuitionistic system I1 and several paraconsistent logics, as for instance Sette's system P1, the D'Ottaviano and da Costa system J3 and da Costa's systems Cn, 1≤ n≤ω. (shrink)

Alfred A. Robb. THEOREM 54 If P1 and P2 be a pair of parallel inertia planes while an inertia plane Q1 has parallel general lines a and b in common with P1 and P2 respectively and if Q2 be an inertia plane parallel to Q1 through some ...

One of the central goals of precision medicine is to dissolve the long-standing tension between the population-level data provided by traditional randomized controlled trials and the physician’s need to prescribe therapies for their individual patient. The RCT can tell the physician that therapy A is, on average, more effective than therapy B for a population of patients, P, but this does not tell her whether A is more effective for the particular patient, p1, in front of her. However, by leveraging (...) the tools and insights of molecular biology, precision medicine hopes to prospectively determine which therapies will work for which patients and overcome this problem. Fundamental to the... (shrink)

In the recent literature on confirmation there are two leading approaches to the provision of a probabilistic measure of the degree to which a hypothesis is confirmed by evidence. The first is to construe the degree to which evidence E confirms hypothesis H as a function that is directly proportional to p and inversely proportional to p . I shall refer to this as the probability approach. The second approach construes the notion as a function that is directly proportional to (...) the true-positive rate – the probability of the evidence if the hypothesis is true, p – and inversely proportional to the false-positive rate – the probability of the evidence if the hypothesis is false, p . These reverse conditional probabilities – of the evidence on the truth or falsehood of the hypothesis – are sometimes known as likelihoods. I shall refer to the approach to confirmation that uses them as the likelihood approach.For each of these approaches, there are two obvious options as to how to define the confirmation function. The first is to define it as the difference between the magnitude that is treated as increasing confirmation or p ) and the magnitude that is treated as decreasing confirmation or p ). The second is to define confirmation as the quotient of these two magnitudes.This yields four different measures of confirmation, represented in the following table: Differences RatiosProbabilities PD = p – p1 PR = Graphic2Likelihoods LD = p – p3 LR = Graphic4All these measures agree on whether or not E provides some support for H. Intuitively, we want to say that E provides some support for H just in case learning that E is true would make us assign a higher probability to H, i.e. when p(H …. (shrink)

This paper considers whether proposition – “x is not immoral but it is in poor taste” – is morally contradictory when considered from the standpoint of constructive ecumenical expressivism. According to CEE, pronouncements about poor taste and immorality have the following in common: they each convey a negative attitude towards x and intimate that x ought not to be done. Given this, P1 is vulnerable to a charge of contradiction, as it intimates that x is both something and not something (...) that ought not to be done. To avoid the putative contradiction, it is argued that an accusation of poor taste amounts to a negative attitude towards the treatment of a morally pertinent matter, thereby making the former parasitic on the latter. A morally relevant means of distinguishing between poor taste and immorality is therefore provided that endorses the expressivist tradition, and provides an account of societal norms. (shrink)

I present a novel position vis-à-vis the views in the Latin American philosophy literature regarding whether subjects more aptly use "Hispanic" or "Latinx" to refer to Hispanic- or-Latinx people. To this end, I will argue (C) the term "Afro-Latinx" is more apt than "Hispanic" or "Latinx" in a significant number of cases. This conclusion is based on three premises. The first premise (P1) is that use of "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US (...) society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The second premise (P2) is that that neither the term "Hispanic" nor the term "Latinx" provide subjects with this understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The third premise (P3) is that the term "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with more understanding of these events than the terms, "Hispanic" and "Latinx.” I present three cases which feature the experiences of Afro-Dominican people. The 1992 murder of Dominican man Kiko García by New York Police officer O’Keefe is first case. The second case is the Washington Heights Uprising that ensued Kiko García’ murder. An instance where a nightclub bouncer in the Dominican Republic denies a Dominican women entry because of her hair texture composes the third case. (shrink)

Our aim in this article is to bring some clarity to the clinical ethics expertise debate by critiquing and replacing the taxonomy offered by the Core Competencies report. The orienting question for our taxonomy is: Can clinical ethicists offer justified, normative recommendations for active patient cases? Views that answer “no” are characterized as a “negative” view of clinical ethics expertise and are further differentiated based on (a) why they think ethicists cannot give justified normative recommendations and (b) what they think (...) ethicists can offer, if they cannot offer recommendations. Views that answer “yes” to the orienting question are characterized as a “positive” view of clinical ethics expertise. Positive views are distinguished according to four additional questions. First (P1), how are those recommendations generated? Second (P2), what is the nature of the recommendations? Third (P3), we ask, how are the recommendations justified? And finally (P4), how are the recommendations communicated? (shrink)

This paper explores in detail an argument for epistemic expressivism, what we call the Argument from Motivation. While the Argument from Motivation has sometimes been anticipated, it has never been set out in detail. The argument has three premises, roughly, that certain judgments expressed in attributions of knowledge are intrinsically motivating in a distinct way (P1); that motivation for action requires desire-like states or conative attitudes (HTM); and that the semantic content of knowledge attributions cannot be specified without reference to (...) the intrinsically motivating judgments that such attributions express (P2). We argue that these premises entail a version of ecumenical expressivism. Since the argument from motivation has not been explicitly stated before, there is no current discussion of the argument. In this paper we therefore consider and reject various objections that one might propose to the argument, including some that stem from the idea that knowledge is factive, or that knowledge involves evidence that rules out relevant alternatives. Other objections to (P1) specifically might be derived from cases of apparent lack of epistemic motivation considered in in Kvanvig (The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003) and Brown (Nous 42(2):167–189, 2008), as well as from general forms of externalism about epistemic motivation. We consider these and find them wanting. Finally, the paper offers some critical remarks about the prospect of denying (P2). (shrink)

In the early seventies, several logicians developed a semantics for propositional systems of relevance logic. The essential ingredients of this semantics were a privileged point o, an ‘accessibility’ relation R and a special operator * for evaluating negation. Under the truth- conditions of the semantics, each formula A(Pl,…,Pn) could be seen as expressing a first order condition A+(pl,…,pn, o, R,*) on sets p1,…,pn and o, R, *, while each formula-scheme could be regarded as expressing the second-order condition ∀p1,…,∀pn A+(p1,…,pn, o, (...) R, *). It could then be shown that many standard systems of propositional relevance logic were complete in the sense that their theorems were just those formulas true in all models whose components o, R and * conformed to the second-order conditions expressed by the axioms of the system. (shrink)

There has been no consensus on the neural dissociation between emotion-label and emotion-laden words, which remains one of the major concerns in affective neurolinguistics. The current study adopted dot-probe tasks to investigate the valence effect on attentional bias toward Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words. Behavioral data showed that emotional word type and valence interacted in attentional bias scores with an attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words rather than positive emotion-label words and that this bias was derived from the disengagement difficulty (...) in positive emotion-laden words. In addition, an attentional bias toward negative emotion-label words relative to positive emotion-label words was observed. The event-related potential data demonstrated an interaction between emotional word type, valence, and hemisphere. A significant hemisphere effect was observed during the processing of positive emotion-laden word pairs rather than positive emotion-label, negative emotion-label, and negative emotion-laden word pairs, with positive emotion-laden word pairs eliciting an enhanced P1 in the right hemisphere as compared to the left hemisphere. Our results found a dynamic attentional bias toward positive emotion-laden words; individuals allocated more attention to positive emotion-laden words in the early processing stage and had difficulty disengaging attention from them in the late processing stage. (shrink)

O termo persona carrega uma flexibilidade formal conceitual capaz de enquadrar ou encapsular qualquer indivíduo, coisa ou algo, seja por sua propriedade autoral (particularidade de uma pessoa natural, que chamarei aqui P1), seja ainda por fatores específicos à sua representação fictícia (pessoa artificial ou persona ficta: P2). Ao recorrer a categorias e propriedades fictícias para explicar os fundamentos de sua nova teoria política, Hobbes foi acusado por seus contemporâneos de subverter princípios filosóficos e conceitos lógicos clássicos e milenares. Estavam todos (...) certos! (shrink)

James Cain issues forth a two-pronged attack against classical forms of act utilitarianism, elucidating objections from infinite utility streams and distributive justice through his novel examples.1 In his first example, we are to imagine an infinite number of immortals, living on an infinitely long street (Elm Street), bracing to suffer an infinite amount of migraine pain with the onset of this horrific disease. Left untreated, the disease would wreak havoc among our immortals in the following way. Year 1: P1 Year (...) 2: P1, P2, P3 Year 3: P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7 Year 4: P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P11, P12, P13, P14, P15.. (shrink)

Let L be a commutative residuated lattice and let f : Lk → L a function. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for f to be compatible with respect to every congruence on L. We use this characterization of compatible functions in order to prove that the variety of commutative residuated lattices is locally affine complete. Then, we find conditions on a not necessarily polynomial function P(x, y) in L that imply that the function x ↦ min{y є L (...) | P(x, y) ⪯ y} is compatible when defined. In particular, Pn(x, y) = yn → x, for natural number n, defines a family, Sn, of compatible functions on some commutative residuated lattices. We show through examples that S1> and S2, defined respectively from P1 and P2, are independent as operations over this variety; i.e. neither S1 is definable as a polynomial in the language of L enriched with S2 nor S2 in that enriched with S1. (shrink)

Humans have only finite discriminatory capacities. This simple fact seems to be incompatible with the existence of appearances. As many authors have noted, the hypothesis that appearances exist seems to be refuted by reductio: Let A, B, C be three uniformly coloured surfaces presented to a subject in optimal viewing conditions, such that A, B, and C resemble one another perfectly except with respect to their colours. Their colours differ slightly in the following way: the difference between A and B (...) and the difference between B and C are below the discrimination threshold, but the difference between A and C is above this threshold. According to an intuitive construal of what an appearance is, given that A and B appear (to the subject) identical in colour, A and B have the same (colour1) appearance P1; likewise, B and C have the same appearance P2. B's appearance is both P1 and P2. This seems to imply that P1=P2. But then, A and C also have the same appearance, which contradicts the hypothesis that A and C are discriminable. If A and C are discriminable with respect to their colour, they do not have the same appearance with respect to colour. The paradox arising from such a series of judgments of sameness or difference between pairs of coloured surfaces seems to belong to the class of sorites paradoxes. I will show that there is a way to construe colours and their appearances in a way that does not fall prey to the reduction just sketched. (shrink)

Take a hypothetical sequence of human beings ordered by height from tallest to shortest. Make sure there is no more than a difference of a millimeter between each person and make sure the tallest person is clearly tall and the shortest person is clearly not tall. Now consider the following argument: P1 A person of height n is tall ; P2 For any height n, if n is tall, then n–1mm is tall ; C Therefore, a person of height n (...) = 1mm is tall. P1 and P2 are intuitively true, C is intuitively false, yet the argument is deductively valid (the conclusion follows... (shrink)

Let be a relational system whereby D is a nonempty set and P1 is an m1-ary relation on D. With we associate the (weak) monadic second-order theory consisting of the first-order predicate calculus with individual variables ranging over D; monadic predicate variables ranging over (finite) subsets of D; monadic predicate quantifiers; and constants corresponding to P1, P2, …. We will often use ambiguously to mean also the set of true sentences of.

Kripke's epistemic argument against descriptivism is reconstructed as follows. Premise 1: if descriptivism is correct, then “N is the F” should be knowable a priori; Premise 2: in fact, “N is the F” is not knowable a priori; Conclusion: descriptivism is wrong. This article accepts P2 of the argument as true, but rejects P1 by arguing for the evolution of language and the growth of meaning; so it concludes that the argument fails. It also criticizes Kripke's conception of “a priori,” (...) and interprets why “N is the F” is not knowable a priori. Sometimes this article uses materials from Chinese ancient philosophers, for example, Xunzi and later Moists, to support its arguments. (shrink)

An ω-language is a set of infinite sequences on a countable language, and corresponds to a set of real numbers in a natural way. Languages may be described by logical formulas in the arithmetical hierarchy and also may be described as the set of words accepted by some type of automata or Turing machine. Certain families of languages, such as the equation image languages, may enumerated as P0, P1, … and then an index set associated to a given property R (...) of languages is just the set of e such that Pe has the property. The complexity of index sets for 7 types of languages is determined for various properties related to the size of the language. (shrink)

Most versions of the knowledge argument say that if a scientist observing my brain does not know what my consciousness 'is like,' then consciousness is not identical with physical brain processes. This unwarrantedly equates 'physical' with 'empirically observable.' However, we can conclude only that consciousness is not identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event, what P-C relation could render C empirically unobservable? Some suggest that C is (...) a relation among Ps which is distinguishable because it is multi-realizable; that is, C could have been realized by P2 rather than P1 and still have been the same relation. C might even be a 'self-organizing' process, appropriating and replacing its own material substrata. How can this account explain the empirical unobservability of consciousness? Because the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone, by organisms. Organisms-self-organizing processes actively appropriating their needed physical substrata-feel motivations by generating them. Thus, experiencing someone's consciousness entails executing his or her motivations. (shrink)

This paper has three modest aims: to present a puzzle, to show why some obvious solutions aren’t really “easy outs”, and to introduce our own solution. The puzzle is this. When it was small and had waterlogged streets, Toronto carried the moniker ‘Muddy York’. Later, the streets were drained, it grew, and Muddy York officially changed its name to ‘Toronto’. Given this, each premise in the following argument seems true. Yet the conclusion is a contraction. P1: Muddy York = Toronto (...) P2: Muddy York evolved into Toronto P3: The context “__ evolved into Toronto” is transparent, i.e., it allows substitution of co-referring singular terms P4: It’s not the case that Toronto evolved into Toronto C1: Toronto evolved into Toronto [By P1, P2 and P3] C2: Toronto both did and did not evolve into Toronto [By P4 and C1]. (shrink)

: I explore the logic of counterexamples by possible conjunction in order to extend their use to estimate the degree of support of premises; address some problems with my proposal; discuss some ways of teaching this extended use; and argue that conditional probability fails to express the degree of support of premises. The scant literature on this topic sometimes presents the degree of support of premises P1…Pn for conclusion C in terms of conditional probability, Pr. I will argue that the (...) degree of support is better expressed by the probability of the conditional statement expressing the inference, Pr; and prove that Pr is not equivalent to Pr. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 375 7he Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Edited by JAMES F. CHILDRESS and J mrn MACQUARRIE. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1986. Pp. xvii + 678. $29.95. This is a second, revised edition of The Dictionary of Christian Ethics, prepared by John Macquarrie and published in 1967. This new edition follows Macquarrie's conception of a dictionary, but expands it. It includes several subject areas, basic ethical concepts, biblical (...) ethics, theological ethics, philosophical ethics, non-Cbistian ethics; psychological, 8ociological, political, and other relevant concepts; and articles on substantial issues such as war and abortion. The criterion for selection, as stated by the editor, was the importance of the topic for Christian ethical reflection. The aim was to indicate both what is agr.eed upon and what is controversial. About 40% of the entries from the first edition have been included. These are generally updated so as to include recent developments. The selection of subjects, the way in which they are treated and the list of contributors, reflect the ecumenical character of contemporary Christian ethics. The dictionary includes a host of valuable contributions. Readers who consults the work will no doubt evaluate the entries in terms of their particular purposes. This reviewer found most useful the entries which expla~ned particular basic concepts, for example Autonomy; those dealing with schools of thought, for example, Platonic Ethics, Marxist Ethics, or the contribution of particular traditions, for example, Jewish Ethics, Puritan Ethics, Official Roman Catholic Social Teaching, Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethics, and the many entries dealing with Biomedical Ethics and peace issues. 'rhere are a number of articles on topics which are most important, but for which it is often difficult to find a succinct and comprehensive treatment; such are the contributions on "Embodiment," and " Feminist Ethics." There are a number of useful entries on urg.ent contemporary questions such as Energy and Environmental Ethics. Practical questions such as the care of the aged and the ethics of counseling are also addressed. Each article has a short bibliography appended. Numerous cross-references to other relevant entries are most helpful in providing complementary information. There is a thorough index of names. The dictionary is not conceived as a compendium of the accepted or " official " ethical teachings of churches or religious traditions. Mention could be made, however, of the entry on " Official Roman Catholic Social Teaching." '¥here such teachings exist, they am usually indicated. There are some cases where the churches and/or traditions clearly differ. The approach which is most helpful to ethical debate is to acknowledge such differences clearly, with an appropriate statement of the relevant teaching. The editor himself (James F. Childress), in his own contributions, fol- 376 BOOK REVIEWS lows this p1'0cedure. Some Roman Catholic readers may find the articles on Abortion and Contraception, while excellent in other ways, less satisfactory in this respect. The general focus seems intended to be " middle of the road "; more conservative or radical groups may find their views insufficiently represented. No doubt some of the positions presented would be disputed by Christian ethicists. But the treatment of difficult points is balanced and fair. There are, unfortunately, some inaccuracies. The following examples deserve mention. In the article on Nullity, the Roman Catholic annulment is wrongly equated with papal dissolution of the marriage bond. In the article on Virtue, it is said that St. Thomas held that along with the infused supernatural virtues there are "infused natural virtues." St. Thomas spoke ratht>r of infused theological virtues and infused moral virtues (I. II, Q.63, 3.) In the article on deterrence, it is stated that the strategy of "mutual assured destruction ", dating from the 1960s, still provides the framework of American deterrence strategy. This point would be challenged by some representat.ives of the military, who claim that M.A.D. has not been policy for some years. The same article interprets the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace. as basing its (conditional) acceptance of nuclear deterrence on the distinction between threatening to do an immoral aet without intending to do it, and threat coupled with the intent. That is, deterrence is aceepted as a "bluff." This is not a correct reading... (shrink)

I develop advice to the reductionist about consciousness in the form of a transcendental argument that depends crucially on the sorts of knowledge claims concerning consciousness that, as crucial elements in the anti-reductionists’ epistemicgap arguments, the anti-reductionist will readily concede. The argument that I develop goes as follows. P1. If I know that I am not a zombie, then phenomenal character is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P2. I know that I am not a zombie. P3. Phenomenal character (...) is (a certain kind of) conceptualized egocentric content. P4. Fixing my physical properties fixes my conceptualized egocentric contents. C. Fixing my physical properties fixes my phenomenal properties. (shrink)

Suppose that three patients each independently confront the same high-stakes treatment decision. Perhaps it is an option to terminate a high-risk pregnancy, or to accept a blood transfusion after a catastrophic hemorrhage. Suppose further that the three patients approach their choice in radically different ways. The divergence lies not in the choice made, but in the pathway followed in arriving at it. P1 is a classic analytical reasoner. She enumerates the potential costs and benefits of each option, reviews the probabilities, (...) and makes a decision on the basis of her analysis. P2 does none of that analytical work. She has a settled and robust prior... (shrink)

The controversial status of goluboi as a basic color term is discussed. Fuzzy logic alone cannot reliably attribute basic status to goluboi. Recent linguistic studies support a single basic blue category. Psychophysical data on color-space distances and color naming are currently ambiguous in this regard. Correspondence:p1 Institut für Arbeitsphysiologie an der Universität Dortmund, 44139 Dortmund, Germany paramei@arb-phys.uni-dortmund.de www.ifado.de/projekt-06/.

The constructions of sequential calculi are based on the idea of application to the deduction process not only single logical constants but complexes of them as well. Surely, making use of this idea is not obligatory in paraconsistent logic. Nevertheless, using it in this field gives us a convenient tool for seeking proofs in formulation of many paraconsistent logics. Each of sequential propositional logics discussed in this paper is obtained as a result of a transformation of a starting calculus GCL (...) – one of sequential formalizations of classical propositional logic. Let α be a standard propositional language with a vocabulary {p1, p2, p3, . . . , −,∨, &, ⊃,¬,), we shall denote any formulas of α and by the letters Γ,∆, Σ, Θ finite sets of α-formulas. (shrink)

It may be tempting to think that given Nagel’s much-discussed bat argument in “What Is It Like to be a Bat?” (henceforth the Bat article), Nagel qua Nagel has conceived an argument against the very idea of physicalism. For example, Tye (1986 p. 7) argues that Nagel’s argument from the Bat-Phenomenology Analogy shows that the physicalist account of the mental phenomenon is incomplete. Churchland (1995 p. 196) conceives Nagel in a similar manner: “[from the Bat Argument] Nagel concludes that conscious (...) phenomena cannot be given a purely physical explanation”. McCullough (1988 pp. 2-3), without regret, is more direct on the issue: Nagel is against physicalism because the state of what-it-is-likeness “escapes the scientific net”. The same goes with Pereboom who argues that Thomas Nagel advances an argument that shows physicalist account of the phenomenal states are “inadequate” (1994 p. 314). The most recent article dealing with the Bat argument also makes it clear that physicalism does not feature in friendly terms in Nagel’s thinking (Nagasawa 2004). While Nagasawa claims to offer a new approach to Nagel’s Bat argument in that Aquinas’ seemingly disconnected argument about the divine omnipotence can answer Nagel’s resistance to physicalism, it is quite clear that Nagel is still being treated as an anti-physicalist. Now, of course, it’s fallacious to say that all these philosophers are alike in their takes on Nagel’s alleged anti-physicalist outlook but I hope it is uncontroversial to say here that they seem to share a common view of Nagel: On Nagel’s account of conscious mental states, physicalism is false because it fails to explain exactly what it is like to be in those states. In this essay, I wish to argue that Nagel’s treatment of physicalism as demonstrated in the Bat article is much more philosophically subtle than his detractors thought him to be. From the outset, let me begin by stating that Nagel is not characteristically a foe of physicalism as most of philosophers make him to be but Nagel in the Bat article could seem beproposing three challenges to physicalism as follows: (P1) physicalism is false, (P2) physicalism is unintelligible and (P3) physicalism remains to be made intelligible. (shrink)

Here, we provide a detailed description of the mutual relation of formulas with finite propositional variables p1, …, pm in modal logic S4. Our description contains more information on S4 than those given in Shehtman (1978) and Moss (2007); however, Shehtman (1978) also treated Grzegorczyk logic and Moss (2007) treated many other normal modal logics. Specifically, we construct normal forms, which behave like the principal conjunctive normal forms in the classical propositional logic. The results include finite and effective methods to (...) find a normal form equivalent to a given formula A by clarifying the behavior of connectives and giving a finite method to list all exact models. (shrink)

We prove Borel superrigidity results for suitably chosen actions of groups of the form SL2, where {p1, …, pt} is a finite nonempty set of primes, and present a number of applications to the theory of countable Borel equivalence relations. In particular, for each prime q, we prove that the orbit equivalence relations arising from the natural actions of SL2 on the projective lines ℚp ∪ {∞}, p ≠ q, over the various p-adic fields are pairwise incomparable with respect to (...) Borel reducibility. (shrink)

In this short note I would like to reflect again upon paragraphs 39–40 of Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus and, more specifically, on the text printed in the last critical edition by Tiziano Dorandi, which I quote below together with the critical apparatus :495 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ πᾶν ἐστι · σώματα μὲν γὰρ ὡς ἔστιν, αὐτὴ ἡ αἴσθησις ἐπὶπάντων μαρτυρεῖ, καθ’ ἣν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ ἄδηλον τῷλογισμῷ τεκμαίρεσθαι, ὥσπερ προεῖπον. [40] τόπος δὲ εἰ500 μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν καὶ χώραν καὶ ἀναφῆ (...) φύσιν ὀνομάζομεν, οὐκἂν εἶχε τὰ σώματα ὅπου ἦν οὐδὲ δι’ οὗ ἐκινεῖτο, καθάπερφαίνεται κινούμενα.495–496 de scholiis glossematibusque in tribus Epicuri epistulis et in RS i, vid. Dorandi, Epicuro 277–8 496–497 σώματα καὶ κενόν duce Gass. suppl. V. d. Muehll: σώματα καὶ τόπος Us. Traditam lectionem defendere conatur Arndt 26. Vid. K. Algra, Elenchos 15 100 et D. Obbink, Philodemus On Piety. Part 1 338–9 497 σώματα ΦFP4: σώμα· τὰ BP1498 πάντων om. Φ 499 τόπος δὲ Us.: τὸ πρόσθε B1: τὸ πρόσθεν B2PΦ: πρόσθεν F Cf. Lucr. 1.426–7 et vid. Sedley, Phronesis 183–4 εἰ δὲ Φ 500 ὃ Φ: ὃ* B2: ὃν B1, ut vid.: ὂν PF ὃ post κενὸν traiecit Φ προεῖπον τὸ πρόσθεν· εἰ δὲ μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν Brieger, Seele 5 Vid. Dorandi, Epicuro 282–4 501 ἦν B: εἴη ΦFP4: ἔνι P1 502 οὐδ’ Us.: οὔτε B2PF: ὅτε B1503 περιληπτικῶς rec. (shrink)

There is another sort of ‘defense’ of relativism that I mention in conclusion. Sometimes one finds the view that one is rightly punished for a crime only if they admit committing it, and that it was a crime — something wrongly done: ‘punishment conditional on confession’ is the rule proposed. It might seem that this would give impunity to a criminal hardy enough to deny the fact, or the evil, of her deed; so it would, unless it was also understood (...) that if a person was proved by accepted standards to be the perpetrator of an action agreed to be wrong, the opportunity to admit guilt would extend from open questioning through beating to exquisite torture until confession was extracted (cf. the Chinese customs reflected in the Judge Dee stories of Robert Van Gulik). More often, one finds the view that a person is not refuted unless he admits this, and a view is not refuted — and so is not properly dismissed — unless its proponents concede defeat. A similar view is that all really telling philosophical criticism must be internal or else non-neutral (a view we discussed above).If one can in principle produce a conceptual system from a list of all propositions by following the recipe: for any proposition P include P, or else include not-P, in S, then (providing one adds no constraints concerning consistency) there will be no proposition that will appear in all conceptual systems. If what it is for a proposition to be neutral is for it to appear in all conceptual systems, then no proposition is neutral. But of course, the same recipe that produces this result produces the result that the proposition (P) Some proposition is both true and false appears in some conceptual system which (since the denial of (P) appears in less than all systems and hence is not neutral) is (allegedly) none the worse for that. And the proposition (P1) Conceptual relativism is false appears in some conceptual systems which (since the denial of (P1) appears in less than all systems and hence is not neutral) is none the worse for that. But then what remains of the claim that conceptual relativism is true?Sometimes refuted is used in a person-independent manner: Proposition P is (and always was) refuted by the fact that F uses P is refuted in such a way that it does not entail There is someone who refuted P. Sometimes, of course, it is so used that P is refuted does have that entailment. Even in the latter case, refutation is an epistemological notion, and Person S is refuted does not entail S knows that S is refuted and is compatible with S believes that S is not refuted. The recommendation that we add a psychological component of ‘admits to’ to the epistemological notion ‘being refuted’ seems to have no other ground than the arbitrary one that if we do we shall then be able better to defend relativism.While the recipe for constructing conceptual systems suggested above may seem useful to a relativist — it gives one clear content to ‘neutral proposition’ — it has what must surely seem a defect to the relativist, namely that given it (even with consistency constraints added) there will be no translational incommensurability. For if P is contained in system S, then not-P is expressible in S, and conversely. And the recipe yields the result that for any proposition P, and any system S, S contains either P or else not-P.This, of course, brings out an ambiguity in ‘contains’. In one sense, a system ‘contains (1)’ whatever can be expressed in it. In another, it ‘contains (2)’ whatever, according to it, is true. If it is a complete system without suspense of judgment it contains (1) twice the propositions it contains (2). Further, a system contains (1) lots of propositions it (or its proponent) does not regard as true, and so the fact that a proposition P appears in system S does not mean that P favors S. One often at least can state the conditions of S's falsehood in S, and even prove in S that S is false, where “in” is used in the sense of “contains (1).”Sophisticated relativism, then, seems no more plausible, no more free from inconsistency, and no less open to devastating critique than are its less cultured relatives. Relativism, at least in the varieties discussed here, seems to live up to its unsavory reputation. Since not even translation incommensurability seems to entail lack of cognitive competitiveness, it seems that it will have to be admitted that, regarding apparent disagreement on basic matters — including fundamental religious disagreement — the appearance is also the reality. People do uneliminably disagree, and short of conversion or (what will seem from within the religious perspective in question) some other ‘failure in faith’ (e.g., coming to reject all religious views) will continue to do so. Whatever can be done in terms of common understanding and common humanitarian endeavors must be done without denying the many basic disagreements that there are. And whatever notion of inter-faith dialogue is other than espitemically defective will have to face that fact; for significant dialogue based on self-deception or on falsehood seems not a terribly promising enterprise. (shrink)

Dissatisfaction with facial appearance is one of the strongest contributors to body image disturbance among young Chinese females and leads to a series of psychological and behavioral disorders. By conducting behavioral and ERP experiments, this study illustrates how young females in China with facial dissatisfaction process different levels of facial attractiveness. Experiments 1 and 2 are behavioral experiments in which the dot-probe paradigm was used to explore the participant’s attentional bias to facial attractiveness. The results showed that regardless of whether (...) the face image was presented above or below the threshold, young females with facial dissatisfaction exhibited attentional orientation toward lowly attractive faces and attentional avoidance to both lowly and highly attractive faces, while the control group showed difficulty in attentional disengagement from highly attractive faces. In experiment 3, the learning-recognition task was used to examine mnemonic bias toward facial attractiveness among females with facial dissatisfaction, and EEG data were also recorded during the encoding and retrieval phases. The study found that young females with facial dissatisfaction exhibited a mnemonic preference for lowly attractive images at both the encoding and retrieving stages, with higher P1, N170, P2, and N300 induced by lowly attractive faces, while the control group preferred highly attractive faces. In conclusion, young females with facial dissatisfaction tend to exhibit attentional orientation and mnemonic bias toward lowly attractive faces. (shrink)

Romanis and Adkins explore the near-term prospect of artificial amnion and placenta technology (AAPT) which is being developed to supplement the gestational process following the premature ending of a pregnancy.1 While fetal-centric narratives prevail in discussions surrounding AAPT, the authors subvert this trend by centering the experience of pregnant persons with respect to pregnancy loss. The overarching aim of their paper is to move beyond a ‘philosophical understanding of pregnancy towards practical-orientated conclusions regarding the care pathways surrounding [AAPT]’ (Romanis and (...) Adkins,1 p1). This commentary will critically examine the viability of this aim. Romanis and Adkins use the term ‘pregnancy loss’ to refer to the phenomenon where individuals experience a complex set of emotions following the premature ending of pregnancy, despite the survival of the gestated entity. Following Golish and Powell, the authors note how parents may experience contradictory emotions, such as joy mixed with grief, as well as a range of negative feelings including shame, disappointment and a sense of failure.2 At present, this phenomenon has been recognised among parents, particularly the (formerly) pregnant person, in the context of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) when the infant survives preterm delivery and …. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a calculus of paraconsistent logic. We propose an axiomatisation and a semantics for the calculus, and prove several important meta-theorems. The calculus, denoted as CB1, is an extension of systems PI, C min and B1, and a proper subsystem of Sette’s calculus P1. We also investigate the generalization of CB1 to the hierarchy of related calculi.

A popular objection to theistic commitment involves the idea that faith is irrational. Specifically, some seem to put forth something like the following argument: (P1) Everyone (or almost everyone) who has faith is epistemically irrational, (P2) All theistic believers have faith, thus (C) All (or most) theistic believers are epistemically irrational. In this paper, I argue that this line of reasoning fails. I do so by considering a number of candidates for what faith might be. I argue that, for each (...) candidate, either (P1) is false or (P2) is false. Then, I make two positive suggestions for how faith can be epistemically rational but nonetheless have a unique relationship to evidence: one, that Jamesian self-justifying attitudes describe a distinctive kind of faith in oneself and others, and two, that faith is not solely based on empirical evidence. (shrink)