Defect detection is a major concern in quality control of various products in industries. This paper presents two different machine-vision based methods for detecting defects on periodically patterned textures. In the first method, input defective image is split into several blocks of size same as the size of the periodic unit of the image and chi-square histogram distances of each periodic block with respect to itself and all other periodic blocks are calculated to get a dissimilarity matrix. This dissimilarity (...) matrix is subjected to Ward's hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. The second method of defect detection is based on Universal Quality Index which is a measure of loss of correlation, luminance distortion and contrast distortion between any two signals. Quality indices of a periodic block with respect to itself and all other periodic blocks are calculated to get a similarity matrix containing quality indices. Specific variances of the periodic blocks are derived from the quality index matrix through orthogonal factor model based on eigen decomposition. These variances are subjected to Ward's hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. Results of experiments on real fabric images with defects show that the defect detection methods based on chi-square histogram distance and universal quality index yield a success rate of 98.6% and 97.8% respectively. (shrink)

A defective word is defined by paradigm as incomplete compared with the major class it belongs to. Defectiveness signifies the unwanted intrusion of morphological idiosyncrasy into syntax. Although this phenomenon has been a constant subject of studies, it has been ill incorporated into the theories of language. This present volume brings together scholars from various theoretical schools for an overdue typological view of defectiveness. It concentrates on some samples of idiosyncratic gaps which are assumed as indicative of the phenomenon (...) of defectiveness. Before delving into the specified topics of each chapter, this introductory chapter presents a typology of defective paradigms. It discusses terms used to describe defectiveness in synchronotic terms, and the possible diachrony of defective paradigms. (shrink)

Patrick Stokes has argued that although many conspiracy theories are true, we should reject the policy of particularism (that is, the policy of investigating conspiracy theories if they are plausible and believing them if that is what the evidence suggests) and should instead adopt a policy of principled skepticism, subjecting conspiracy theories – or at least the kinds of theories that are generally derided as such – to much higher epistemic standards than their non-conspiratorial rivals, and believing them only if (...) they are proven up to the hilt. The reason is that although some conspiracy theories are true (or otherwise epistemically kosher) there is a widespread practice of conspiracy theorizing which leads to the social acceptance of conspiracy theories which (much like Lord Byron) are mad, bad and dangerous to ‘know’, leading to radically false beliefs about the natural and political worlds (for instance to Trump’s claim that Global Warming is a ‘Chinese Hoax’). Thus Stokes is a defender of the epistemic status quo in which the punditocracy routinely dismisses and sneers at ‘conspiracy theories’, simply because they are conspiracy theories, whilst admitting sotto voce that once in a blue moon there are some conspiracy theories that are true. It is just the he would prefer the epistemic policy of the punditocracy to be the policy of the populace at large. Stokes seems to be suggesting that although particularism looks like a sensible epistemic policy (and might indeed be the correct policy in an ideal world), if it were put into practice at the level of public debate it would give a specious air of plausibility to many false and dangerous conspiracy theories with pernicious social effects. I reply that the actual moral costs of conspiracy ‘skepticism’ (as it is currently practiced) exceed the likely costs of particularism, especially if it is informed by some sensible heuristics, ruling out some conspiracy theories as crazy and ruling in others as relatively sane. For the conspiracy ‘skepticism’ as currently practiced is highly selective, pouring scorn and contempt on conspiracy theories which threaten current elites whilst giving the conspiratorial concoctions of those elites something close to a free pass. (shrink)

Developmental stuttering is a widely discussed speech fluency disorder. Research on its mechanism has focused on an atypical interface between the planning (PLAN) and execution (EX) processes, known collectively as the EXPLAN model. However, it remains unclear how this atypical interface influences people who stutter. A straightforward assumption is that stuttering speakers adopt a smaller scope of speech planning, whereas a defect in word retrieval can be confounding. To shed light on this issue, we took the semantic blocking effect as (...) an index to examine lexical planning in word and phrase production. In Experiment 1, for word production, pictures from the same semantic category were combined to form homogeneous blocks, and pictures from different categories were combined to form heterogeneous blocks. A typical effect of semantic blocking showing longer naming latencies for homogeneous blocks than heterogeneous ones was observed for both stuttering and fluent speakers. However, this effect was smaller for stuttering speakers, when it was subject to lexical defects in stuttering. In Experiment 2, for a conjoined noun phrase production task, the pictures referring to the first noun were manipulated into homogeneous and heterogeneous conditions. The semantic blocking effect was also much smaller for stuttering speakers, indicating a smaller scope of lexical planning. Therefore, the results provided more evidence in support of the EXPLAN model and indicated that a smaller scope of lexical planning rather than lexical defects causes the atypical interface for stuttering. Moreover, a comparison between these two tasks showed that the study findings have implications for syntactic defects in stuttering. (shrink)

The current study investigates how native speakers of a morphologically complex language handle uncertainty related to linguistic forms that have gaps in their inflectional paradigms. We analyze their strategies of dealing with paradigmatic defectivity and how these strategies are motivated by subjective contemporaneousness, frequency, acceptability, and other lexical and structural characteristics of words. We administered a verb production task with Finnish native speakers using verbs from a small non-productive inflectional type that has many paradigmatic gaps and asked participants to inflect (...) the verbs in a given context. Inflectional uncertainty was measured by the number of different forms the participants produced for each verb. We classified produced forms that were not expected as either synonymous or novel and measured their optimal string alignment distance to expected forms. Our analyses revealed that a usage-based approach to paradigmatic defectivity fits better with the obtained results than a classical approach typically met in dictionaries and descriptive grammars. Thus, we argue, that paradigmatic defectivity can be better described as a dynamic rather than a static system, where gaps represent a continuum of possible inflectional choices rather than a lack of an inflectional variant. (shrink)

SNTV engenders incentives to vote strategically not only against probable losers but also against candidates seen as possible runaway winners. This paper uses survey and election data from the 2004 Taiwanese legislative election to argue that excessive strategic voting against the strongest candidates was at the root of coordination failures. Further, I argue that strong personal votes play a role in mitigating these failures by constructing a stable foundation of votes that is not subject to the wild swings produced by (...) strategic voting. (shrink)

Aim To explore the views in non-Western cultures about ending the lives of damaged newborns.Method 254 university students from India and 150 from Kuwait rated the acceptability of ending the lives of newborns with genetic defects in 54 vignettes consisting of all combinations of four factors: gestational age ; severity of genetic defect ; the parents’ attitude about prolonging care ; and the procedure used .Results Four clusters were identified by cluster analysis and subjected to analysis of variance. Cluster I, (...) labelled ‘Never Acceptable’, included 4% of the Indians and 59% of the Kuwaitis. Cluster II, ‘No Firm Opinion’, had little variation in rating from one scenario to the next; it included 38% of the Indians and 18% of the Kuwaitis. In Cluster III, ‘Parents’ Attitude+Severity+Procedure’, all three factors affected the ratings; it was composed of 18% of the Indians and 16% of the Kuwaitis. Cluster IV was called ‘Severity+Parents’ Attitude’ because these had the strongest impact; it was composed of 40% of the Indians and 7% of the Kuwaitis.Conclusions In accordance with the teachings of Islam versus Hinduism, Kuwaiti students were more likely to oppose ending a newborn's life under all conditions, Indian students more likely to favour it and to judge its acceptability in light of the different circumstances. (shrink)

This paper identifies and analyses a novel species of hermeneutical epistemic injustice (HI). Fricker’s traditional account analyses HI in terms of a collective conceptual gap. (Epistemic injustice: power and the ethics of knowing, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). Building on this, Simion’s analysis (in: Bondy P, Carter JA (eds) Well-founded belief: new essays on the epistemic basing relation. Routledge, New York, 2019) suggests the phenomenon is broader, and thus more ubiquitous: specifically, that agents who have been hermeneutically marginalised can be (...) susceptible to HI through failing to ground their social experience in conceptual resources that are already available. This paper advances the literature further and presents a novel strand of the phenomena, where agents both have, and base, their experience on available concepts but are still subject to HI. I argue that this is an important species of HI that should be investigated and accounted for, and I suggest that in virtue of being hermeneutically marginalised, often agents only have available to them defective or oppressive concepts. I further provide a case study of what this can look like online and new concerns social media presents for this kind of HI. CW: Mentions of transphobia, racism, sexism, rape. (shrink)

So far as the criticisms bear merely upon the book, I have little wish to discuss them. The book is there and can speak for itself. Also, after the years which, as the reviewer apologetically remarks, he has allowed to pass, I should have to reread the book to judge of the appropriateness of some of the criticisms. Whatever its merits or defects, the work does what no other has attempted; it indicates how a certain view of deity, held in (...) some approximation by at least a few important philosophers, can defend itself against its rivals, old and new. Many books do something like this on behalf of more conventional and widely-known forms of theism, but not for this form. Ours is also almost the only "book of readings" dealing throughout with ideas of God; and certainly it is the most comprehensive, covering nearly 3000 years, all the great religions, and including substantial selections from anti-theistic or agnostic writers. One criticism at least is acceptable: it was indeed "odd" that so little attention was paid to theistic proofs or arguments. At no very distant time I expect to publish systematic discussions of the various forms of proof. And it was with this in mind that we said in the Introduction that this was "a subject for another occasion." As for interest in the "logical" aspect of thought about God, I had supposed that this was, in a way, the book's main theme. (shrink)

In this study, Consistency and Balance Model (CBM) is proposed and introduced. In the context of the model, the importance of consistency is emphasized in morality just like in Philosophy. Therefore, CBM gives the reason prominence in morality to ensure the consistency and according to CBM the emotion, the intuition and the conscience in addition to the reason, are also important. In order to see the principles determined by the reason in human behaviors, two kinds of classification are developed for (...) the virtues that is defined as the middle of excess and defect. The first of them is the triple classification of virtues that draws attention to the false existence of virtues and determines the opposite of virtues as forming dichotomy. The latter is the tetrad classification, which is based on the duality of two means that propose to consider the virtues together. The Contrast is considered as the central concept in the first classification and the integration is considered as the central concept in the second classification. Then it is offered that the virtues may be evaluated consistently in the social, global and theological contexts. However, the ideal morality with objective qualities and the real morality with subjective qualities are produced in order to reach the universal morality that is determined by the reason, then the consistency and the integration are proposed for them. Similarly, consistency and integration are proposed in the dualities of principle-virtue, abstract-concrete, intention-outcome, universality-locality, objectivity-subjectivity throughout the study. Finally, it is pointed out that the reasonableness of applying consistency in morality has exceptions.Summary: Philosophy is the logical, systematic and consistent thinking that focuses on specific questions and topics to reach the reality. When this basic tendency of philosophy is applied to morality, logical, systematic and consistent actions are expected to emerge. Accordingly, a new model called as Consistency and Balance Model (CBM) is proposed and introduced in this article. By this model, the importance of consistency is emphasized in morality just like in philosophy. Therefore, CBM gives the reason prominence in morality to ensure thought, expression and behavior consistency. According to CBM the human emotion, the divine intuition and the solid conscience in addition to reason are required to determine the virtues. CBM, which is a synthesis of the good intention and the reason, aims to constitute the sensible and good actions. According to CBM, which has a holistic structure, if a person can adopt the virtue as a principle and reflect the virtue in all of his behaviors during his whole life, he can be defined as consistently virtuous.CBM defines the good with the concepts of consistency and balance. According to CBM, the good is the mean of excess and defect. In this respect, CBM is based on Aristotle’s mean idea. However, CBM aims to develop it with new content. Two important questions arise during the identification of the evil: 1. Is it bad that nothing happens? 2. Is it bad that something is wrong? The point of defect represents the absence and the point of excess represents the fallacy in the entity. Both of them are bad in morality. The middle of them is the virtue. In order to see the principles determined by the reason in human behaviors, two kinds of classification are developed for the virtues which are defined as the middle of excess and defect. The first is the triple classification of virtues that draws attention to the false existence of virtues and determines the opposite of virtues as forming dichotomy. The triple classification, which forms a dichotomy as an empty pattern that can be applied to all virtues, is determined as over virtue-virtous-virtueless. According to CBM the opposite of the mean is always clearly the point of defect and implicitly the point of excess. Therefore, it is important to determine extremes of virtues. The point of defect can be briefly denoted as virtueless. The point of excess can be denoted as in fact virtueless, pretending as virtuous, masked virtue and over virtue. The latter is the tetrad classification, which is based on the duality of two means. In this classification, it is possible to produce new and better virtues by considering two virtues together. The Contrast is considered as the central concept in the first classification and the integration is considered as the central concept in the second classification.The principle is seen as a guarantee for the consistency in philosophy. CBM points out that a similar situation should be in ethics. According to Kant, the invisible internal principles of the actions are more important than the actions themselves to determine the moral value. The principle does not vary according to the individual and the condition, on the contrary, the individual is shaped by the principle and all individuals benefit equally from the outcome of the principle. Thus, the abuse of the rights of individuals with arbitrary treatments and double standards are prevented. In this democratic environment formed by the principle not only the owner of the power, but all right holders can get their rights. In this respect, the adherence to the principle is the guarantee of the rights and the freedom by establishing a balance between the rule and the freedom.Aristotle’s virtue and Kant’s principle are discussed in a holistic manner in this study. Thus, it is aimed that the principles in the human mind and the virtues in human actions are consistent in themselves and ultimately the union of the principles and the virtues can be ensured. Besides, the concepts of the ideal morality and the real morality are introduced in this article. The ideal morality takes place on the objective basis of the good and the truth, which is absolute, universally and unarguably accepted by everyone. The ideal morality with its objective qualities can be seen as the target that people know and want to achieve. The real morality is the morality that is shaped in the people or society in all its positive and negative aspects, which also includes the subjectivity of them as their own realities. The real morality with subjective qualities is the morality that occurs in life. CBM aims at the integrity and the consistency between the ideal morality and the real morality to reach the universal morality. In this article, the virtues are divided into two parts as material and spiritual. Then it is offered that the virtues may be evaluated consistently in the principal, individual, social, global and theological contexts. In this context, on the one hand it is aimed that the principal, individual, social, global and theological virtues are consistent within themselves and on the other hand they all are consistent within each other. In this classification the principal and theological morality have objective qualities and the individual and social morality have subjective qualities. CBM aims at an objectivity that incorporates subjectivity within the consistency and integrity of the principal, individual, social, global and theological morality. CBM aims to achieve the ultimate morality by integrating the starting point as the principal morality and the end point as the theological morality and to make them clear in the individual and social morality. As a result, CBM confirms the mean found by reason, by the revelation given by God. In other words, the morality that God has already there and always presents and the morality that the human mind finds here and now coincide. The consistency and integration are also proposed in the dualities of principle-virtue, abstract-concrete, intention-outcome, universality-locality, objectivity-subjectivity in the article. However, consistency, which is the central concept of the article, can form the basis for possible criticisms. But, it can be foreseen that the possible criticisms oriented to CBM would come from an extreme consistency perception that detaches the concept of consistency from reality without careful consideration. For this reason it should be kept in mind that it is wrong to expect excessive consistency in human behavior and to accept the ideal morality as absolute by neglecting the real morality. Finally, it is pointed out that the reasonableness of applying the consistency in morality has exceptions. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering projects are sometimes criticized for ‘changing the subject’. In this paper, I first discuss three strategies that have been proposed to address the change of subject objection. I notice that these strategies fail in similar ways: they all deploy a ‘loose’ notion of subject matter, while the objector can always reply deploying a ‘strict’ notion. Based on this, I then argue that at least current formulations of the change of subject objection (together with the response strategies just mentioned), (...) create an overall defective dialectic, whereby no progress can be made on either side. After considering how such defective dialectic could be (at least partly) fixed, it is concluded that current formulations of the change of subject objection may be dismissed on dialectical grounds, even though some practical lessons may still be retained from the objection. (shrink)

In this article I propose a unitary interpretation of Kant’s reflection on evil in Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1792–1794). This part of Immanuel Kant’s work often presents knotty interpretative problems because the author, while reaffirming the principle of the subject’s moral freedom as set forth in Critique of Practical Reason, seems actually to be showing this freedom as conditioned by a tendency toward evil that is so compelling that it blocks and undermines the subject’s autonomy. I give (...) an account of the coherence acquired by the Kantian notion of radical evil, defined as an axiological inversion of the order of the motives, once one grasps the defective character of the notion of freedom that the philosopher employs in the work and the metaphysical orientation that backs it up. (shrink)

This paper presents a strong criticism of the current enthusiasm for clinical randomised prospective studies in surgery. In the process, the author probes the 'intellectualism' or lack thereof in present day surgical attitudes. The subjects are examined against a framework of ethics and inescapable dilemmas. Ways of correcting the more obvious weaknesses are suggested. The manuscript is, and is meant to be, provocative and is particularly aimed at the academic audience served by this journal.

This paper develops a contextualist account of certain recalcitrant embedding phenomena with epistemic modals. I focus on three prominent objections to contextualism from embedding: first, that contextualism mischaracterizes subjects’ states of mind; second, that contextualism fails to predict how epistemic modals are obligatorily linked to the subject in attitude ascriptions; and third, that contextualism fails to explain the persisting anomalousness of so-called “epistemic contradictions” in suppositional contexts. Contextualists have inadequately appreciated the force of these objections. Drawing on a more (...) general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, I argue that we can derive the distinctive embedding behavior of epistemic modals from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, general mechanisms of local interpretation, and typical features of discourse contexts. Examining embedding phenomena with epistemic modals raises difficult broader issues about conventionalization and pragmatic reasoning, the varieties of context-sensitive language, and the roles of context in interpretation. The paper concludes by briefly examining how the proposed contextualist account compares with certain relativist/expressivist accounts. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Dialectic of Praxis -- I. Philosophy of Subjectivity and -- Historical Materialism 7 -- A. What is the "Toposical Tachiba"? 7 -- B. The Present and Past of Umemoto's Theory of Subjectivity 17 -- C. The Basis and Structure of Degeneration 36 -- II. Confused 'Dialectic of the Subject of Cognition' 48 -- A. Destruction of the Logic of Origo 48 -- 1. Summary of Umemoto's Epistemology 49 -- 2. Umemoto's Defect in Epistemology 56 -- 3. (...) Reversed Hegelianism 60 -- B. Objective Cognition and the Logic of Self-Awareness 68 -- 1. Ontology and Epistemology 68 -- 2. Negation of "Two Circular Structures" 76 -- 3. Objective Cognition and Value Consciousness 82 -- C. Evaporation of Praxiology 89 -- 1. Alienation and Self-Awareness 89 -- 2. Objectivization of Praxis 96 -- 3. Strained Interpretation of Uno's Theory 99 -- 4. Political Economy, Materialist Outlook of History, -- and Praxiology 107 -- 5. A Domain Proper to the Theory of -- Revolutionizing Praxis 116 -- III. Defects in Criticism of Uno's Economics 131 -- A. Problem Awareness 132 -- B. Fall into a "View that the Principles are Lost -- in the Historical Process" 137 -- C. Historicistic Remedy for the Theory of the -- Circulation Form 155 -- 1. Beautification of a Distorting Tendency to -- Emphasize the Circulation Form 156 -- 2. Complementation of the 'Theory of Form -- without the Logic of Substance' 169 -- 3. On the Trans-Historicization of the -- 'Dual Character of Labour' 178 -- IV. Political Economy and -- Materialist Outlook of History 195 -- A. 'Anatomy of Bourgeois Society' and -- 'Anatomy of History' 195 -- B. Consolidation with Reversed Hegelianism 202 -- C. 'Logic of Circularity' and 'Logic of History' 218 -- V, Political Economy and the -- Logic of Revolutionization 231 -- A. Defects in the Understanding of Political Economy 232 -- B. Distortion of 'Labour-Power Commodity' 255 -- 1. On the Dialectic: Commodity Market and the -- Production Process 255 -- 2. Private Property and Capitalist Property 261 -- 3. Negation of the Negation: Sublation of the -- Commoditization of Labour-Power 268 -- C. Capitalist Thingivation and the -- Logic of its Revolutionization 282 -- Afterword 301 -- Supplementary Notes to the English Edition 303 -- Index 309. (shrink)

Hegel's concepts of force and power (absolute power, absolute force, infinite power, the power of the negative, the power of the Concept, etc.), scattered throughout the works, are doubled by other passages where Hegel speaks of various forms of impotence or powerlessness (Ohnmacht). What is powerlessness? In effect, for Hegel, powerlessness generally designates a defect or a deficiency, or a kind of laziness or contingent immaturity that prevents the Concept from fully realizing itself, even though its power is, on another (...) level, absolute. Powerlessness (Ohnmacht) is a lack of power (Macht). But how is absolute power related to a relative lack of power? If power is absolute, then why is it that a little power isn’t always enough? Or alternatively, why does powerlessness have a role to play at all in a system where the power of the Concept determines everything inexorably? How do these two terms relate to each other in Hegel’s thought, especially in the context of the Subjective Logic? (shrink)

This study seeks to explicate the philosophical foundations and theoretical outlines of grey systems theory by focusing on human perception, cognition, and understanding processes and by considering their functions in the process of producing knowledge. Primarily, the study investigates the processes of perception, cognition, and understanding, as well as their dynamicity. Then, it is explained how knowledge is produced through the interpretation/understanding of information and data and through the dynamicity governing this process. The findings reveal that human perception, cognition, and (...) understanding perpetually remain grey and imperfect, while lost sensatory data mark the very first aspect of greyness in such human capabilities. Furthermore, any piece of data, as a discrete and single entity, represents a determinate fact, symbol or signal from the world, while any set of data, no matter how large, remains incomplete and imperfect, and human beings always interpret inadequate sets of data in the world. Therefore, information and knowledge always remain grey and uncertain because they deeply rely on subjective understandings/interpretations and work with imperfect inputs and sets of data. The impact of knowledge on action and interaction and their effects on the world are some factors adding to the dynamicity of the world. Constant change in world data, outdated knowledge, defects in datasets, and human biases in understanding all confirm the infinitely grey nature of human knowledge of the world. (shrink)

Charles Taylor claims that ‘… human life is constituted by self-understanding,’ a self-understanding which is achieved in part by our capacity to use language. Because of this, the philosophy of language is important in Taylor’s philosophical views and central to these are his views on expression. I shall argue that one way to understand Taylor’s theory of expression is to place it within a theory of speech acts. And I shall try to show that this gives us a way to (...) interpret his contention that expression is a subject-related property and that there cannot be an objective science of it. Finally, I shall argue that Taylor’s grounds for the latter claim are defective and that this leaves open the possibility that there can be an objective science of expression. (shrink)

Objectives The objectives of the study are to understand the current practice of informed consent in medical research in public hospitals in Shanghai, and to share our views with other countries, especially developing countries. Methods In the study, 145 consent forms (CFs) of the selected research projects in eight public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were audited, and the principle investigators (PIs) of these research projects and 40 student subjects who had participated in clinical drug tests were surveyed (...) by questionnaires. Results The CFs of medical researches in public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were generally acceptable. However, there were some defects in the CFs. Although most of the surveyed PIs had correct recognition of informed consent, some processes of informed consent were not in accordance with generally accepted requirements. A large number of the PIs considered the greatest difficulty with informal consent was lack of correct recognition of subjects or legally authorised representatives on medical research. Discussion Informed consent in medical research should consider the research ethics, the background of potential subjects, the local resources and culture of medical research. In addition, special protection is needed for student subjects in informed consent as well as efforts for building and restoring the public's trust in biomedical research. Conclusion The informed consent in Shanghai's public hospitals with ethics committees was generally acceptable and the achievement of adequate informed consent is influenced by many factors. (shrink)

The subject of the paper is the ways of interpreting messages that are defective either syntactically or semantically. The formal models of communicative events in which such messages are being sent are based on a specially designed situational ontology. A situation is something of the sort of pragram, and it is meant to represent both the context of use and the meaning of an utterance. Five „economy rules” explain why (and how) language is such a user-friendly device, highly tollerant (...) to misuse: slips of the tongue, grammatical incorrectness, mistakes in meaning, etc. (shrink)

The subject of this thesis is physicalism, understood not as some particular doctrine pertaining narrowly to the philosophy of mind, but rather as a quite general metaphysical claim to the effect that everything is, or is fundamentally, physical. Thus physicalism explicates the thought that in some sense physics is the basic science. The aim of the thesis is to defend a particular brand of physicalism, which I call eliminative type physicalism. It claims, roughly, that every property is a physical property, (...) a property mentioned in the laws of physics, and hence that any putative property not identifiable with a physical property must be eliminated from our ontology. Eliminative type physicalism is apt to face three objections, and so my thesis, like Caesar's Gaul, falls into three parts. In the first, I argue against the idea that there are tenable positions, both physicalist and non-physicalist, alternative to eliminative type physicalism. I argue that each of these positions token physicalism (Fodor, middle Putnam), supervenience physicalism (Lewis, Horgan) and and a non-physicalist view I call pluralism (Goodman, late Putnam) is defective. In the second part, responding to the objection that there is just no reason to be a physicalist, I develop a positive argument for eliminative type physicalism, an argument resting upon a strong version of the explanatory test for reality according to which only explanatorily indispensable properties can justifiably be said to exist. In the third and final part, I argue, against the charge that eliminative type physicalism cannot accommodate what I call phenomenal properties (qualia, raw feels etc.), that there is no good reason to deny, and one good reason to affirm, that phenomenal properties just are physical properties. (shrink)

Experiments in which subjects play simultaneously several finite two-person prisoner's dilemma supergames with and without an outside option reveal that: an attractive outside option enhances cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game, if the payoff for mutual defection is negative, subjects' tendency to avoid losses leads them to cooperate; while this tendency makes them stick to mutual defection if its payoff is positive, subjects use probabilistic start and endeffect behavior.

The subject of the present paper is the central conception of a philosophy that has been particularly dominant and influential, and the following remarks are prompted because of difficulties experienced in the attempt to understand that philosophy. The aim of the paper is to point out what seems to be a serious defect in that type of philosophy; but it is even more its aim to emphasize the danger into which philosophy in all its forms may easily fall, and against (...) which it must exercise precautions. (shrink)

If the task of theoretical reason is to discover truth, or reasons for belief, then theoretical reason is impossible. Attempts to circumvent that by appeal to probabilities are self-defeating. If the task of practical reason is to discover what we ought to do or what actions are desirable or valuable, then practical reason is impossible. Appeals to the subjective ought or to subjective probabilities are self-defeating. Adapting Karl Popper, I argue that the task of theoretical reason is to obtain theories (...) that we can agree to instate given that they appear to have greater explanatory merit than their rivals. I then argue that the task of practical reason is to decide which ought-propositions to act on. As a consequence theoretical reason is seen as a branch of practical reason. This approach makes both theoretical and practical reason practicable and free of the defects of the usual accounts. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions of the soul. (...) While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)

. The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions of the (...) soul. While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)

The chief defect of all previous materialism is that things, reality, the sensible world, are conceived only in the form of objects of observation, but not as human sense activity, not as practical activity, not subjectively. Hence, in opposition to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism, which of course does not know real sense activity as such.

abstract Supermax prisons subject inmates to extreme isolation and sensory deprivation for extended periods of time. Crime reduction and retributive arguments in favour of supermax confinement are elaborated. Both types of arguments are shown to falter once the logic of the two approaches to the justification of legal punishment is made clear and evidence about the effects of supermax confinement on inmates is considered. It is also argued that many criminal offenders suffer from defects in their capacities for morally responsible (...) action, lack sufficient opportunities to remain law‐abiding, or are understandably alienated from society and the prison regime. The implications of this more realistic picture of offenders for supermax confinement are then explored briefly. (shrink)

Tractatus 4.024 inspired the dominant semantics of our time: truth-conditional semantics. Such semantics is focused on possible worlds: the content of p is the set of worlds where p is true. It has become increasingly clear that such an account is, at best, defective: we need an ‘independent factor in meaning, constrained but not determined by truth-conditions’ (Yablo 2014, p. 2), because sentences can be differently true at the same possible worlds. I suggest a missing comment which, had it (...) been included in the Tractatus, would have helped semantics get this right from the start. This is my 4.0241: ‘Knowing what is the case if a sentence is true is knowing its ways of being true’: knowing a sentence’s truth possibilities and what we now call its topic, or subject matter. I show that the famous ‘fundamental thought’ that ‘the “logical constants” do not represent’ (4.0312) can be understood in terms of ways-based views of meaning. Such views also help with puzzling claims like 5.122: ‘If p follows from q, the sense of “p” is contained in the that of “q”’, which are compatible with a conception of entailment combining truth-preservation with the preservation of topicality, or of ways of being true. (shrink)

Parthood and composition are everywhere. The leg of a table is part of the table, the word "Christmas" is part of the sentence "I wish you a merry Christmas", the 13th century is part of the Middle Ages. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg compose Benelux, the body of a deer is composed of a huge number of cells, the Middle Ages are composed of the Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, and Late Middle Ages. Is there really a general theory (...) covering every instance of parthood and composition? Is classical mereology this general theory? Are its seemingly counter-intuitive features serious defects? -/- Mereology: A Philosophical Introduction addresses the multifaceted and lively philosophical debates surrounding these questions, and defends the idea that classical mereology is indeed the general and exhaustive theory of parthood and composition in the domain of concrete entities. -/- Several examples of parthood and composition, involving entities of different kinds, are scrutinised in depth. Incidentally, mereology is shown to interact in a surprising way with metaontology. Presenting a well-organized and comprehensive discussion of parthood and related notions, Mereology: A Philosophical Introduction contributes to a better understanding of a subject central to contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

We show how in the hierarchies${F_\alpha }$of Fieldian truth sets, and Herzberger’s${H_\alpha }$revision sequence starting from any hypothesis for${F_0}$ that essentially each${H_\alpha }$ carries within it a history of the whole prior revision process.As applications we provide a precise representation for, and a calculation of the length of, possiblepath independent determinateness hierarchiesof Field’s construction with a binary conditional operator. We demonstrate the existence of generalized liar sentences, that can be considered as diagonalizing past the determinateness hierarchies definable in Field’s recent (...) models. The ‘defectiveness’ of such diagonal sentences necessarily cannot be classified by any of the determinateness predicates of the model. They are ‘ineffable liars’. We may consider them a response to the claim of Field that ‘the conditional can be used to show that the theory is not subject to “revenge problems”.’. (shrink)

What is depiction? This is a venerable question that has received many different answers throughout the whole history of philosophy, especially in contemporary times. A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction elaborates a new account on this matter by providing a theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories while dropping their defects. It is argued that a picture is a representation in a pictorial or figurative mode, and its 'figurativity' is given by a special perception, perceiving-in, (...) whose nature is reconceived. Such a perception inter alia grasps some properties which the picture's vehicle has in common with what is perceived in it; by so doing, that perception provides the picture with a figurative content. In contrast, the picture's representational value, its subject or its pictorial content, is given by a conventionally or causally based selection out of that figurative content. (shrink)

I focus on two main points in Ian Proops’s reading of Kant’s Paralogisms of Pure Reason: the structure of the paralogisms in the A edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, and the changes in Kant’s exposition of the paralogisms from A to B. I agree with Proops that there are defects in the A exposition and that Kant attempted to correct those defects in B. But I argue that Proops fails to give its due to what remains fundamental in (...) both editions: Kant’s criticism of the rational psychologist’s confusion between the subjective (albeit universally subjective) standpoint thinkers have on themselves just in virtue of thinking, and the objective, metaphysical standpoint on a thinking thing. In short, Proops fails to give sufficient attention to Kant’s opening statement in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason: ‘“I think” is the sole text of rational psychology’. (shrink)

Recent work on the mechanisms underlying auditory verbal hallucination (AVH) has been heavily informed by self-monitoring accounts that postulate defects in an internal monitoring mechanism as the basis of AVH. A more neglected alternative is an account focusing on defects in auditory processing, namely a spontaneous activation account of auditory activity underlying AVH. Science is often aided by putting theories in competition. Accordingly, a discussion that systematically contrasts the two models of AVH can generate sharper questions that will lead to (...) new avenues of investigation. In this paper, we provide such a theoretical discussion of the two models, drawing strong contrasts between them. We identify a set of challenges for the self-monitoring account and argue that the spontaneous activation account has much in favor of it and should be the default account. Our theoretical overview leads to new questions and issues regarding the explanation of AVH as a subjective phenomenon and its neural basis. Accordingly, we suggest a set of experimental strategies to dissect the underlying mechanisms of AVH in light of the two competing models. (shrink)

Aristotle stated one of the most influential postulates in the history of ethics: virtue is the middle point between two vicious extremes: "…excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue. For men are good in but one way, but bad in many." The paper argues that between two vices there are two virtues that comprise two different moral perspectives as perceived by stereoethics. For example, two virtues can be found between the vices of miserliness and wastefulness: (...) generosity, which is further from miserliness, and thrift, which is further from wastefulness. Just as there are stereo music and stereo cinema, which convey the full volume of sounds and objects, there is stereo ethics, based on the duality of virtues. From the point of view of stereo ethics we can rethink the "golden rule": "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them." At the basis of both the golden rule and, later, the Kantian categorical imperative, lies the reversibility of moral subjects: you should put yourself in somebody else's place and treat you neighbor as you wish him or her to treat you. Today, however, ithas become obvious that only the ethics of differentiation can save us from relativism, which is a negative reaction against traditional morals with their universal norms. It is precisely this irreducibility of the individual to the general that may become a source of new moral energy. Two questions form a moral criterion: Would you wish to become an object of your own actions? Could anyone but you be the subject of your actions? The best action is that which corresponds to the needs of the largest number and the capacities of the smallest number of people. Act in such a way that you yourself would like to become an object of your actions, but no one else could be their subject. It is moral to do for others that which no one else can do except myself : to be for-others, but not like-others. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine the concept of vulnerability as a complex constitutive feature of human agency and argue that it is both a constraint on and a resource for practical reasoning. When discussed as an ontological feature of human agency, vulnerability is primarily understood as an aspect of embodiment, which is problematic in different respects. First, in relation to the situatedness of human agency, vulnerability indicates that human agents are subjected to contextual contingencies. Second, in relation to temporality, vulnerability (...) indicates that agents act in time and under the pressure of time. They are finite and produce finite and perishable actions, even though the longlasting effects of an action may survive the action itself. Third, in relation to corporal feature of agency, vulnerability is associated to suffering and frailty, insofar as bodily needs and desires represent both springs of and hindrances to rational action. Finally, in relation to the social nature of human animals, vulnerability indicates the susceptibility to be harmed, obstructed, undercut or manipulated by other agents These varieties of vulnerability are constituive features of human agency, which cannot be removed without removing what is peculiar and specific to human agency. Theories of practical reason are primarily concerned with constitutive vulnerability as a defect, and presume to offer normative guidance by adopting an idealized account of rational agency, which corrects or merely cancels the defective features of human agency. By contrast, theories of bounded rationality understand practical reasoning instrumentally, and thus are concerned with cognitive limitations of practical rationality, in particular with partial and perspectival information. However, the notion of “partial information” is inadequate to capture the complexities and significance of vulnerability, even in its restricted cognitive sense, which has to do with the agent’s situatedness. On the view I propose, instead, vulnerability is declined as a constitutive constraint on practical reasoning. Susceptibility to time constraints makes sense of the agents’ engagement in action and of their distinctive deliberative perspective. Susceptibility to bodily needs and desires tracks the normative relation between motivations and reasons for action, as well as the corporal roots of the agents’ efficacy in a perceived context. Susceptibility to others makes possible to broaden the scope and the modes of individual agency, by way of inter-action and shared agency. Rather than the source of problems and issues for rational agency, I take vulnerability to name the cluster of constitutive constraints that shape practical reasoning. According to the distinctive variety of Kantian constructivism I defend, practical reason is incomplete, rather than imperfect or defective. The completion of practical reason does not aim to correct or dissolve vulnerability, but deploys vulnerability as a resource to build up autonomy. This view accounts for autonomy as a normative relation among vulnerable agents, which develops in time. (shrink)

I argue in this essay that the phenomena we classify as "mental illness" result largely from the refusal of socially authorized "experts" to recognize - and thus to constitute - the Other as a subject. I suggest that Institutional Mental Health refuses to do this not merely because it seeks to aggrandize its own power but also because it fears to acknowledge that we are all participants in a process of historical development. It denies this because it is historically conditioned (...) by its own moment of origin in the project of the Enlightenment, It is conseqently wed to an ethos of rationalized order that does not accomodate, much less support, the unpredictable creative power of the Other and that sustains instead the project of mastery, of domination, of disovering eternal laws that will enable Reason to master history and to master the Other. For this reason Institutional Mental Health and its diverse ideologies, ranging from the pyschoanalytic to genetic defect models, constitute a major obstacle to the evolution of humanity. (shrink)

Since last year, major initiatives have been undertaken by the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Tübingen in order to enhance the reception of analytic metaphysics in the European landscape. Here we review the 2013 summer workshop, intended to be the first of an annual series, on “Existence, Truth and Fundamentality”, the invited speakers being Graham Priest (Melbourne), Stephan Leuenberger (Glasgow), Dan López de Sa (Barcelona), Francesco Berto (Aberdeen), Friederike Moltmann (Paris – Pantheon Sorbonne) and Jason Turner (Leeds). (...) The workshop’s scope is fairly large, focusing on three different aspects of contemporary research in metaphysics. However, the underlying idea of organizers Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza consisted in exploring their interconnections and even new areas which possibly share the same problem spectrum. Also, they thought of bringing together both young and senior protagonists of the contemporary debate. In this sense, the main thread followed by the speakers consisted in enquiring the ideas of fundamentality, dependence and grounding with respect to ontology (Berto, López de Sa, Turner) and the truthmaking debate (Priest, Moltmann, Leuenberger), thus pretty much in line with some latest tendencies in metaphysics, such as, prima inter paria, the works of Kit Fine. When we say that something is more fundamental than something else, we move into a non-conventional (for the standards of 20 th century philosophy) metodological framework, hardly focusing on the question about what there is, and rather tackling the issue of how fundamentally there is what there is, or how the existence of something is required as a ground for the existence of other things. Here is how Jonathan Schaffer explains the methodological transition in his influential “On What Grounds What” (2009): -/- Among the many assumptions Quine and Carnap share is that metaphysical questions are existence questions, such as whether numbers exist. They only disagree on the further issue of whether such questions are meaningful (at least as the metaphysician might pose them). But why think that metaphysical questions are existence question of this sort? Return to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. There are virtually no existence question posed. The whole discussion is about substances (fundamental units of being). At one point Aristotle pauses to ask if numbers exist, and his answer is a brief and dismissive yes. [. . . ] For Aristotle, the question about numbers is whether they are transcendent substances or grounded in concreta. The question is not whether numbers exist, but how. (Schaffer, 2009, p. 347) -/- The conference opened with Graham Priest’s intriguing and peculiar review of Buddhist cornerstone “The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way” (Mūlamadhyakamakārikā) by Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-ca. 250 AD), seen as a unrecognized forerunner of multi-valued semantics and dialetheism. Priest shows that Nagarjuna’s thought indeed has valuable analytic grip (contrary to the traditional mystical dismiss of his works altogether) and is even in accord to some formal schemas rejecting both the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction. Dan López de Sa was interested in the topic of grounding, raising concerns about how to explain the kind of “reality” exemplified by what is not fundamental, but rather derivative on something else. He proposes a conceptual and non-primitive analysis of grounding as linked to fundamentality and derivation, and argues that the view can be advocated along with the acceptance that at least something is not fundamental. Subsequently, he illustrates an impressive range of applications linked to contemporary debates in meta-ontology, truthmaking and philosophy of time. Stephan Leuenberger discussed a semantics for “total logic”, a variant of first order logic which is claimed to have several applications with respect to the issue of excluding negative existentials from the scope of theories accounting for a given ’totality’ of facts. For example, materialism is the claim that everything there is can be traced back to physical facts or to truth implied by those facts. What about the claim that “There are no angels”? According to Leuenberger, ordinary logic falls prey of modal arguments (if it is possible that there are angels, by modus tollens, that it is not metaphysically necessary that everything there is is physical). So, there is space for the introduction of a new operator, the totality operator, claiming of what enters its scope that “that’s the whole truth”. Consequently, total logic’s semantics tackles David Chalmers’ well-known conceivability-based argument in favour of zombie’s (subjects producing behaviour but experiencing no qualia) possible existence. Friederike Moltmann presented a massive array of natural language-based examples on the role played by case-constructions, such as “it is the case that Caesar crossed the Rubicon”, “the case of the stolen statue”, “the case in which it might rain”, and so forth. She suggests that we should take surface phenomena of our language very seriously with regard to the determination of ontological categories and truth-makers. Cases are provided by many natural languages with their own existence predicates (“to occur” and “to present itself ”), and these do not apply to other kind of entities, such as objects and events. Trying to derive a substantive thesis on their nature, she claims that they are filtered entities, a structure taking into account some features of the corresponding objects and events and preserving their relational pattern. Jason Turner discussed meta-ontological concerns against the claim that ontological debates are defective. Analysed the structure of a metaphysical theory and identified two different forms of defectiveness that can occur in ontological questions, the defection from without and the defection from within, the author provided an original solution in order to avoid such difficulties. He argued thus in favor of a logical constancy, a translation principle thanks to it would be possible reconceive an ontological defection. Lastly, Francesco Berto’s talk closed the workshop with a sagacious discussion of meinongian quantification. He substains that Meinongians and Quineans experience no conceptual equivocation. Even if the former claims that “There are things that do not exist”, something that the latter contrasts with the interpretation of existential quantifiers as all-including, they still rely upon the same concept of “existence” and they understand each other when they are outside the ontology room, so that it cannot be that they lack competence. Subsequently, Berto deals with the objection that Meinongians commit analytic falsehood in separating the meaning of “to be” from that of “exists”. The Quinean has no independent evidence for analytic equivalence aside from her emphatic stress on the “is” in “there is”. Meinongians, however, can retort to linguistic considerations and claim that existence predicates display fairly different functions. -/- As for what regards our internal division of the “philosophical labor”, Fabio Ceravolo reviewed Moltmann and Berto’s talks; whereas Mattia Cozzi took care of Priest’s and Leuenberger’s, and Mattia Sorgon of those given by López de Sa and Turner. Conclusively, we would like to thank Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza for all of their organizational efforts and the kind welcome they reserved to us. We hope we will have further opportunities to collaborate with Tübingen in supporting similarly innovative and valiant european initiatives. (shrink)

It is widely believed that, if human behaviour is subject to universal causation, people cannot be responsible for their actions. However, the excuses that are normally accepted do not invoke causation, so they would still be limited in scope even if all action had causal antecedents. Diminished responsibility due to (temporary or permanent) mental defect does involve reference to causation, but not to the fact of causation — rather, to the kind of causation. Again, therefore, universal causation does not threatenresponsibility (...) in the cases in which we currently hold people responsible. Nevertheless, the fact that human beings are not radically self-determining does have implications.For it means that people cannot be held responsible for not doing things that are beyond their powers. If we combine this with the ethical principle that people should not suffer as a result of things for which they are not responsible, we can derive the conclusion that many existing inequalities cannot be justified. (shrink)

It has recently been proposed that the evolution of human cooperativeness might, at least in part, have started as the cooptation of behavioral strategies evolved for solving problems of coordination to solve problems with higher incentives to defect, i.e. problems of cooperation. Following this line of thought, we systematically tested human subjects for spillover effects from simple coordination tasks (2x2 Stag Hunt games, SH) to problems of cooperation (2x2 Prisoner’s Dilemma games, PD) in a laboratory experiment with rigorous controls (...) to rule out subject confusion or habituation. Supporting the hypothesis that decision mechanisms for cooperation problems are linked with decision mechanisms for coordination, our main finding is that cooperation levels in PD games embedded in a sequence of SH games were significantly increased compared to a baseline sequence consisting only of PDs when subjects played in fixed pairs. No such effects could be found when players were randomly rematched each round. Additional findings include that this spillover effect cannot prevent a decay of cooperation over time, that there is no indication of a reversed effect, i.e. no signs of negative spillovers from failed cooperation to miscoordination, and that subjects self-reported preferences in SH games are prosocial. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S OBLIGATIONS Hume's general theory of morals is mainly concerned with explicating moral good and bad, virtue and vice. And so it is not surprising to find that when, at the end of his Section 'Of the origin of justice and property' in the Treatise he turns to the question of the moral quality of justice, the formulation is 'Why we annex the idea of virtue to justice, and (...) of vice to injustice. ' (T498)-1 He does, however, have a theory of obligation as well, which is completely in line with his general theory; although he does not say very much about it, it is both clear and important. Hume opens one of his most important paragraphs on obligation by stating the principle that ought implies can: No action can be requir'd of us as our duty, unless there be implanted in human nature some actuating passion or motive, capable of producing the action. (T518) We can only be under an obligation to do actions, the motives for which are within the range of natural human motivation. He then goes on to spell out what this means for our idea of obligation: This motive cannot be the sense of duty. A sense of duty supposes an antecedent obligation : And- where an action is not requir' d by any natural passion, it cannot be requir ' d by any natural obligation; since it may be omitted without proving any defect or imperfection in the mind and temper, and consequently without any vice.(T518) In other words, we have an obligation to perform an action (1) if the motive for this action is a natural human motive, (this is the principle that ought implies can, and it is a necessary condition for obligation); and (2) if our non-performance of the action is a sign that we are missing a quality in our character (and consequently a motive for the action), which it is a defect or imperfection in the mind and temper to be missing. What Hume means by defect or imperfection is strongly indicated on the previous 8. page: All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action, or quality of the mind, pleases us after a certain manner, we say it is virtuous; and when the neglect, or non-performance of it, displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it. (T517) The imperfection, of which the non-performance of an obligation is a sign, is thus a quality which is subject to a certain kind of displeasure, namely a displeasure which is similar to the pleasure which accompanies our perception of virtue. But now we know from Hume's general exposition of the emotional background to moral evaluation that this latter pleasure arises in conjunction with a peculiar indirect passion, which is closely akin to, and in a way nothing but a corrected version of love, and which we call moral appro2 bation. And this, of course, leads us to expect that the displeasure in question here arises in conjunction with the indirect passion which is akin to hatred and is known as moral disapprobation. That this is what Hume intends is strongly supported by a short treatment of obligation much earlier in the Treatise: When any virtuous motive or principle is common in human nature, a person, who feels his heart devoid of that principle*, may hate himself upon that account, and may perform the action without the motive, from a certain sense of duty,... (T479, my ital.)3 If we put all those pieces together, we can see fairly clearly what Hume's theory of obligation was. Obligation has to be seen against a background of the natural and common qualities of human character and the accompanying motives: if a man either lacks a certain quality, or in a particular situation does not have the common or natural motive, he may yet perform the action which this quality and motive would have led him to do, if he had had it; he may see, if he looks upon the situation as men commonly and naturally do, i.e. as an impartial spectator, that then he... (shrink)

.What are the truth-makers for the claims we make about the ways familiar objects persist across change?“Stage theory” has come to be recognized as an alternative to endurantism and perdurantism. It locates the truth-makers in properties possessed by momentary object-stages and in relations between suitably propertied objectstages. This paper argues that stage theory needs tightening up: momentary stages are too short to possess by themselves the requisite properties, and relations to other stages cannot remedy the defect. Fixing this problem requires (...) reconstruing stage theory. It then is the position that all claims of persistence are true only when we are speaking loosely; in philosophical strictness, nothing persists. What stage theory then endangers is neither endurantism nor perdurantism—these now have no subject-matter—but recent efforts to argue that the essence/accident distinction is as objective as persistence itself. But even reconstrued stage theory fails. (shrink)

Sven Bernecker presents an analysis of the concept of propositional (or factual) memory, and examines a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues crucial to the understanding of memory. -/- Bernecker argues that memory, unlike knowledge, implies neither belief nor justification. There are instances where memory, though hitting the mark of truth, succeeds in an epistemically defective way. This book shows that, contrary to received wisdom in epistemology, memory not only preserves epistemic features generated by other epistemic sources but also (...) functions as a source of justification and knowledge. According to the causal theory of memory argued for in this book, the dependence of memory states on past representations supports counterfactuals of the form: if the subject hadn't represented a given proposition in the past he wouldn't represent it in the present. The book argues for a version of content externalism whereupon the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past physical or social environment. Moreover, Bernecker shows that memory doesn't require identity, but only similarity, of past and present attitudes and contents. The notion of content similarity is explicated in terms of the entailment relation. (shrink)

The use of ‘proactive’ methods of newsgathering in journalism is very frequently condemned, from within and without the media. I argue that such condemnation is too hasty. In the first half of the paper, I develop a test which distinguishes between legitimate and illegitimate uses of proactive methods by law enforcement agencies. This test combines the virtues of the standard objective and subjective tests usually used, while avoiding the defects of both. I argue that when proactive methods pass this test, (...) they are always legitimate; but that in addition they are sometimes mandatory. In the second half, I apply this test to journalism. I show that actual uses of proactive methods by journalists pass the test, and are therefore (at least) permissible. There are other ethical considerations which are relevant to the use of such techniques by journalists, which ought to be taken into account before it is decided to employ such methods, but I show that they are rarely of sufficient weight to render proactive newsgathering impermissible. (shrink)

Most men and nearly all women have non-defective colour vision, as measured by standard colour tests such as those of Ishihara and Farns- worth. But people vary, according to gender, race and age in their per- formance in matching experiments. For example, when subjects are shown a screen, one half of which is lit by a mixture of red and green lights and the other by yellow or orange light, and they are asked to ad- just the mixture (...) of lights so as to make the two halves of the screen match in colour, they disagree about the location of the match. Where one male subject sees the two sides of the screen as being the same in colour, an- other female subject may see one side as a little redder or greener. And there are corresponding differences with age and race. (shrink)

Plato held that the Agathon (Being itself in its font) is the source or ‘common cause’ both of being(s) and of our understanding, both of the world (cosmos) and of our intellectual grasp thereof, both of the world beyond us (objectivity) that yet includes us and of the world of our inner thoughts (subjectivity) that yet stretches out to embrace the entire universe. This divine presupposition, found ‘philosophically’ in Plato and ‘religiously’ in Augustine’s doctrine of divine illumination, is that God (...) is the common cause of us and our world, for both are held within the same divine/cosmic embrace, by the same Spirit operating within us and beyond us. This leads us to a ‘hand-in-its-glove’ or ‘mind-in-its-world’ proportionate realism that avoids the epistemological defects of Kant’s transcendental realism and Bhaskar’s critical realism. Finally, we should regard knowing by acquaintance as paradigmatic, as the fundamental form of knowing in terms of which the other types are best approached and understood. There is, I suggest, an important sense in which ‘all knowing is knowing in the biblical sense.’. (shrink)