Semi-parliamentarism is a compelling design with attractive features, including those discussed by Ganghof, and also its likely tendency to break preference cycles and moderate politics. However, I argue that semi-parliamentarism may be a difficult system to sustain. My contribution concludes with consideration of how such systems might be preserved.

Steffen Ganghof’s book addresses pressing questions in democratic theory and institutional design regarding how to promote effective political inclusion and avoid personalizing power in democratic executives. His model of semi-parliamentarism manages to transform tradeoffs in these areas that were previously thought inescapable, unlocking novel potential for democratic reform.

This comment encourages normative democratic theorists to attend to the agenda for democratic theory that Steffen Ganghof sets in Beyond Parliamentarism and Presidentialism. I discuss Ganghof’s distinction between ‘procedural’ and ‘process’ equality. I conclude with a meta-theoretical question about how theorists should think about advocacy for large-scale constitutional systems.

This article responds to critical reflections on my Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism by Sarah Birch, Kevin J. Elliott, Claudia Landwehr and James L. Wilson. It discusses how different types of representative democracy, especially different forms of government (presidential, parliamentary or hybrid), can be justified. It clarifies, among other things, the distinction between procedural and process equality, the strengths of semi-parliamentary government, the potential instability of constitutional designs, and the difference that theories can make in actual processes of constitutional (...) reform. (shrink)

Steffen Ganghof’s Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism can improve existing typologies in comparative government and has great potential for discussions about democratic innovation and reform. So far, democratic innovations like deliberative mini-publics have remained mostly additive, leaving the underlying decision-making logics of representative political systems unchanged. Ganghof’s ideas can move debates about how deliberative democracy is to be institutionalized forward. Semi-parliamentary government constitutes an intriguing option to meet both demands for legislative flexibility and responsiveness to citizens’ concerns and demands (...) for stability and accountability. At the same time, I identify a limitation of the book in the fact that Ganghof’s normative theory of democracy remains thin. To appeal to citizens in constitutional reform processes, proposals for semi-parliamentary reform need to do more than reconcile conflicting visions of majority rule. They need to speak to democracy’s central promises of equal autonomy and rationality. (shrink)

This book provides a philosophically informed, institutionalist account of political leadership. It is rooted in a certain version of the American pragmatist philosophical tradition and privileges the study of institutions as a cause of leadership outcomes. The book adopts a multi-method approach. It includes a laboratory experiment identifying the psychological effects of presidentialism and parliamentarism on leader behavior; a large-n statistical study of the impact of semi-presidentialism on voter choice; an expert survey of president/cabinet conflict in Europe; an (...) analysis of presidential control over cabinet composition in France; and two in-depth case studies of the circumstances surrounding constitutional choice in France and Romania. This book is aimed at scholars and students of political leadership, political institutions, the philosophy of the social sciences, and research methods. Overall, it shows that an institutional account has the potential to generate well-settled beliefs about the causes of leadership outcomes. (shrink)

We live in layers of mixed realities with continuous conflicts, negotiation and becoming. I find it interesting to look at our situation as a continuous struggle in the fusion of virtual/actual presences, and machine/human. However, we seem to be far from understanding these relationships. Maybe the problem lies in the questions themselves, promoting unidirectional preconceptions. By reversing the questions, we might be able to identify something that has been missing in previous discussions: Can we talk about disconnection to further discuss (...) connection? Can we talk about distancing to further discuss the process of becoming? Can we talk about love impossible, to further discuss love? This paradoxical journey would maintain us in the continuum of struggle and massive doubts, and encounter deep aspects of human being. In this article, I examine the Korean cultural psyche called han in the context of a paradoxical state of consciousness and the story of love impossible, and argue that han is a driving force of transformative ritual in human consciousness. Beyond cultural boundaries, this article also positions han in a microscopic view of contemporary life. han underlies paradoxical human relationships with objects, and with my virtual puppets, in the context of distance, disconnection and love impossible. (shrink)

Since 2016, my embodied avatar performance (EAP) has explored healing rituals and life review at the intersection of arts, health and virtual reality (VR) for a variety of individuals, including older adults and cancer patients. EAP established a format in which the avatar mirrors the participant’s behaviours and speech, facing them during the life review process. The aspect of mirroring and facing is crucial in EAP for facilitating engagement, embodiment and empathy and a symbiotic relationship between avatar and human. This (...) article outlines the symbiosis between humans and avatars within the EAP process, focusing on the interactions where participants face and mirror their avatars. The avatars are presented as if participants are looking into a mirror. As the avatars face the participants and mimic their movements, they create an illusion similar to seeing one’s reflection in a virtual setting. The article discusses a range of mirroring aspects, including virtual mirrors in VR, echoing techniques in drama and movement therapy, and broader concepts like empathy, embodiment, we-ness and the Korean emotional concept of Cheong. Early EAP avatars, especially in the case of technical failures, will be discussed as examples. (shrink)

This paper intends to reveal the essential value of interactive media by fully understanding the complex interactive mechanism of human experience. Following Cartesian dualistic thought, interactive technology has primarily been utilized as a physical control device. It hasn’t sufficiently explored its gigantic potential as a true interactive medium. Interactive technology reflects our desire to interact with someone or something. Historically, human desire for interaction has been continuously manifested from the day of primitive ritual to contemporary cyberspace. Our interactive routines have (...) continued, from micro to macro scale, in order to confirm our existence in every day life. This universal repetitive pattern of human activity is ‘the ritual’. It is ritual because it is the archetypes of cycles driven by human instinct, regardless of their cultural and historical period. In this paper, I am defining ‘the form of ritual’, to explain the fundamental human process of interaction and becoming, and furthermore, to find the imperative potential of interactive media. The form of ritual will be explained in detail, with agent, driving force, process and by-product, taking reference from Korean shaman ritual, Yin/Yang process and Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy. My virtual puppetry with spiralling interaction, ‘Yong-Shin-Gud’ (calling-dragon-spirit), will be introduced as an art example to carry out the ritual. Interactive technology is an ongoing expression of human desire. Its essential value would be found in understanding human beings, nature and cosmos. Revealing its hidden essence, historical presence and spiritual value will be the next paradigm of interactive art practice. (shrink)

William Selinger’s Parliamentarism: from Burke to Weber aims to redefine our understanding of what it means to live in a free state. It displaces the concept of “democracy” as a (supposedly) central concern for a range of canonical nineteenth-century authors, and demonstrates that another concept, that of “parliamentarism”, stood at the core of many European liberal writers’ quest for liberty. Selinger shows that Montesquieu’s description of a “balanced” English constitution protected by a system of checks and balances was (...) challenged by a number of contemporary observers of British politics (including Jean-Louis de Lolme and Edmund Burke), who elaborated rival accounts emphasizing instead the dominant position of a powerful representative assembly which mirrored the nation it represented. The resulting doctrine of “parliamentarism”, the book demonstrates through a series of case studies that include Tocqueville, Mill and Weber, subsequently became the “dominant paradigm of a free state across Europe” (p. 9) in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

For eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors such as Burke, Constant, and Mill, a powerful representative assembly that freely deliberated and controlled the executive was the defining institution of a liberal state. Yet these figures also feared that representative assemblies were susceptible to usurpation, gridlock, and corruption. Parliamentarism was their answer to this dilemma: a constitutional model that enabled a nation to be truly governed by a representative assembly. Offering novel interpretations of canonical liberal authors, this history of liberal political ideas (...) suggests a new paradigm for interpreting the development of modern political thought, inspiring fresh perspectives on historical issues from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. In doing so, Selinger suggests the wider significance of parliament and the theory of parliamentarism in the development of European political thought, revealing how contemporary democratic theory, and indeed the challenges facing representative government today, are historically indebted to classical parliamentarism. (shrink)

Semi-compatibilism regarding responsibility is the position according to which determinism is compatible with moral responsibility quite apart from whether determinism rules out the sort of freedom that involves access to alternative possibilities. I motivate the view that whether or not semi-compat..

In an accompanying paper Gomes, we have put forward an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on a non-relativistic, Lagrangian 3+1 formalism of a closed Universe M, existing on timeless configuration space \ of some field over M. However, not much was said there about the role of locality, which was not assumed. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. Locality in full can only emerge dynamically, and is not postulated. This new understanding of locality is based solely on (...) the properties of extremal paths in configuration space. I do not demand locality from the start, as it is usually done, but showed conditions under which certain systems exhibit it spontaneously. In this way we recover semi-classical local behavior when regions dynamically decouple from each other, a notion more appropriate for extension into quantum mechanics. The dynamics of a sub-region O within the closed manifold M is independent of its complement, \, if the projection of extremal curves on \ onto the space of extremal curves intrinsic to O is a surjective map. This roughly corresponds to \, where \ is a linear projection. This criterion for locality can be made approximate—an impossible feat had it been already postulated—and it can be applied for theories which do not have hyperbolic equations of motion, and/or no fixed causal structure. When two regions are mutually independent according to the criterion proposed here, the semi-classical path integral kernel factorizes, showing cluster decomposition which is the ultimate aim of a definition of locality. (shrink)

In this paper, semi-Post algebras are introduced and investigated. The generalized Post algebras are subcases of semi-Post algebras. The so called primitive Post constants constitute an arbitrary partially ordered set, not necessarily connected as in the case of the generalized Post algebras examined in [3]. By this generalization, semi-Post products can be defined. It is also shown that the class of all semi-Post algebras is closed under these products and that every semi-Post algebra is a (...) semi-Post product of some generalized Post algebras. (shrink)

SummaryThe Admonition Controversy, largely between Thomas Cartwright and John Whitgift has proven fecund ground for intellectual historians analysing the religious dimension to early-modern political ideas. This paper argues that the religious dimension of Cartwright's mixed constitutionalism needs better explanation, rather than just noting that his ecclesiastical mixed constitutionalism mirrors his political mixed constitutionalism. This paper tracks Cartwright's progressive, dialogical unfolding of his mixed constitutionalism in response to Whitgift's attempt to derive episcopacy from the fact of English monarchy, effectively discrediting the (...) Admonition to Parliament. Furthermore, the essay outlines how the Cartwright–Whitgift debate led Cartwright to emphasise a parliamentarist mixed constitution when most of his contemporaries, especially the more famous mixed constitutionalist, Thomas Smith, portrayed the English parliament leaning noticeably towards the monarch. This analysis accepts that religious polemic was a major driving force in the normalisation of parliamentarism, yet seeks to show exactly how this worked out in one of the most important church–state disputes in Elizabethan England. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to analyse the concept of semi-sentence from a linguistic, formal and computational point of view. A semi-sentence can be characterised as a sentence which, from a grammatical perspective, is neither absolutely correct nor incorrect . This study focuses on: - a characterisation of the semi-sentences in the setting of the grammar of a language. This study will help to analyse in depth the concept of grammaticality [3]; - the correlate of (...) class='Hi'>semi-sentences in formal languages, i.e., semi-strings, which arise from applying productions that deviate from that which is strictly permitted by the rules of grammar [6]; - a Prolog program for handling semi-grammaticality in a computational manner [2]. (shrink)

Every organization has to deal with operational risks, arising from the execution of a company’s primary business functions. In this paper, we describe a legal knowledge management system which helps users understand the meaning of legislative text and the relationship between norms. While much of the knowledge requires the input of legal experts, we focus in this article on NLP applications that semi-automate essential time-consuming and lower-skill tasks—classifying legal documents, identifying cross-references and legislative amendments, linking legal terms to the (...) most relevant definitions, and extracting key elements of legal provisions to facilitate clarity and advanced search options. The use of Natural Language Processing tools to semi-automate such tasks makes the proposal a realistic commercial prospect as it helps keep costs down while allowing greater coverage. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Semi-revision is a mode of belief change that differs from revision in that the input sentence is not always accepted. A constructive approach to semi-revision is proposed. It requires an efficient treatment of local inconsistencies, which is more easily obtainable in belief base models than in belief set models. Axiomatic characterizations of two semi-revision operators are reported.

Most empirical work in human categorization has studied learning in either fully supervised or fully unsupervised scenarios. Most real-world learning scenarios, however, are semi-supervised: Learners receive a great deal of unlabeled information from the world, coupled with occasional experiences in which items are directly labeled by a knowledgeable source. A large body of work in machine learning has investigated how learning can exploit both labeled and unlabeled data provided to a learner. Using equivalences between models found in human categorization (...) and machine learning research, we explain how these semi-supervised techniques can be applied to human learning. A series of experiments are described which show that semi-supervised learning models prove useful for explaining human behavior when exposed to both labeled and unlabeled data. We then discuss some machine learning models that do not have familiar human categorization counterparts. Finally, we discuss some challenges yet to be addressed in the use of semi-supervised models for modeling human categorization. (shrink)

We introduce and study (weakly) semi-equational theories, generalizing equationality in stable theories (in the sense of Srour) to the NIP context. In particular, we establish a connection to distality via one-sided strong honest definitions; demonstrate that certain trees are semi-equational, while algebraically closed valued fields are not weakly semi-equational; and obtain a general criterion for weak semi-equationality of an expansion of a distal structure by a new predicate.

The purpose of this paper is to define a new logic $${\mathcal {SI}}$$ called semi-intuitionistic logic such that the semi-Heyting algebras introduced in [ 4 ] by Sankappanavar are the semantics for $${\mathcal {SI}}$$ . Besides, the intuitionistic logic will be an axiomatic extension of $${\mathcal {SI}}$$.

In this paper we introduce a logic that we name semi Heyting–Brouwer logic, \, in such a way that the variety of double semi-Heyting algebras is its algebraic counterpart. We prove that, up to equivalences by translations, the Heyting–Brouwer logic \ is an axiomatic extension of \ and that the propositional calculi of intuitionistic logic \ and semi-intuitionistic logic \ turn out to be fragments of \.

The basis of Plato's style being for the most part informal conversation, certain elements natural and appropriate to this atmosphere may be looked for and found. These include: colloquialisms in the accepted sense—short phrases, or special uses of words, associated with informal or comic style; phrases of poetic type, probably quotations or adaptations, used frequently with burlesque effect; proverbial or semi-proverbial matter; word-play of various types. The above groups overlap at certain points, but the classification may serve fairly well (...) to set forth the material in question. (shrink)

Semi-intuitionistic logic is the logic counterpart to semi-Heyting algebras, which were defined by H. P. Sankappanavar as a generalization of Heyting algebras. We present a new, more streamlined set of axioms for semi-intuitionistic logic, which we prove translationally equivalent to the original one. We then study some formulas that define a semi-Heyting implication, and specialize this study to the case in which the formulas use only the lattice operators and the intuitionistic implication. We prove then that (...) all the logics thus obtained are equivalent to intuitionistic logic, and give their Kripke semantics. (shrink)

There is a long-standing and widespread consensus that semi-presidentialism is bad for democratic performance. This article examines whether there is empirical evidence to support the arguments against semi-presidentialism. Examining countries that are incompletely consolidated and yet are not autocratic, we identify the relationship between democratic performance and the three main arguments against semi-presidentialism – the strength of the presidency, cohabitation, and divided minority government. We find that there is a strong and negative association between presidential power and (...) democratic performance, but that cohabitation and divided minority government do not have the negative consequences that the literature predicts. (shrink)

We study semi-isolation as a binary relation on the locus of a complete type and prove that—under some additional assumptions—it induces the strict order property.

The Conditional Probability Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics replaces the abstract notion of time used in standard Quantum Mechanics by the time that can be read off from a physical clock. The use of physical clocks leads to apparent non-unitary and decoherence. Here we show that a close approximation to standard Quantum Mechanics can be recovered from conditional Quantum Mechanics for semi-classical clocks, and we use these clocks to compute the minimum decoherence predicted by the Conditional Probability Interpretation.

In this paper, I question the dichotomy between fundamental moral disagreements, arising from divergences on moral principles, and superficial moral disagreements, that are expected to disappear under ideal epistemic circumstances. I claim that there are many other possibilities for moral disagreements, including moral disagreements that do not arise from different moral principles but would not disappear under ideal epistemic conditions. I describe two major kinds of such disagreements: semi-fundamental disagreements, which are made possible by the fact that the same (...) moral rules can be applied in different ways to the same situations, and non-morally fundamental moral disagreements, which arise by the fact that moral truths are not the only potentially non-factual truths. (shrink)

The purpose of cognitive diagnostic modeling is to classify students' latent attribute profiles using their responses to the diagnostic assessment. In recent years, each diagnostic classification model makes different assumptions about the relationship between a student's response pattern and attribute profile. The previous research studies showed that the inappropriate DCMs and inaccurate Q-matrix impact diagnostic classification accuracy. Artificial Neural Networks have been proposed as a promising approach to convert a pattern of item responses into a diagnostic classification in some research (...) studies. However, the ANNs methods produced very unstable and unappreciated estimation unless a great deal of care was taken. In this research, we combined ANNs with two typical DCMs, the deterministic-input, noisy, “and” gate model and the deterministic-inputs, noisy, “or” gate model, within a semi-supervised learning framework to achieve a robust and accurate classification. In both simulated study and real data study, the experimental results showed that the proposed method could achieve appreciated performance across different test conditions, especially when the diagnostic quality of assessment was not high and the Q-matrix contained misspecified elements. This research study is the first time of applying the thinking of semi-supervised learning into CDM. Also, we used the validating test to choose the appropriate parameters for the ANNs instead of using typical statistical criteria. (shrink)

Using an alternative to Tarskian semantics for first-order logic known as possibility semantics, I introduce an approach to nonstandard analysis that remains within the bounds of semiconstructive mathematics, i.e., does not assume any fragment of the Axiom of Choice beyond the Axiom of Dependent Choices. I define the Fr´echet hyperreal line †R as a possibility structure and show that it shares many fundamental properties of the classical hyperreal line, such as a Transfer Principle and a Saturation Principle. I discuss the (...) technical advantages of †R over some other alternative approaches to nonstandard analysis and argue that it is well-suited to address some of the philosophical and methodological concerns that have been raised against the application of nonstandard methods to ordinary mathematics. (shrink)

Semi-realism offers a metaphysics of science based on causal properties. Insofar as these are understood in terms of dispositions for specific relations that comprise the concrete structure of the world it can be regarded as a form of structural realism. And insofar as these properties are 'sociable' and cohere into the groupings that comprise the particulars investigated by science, it captures the underlying intuition behind forms of entity realism. However, I shall raise concerns about both these features. I shall (...) suggest that dispositionalism is not an appropriate metaphysics for modern physics and that 'sociability' should be understood in terms of the coherence revealed by symmetry principles. I hope to show how we can retain the virtues of semi-realism while dispensing with the problematic elements by recasting it in more thoroughly structuralist terms. (shrink)

In the present paper, we endow semi De Morgan logic and a family of its axiomatic extensions with proper multi-type display calculi which are sound, complete, conservative, and enjoy cut elimination and subformula property. Our proposal builds on an algebraic analysis of the variety of semi De Morgan algebras, and applies the guidelines of the multi-type methodology in the design of display calculi.

Semi-contraction is a withdrawal operation defined by Fermé in "On the logic of theory change: Contraction without recovery." In this paper we propose: (1) an axiomatic characterization of semi-contraction; (2) an alternative construction for semi-contraction based on semi-saturatable sets, inspired by Levi's saturatable sets; (3) a special kind of semi-contraction that satisfies the Lindström and Rabinowicz interpolation thesis.

Semi-DeMorgan algebras are a common generalization of DeMorgan algebras and pseudocomplemented distributive lattices. A duality for them is developed that builds on the Priestley duality for distributive lattices. This duality is then used in several applications. The subdirectly irreducible semi-DeMorgan algebras are characterized. A theory of partial diagrams is developed, where properties of algebras are tied to the omission of certain partial diagrams from their duals. This theory is then used to find and give axioms for the largest (...) variety of semi-DeMorgan algebras with the congruence extension property. (shrink)

This paper presents a different interpretation for Morris's change of mind on the issue of participation in 1890, and offers a new interpretation of his utopian writings in the light of this examination. In the first part it examines Morris's relationship to anarchism and Marxism and his reasons for adopting an anti-parliamentary stance in the period 1884 to 1890. It accepts the Marxist interpretation that Morris was never an anarchist but against it argues that he was serious in his hostility (...) to parliamentary action. The second part looks at Morris's reasons for rejecting anti-parliamentarism after 1890. It accepts that Morris altered his position on parliamentary participation but explains it as a product of the disappointment of his revolutionary hopes and his commitment to an idea of political education. The final section looks at the relationship between Morris's political strategy and his utopian writings and argues that his utopianism was defined not against political reality, but as a response to it. (shrink)

Motivated by the definition of semi-Nelson algebras, a propositional calculus called semi-intuitionistic logic with strong negation is introduced and proved to be complete with respect to that class of algebras. An axiomatic extension is proved to have as algebraic semantics the class of Nelson algebras.

This article presents an analysis of Turkish film screenings in Belgium as a case study of diasporic media practices in Europe. Turkish blockbusters have only recently become part of the programs of Belgian mainstream film theaters. This study provides insight into both historical and recent dynamics that characterize this new film and audience segment in film exhibition. After analyzing transnational patterns of distribution, selection and promotion, we put forward that changing circulation patterns and the associated power relations define the social (...) and spatial conditions of reception, resulting in the creation of new semi-public diasporic spaces. Thus, the links between the political economy of media and audience research are discussed. The findings of this article are based on archival and press research and a series of semi-structured expert interviews with exhibition and distribution professionals, as well as social workers and representatives from Turkish cultural associations. (shrink)