A conceptual ontology was used to semantically enrich the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen’s taxonomy for Wittgenstein Source to facilitate improved searching in the areas of the philosophies of mathematics and psychology. The classes and sub-classes of the multilingual taxonomy were employed to further refine the ways in which themes in these areas of philosophy could be organised. The taxonomy was intended to facilitate the identification of thematic similarities between remarks in instances where this similarity might not be (...) apparent with free text search and in cases where the classified subject of the remarks differed. The approach taken to constructing the taxonomy allows for both its alteration and potential expansion. (shrink)

Questions about the relationship between linguistic competence and expertise will be examined in the paper. Harry Collins and others distinguish between ubiquitous and esoteric expertise. Collins places considerable weight on the argument that ordinary linguistic competence and related phenomena exhibit a high degree of expertise. His position and ones which share close affinities are methodologically problematic. These difficulties matter because there is continued and systematic disagreement over appropriate methodologies for the empirical study of expertise. Against Collins, it will be argued (...) that the term ‘expertise’ should be reserved for expertise (esoteric experts) and exclude everyday performance (ubiquitous experts). Wittgensteinian ideas will be employed to maintain that it is mistaken and misleading to derive substantive conclusions about the epistemology of expertise from ordinary linguistic competence and vice versa. Significant attention will be devoted to the notion of following a rule with particular reference to the intelligibility of tacit rule following. A satisfactory theoretical approach to expertise should not involve making important claims about ordinary linguistic competence. (shrink)

This volume offers selected papers exploring issues arising from scientific discovery in the social sciences. It features a range of disciplines including behavioural sciences, computer science, finance, and statistics with an emphasis on philosophy. The first of the three parts examines methods of social scientific discovery. Chapters investigate the nature of causal analysis, philosophical issues around scale development in behavioural science research, imagination in social scientific practice, and relationships between paradigms of inquiry and scientific fraud. The next part considers the (...) practice of social science discovery. Chapters discuss the lack of genuine scientific discovery in finance where hypotheses concern the cheapness of securities, the logic of scientific discovery in macroeconomics, and the nature of that what discovery with the Solidarity movement as a case study. The final part covers formalising theories in social science. Chapters analyse the abstract model theory of institutions as a way of representing the structure of scientific theories, the semi-automatic generation of cognitive science theories, and computational process models in the social sciences. The volume offers a unique perspective on scientific discovery in the social sciences. It will engage scholars and students with a multidisciplinary interest in the philosophy of science and social science. (shrink)

Heterogenous flows across system boundaries continue to pose significant problems for efficient resource allocation especially with respect to long term strategic planning and immediate problems about allocation to address particular resource shortages. The approach taken here to modelling such flows is an engineering change prediction one. This enables margin modelling by producing system models in dependency matrices with different linkage types. Change prediction approaches from engineering design can analyse where these bottlenecks in integrated systems would be so that resources can (...) be deployed flexibility to avoid them and address them when they occur. Current state of the art of margin research can be furthered by identifying margins on multiple levels of system composition. It can usefully be complemented by a category theory based approach which allows representation of variable and constant properties of models under changing conditions, and the identification of flows within models. Category theory is useful for formalising such explanatory frameworks as it can both structure systems and permit analysis of their applications in a complementary way. (shrink)

The difficulties about other minds are deep and of central philosophical importance. This text explores attempts to apply Wittgenstein's concept of criteria in explaining how we can know other minds and their properties. It is shown that the use of criteria for this purpose is misguided.

As most engineering design proceeds by modifying past designs and reusing and adapting existing components and solution principles, a significant part of the knowledge engineers employ in design is encapsulated in the past designs they are familiar with. References to past designs, as well as encounters with them, serve to invoke the knowledge associated with them and constructed from them. This chapter argues that much of this knowledge is tacit consisting in and/or made available by the perceptual recognition of features (...) and situations, using a discussion of design margins to illustrate how engineers use tacit knowledge in reasoning about the properties of new designs. (shrink)

An exciting introduction to the contribution which the later Wittgenstein made to the philosophy of religion. Although his writings on the subject have been few, Wittgenstein developed influential and controversial theories on both religion which emphasize the distinctive nature of religious discourse and how this nature can be misunderstood when viewed in direct competition with science. The contributors of this collection shed new light on the perennial debate between faith and reason. The result is a collection that is both informative (...) and stimulating. (shrink)

Some issues raised by the notion of surveyability and how it is represented mathematically are explored. Wright considers the sense in which the positive integers are surveyable and suggests that their structure will be a weakly finite, but weakly infinite, totality. One way to expose the incoherence of this account is by applying Wittgenstein's distinction between intensional and extensional to it. Criticism of the idea of a surveyable proof shows the notion's lack of clarity. It is suggested that this concept (...) should be replaced by that of a feasible operation, as strict finitism aims to understand the boundaries of legitimate mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

This volume brings together a number of related contributions on the topic of expertise and education. Expertise is a topic that is beginning to receive more attention in the Philosophy of Education and discussions are closely related to the epistemological debate concerning the nature of know-how which has also burgeoned in recent years within ‘mainstream’ epistemology. More specifically, this volume focuses on the relevance of expertise to professional education and practice, with the aim on shedding light on what is involved (...) in professional expertise and the implications of a sound understanding of professional expertise for professional education. Although all contributions have roots in philosophical discussion, there is an element of cross-disciplinarity among them, reflecting the advances that have been made to our understanding of expertise from psychology in particular. (shrink)

Ideas from Wittgenstein are developed to provide suggestions about how both the nature and acquisition of normative cognition in the cognitive science of religion might be understood. As part of this there is some consideration of more general issues about the nature and status of claims in the cognitive science of religion and of appropriate methodologies for the cognitive study of religion. The gaining, production, distribution and implementation of social concepts and norms involves the possession of certain cognitive skills and (...) the ability to use symbols, concepts and norms as normative cognitive tools. Normative cognition is connected to social facts which are construed in Searle’s sense as being any facts involving collective intentionality. For example, socially shared belief systems which are concerned with the ideological bases for the distribution and exercise of power are large systems of social facts whose functions involve the generation of norms. Social facts can be included in Wittgenstein’s account of meaning being socially constructed by a community of language users. Such inclusion enables his ideas, especially those from On Certainty about world pictures, to be usefully employed to clarify the ontological and epistemological status of social facts in a way which does not involve reification along with articulating their significance for normative cognition. World pictures include social facts with socially shared belief systems being a significant constitutive element. (shrink)

The article presents a review of the current literature on Wittgenstein’s notion of a criterion. It essentially deals with developments since Lycan’s survey article on the topic and examines the most important pieces contemporary with or prior to it. Different views on various aspects of criteria are considered and summarised. Particular attention is paid to the role criteria play in the philosophy of mind. A framework in which criteria are regarded as states of affairs is used to provide uniformity in (...) the presentation of the accounts. The connections between and implications of varlous positions on aspects of criteria are assessed. No overall perspective on criteria is given and the question of whether the proposed accounts in the literature are adequate interpretations of Wittgenstein’s texts is not covered. (shrink)

The relevance of expertise to professional education and practice is explored in this collection of original contributions from educationalists, philosophers and psychologists. Discusses the increasingly prominent debates about the nature of know-how in mainstream analytical epistemology Illuminates what is involved in professional expertise and the implications of a sound understanding of professional expertise for professional education practice, curriculum design and assessment All contributions are philosophically grounded and reflect interdisciplinary advances in understanding expertise.

This study was conducted from May to June 2005 to describe the demographic characteristics and factors that affect the VCT acceptance as well as the HIV prevalence among youth VCT acceptors in Addis Ababa. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were employed. The quantitative data was generated from a two years (October 2002 to December 2004) VCT service utilization data obtained from four youth centers located in Addis Ababa. The data was analysed using univariate and multivariate (...) analysis and results were presented in the form of text, table and figures. The significance and level of associations between independent and dependant variables was computed using X2 tests and odds ratios with 95% confidence interval. The qualitative data was presented in a form of narrations using excerpts. During the period a total of 3220, youth age 15 - 24 years have sought VCT service from the four youth centres VCT service outlets. Higher proportions of females (60.2%) and youth in the age category of 20 – 24 years (58.0%) have accessed the service. The major reasons given for seeking VCT were found to be similar for male and female acceptors. About 71.2% said that they sought for VCT service because they wanted to know their HIV status, 9.5% reported because they were suspicious of being infected with HIV and 5.0% tested because they wanted to go aboard. The HIV prevalence rate is found to be significantly higher, (p = 0.00), among females 9.2 % than in males 1.7 %. Gender segregated multivariate analysis of risk factors indicated significant association of HIV infection with lack of formal education for both males and female: for males P= 0.045, OR = 18.3, 95% CI: 1.1 – 317.7 and for females P=0.00, OR=19.4, 95 % CI: 5.1 – 73.8. Additionally for females HIV infection is markedly associated with being widowed and commercial sex worker. The most common barrier for youth in Addis from accessing VCT were found to be: fear of being emotionally affected if found out HIV positive, stigma and discrimination, lack of money to pay for VCT service, absence of care and support services for people who are already infected. The challenges encountered by youth VCT counsellors were stress, absence of medical care for PLWHA, inadequacy of budget, lack of counsellors and supportive supervision. This study showed high burden of HIV infection among female youth and the risk factors associated with it. Formal education for both females and males is strongly recommended. Female focused HIV prevention interventions are indicated. Additional recommendations are also made in relation to barriers to access youth VCT and for the challenges encountered by youth VCT service providers. (shrink)

Whether in her life or in her work, however, this difficulty with grieving recurs too often, and too insistently, to be passed off as a matter of artistic temperament. Its presence in her experimental fiction—elegies for her dead brother in To the Lighthouse, the taboo on grieving in Mrs. Dalloway—suggests rather a compulsive need to cope with death. Indeed, while writing To the Lighthouse she had even thought of supplanting "novel" as the name for her books with something like "elegy." (...) Perhaps "abortive elegies for our times" would be more appropriate since she refuses in these books to deal with death and grieving in any direct or open way, and her elegiac impulse—by which writer and reader alike may normally work out grief through formal measures—is delayed, disguised, or thwarted, at best only partially appeased. Her refusal seems to me characteristic of our times, or of that struggle against Victorian odds which helped to make our times. Mark Spilka, professor of English at Brown University and editor of Novel, is the author of works on Lawrence, Dickens, and Kafka. The present essay will be a chapter in his Virginia Woolf's Quarrel with Grieving. See also: "Virginia Woolf's Criticism: A Polemical Preface" by Barbara Currier Bell and Carol Ohmann in Vol. 1, No. 2. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper aims to establish that a certain sort of mathematical pluralism is true. MethodsThe paper proceeds by arguing that that the best versions of mathematical Platonism and anti-Platonism both entail the relevant sort of mathematical pluralism. Result and ConclusionThis argument gives us the result that mathematical pluralism is true, and it also gives us the perhaps surprising result that mathematical Platonism and mathematical pluralism are perfectly compatible with one another.

Epistemologists are interested in what makes beliefs well justified. Even before considering competing theories of epistemic justification, however, we should ask what sort of valuational structure we are trying to explain. If, as far as epistemic justification is concerned, beliefs are like bank accounts, then all beliefs are comparable: just as in any bank account there must be more, less, or as much money as in any other, one belief must be better, worse, or as good as any other. Contemporary (...) epistemologists take for granted the assumption that beliefs are comparable in the same way that bank accounts are comparable: bank accounts have balances, sprinters have personal bests for the 100-meter dash, and beliefs have degrees of justifiedness. Alternatively, we could understand the justificatory status of a belief to be more like the expensiveness of a restaurant. Consider a concept of restaurant expensiveness on which the expensiveness of a restaurant is determined by the range of prices for meals at that restaurant. If meals at Restaurant A are $25 to $50 and meals at B are $10 to $20, then A is more expensive than B. Restaurant C, however , is neither more nor less expensive than A. Nor is it equally expensive, for there are restaurants that are more expensive than C that are not more expensive than A . Some evaluative concepts, like this concept of restaurant expensiveness, do not reduce values to single numbers. If epistemic justification is like this, then there may be pairs of beliefs such that neither is better justified than the other, but nor are they equally well justified. Such beliefs would be incomparable. While incomparability is familiar in the ethics literature, it has not previously been explored in epistemology. I discuss the implications of allowing for incomparability in epistemology, both for theories of epistemic justification and theories of knowledge. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1104, Page 278-293, March 2022.

This essay argues that a military's reserve force occupies an important and overlooked ethical position. It shows that, among other things, reservists pose special challenges to virtue ethics accounts of military personnel, an understanding of the relationship between a government and its military, as well as standard questions about jus in bello.

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 73-75.