Can we use technology in the pursuit of a good life, or are we doomed to having our lives organized and our priorities set by the demands of machines and systems? How can philosophy help us to make technology a servant rather than a master? Technology and the Good Life? uses a careful collective analysis of Albert Borgmann's controversial and influential ideas as a jumping-off point from which to address questions such as these about the role and significance of technology (...) in our lives. Contributors both sympathetic and critical examine Borgmann's work, especially his "device paradigm" apply his theories to new areas such as film, agriculture, design, and ecological restoration and consider the place of his thought within philosophy and technology studies more generally. Because this collection carefully investigates the issues at the heart of how we can take charge of life with technology, it will be a landmark work not just for philosophers of technology but for students and scholars in the many disciplines concerned with science and technology studies. (shrink)

Knee proprioception deficits and neuroplasticity have been indicated following injury to the anterior cruciate ligament. Evidence is, however, scarce regarding brain response to knee proprioception tasks and the impact of ACL injury. This study aimed to identify brain regions associated with the proprioceptive sense of joint position at the knee and whether the related brain response of individuals with ACL reconstruction differed from that of asymptomatic controls. Twenty-one persons with unilateral ACL reconstruction of either the right or left knee, as (...) well as 19 controls matched for sex, age, height, weight and current activity level, performed a knee joint position sense test during simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging. Integrated motion capture provided real-time knee kinematics to activate test instructions, as well as accurate knee angles for JPS outcomes. Recruited brain regions during knee angle reproduction included somatosensory cortices, prefrontal cortex and insula. Neither brain response nor JPS errors differed between groups, but across groups significant correlations revealed that greater errors were associated with greater ipsilateral response in the anterior cingulate, supramarginal gyrus and insula. This is the first study to capture brain response using fMRI in relation to quantifiable knee JPS. Activated brain regions have previously been associated with sensorimotor processes, body schema and interoception. Our innovative paradigm can help to guide future research investigating brain response to lower limb proprioception. (shrink)

Discussion of Searle's case against strong AI has usually focused upon his Chinese Room thought-experiment. In this paper, however, I expound and then try to refute what I call his abstract argument against strong AI, an argument which turns upon quite general considerations concerning programs, syntax, and semantics, and which seems not to depend on intuitions about the Chinese Room. I claim that this argument fails, since it assumes one particular account of what a program is. I suggest (...) an alternative account which, however, cannot play a role in a Searle-type argument, and argue that Searle gives no good reason for favoring his account, which allows the abstract argument to work, over the alternative, which doesn't. This response to Searle's abstract argument also, incidentally, enables the Robot Reply to the Chinese Room to defend itself against objections Searle makes to it. (shrink)

The problem of public consultation over the allocation of health care resources is addressed by considering the role that quality of life measures, such as QALYs and the Nottingham Health Profile, could play. Such measures are typically grounded in social surveys, and as such may reflect public preferences for health care priorities. Using Charles Taylor's concepts of “weak” and “strong” evaluation, it is suggested that current quality of life measures are inadequate, insofar as they typically presuppose that survey respondents (...) are mere “weak evaluators”, who express only inarticulate preferences. Respondents may, conversely, be understood as strong evaluators, with deeper visions of human nature and the good life informing their health preferences. Space is then created for such respondents to be asked to defend their preferences, and so be encouraged to reflect critically and publicly on the beliefs and prejudices that ground their view of health care priorities. (shrink)

Kapsner strong logics, originally studied in the context of connexive logics, are those in which all formulas of the form \(A\rightarrow \lnot A\) or \(\lnot A\rightarrow A\) are unsatisfiable, and in any model at most one of \(A\rightarrow B, A\rightarrow \lnot B\) is satisfied. In this paper, such logics are studied algebraically by means of algebraic structures in which negation is modeled by an operator \(\lnot \) s.t. any element _a_ is incomparable with \(\lnot a\). A range of properties (...) which are (in)compatible with such operators are studied, and examples are given; finally, the question of which further operators can be added to such structures is broached. (shrink)

The best extant statement of the epistemic regress problem makes assumptions that are too strong. An improved version assumes only that that reasons require support, that no proposition is supported only by endless regresses of reasons, and that some proposition is supported. These assumptions are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent. Attempts to explain support by means of unconceptualized sensations, contextually immunized propositions, endless regresses, and holistic coherence all require either additional reasons or an external condition on support that is (...) arbitrary from the believer's own point of view. (shrink)

We describe strongly minimal theories Tn with finite languages such that in the chain of countable models of Tn, only the first n models have recursive presentations. Also, we describe a strongly minimal theory with a finite language such that every non-saturated model has a recursive presentation.

Many philosophers of science have argued that social and ethical values have a significant role to play in core parts of the scientific process. This naturally suggests the following question: when such value choices need to be made, which or whose values should be used? A common answer to this question turns to democratic values—the values of the public or its representatives. I argue that this imposes a morally significant burden on certain scientists, effectively requiring them to advocate for policy (...) positions they strongly disagree with. I conclude by discussing under what conditions this burden might be justified. (shrink)

Critics of liberalism in the past two decades have argued that the fact that we are necessarily "situated" or "embedded" means that we can not always choose our own ends (for example, our conceptions of the good or our loyalties to others). Some suggest that we simply discover ourselves with these "connections." If correct, this would argue against (Rawlsian) hypothetical contract models and liberalism more broadly, make true impartiality impossible, and give support to traditionalist views like those of Alasdair MacIntyre, (...) Charles Taylor, and Michael Sandel. These same critics argue that liberalism's rejection or neglect of this supposed fact of our moral life has pernicious anti-social affects. I argue that the critics are wrong in both cases, defending what I call "strong voluntarism." In contrast both to recent critics of liberalism and the dominant trend in recent liberal thought, my defense of strong voluntarism allows that we can always choose to accept or reject any end we happen to have but that this does not lead to any pernicious anti-social effects. (shrink)

1) Workbook Exercises (WBE): This workbook contains enrichment and additional practice exercises that go along with each chapter in the book. You can check your own answers against the answer key at the end of each chapter. 2) General Problem Sets (GPS) (in the main textbook): You can do the general problem sets at the end of each chapter in the main textbook. I'm sorry but the answers to these questions are not made available to students. The reason for this (...) is that many instructors use these problem sets as a means for student evaluation. Providing the answers to these would be counterproductive! If you are using the textbook for self-study or your instructor isn't using the problem sets for evaluation, I encourage you to find a linguistics professor or linguistics (post-)graduate student who can help you with determining if you are on the right track with these. 3)If you are an advanced student or a graduate student, I strongly encourage you to try the Challenge Problem Sets (CPS) at the end of each chapter in the main textbook. These problem sets are designed to make you think critically about the presentation in the text and to think about alternatives and problems that exist for the theory. Again the answers to these cannot be distributed to students. (shrink)

The therapeutic potential of meditation for physical and mental well-being is well documented, however the possibility of adverse effects warrants further discussion of the suitability of any particular meditation practice for every given participant. This concern highlights the need for a personalized approach in the meditation practice adjusted for a concrete individual. This can be done by using an objective screening procedure that detects the weak and strong cognitive skills in brain function, thus helping design a tailored meditation training (...) protocol. Quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) is a suitable tool that allows identification of individual neurophysiological types. Using qEEG screening can aid developing a meditation training program that maximizes results and minimizes risk of potential negative effects. This brief theoretical–conceptual review provides a discussion of the problem and presents some illustrative results on the usage of qEEG screening for the guidance of mediation personalization. (shrink)

The inaugural collection in an exciting new exchange between philosophers and geographers, this volume provides interdisciplinary approaches to the environment as space, place, and idea. Never before have philosophers and geographers approached each other's subjects in such a strong spirit of mutual understanding. The result is a concrete exploration of the human-nature relationship that embraces strong normative approaches to environmental problems.

Previous discussions of Kant’s influence on German biology have resulted in contradictory accounts. Zammito argues both that Kant could not have influenced German biology because his account is fundamentally incompatible with the presuppositions of biological naturalism, and biology only emerged because biologists misunderstood Kant’s philosophy. I argue that his account exposes an important difficulty when considering Kant’s influence on the development of biology, since it correctly identifies a fundamental incompatibility between biological naturalism and Kant. However, this does not demonstrate that (...) Kant could not have been influential on the development of biology. Instead, I propose a broader conception of influence that includes both intentional and non-intentional forms of misunderstanding. I examine Kant’s influence on the development of biology in the British Isles. Both in the history of science and contemporary research, the literature tends to focus on Kant’s ‘Critique of Teleological Judgment’ as this is where Kant discusses how biological entities require us to judge them as if they possessed the properties of self-organization, growth and reproduction. I argue that Kant’s influence on biology in the British Isles originates from his account of scientific methodology in his earlier work, the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant’s account was influential on William Whewell. Kant argued that the unity of science was merely a presupposition for scientific enquiry, whereas Whewell argued this unity was an inherent property of the world that science was discovering. I argue that Whewell intentionally misinterpreted aspects of Kant’s philosophy to develop a more naturalistic theory of science. Whewell was influential on the development of Darwin’s scientific methodology in the Origin as he argues for the correctness of his theory on the basis that it displays consilience. Whewell’s account of science was not only influential for the development of biology but also for more recent accounts of scientific methodology and reductivist accounts of science. I argue that this dual philosophical-historical approach provides the basis for a richer, more adequate understanding of how Kant’s philosophy has continued to exert a strong though often unrecognised influence on developments in biological theory such as immunology and contemporary accounts of biological autonomy. All the same that influence is highly problematic because of the original incompatibility between transcendental idealism and biological naturalism. Understanding how aspects of Kant’s philosophy are intertwined with both the development of biology and contemporary philosophy of biology allows us to assess the conjoint costs and benefits of the synthesis between Kant’s philosophy and philosophy of biology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Pettigrove’s paper argues strongly and effectively against a proportionality principle grounded on a univocal scale of value, and argues in favour of a kind of virtue ethics that is focused exclusively on the characteristic and non-univocal attitudes of the subject. In my critique, however, I point out that not all proponents of value ethics adhere to the proportionality principle and that the radical shift from object to subject has risks that were highlighted in a book by C. S. Lewis, (...) The Abolition of Man. I also point out that Pettigrove in fact treats ‘I love you’ and ‘I forgive you’ substantively in terms of a first-person act in which any relationship-enabling response by the second person is accidental. On this account, there seems to be an underlying ethical challenge, namely that the Pettigrovian valuers are in reality isolated, cut off from relationships based on genuine union with second persons. (shrink)

According to previous research, threatening people’s belief in free will may undermine moral judgments and behavior. Four studies tested this claim. Study 1 used a Velten technique to threaten people’s belief in free will and found no effects on moral behavior, judgments of blame, and punishment decisions. Study 2 used six different threats to free will and failed to find effects on judgments of blame and wrongness. Study 3 found no effects on moral judgment when manipulating general free will beliefs (...) but found strong effects when manipulating the perceived choice capacity of the judged agent. Study 4 used pretested narratives that varied agents’ apparent free will and found that perceived choice capacity mediated the relationship between free will and blame. These results suggest that people’s general beliefs about whether free will exists have no impact on moral judgments but specific judgments about the agent’s choice capacity do. (shrink)

Concerns about advertising take one of two forms. Some people are worried that advertising threatens autonomous choice. Others are worried not about autonomy but about the values spread by advertising as a powerful institution. I suggest that this bifurcation stems from misunderstanding autonomy. When one turns from autonomous choice to autonomy of persons, or what is often glossed as self-rule, then one has reason to think that advertising poses a moral problem of a sort so far unrecognized. I diagnose this (...) problem using Charles Taylor''s work on "strong evaluation". This problem turns out to have political ramifications that have been only dimly recognized in business ethics circles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 77-99 [Access article in PDF] Malebranche's Distinction Between General and Particular Volitions Andrew Pessin "God needs no instruments to act," Malebranche writes in Search; "it suffices that He wills in order that a thing be, because it is a contradiction that He should will and that what He wills should not happen. Therefore, His power is His will." 1 God (...) acts by willing; so much is clear. But Malebranche goes further, especially in his Treatise, by asserting that (i) only in miracles and the initial creation does God act by "particular volitions," while (ii) God ordinarily acts in nature via laws or "general volitions." This distinction between general and particular volitions is central to Malebranche's theories of divine activity, theodicy, and occasionalism. Nevertheless, I will argue, it has been almost universally misunderstood.The two standard interpretations of Malebranche's expressions "general volition" and "particular volition" are these: (GC) A "general volition" for Malebranche is one whose content is general; a "particular volition" is one whose content is particular. [End Page 77](PC) All divine volitions have particular contents; but a "general volition" is one which is in accord with general laws, while a "particular volition" is one not in accord with general laws. 2Andrew Black offers the following two schemata for volition contents, where (B) also provides the general form of laws of nature: A: Let c be F at t. B: For all created substances x and y and for every time t1, if x is G at t1and x bears relation R to y then there is a time t2 such that t2 bears relation T to t1 and y is F at t2. 3(A) is "particular" insofar as it represents a particular state of affairs, involving a particular substance in a mode at a time; (B) is general in making no such reference. According to (GC), then, when Malebranche's God acts by "general volitions," He has volitions whose content is of the form of (B) (specifically, a law of nature); when He acts by particular volitions His volitions are of the form of (A). According to (PC), both general and particular volitions are of the form of (A), while the former are in accord with laws of nature and the latter aren't.To simplify matters, I will focus on God's activity in the material world; the laws of nature in question will usually be the laws of motion. Further, to avoid terminological confusion, I will refer to volitions of the form of (A) as "particular content volitions," and those of (B) as "general content volitions." The issue before us then is: When Malebranche's God acts by "general volitions," are these general content volitions or particular content volitions? Proponents of (GC) support the former; those of (PC) the latter.Unhappily, almost everything Malebranche says directly on the subject can be interpreted either way. 4 (I'll speculate why at the end.) And admittedly, what Malebranche says more broadly about natural laws and divine volitions is often suggestive of (GC)—so it is no surprise that almost all recent commentators adopt (GC), usually simply assuming it without argument. Still, I shall argue that if one of the interpretations is correct, it is (PC). [End Page 78]My plan in this paper: (1) Offer some prima facie support for (PC); (2) Provide four arguments that (PC) either fits better with, or is alone consistent with, various Malebranchean doctrines; (3) Reply to some recent objections against (PC); (4) Argue that Malebranche's direct reply to Arnauld supports (PC); (5) Offer a conclusion and final thought. 1. Some Prima Facie Support For (PC) Let me first note that Steven Nadler offers various passages which do at least suggest (PC). 5 But that evidence, while strong, is not alone conclusive. For one thing, those passages can perhaps be accommodated by (GC); 6 for another, there are many passages which suggest (GC). So we must go further.Consider, then, Malebranche's primary concern in the Treatise, the... (shrink)

In this article, I present an argument that suggests neuroscience should inform judgments of decision-making capacity. First, I review key behavioral and neurocognitive data to demonstrate that neuroscientific tests might be predictive of decision-making capacity, and that these tests might inform clinical judgments of capacity. Second, I argue that, consistent with the principles of autonomy and justice, such data should inform judgements of decision-making capacity. While the neuroscience of decision-making capacity still requires time to mature, there is strong reason (...) to believe that neuroscience might assist clinicians in adjudicating difficult cases in the future. This article focuses on the assessment of capacity in brain injury patients who have profound communication impairments, however, the overarching aim of the article is to highlight the potential use of neuroscience to improve our understanding of the relationship between cognition and decision-making capacity. (shrink)

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

Everett (2005) has claimed that the grammar of Piraha˜ is exceptional in displaying ‘inexplicable gaps’, that these gaps follow from a cultural principle restricting communication to ‘immediate experience’, and that this principle has ‘severe’ consequences for work on universal grammar. We argue against each of these claims. Relying on the available documentation and descriptions of the language, especially the rich material in Everett 1986, 1987b, we argue that many of the exceptional grammatical ‘gaps’ supposedly characteristic of Piraha˜ are misanalyzed by (...) Everett (2005) and are neither gaps nor exceptional among the world’s languages. We find no evidence, for example, that Piraha˜ lacks embedded clauses, and in fact find strong syntactic and semantic evidence in favor of their existence in Piraha˜. Likewise, we find no evidence that Piraha˜ lacks quantifiers, as claimed by Everett (2005). Furthermore, most of the actual properties of the Piraha˜ constructions discussed by Everett (for example, the ban on prenominal possessor recursion and the behavior of WH-constructions) are familiar from languages whose speakers lack the cultural restrictions attributed to the Piraha˜. Finally, following mostly Gonc¸alves (1993, 2000, 2001), we also question some of the empirical claims about Piraha˜ culture advanced by Everett in primary support of the ‘immediate experience’ restriction. We conclude that there is no evidence from Piraha˜ for the particular causal relation between culture and grammatical structure suggested by Everett. (shrink)

Allan Hutchinson’s recent book, The Province of Jurisprudence Democratized, considers what is involved in seeking to establish the province of jurisprudence as a distinctive field of inquiry.Hutchinson’s principal concern with the democratization of law, legal theory, and the province of jurisprudence is examined in detail. The process of democratization and its anti-elitist character is traced through Hutchinson’s opposition to the aloof philosophical analysis of the universal in favour of an engagement with local and particular issues. However, the weight Hutchinson places (...) on his conception of strong democracy, so as to provide a different understanding of the law-power nexus and of the relationship between law and morality operating in strong democracies, is shown to be misplaced. Two related failings are pointed out.First, there is a failure to recognize competing groupings within the people, which contradict the uniform collective body Hutchinson associates with those formerly governed by elites and then constituting those liberated to exercise self-governance. Secondly, this links into Hutchinson’s exclusive preoccupation with the participatory axis of democracy – which he regards as the core feature of strong democracy as well as the basis for the law-power nexus and the law-morality relationship within a strong democracy. This is revealed as an inadequate and impoverished understanding of democracy once the presence of competing groupings within the people is acknowledged. These corrections have important consequences for a role for law that cannot be reduced solely to politics, and for a broader sweep to analytical jurisprudence than Hutchinson allows.Hutchinson’s own efforts to capture the province of jurisprudence are then assessed. These are recharacterized as seeking to establish within a split field of inquiry a theory of strong democratic law, but, in the absence of a convincing account of the nature of democracy and its relationship with law, the project is judged to be unfulfilled. (shrink)

Plotinus, the founding father of Neoplatonism, composed On Beauty (Ennead 1.6), the foundational work for Neoplatonism. This volume translates into English with notes Plotinus's strong and systematic argument with Platonic reminiscences, and engaging exhortation to foster the inner self. A translation of his complementary statements on intelligible beauty are also included (Ennead 5.8.1-2).

A dogma of contemporary normative theorizing holds that some reasons are distinctively moral while others are not. Call this view Reasons Pluralism. This essay looks at four approaches to vindicating the apparent distinction between moral and non-moral reasons. In the end, however, all are found wanting. Though not dispositive, the failure of these approaches supplies strong evidence that the dogma of Reasons Pluralism is ill-founded.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.4 (1999) 40-57 [Access article in PDF] Bogeyman: Benedict Anderson's "Derivative" Discourse Andrew Parker Between life and death, nationalism has as its own proper space the experience of haunting. There is no nationalism without some ghost. -Jacques Derrida, "Onto-Theology of National-Humanism" Writing a mere decade ago about Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Timothy Brennan noted that "with the exception of some recent sociological works which use literary theories, (...) it is rare in English to see 'nation-ness' talked about as an imaginative vision--as a topic worthy of full fictional realization.... Even in the underrepresented branch of Third World English studies, one is likely to find discussions of race and colonialism, but not the 'nation' as such" [47]. If these sentences appear astonishing today--if over the past ten years we seem to have done little else but regard the nation as an imaginative construction--our sense of surprise may help to register how rapidly and profoundly Anderson's work has transformed the nature of literary and cultural studies. Viewing the modern nation primarily as an anthropological rather than political category, one that has less inherently to do with ideologies than with kinship, gender, and religion, Anderson argues in Imagined Communities for the irreducibility of material-cultural practices (what he memorably termed "print-capitalism") in creating and sustaining the "imagined community" of a nation whose citizens maintain "deep attachments" to each other in the absence of face-to-face contact: "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion" [6]. Part of what makes such communities national, Anderson suggests, is a shared experience of simultaneity modeled on the spatio-temporal organization of newspapers and novels, for "these forms provided the technical means for 're-presenting' the kind of imagined community that is the nation" by furnishing their reader-consumers with a "complex gloss on the word 'meanwhile'" [25]. The "old-fashioned novel" especially, through its distinctive structures of address and omniscient point of view, becomes in this schema a "device" for generating a sociologically complex world populated by characters who, even though they "may be largely unaware of each other," nevertheless move together "calendrically through homogeneous, empty time"--a world, in short, that may be considered "a precise analogue of the idea of the nation, which also is conceived as a solid community moving steadily up (or down) history" [25-26]. As Jonathan Culler aptly summarizes in his contribution to this issue, Anderson thus takes the novel to be "a precondition for the nation" [24], "a formal condition of imagining the nation--a structural condition of possibility" [37]. Such strong emphasis on the novel as "a force for imagining the communities that are nations" certainly helps to explain why Imagined Communities so swiftly and pervasively became doxa in literary study--even if, as Culler elaborates, some of Anderson's readers have mistaken his argument for a stronger if less defensible [End Page 40] version that sees the novel as "a force in shaping or legitimating the nation" [37].While Anderson's analogy between novel and nation has been put by literary critics to a multitude of creative uses, what has been acknowledged much less commonly is that his literary interests are by no means exhausted by the paradigm for which he is best known. 1 The very title of his most recent book is, significantly as we shall see, a translated quotation from a novel, and he returns repeatedly for insights into the politics of literary form not only to Walter Benjamin but to certain exemplary "nationalist" novelists, José Rizal and Pramoedya Ananta Toer first and foremost. Where The Spectre of Comparisons is unusual in containing chapter-length readings of literary works (several of them reprinted from the earlier Language and Power), Imagined Communities was no stranger to detailed discussions of fiction. We may be struck, in fact, by the extent to which Anderson's theoretical and historical studies locate themselves persistently over time with reference to "literature... (shrink)

Benj. R. Tucker, the business partner and confrère of E. H. Heywood of Princeton, Mass., has translated and published, in an elegant volume of nearly 500 royal octavo pages, the most renowned of the politico-economical works of the justly celebrated P. J. Proudhon. The title of the work in English is: What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government. I am requested to write a review-notice of the work. The temptation is strong to expand (...) into au exhaustive review, but I am not certain of any avenue to the public for such a treatise, and I shall confine myself to the smaller plan. First, as to what is usually put last. The volume as a book is superb. Print, presswork, paper, and binding are at the top of the powers of the bookmaking art, and the price is not excessive. The work of the translator is also conscientiously and well done, and is nearly faultless from the literary point of view. A few Gallicisms may be pointed out, but they are exceptionally few, and the translator's personality is completely sunk in the labor of love which he evidently had before him. (shrink)

We build a new spectrum of recursive models (SRM(T)) of a strongly minimal theory. This theory is non-disintegrated, flat, model complete, and in a language with a finite structure.

This is the first comprehensive textbook on higher order logic that is written specifically to introduce the subject matter to graduate students in philosophy. The book covers both the formal aspects of higher-order languages -- their model theory and proof theory, the theory of λ-abstraction and its generalizations -- and their philosophical applications, especially to the topics of modality and propositional granularity. The book has a strong focus on non-extensional higher-order logics, making it more appropriate for foundational metaphysics than (...) other introductions to the subject from computer science, mathematics, and linguistics. A Philosophical Introduction to Higher Order Logics assumes only that readers have a basic knowledge of first-order logic. With an emphasis on exercises, it can be used as a textbook though is also ideal for self-study. Author Andrew Bacon organizes the book's 18 chapters around four main parts: I. Typed Language II. Higher Order Languages III. General Higher-Order Languages IV. Higher-Order Model Theory In addition, two appendices cover the Curry-Howard isomorphism and its applications for modeling propositional structure. Each chapter includes exercises that move from easier to more difficult, strategically placed throughout the chapter, and concludes with an annotated suggested reading list providing graduate students with most valuable additional resources. Key Features Is the first comprehensive introduction to higher-order logic as a grounding for addressing problems in metaphysics Introduces the basic formal tools that are needed to theorize in, and model, higher order languages Offers an abundance of: - Simple exercises throughout the book, serving as comprehension checks on basic concepts and definitions - More difficult exercises designed to facilitate long-term learning Contains annotated sections on further reading, pointing the reader to related literature, learning resources, and historical context. (shrink)

This paper argues that the four most plausible arguments compatible with public reason for an outright legal ban on all forms of polygamy are unvictorious. I consider the types of arguments political liberals would have to insist on, and precisely how strongly, in order for a general prohibition against polygamy to be justified, while also considering what general attitude towards "marriage" and legal recognition of the right to marry are most consistent with political liberalism. I argue that a liberal state (...) should get out of the "marriage business" by leveling down to a universal status of "civil union" neutral as to the gender and affective purpose of domestic partnerships. I then refute what I regard as the four most plausible rational objections to offering this civil union status to multi-member domestic partnerships. The most common objection to polygamy is on grounds of gender equality, more specifically, female equality. But advancing this argument forcefully often involves neglecting the tendency of political liberalism (by whatever name it goes in contemporary, complex, multicultural societies) to tolerate a certain amount of inequality in private, within the bounds of robust and meaningful freedoms of choice and exit. Properly understood, polygamy involves no inherent statement about the essential inferiority of women, and certainly not more than many other existing practices and institutions (including many expressions of the main monotheistic religions) which political liberals regard as tolerable, even reasonable. Arguments from the welfare of children, fairness in the spousal market, and the abuse of family subsidies are also considered and found insufficient for excluding polygamy. (shrink)

The paper offers an account of integrity as the capacity to deliberate and reflect usefully in the light of context, knowledge, experience, and information (that of self and others) on complex and conflicting factors bearing on action or potential action. Such an account of integrity seeks to encompass the moral complexity and conflict of the professional environment, and the need for compromises in professional practice. In addition, it accepts that humans are social beings who must respect and engage with the (...) moral position of others. This account is contrasted with a more traditional view of integrity as the rigid maintenance of consistency between professional practice and deeply held, but inflexible, moral principles. While this strong sense of moral conviction may be valuable as a source of moral motivation, e.g. in the case of whistle‐blowers, it is equally likely to lead to dogmatism and hubris. Professionals and their organizations are encouraged to foster the more complex and reflective form of integrity. (shrink)

Numerous triviality results have been directed at a collection of views that tie the probability of a conditional sentence to the conditional probability of the consequent on its antecedent. -/- In this paper I argue that this identification makes little sense if conditional sentences are context sensitive. The best alternative, I argue, is a version of the thesis which states that if your total evidence is E then the evidential probability of a conditional evaluated in a context where E is (...) salient is the probability of the consequent given the antecedent. The biggest challenge to this thesis comes from the 'static' triviality arguments developed by Stalnaker, Hajek and Hall. It is argued that these arguments rely on invalid principles of conditional logic and that the thesis is consistent with a reasonably strong logic that does not include the principles in question. (shrink)

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for negatively valenced events be located in the past rather than the future, and positively valenced ones to be located in the future rather than the past. Strong risk aversion is the preference to pay some cost to mitigate the badness of the worst outcome. People who are both strongly risk averse and future-biased can face a series of choices that will guarantee them more pain, for no compensating benefit: they will (...) be pain pumped. Thus, combining these preferences is rationally impermissible. Dougherty (2011) argues that this gives us reason to think that future-bias is rationally impermissible. This argument, and a similar one presented by Greene and Sullivan (2015), relies on the idea that if several preferences are not rationally combinable, then in the absence of some explanation of why they are not combinable, we should conclude that (at least) one of them is rationally impermissible. We take up this question by, inter alia, reflecting on the empirical results of a study we ran that probes people’s risk averse and future-biased preferences. We argue that the data, in conjunction with other considerations, suggests that we should not infer from the irrationality of the combination of these preferences to the irrationality of one of the preferences singly. We also argue that given the descriptive data about these preferences, there is no reason to think that, if one of them is rationally impermissible, then it is future-bias. (shrink)

The standard style of argument used to prove that a theory is unde- cidable relies on certain consistency assumptions, usually that some fragment or other is negation consistent. In a non-paraconsistent set- ting, this amounts to an assumption that the theory is non-trivial, but these diverge when theories are couched in paraconsistent logics. Furthermore, there are general methods for constructing inconsistent models of arithmetic from consistent models, and the theories of such inconsistent models seem likely to differ in terms of (...) complexity. In this paper, I begin to explore this terrain, working, particularly, in incon- sistent theories of arithmetic couched in three-valued paraconsistent logics which have strong (i.e. detaching) conditionals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic by James E. CrimminsAndrew GustafsonUtilitarianism in the Early American Republic James E. Crimmins. Routledge, 2022.There are many important influences on American Pragmatism, but one which is frequently overlooked is the influence of Utilitarianism, both on American thought in general, and American Pragmatism in particular. It is difficult to imagine anyone better to write this book than James Crimmins. As a leading Bentham (...) scholar, among his twelve previously published books on utilitarianism, he is editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (Bloomsbury, 2013) and the four-volume set Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789–1914 (Thoemmes Continuum, 2005). His vast knowledge of the history of utilitarianism, which he has spent his entire career investigating, makes him the perfect author for this very helpful book on the influences of utilitarianism in early American thought. It is a rich sourcebook that can help direct anyone looking to do more research in this area. Here, Crimmins provides a thorough historical account of the influence of utilitarianism on the development of early American thought and the rise of pragmatism, giving reason to believe that utilitarianism was more impactful on American pragmatism than is often realized.The first chapter highlights why utilitarian influence on American law and politics is overlooked and why it should not be. Chapters 2 and 3 explain how American thought leaders came to know of Bentham's work, and chapters 4–7 discuss concrete examples of thinkers who brought utilitarianism to bear on issues in America (for example, Hoffman on legal studies in chapter 4, Livingston on legislative law in chapter 5, the death penalty debate in chapter 6, and Thomas Cooper's wide-ranging influences in chapter 7). The epilogue provides a specific set of arguments for why the utilitarians' influence on American Pragmatism should be more widely recognized and investigated.Crimmins begins the book by explaining why utilitarianism, as an influence in early American politics, is typically excluded and ignored by thinkers from John Dewey to Élie Halévy. One reason is that William Paley's Principles of Political and Moral Philosophy (which was used widely as a moral text in US universities throughout the 1800s) was published in 1785, and Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was published in 1789, and even then Bentham's ideas didn't gain public circulation (and then only in French) until Etienne Dumont published the three-volume Traités de législation civile et pénale in 1802. But the more important reason utilitarianism [End Page 106] has not received attention, according to Crimmins, is due to the dominant focus placed on Locke's natural law and rights view being the lens by which American politics has been understood. Some have challenged this Lockean consensus and pointed out that republican virtues drawn from the ancient Greeks and others show up in ideas such as the "right to happiness" (which is a right that is found nowhere in Locke) (20). Crimmins shows that there was a very strong emphasis on "public utility," "general welfare," and happiness, and this frequently outweighed concerns for natural rights for thinkers like Thomas Paine, John Adams, Nathaniel Chipman, Joseph Haven, and many other early American thinkers. Furthermore, utilitarian considerations can be found in the Constitution and federalist papers, and even Tocqueville explained American thinking through the lens of utilitarian concerns.Bentham was ambitious in attempting to promote codification of law in many countries worldwide. While Bentham had made offers (some accepted, some rejected) to help in the codification of law to various countries, ranging from Catherine the Great's Russia to France, Portugal, Spain, and numerous South American countries, he spent much of the last quarter of his life focused on trying to provide his services to the new United States. In chapter 2, Crimmins provides a history of the dissemination of Bentham's ideas in the United States, highlighting some of the key promoters of his ideas in the United States, including Richard Hildreth and John Neal, as well as John O'Sullivan, Gilbert Vale, and, of course, Thomas Cooper. Crimmins also provides a meticulous account of Bentham's personal attempts... (shrink)

Future-bias is the preference, all else being equal, for negatively valenced events to be located in the past rather than the future, and positively valenced ones to be located in the future rather than the past. Strong risk aversion is the preference to pay some cost to mitigate the badness of the worst outcome. People who are both strongly risk averse and future-biased can face a series of choices that will guarantee them more pain, for no compensating benefit: they (...) will be pain pumped. Thus, combining these preferences is rationally impermissible. Dougherty (2011) argues that this gives us reason to think that future-bias is rationally impermissible. This argument, and a similar one presented by Greene and Sullivan (2015), relies on the idea that if several preferences are not rationally combinable, then in the absence of some explanation of why they are not combinable, we should conclude that (at least) one of them is rationally impermissible. We take up this question by, inter alia, reflecting on the empirical results of a study we ran that probes people’s risk averse and future-biased preferences. We argue that the data, in conjunction with other considerations, suggests that we should not infer from the irrationality of the combination of these preferences to the irrationality of one of the preferences singly. We also argue that given the descriptive data about these preferences, there is no reason to think that, if one of them is rationally impermissible, then it is future-bias. Finally, we reflect on the general issue of whether individual preferences are rationally evaluable. (shrink)

This paper critiques the version of the argument that the regulation of hateful speech by the state undermines its democratic legitimacy made by Ronald Dworkin and James Weinstein. It argues that in some cases the harmful effects of hateful speech on the democratic process outweigh those of restriction. It does not challenge the central premise of the Legitimacy Argument, that a wide-ranging right to freedom of expression is an essential political right in a liberal democracy. Instead, it uses ideal and (...) nonideal theory as a framework for judgements about the regulation of hate speech. The mistake underpinning the Legitimacy Argument is that it assumes that other conditions pervade that make an ideal democratic procedure possible when they do not. In reality the state can be put in a position where, whatever course of action it takes with regard to the regulation or non-regulation of hate speech, some citizens will not be able to participate fully in political deliberation. Under such conditions there remain strong pro tanto reasons not to regulate hate speech on democratic grounds, but they are not all-things-considered reasons, and there are also pro tanto reasons to regulate hate speech that might outweigh them in some cases. This leads to the cautious conclusion that while there might be a normative justification for the regulation of hate speech in individual instances, the debate is best understood as one between competing pro tanto reasons, and must be approached on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

“Thank you Andrew and Ann Goldman for the persistence that it took to achieve the portraits in Facing North. It is a historic document for Ely, Minnesota that has worldwide interest as a snapshot of a unique northern community. You so accurately captured my friends and neighbors and I will always cherish this book.” —Will Steger “My work as a photojournalist has involved assignments about people and faraway cultures as often as about raw nature. Alas, I always felt there (...) were more stories per square foot in Ely as anywhere else I have been. Look into these Ely faces Goldman has captured with his razor-sharp lens and read the stories in their eyes.” —Jim Brandenburg, from the Foreword Perched on the edge of the northern woods at the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Ely, Minnesota, holds special meaning for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. But what is it like for the people who live there year-round? Ann and Andrew Goldman offer a revealing portrayal of the unique people who call Ely home. Featuring more than one hundred portraits as well as vivid essays, Facing North tells the story of life in this Northwoods community: its breathtaking beauty, surprisingly diverse character, and complex history. A thriving destination area, Ely is a changing community, yet its traditions remain vibrant and strong. From resort owners and fishermen to canoe makers and artists, Facing North is an evocative tribute to the enduring nature of Ely and its people. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the Donald G. Gardner Humanities Trust. Andrew Goldman is a freelance commercial photographer. His clients include ESPN and Playboy Enterprises, and his photographs have appeared on more than forty magazine covers. Ann Goldman is a freelance writer and presenter whose professional background is in museum and nonprofit management. They live in Boulder, Colorado, with their two sons. The work of award-winning nature photographer Jim Brandenburg has been featured in National Geographic magazine since 1978. His many books include Chased by the Light and Looking for the Summer. He lives near Ely, Minnesota, where his work can be seen at Brandenburg Gallery. (shrink)

This article reexamines the evidence for the relationships between the Vestal virgins and their natal kin from the second century BC to the third century ad. It suggests that the bond between these priestesses and their families remained strong throughout this period and that, as a consequence, interpretations of the Vestals' position within Roman society that emphasize the severing of agnatic ties through their removal from patria potestas may be misguided. When placed in the broader social and legal context, (...) the ritual “capture” of these priestesses is shown to be a necessary feature of their priestly identity, which only marked the Vestals as extraordinary because of the unique intersection of religious and gender categories that characterized their office. Finally, the implications of these findings for the interpretation of Vestal virginity are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper a logic for reasoning disquotationally about truth is presented and shown to have a standard model. This work improves on Hartry Field's recent results establishing consistency and omega-consistency of truth-theories with strong conditional logics. A novel method utilising the Banach fixed point theorem for contracting functions on complete metric spaces is invoked, and the resulting logic is shown to validate a number of principles which existing revision theoretic methods have heretofore failed to provide.

The present study assessed the degree to which probabilistic reasoning performance and thinking style influenced perception of risk and self-reported levels of terrorism-related behaviour change. A sample of 263 respondents, recruited via convenience sampling, completed a series of measures comprising probabilistic reasoning tasks (perception of randomness, base rate, probability, and conjunction fallacy), the Reality Testing subscale of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO-RT), the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale, and a terrorism-related behaviour change scale. Structural equation modelling examined three progressive models. Firstly, (...) the Independence Model assumed that probabilistic reasoning, perception of risk and reality testing independently predicted terrorism-related behaviour change. Secondly, the Mediation Model supposed that probabilistic reasoning and reality testing correlated, and indirectly predicted terrorism-related behaviour change through perception of risk. Lastly, the Dual-Influence Model proposed that probabilistic reasoning indirectly predicted terrorism-related behaviour change via perception of risk, independent of reality testing. Results indicated that performance on probabilistic reasoning tasks most strongly predicted perception of risk, and preference for an intuitive thinking style (measured by the IPO-RT) best explained terrorism-related behaviour change. The combination of perception of risk with probabilistic reasoning ability in the Dual-Influence Model enhanced the predictive power of the analytical-rational route, with conjunction fallacy having a significant indirect effect on terrorism-related behaviour change via perception of risk. The Dual-Influence Model possessed superior fit and reported similar predictive relations between intuitive-experiential and analytical-rational routes and terrorism-related behaviour change. The discussion critically examines these findings in relation to dual-processing frameworks. This includes considering the limitations of current operationalisations and recommendations for future research that align outcomes and subsequent work more closely to specific dual-process models. (shrink)

Alexithymia is a subclinical trait involving difficulty describing and identifying emotions. It is common in a number of psychiatric conditions. Alexithymia in children is sometimes measured by parent report and sometimes by child self-report, but it is not yet known how closely related the two measures are. This is an important question both theoretically and practically, in terms of research design and clinical practice. We conducted a preliminary study to investigate this question in a sample of 6- to 11-year-old neurotypical (...) children and their parents. Parent and child reports were not correlated, and 93% of parents under-estimated their child’s level of alexithymia relative to the child’s self-report. Based on these results, we hypothesize that when asked to report on the child’s alexithymia, children and parents may not be reporting on the same phenomenon, and thus these two measures may not be interchangeable. These provocative findings, however, must be considered preliminary: our analyses were sufficiently powered to detect a strong relation between the two types of report had one existed, but our analyses were not sufficiently powered to distinguish between a small relation and no relation at all. (shrink)

This article provides a survey of key papers that characterise computable functions, but also provides some novel insights as follows. It is argued that the power of algorithms is at least as strong as functions that can be proved to be totally computable in type-theoretic translations of subsystems of second-order Zermelo Fraenkel set theory. Moreover, it is claimed that typed systems of the lambda calculus give rise naturally to a functional interpretation of rich systems of types and to a (...) hierarchy of ordinal recursive functionals of arbitrary type that can be reduced by substitution to natural number functions. (shrink)

Fake news sharing in 2016 was rare but significantly more common among older Americans. So-called “fake news” has renewed concerns about the prevalence and effects of misinformation in political campaigns. Given the potential for widespread dissemination of this material, we examine the individual-level characteristics associated with sharing false articles during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. To do so, we uniquely link an original survey with respondents’ sharing activity as recorded in Facebook profile data. First and foremost, we find that sharing (...) this content was a relatively rare activity. Conservatives were more likely to share articles from fake news domains, which in 2016 were largely pro-Trump in orientation, than liberals or moderates. We also find a strong age effect, which persists after controlling for partisanship and ideology: On average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group. (shrink)

Philosophers concerned with the character of scientific disputes tend to divide into two camps. On the one side there are those who hold that scientists can always settle their differences by appealing to shared assumptions; on the other side there are those who maintain that in many cases scientists must resort to (nonrational ) persuasion to establish their views. The trouble is that for all their strong points both approaches labour under enormous difficulties. Scientific disagreement is often much deeper (...) than the first conception allows while persuasion, propaganda and the like are far less prevalent than the second one requires. On examining scientific practice is becomes clear that philosophers on both sides err in supposing that scientists can resolve their differences in a purely scientific fashion just to the extent that they can single out one of their views on the basis of assumptions that they hold in common. For one thing scientists make progress even though they rarely employ the strategy of reversion to neutral territory. And for another the strategy of reversion to neutral territory is at odds with the important methodological requirement that all relevant information be taken into account. Instead of thinking of scientists as resolving their differences by reviewing their respective positions in the light of their shared assumptions, we should think of them as fashioning positions on which they can agree, as arguing to shared conclusions rather than from shared premises. The relevant picture is one of scientists gradually narrowing the distance that separates them, of their converging on a mutually acceptable viewpoint. Far from being prerequisites for scientists' resolving their disputes, shared assumptions are what result from their managing to resolve them. How scientists who disagree deeply make progress is thus much less of a problem than is usually supposed. What determines whether scientists' conclusions constitute advances is not wether they were obtained by the expedient of reversion to neutral territory but whether each of the available options was fully ventilated. When scientists take into account all the relevant considerations (including those introduced into the discussion by their opponents and those that they can reasonably be expected to know), the question of whether they can be said to have made progress no longer arises. More generally, we misconstrue the manner in which scientists resolve their differences because we allow ourselves to be guided by our philosophical preconceptions about scientific knowledge and we devote insufficient attention to what happens in practice. Instead of exploring how scientists reason to mutually acceptable conclusions, we wrongly assume that they cannot but proceed by reverting to neutral territory. What is needed is not a general account of consensus formation but rather a fresh look at the multitude of ways in which scientists make progress by dint of argument and debate. Considered as a phenomenon in its own right scientific disagreement poses no special problem; it is puzzling only when it is considered within the framework of traditional epistemology. (shrink)

Against a view currently popular in the literature, it is argued that Kant was not a niıve realist about perceptual experience. Naive realism entails that perceptual experience is object-dependent in a very strong sense. In the first half of the paper, I explain what this claim amounts to and I undermine the evidence that has been marshalled in support of attributing it to Kant. In the second half of the paper, I explore in some detail Kant’s account of hallucination (...) and argue that no such account is available to someone who thinks that veridical perceptual experience is object-dependent in the naive realist sense. Kant’s theory provides for a remarkably sophisticated, bottom-up explanation of the phenomenal character of hallucinatory episodes and is crucial for gaining a proper understanding of his model of the mind and its place in nature. (shrink)