This new edition of Introduction to Lattices and Order presents a radical reorganization and updating, though its primary aim is unchanged. The explosive development of theoretical computer science in recent years has, in particular, influenced the book's evolution: a fresh treatment of fixpoints testifies to this and Galois connections now feature prominently. An early presentation of concept analysis gives both a concrete foundation for the subsequent theory of complete lattices and a glimpse of a methodology for data analysis that is (...) of commercial value in social science. Classroom experience has led to numerous pedagogical improvements and many new exercises have been added. As before, exposure to elementary abstract algebra and the notation of set theory are the only prerequisites, making the book suitable for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. It will also be a valuable resource for anyone who meets ordered structures. (shrink)

Behavior that solves a problem is distinguished by the fact that it changes another part of the solver's behavior and is strengthened when it does so. Problem solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli. Verbal responses produce especially useful stimuli, because they affect other people. As a culture formulates maxims, laws, grammar, and science, its members behave more effectively without direct or prolonged contact with the contingencies thus formulated. The culture solves problems for its members, and does so by (...) transmitting the verbal discriminative stimuli called rules. Induction, deduction, and the construction of models are ways of producing rules. Behavior that solves a problem may result from direct shaping by contingencies or from rules constructed either by the problem solver or by others. Because different controlling variables are involved, contingency-shaped behavior is never exactly like rule-governed behavior. The distinction must take account of a system which establishes certain contingencies of reinforcement, such as some part of the natural environment, a piece of equipment, or a verbal community; the behavior shaped and maintained by these contingencies; rules, derived from the contingencies, which specify discriminative stimuli, responses, and consequences, and the behavior occasioned by the rules. (shrink)

In this target article the following hypotheses are discussed: (1) Colour is autonomous: a perceptuolinguistic and behavioural universal. (2) It is completely described by three independent attributes: hue, brightness, and saturation: (3) Phenomenologically and psychophysically there are four unique hues: red, green, blue, and yellow; (4) The unique hues are underpinned by two opponent psychophysical and/or neuronal channels: red/green, blue/yellow. The relevant literature is reviewed. We conclude: (i) Psychophysics and neurophysiology fail to set nontrivial constraints on colour categorization. (ii) Linguistic (...) evidence provides no grounds for the universality of basic colour categories. (iii) Neither the opponent hues red/green, blue/yellow nor hue, brightness, and saturation are intrinsic to a universal concept of colour. (iv) Colour is not autonomous. (shrink)

According to Heidegger's Being and Time, social relations are constitutive of the core features of human agency. On this view, which I call a ‘strong conception’ of sociality, the core features of human agency cannot obtain in an individual subject independently of social relations to others. I explain the strong conception of sociality captured by Heidegger's underdeveloped notion of ‘being-with’ by reconstructing Heidegger's critique of the ‘weak conception’ of sociality characteristic of Kant's theory of agency. According to a weak conception, (...) sociality is a mere aggregation of individual subjects and the core features of human agency are built into each individual mind. The weak conception of sociality remains today widely taken for granted. I show that Christine Korsgaard, one of the most creative contemporary appropriators of Kant, operates with a weak conception of sociality and that this produces a problematic explanatory deficiency in her view: she is unable to explain the peculiar motivational efficacy of shared social norms. Heidegger's view is tailor made to explain this phenomenon. I end by sketching how Heidegger provides a social explanation of a major systematic concern animating Korsgaard, the concern with the importance of individual autonomy and answerability in human life. (shrink)

(Added April 2023: This draft is superseded by Briggs, R.A., & George, B.R. (2023). 'What Even Is Gender?'. Routledge. DOI 10.4324/9781003053330, and in particular by the first three chapters thereof. While this much earlier draft remains available for archival purposes, you are encouraged to read and cite the 2023 book and to use its terminology.) -/- This paper presents a new taxonomy of sex/gender concepts based on the idea of starting with a few basic components of the sex/gender system, and (...) exhausting the possible types of simple associations and identities based on these. The resulting system is significantly more fine-grained than most competitors, and helps to clarify a number of points of confusion and conceptual tension in academic and activist conversations about feminism, transgender politics, and the social analysis of gender. (shrink)

Does the recent success of Podemos and Syriza herald a new era of inclusive, egalitarian left populism? Because leaders of both parties are former students of Ernesto Laclau and cite his account of populism as guiding their political practice, this essay considers whether his theory supports hope for a new kind of populism. For Laclau, the essence of populism is an “empty signifier” that provides a means by which anyone can identify with the people as a whole. However, the concept (...) of the empty signifier is not as neutral as he assumes. As I show by analyzing the role of race in his theory, some subjects are constituted in a way that prevents their unmediated identification with the people. Consequently, Laclau’s view should be read as symptomatic of the problems with populist logic if its adherents are to avoid reproducing its exclusions and practice a more inclusive politics. (shrink)

The present author developed a calculus for the logic of ‘because’. In a recent paper in this journal, it has been claimed that the central inference rules for the logic are invalid and that the intuition upon which the rules are based is not accounted for. This note criticises these arguments and presents an independent argument in favour of the rules used in the logic.

The systems approach to niche presented herein stands as an example of the unifying potential of mathematical system theory when applied to concepts and principles of ecology. Beginning with subjective concepts from the naturalistic tradition, the niche was framed in the formalism of general system theory. So modeled, it appeared as a restriction of a more general construct, the environ. Both niches and environs are implementable in the context of ecosystem models, and with the growing ability of ecologists to construct (...) such models, system theoretic niches and environs both should serve in the future to clarify old problems of ecology, and make it possible to raise new classes of problems. The nature of niches, always difficult conceptually for the ecologist, may now give way to further development, both theoretical and empirical. (shrink)

Speaking of Professor Geach's belief that pronouns in natural language function like the bound variables in quantification theory, Gareth Evans, in ‘Pronouns, Quantifiers, and Relative Clauses - I’ says :I want to try to show that there are pronouns with quantifier antecedents that function in a quite different way. Such pronouns typically stand in a different grammatical relation to their antecedents, and; in contrast with bound pronouns, must be assigned a reference, so that their most immediate sentential contexts can always (...) be assigned a truth value. The relevant grammatical relation appears to be Klima's relation of ‘in construction with’. When the pronoun is in construction with its antecedent, as in [‘Some man loves his mother’] and [‘No man is happy when he is in love’] the result is a bound pronoun. (shrink)

This article concerns the validity of six canonical rules that institutional review boards use to constrain the behavior of investigators. These rules require investigators to design their studies in a scientifically valid way, not pay their subjects to take risks, minimize risks to their subjects, secure for their subjects access to effective interventions post-trial, not pay their subjects too much and allow their subjects to withdraw from the study unconditionally. Enforcement of these rules is problematic because there are other relationships (...) that seem to be like the investigator-subject relationship in all ethically relevant respects, such as the employer-employee and volunteer organizer-volunteer relationships, to which we would not dream of applying these same rules. Applying these rules in one context but not the others is a violation of ethical consistency I label “exceptionalism.” We should conclude that it is time to reexamine the validity of the six rules. (shrink)

This paper owes its inspiration to a remark made by Professor M. Rostovtzeff; in a note in his Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire on the widespread social unrest of the first two centuries A.D., having cited other literary authorities such as Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, etc., he writes: ‘The social problem as such, the cleavage between the poor and the rich, occupies a prominent place in the dialogues of Lucian; he was fully aware of the importance of (...) the problem.’ No one, as far as I know, has attempted to collect and discuss the main passages in Lucian on this topic, and the latest writer on this aspect of Lucian reaches a conclusion quite opposed to Rostovtzeff and one which I believe to be wholly misleading. The aim of this paper is to collect and discuss the main references in Lucian to the social problem interpreting them in the light of Lucian's life and background, and the social and economic conditions of his age. In particular I shall stress the importance of the Cynic tradition as it bears on Lucian's attitude, but shall endeavour to show that this tradition is firmly rooted in practical politics and actual participation in social revolutionary movements and goes far beyond the repetition of mere ethical cliches generally ascribed to it. (shrink)

Nanay (2015; 2016) revives manner or attitude accounts of aesthetic experience. While manner-based accounts are promising, Nanay's claim that certain kinds of aesthetic experiences require attention to be focused on one object, but distributed across many properties of that object, that 'aesthetic attention' is necessary for 'Proustian experience', is false. Attention to objects of aesthetic experience frequently involves attention to intra-objects, objects that are proper perceptual parts of the attended objects.

In this paper, I address some puzzles about Frege’s conception of how we “grasp” thoughts. I focus on an enigmatic passage that appears near the end of Frege’s great essay “The Thought.” In this passage Frege refers to a “non-sensible something” without which “everyone would remain shut up in his inner world.” I consider and criticize Wolfgang Malzkorn’s interpretation of the passage. According to Malzkorn, Frege’s view is that ideas [Vorstellungen] are the means by which we grasp thoughts. My counter-proposal (...) is that language enables us to grasp thoughts (ideas are merely their baggage or “trappings,” as Frege puts it). One significant consequence of my interpretation is that it helps challenge the standard reading of Frege according to which he is a metaphysical platonist about thoughts. My interpretation thus provides support for the deflationary, anti-ontological reading spelled out by readers like Thomas Ricketts and Wolfgang Carl. As Ricketts puts it, Frege’s distinction between the objective and the subjective, rather than being an ontological doctrine, “lodges in the contrast between asserting something and giving vent to a feeling.”. (shrink)

An attempt is made here to examine the analysis three political thinkers - Thomas Paine, William Godwin, and Jeremy Bentham have offered of the idea of equality. The inquiry underrtaken is philosophical and not historical in character, since no attempt is made either at tracing the influence ht the biographical-cum-intellectual level of one of them upon the other or at treating their ideas on equality as born out of their preoccupation with the same problem to which they give various answers (...) and which can therefore be considered within a single overall framework. Instead, each thinker is considered independently. And a study is undertaken of the way he understands equality, the way he justifies it, the sort of equality he considers most important and his reasons for this, the area of life he takes the idea of equality to illuminate, the manner in which he relates it to other ideas, etc.. In each case, a fairly coherent philosophy of equality is sought to be constructed out of their respective writings. These three thinkers are selected for two reasons. The idea of equality looms quite large in their thought; as such, it was felt that looking at their writings from the standpoint of equality may illuminate their certain features that may otherwise remain obscure or relatively underemphasized. Further, as they consider equality from different philosophical positions it was believed that a critical examination of their writings could, perhaps, point to the general merits and limitations of their respective positions in terms of equality. in chapter I, it is argued that there are distinct views of God discernible in Paine's writings, and that corresponding to them are three distinct views of equality, though only two of them are discussed by Paine at any length. in chapter II, it is argued that, though Godwin begins as a thoroughgoing rationalist, three are shifts in his general philosophical position, and that, with each shift, his ideas on truth, rationality and equality undergo important changes. Finally, in chapter III, it is argued that there are two distinct theories of equality in Bentham and that tension between them remains unresolved. (shrink)