As the first dictionary of philosophy in East Asia, Neo-Confucian Terms Explained constructed for the first time a category system of Neo-Confucianism and incorporated annotation methods as an important part of it. The book contains two volumes: Volume I is the learning toward inward sagehood, including the Mind-and-Heart Theory and the Theory of Morality (or the Theory of Method); Volume II is the learning of governing, including the theory of Neo-Confucian Principles, the theory of Education and criticism against (...) heresy. In terms of the interpretation of categorical relations, the discussions in this book range from the boundary and connections between different categories and the complicated categorical relations. (shrink)

For its elliptical style, What is Philosophy? appears to be fragmentary and inscrutable, and its reception has been correspondingly contentious. Following an intimation by Gilles Deleuze himself, this article proposes that his final book, written in collaboration with Félix Guattari, contains a philosophy of nature. To address this proposition, the article begins by outlining the comprehensive system of nature set out in What is Philosophy?, defining it as an open system in motion that conjoins philosophy with the historical (...) preconditions and intersects it with science and art. The article then addresses the precise method whereby the philosopher as an individual subject, emerging from nature, can succeed in becoming creative – that is, in creating concepts to bring forth new events. Finally, the brain turns out to be the pivot between the system and this method. What is Philosophy? thus presents an account of the brain based on a theory of the three specific planes of philosophy, science and art, and uses it to expand upon the idea of assemblage for a philosophy of nature. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Part I: System and Method Part II: Intention and Interpretation Part III: Philosophy of Art Part IV: Historical Knowledge Part V: What Philosophy Is.

"Popular summaries of existentialism and Sartre's ideas have ensured a wide currency for such words as 'absurdity', 'nothingness', 'engagement', 'shame', and 'anguish'. But for Sartre, each of these words embodies a precise philosophical concept which he applies and explores further in his fiction and plays. Synthesized in 'Being and Nothingness' and 'Critique of Dialectical Reason', these concepts comprise a fully articulated philosophical system which, as Arthur C. Danto argues, in its vision and scope, logical responsibility and human relevance, takes (...) its place among the greatest of philosophical achievements. This book offers a synoptic and sympathetic reconstruction of the Sartrean system and in particular Sartre's analysis of the nature of language, consciousness, knowledge, self, and values." --Descripción del editor. (shrink)

The overall subject of the essays in _The Body/Body Problem_ is the traditional one of what our ultimate makeup is, as creatures with minds and bodies. The central thesis is that we are beings who represent—and misrepresent—actual and possible worlds. Addressing philosophical questions of mental representation, Danto presents his distinctive approach to some of the most enduring topics in philosophy. He is concerned with the nature of description, the status of the external world, action theory, the philosophy of history, and (...) the philosophical status of psychoanalytic explanation. Representation is a central concept in philosophy, says Danto, with differences among philosophers arising in the ways they account for how representations connect to the world or to the individuals possessing them, and how they connect with one another to form systems of beliefs, feelings, and attitudes. In these essays Danto's own voice, with his arguments and speculations, provides rich philosophical pleasures that will endure, to borrow from Santayana, "under whatever sky." Arthur C. Danto is one of the most original and multitalented philosophers writing today, a thinker whose interests traverse the boundaries of traditional understandings of philosophy. Best known for his contributions to the philosophy of art and aesthetics, Danto is also esteemed for his work in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophical psychology, and action theory. These two volumes, each with an introduction by the author, contain essays spanning more than twenty-five years that have been selected to highlight the inseparability of philosophy and art in Danto's work. Together they present the thinking of Arthur C. Danto at his very best. (shrink)

The author sets out to show the "unique features of the idealistic dialectical method with its positive and negative elements, in order to show the various, often contradictory tendencies which are contained in them." Designed for "students, teachers and a broad circle of intellectuals." --R. L. J.

Progress in the last few decades in what is widely known as “Chaos Theory” has plainly advanced understanding in the several sciences it has been applied to. But the manner in which such progress has been achieved raises important questions about scientific method and, indeed, about the very objectives and character of science. In this presentation, I hope to engage my audience in a discussion of several of these important new topics.

This essay constructs philosophical defenses against criticisms of my theory of the end of art. These have to do with the definition of art; the concept of artistic quality; the role of aesthetics; the relationship between philosophy and art; how to answer the question "But is it art?"; the difference between the end of art and "the death of painting"; historical imagination and the future; the method of using indiscernible counterparts, like Warhol's Brillo Box and the Brillo cartons it (...) resembles; the logic of imitation-and the differences between Hegel's views on the end of art and mine. These defenses amplify and fortify the thesis of the end of art as set forth in my After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (1997). (shrink)

With the rapid development of big data, artificial intelligence teaching systems have gradually been developed extensively. The powerful artificial intelligence teaching systems have become a tool for teachers and students to learn independently in various universities. The characteristic of artificial intelligence teaching system is to get rid of the constraints of traditional teaching time and space and build a brand-new learning environment, which is the mainstream trend of future learning. As the carrier of students’ autonomous learning, the artificial intelligence (...) teaching system provides a wealth of learning resources and learning tools on the one hand, and on the other hand, it gradually accumulates more and more learning behaviors, learning status, and other large amounts of data, which is an in-depth study of online learning and provides valuable and generative dynamic resources. Based on relevant researches on domestic and foreign related learning analysis and common big data analysis methods, combined with actual learning evaluation goals, this paper proposes an artificial intelligence teaching system using big data analysis methods and a modeling process framework for online learning evaluation and uses student data to carry out predictive evaluation modeling to evaluate student learning outcomes. The evaluation results can enable teachers to predict whether students can successfully complete the course of learning after a period of teaching. Through the final evaluation, students’ learning problems can be discovered in time based on the evaluation results, and targeted interventions can be made for students who are at risk. The scientific and objective learning evaluation obtained in this study through data analysis can not only provide teachers with relevant information and provide personalized guidance to students, but also improve the adaptive and personalized service functions of the learning platform of the artificial intelligence teaching system, greatly reducing teachers teaching burden. Artificial intelligence teaching evaluation can help educators understand the problems in teaching, adjust teaching strategies in time, and improve teaching results. (shrink)

A classic objection to autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is that these could create so-called responsibility gaps, where it is unclear who should be held responsible in the event that an AWS were to violate some portion of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). However, those who raise this objection generally do so presenting it as a problem for AWS as a whole class of weapons. Yet there exists a rather wide range of systems that can be counted as “autonomous weapon (...) systems”, and so the objection is too broad. In this article I present a taxonomic approach to the objection, examining a number of systems that would count as AWS under the prevalent definitions provided by the United States Department of Defense and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and I show that for virtually all such systems there is a clear locus of responsibility which presents itself as soon as one focuses on specific systems, rather than general notions of AWS. In developing these points, I also suggest a method for dealing with near-future types of AWS which may be thought to create situations where responsibility gaps can still arise. The main purpose of the arguments is, however, not to show that responsibility gaps do not exist or can be closed where they do exist. Rather, it is to highlight that any arguments surrounding AWS must be made with reference to specific weapon platforms imbued with specific abilities, subject to specific limitations, and deployed to specific times and places for specific purposes. More succinctly, the arguments show that we cannot and should not aim to treat AWS as if all of these shared all morally relevant features, but instead on a case-by-case basis. Thus, we must contend with the realities of weapons development and deployment, and tailor our arguments and conclusions to those realities, and with an eye to what facts obtain for particular systems fulfilling particular combat roles. (shrink)

Most writers now recognize that mental health policy and the mental health system are extremely resistant to real changes that reflect genuine biopsychosocial paradigms of mental disorder. Writers bemoaning the intransigence of the mental health system tend to focus on a small analytical level, only to find themselves mired in the rationalities of the existing system. Problems are acknowledged to be system-wide, yet few writers have used a method of analysis appropriate for systemic problems. Drawing (...) upon the General System Theory (GST) analytical perspective, this article advances a systematic approach to understand the mental health system and to facilitate the development of reform strategies that recognize the system's complexity and changing nature. The article first discusses the failure of major reform efforts in the mental health system and the limitations of mainstream analysis of mental health politics and policies with respect to the objectives of analysis and reform. This article describes how systems thinking has thus far influenced the study of the mental health policy and politics system, and argues that a systemic perspective is profitable for reconceiving the mental health system, enabling a fresh basis for the development of reform strategies. The mental health system should be seen as a social system influenced by larger political and economic dimensions, not just as a 'delivery system' scientifically constructed by neutral experts. Furthermore, the policy planning process should be viewed as part and parcel of a mental health system modeled as complex and dynamic. The systemic perspective outlined here should help both to clarify the value-based objectives that we hold for the system and, consequently, to plan for the strategic reforms that have so far eluded us. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes and Method: A Search for a Method in MeditationsPatrick FriersonDaniel E. Flage and Clarence A. Bonnen. Descartes and Method: A Search for a Method in Meditations. New York: Routledge, 1999. Pp. 332. Cloth, $90.00.The book has two parts. The first (Chapters 1-3 and an appendix) outlines Descartes's method of analysis, a method for discovering laws and clarifying ideas. The second (Chapters (...) 4-10) offers a running commentary of the Meditations that can be read on its own and is valuable not only for specialists as a challenging comprehensive account but also for anyone looking for a concise and coherent secondary source.The method is taken from the Discourse and illustrated using the Optics. According to the authors, analysis in the search for laws "is a type of argument to the best explanation" (23) that involves "two different issues, discovery and confirmation" (21). In discovery, one isolates a phenomenon and posits one or more explanations (or causes) for it. In confirmation, one tests this explanation for "material truth" (whether it is recognized as true by the natural light). Then one shows how the phenomenon is "caused" by the explanation, and that it is the best explanation, and that it can be included in a systematic science.The discussion of analysis in the clarification of ideas argues against " 'the epistemic thesis,' that is, the thesis that all innate ideas are (materially) true and known to be true as soon as they are considered"(45). Most of the arguments here address the claim that innate ideas are known to betrue. These arguments are followed by an account of how analysis clarifies ideas through successive refinement, and an illustration of this method from Descartes's clarification of the idea of light in the Optics. The final chapter of the section on method defends the claim that Descartes uses "cause" to refer to formal rather than efficient causation.The authors then turn to the Meditations, offering a virtually line by line treatment of major themes, with attention to showing how the method outlined in part one structures the arguments of the Meditations. Meditations 1-3 "ascend" through discovery and preliminary confirmation, ending with a perfect, non-deceiving God as the best explanation of our idea of God. The final meditations "descend" from that best explanation to its implications. This descent confirms the explanation by showing its place in a system.The second part of the book also includes explanations of the part that conceptual clarifications play in the Meditations. Flage and Bonnen discuss the cogito argument, the account of the wax, the arguments for the existence of God, and the distinction of mind and body, all as examples of conceptual clarification through the method of analysis. In the case of God, for instance, Descartes begins with Hobbes's crude conception of God and clarifies it into the simple, clear, and distinct notion of a "most perfect being."The last chapter addresses the circle ascribed to Descartes by Arnauld: that the argument for the existence of God depends on the truth of clear and distinct ideas, which is only established on the basis of the existence of God. The authors argue that this is not a true circle, since Descartes assumes the material truth of clear and distinct ideas (which is indubitable) in his early argument and draws on their formal truth (in the mind of God) only after he proves the existence of God. They suggest their own circle, however: in his response to other concerns of Arnauld, Descartes suggests that God [End Page 436] stops a causal regress and thus commits himself to the formal truth of the idea of God, which he cannot independently justify.As one would expect in a book that offers a concise and unified interpretation of the Meditations, readers will find unnecessary asides and wish for attention to issues that are passed over. Moreover, though the authors support some views with extensive quotations, they leave others without textual support. The most unfortunate example is the identification of formal truth with actuality. The authors have several accounts of the distinction between formal and material truth and end their book with... (shrink)

To improve the problems of inconvenient communication in the manufacturing industry, the ineffective use of resources, and the inability to efficiently complete manufacturing tasks, resource sharing has become an important model to promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. We used multiagent modeling to construct a resource-sharing model and take Baosteel as the micro background and the manufacturing industry as the macro background. Under this model, we discovered the effect of resource sharing on the efficiency of intelligent manufacturing (...) under network collaboration through system dynamics research. We built and simulated a dynamic model of system dynamics that couples the two backgrounds and have given policy suggestions according to the simulation result. (shrink)

A sympathetic and systematic reconstruction of Sartre's philosophy, explaining its relation to other major philosophical theories. Among the themes elucidated are the relation between reality and our representation of it; the parities between language and consciousness; the relationship between the world as it may be and as we structure it in our interventions as engaged beings; the conceptual interdependence of the self and others; and the connections between factual beliefs and systems of value.--Adapted from book jacket.

Despite the close connection between the central limit theorem and renormalization group (RG) methods, the latter should be considered fundamentally distinct from the kind of probabilistic framework associated with statistical mechanics, especially the notion of averaging. The mathematics of RG is grounded in dynamical systems theory rather than probability, which raises important issues with respect to the way RG generates explanations of physical phenomena. I explore these differences and show why RG methods should be considered not just calculational tools but (...) the basis for a physical understanding of complex systems in terms of structural properties and relations. (shrink)

Richard Cytowic has done considerable service to the scientific study of synesthesia, conducting important research and publishing two recent books on the subject. The study of synesthesia raises interesting questions about scientific method, both because of the negative reception it received initially--often being viewed as tainted by a reliance upon introspective reports--and because of the connections Cytowic has found between synesthetic perception and the limbic system, thereby possibly undermining some of the claims to objectivity in perception and scientific (...) method. I dispute some of the more extreme methodological conclusions Cytowic draws from his work and reinforce others by reference to different arguments current within the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper is an investigation into the introduction of the term ‘system’ and its conceptual background in the writings of Bartholomew Keckermann. This includes a brief summary of the literature and evidence identifying Keckermann as the first to make significant usage of the term in logic, philosophy, and theology. Then, after a survey of his life, work and milieu, this paper will look closer at three of Keckermann’s own ‘systems’; Systema logicae (1600), Praecognitorum Logicorum (1606), and Systema SS. Theologiae (...) (1602). Finally, I will touch on the influence Keckermann’s innovation had on subsequent ideas of method in modern philosophy, especially how his innovative use of this term gives the logician the directing role as a technical expert in mining the truth of theology, philosophy, and other sciences. This, of course, flies in the face of the medieval view of the Church and its elders controlling that role, characterizing the discovery and refinement of knowledge as being a process of electing and using worthy passive subjects as conduits of divine knowledge. Thus Keckermann’s systems can be considered an important step away from this, towards the early modern epistemology requiring an active thinking subject, best characterized in Descartes’ Meditations. (shrink)

This article aims to study the intersection between critical realism and complexity theories through the existing literature on complex systems via an engagement with Luhmann’s autopoiesis. With reference to the philosophies of substance and persistence, I build on previous critical realist scholarship and provide an explanation for what the literature has only noted as the limitations and potentials of autopoiesis for complex systems thinking and its compatibility with Critical Realism. By highlighting how Luhmann’s autopoiesis is not a trans-immanent/ perdurantist-exdurantist (...) class='Hi'>system, I show first how a trans immanent system through the method of calibration entails a complex causation involving objects in the environment of systems and not just within their boundaries. Second, I explain how a trans-immanent system fits with CR via the Morphogenetic Régulation framework by exploring the theme of crisis in terms of the movement from inadequate to adequate understanding of objects. (shrink)

IS research is to some extent driven by practitioner concerns. Both practitioners and.Information Systems research has been dominated by the Cartesian worldview of duality. This has had the effect of narrowing the range of research questions addressed and focusing mainstream research on the application of scientific research methods. Heidegger’s ontology gives us an alternative view of the reality of human life. His analysis of tools in use is of particular interest for IS research. His concept of equipment can be directly (...) applied to Information and Communications Technology by both practitioners and researchers. The paper outlines some of the implications of this step for IS researchers. (shrink)

Summary A famous debate between John Ray, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Augustus Quirinus Rivinus at the end of the seventeenth century has often been referred to as signalling the beginning of a rift between classificatory methods relying on logical division and classificatory methods relying on empirical grouping. Interestingly, a couple of decades later, Linnaeus showed very little excitement in reviewing this debate, and this although he was the first to introduce the terminological distinction of artificial vs. natural methods. In (...) this paper, I will explain Linnaeus's indifference by the fact that earlier debates were revolving around problems of plant diagnosis rather than classification. From Linnaeus's perspective, they were therefore concerned with what he called artificial methods alone ? diagnostic tools, that is, which were artificial no matter which characters were taken into account. The natural method Linnaeus proposed, on the other hand, was not about diagnosis, but about relations of equivalence which played a vital, although largely implicit role in the practices of specimen exchange on which naturalists relied to acquire knowledge of the natural world. (shrink)

We formulate a Hilbert-style axiomatic system and a tableau calculus for the STIT-based logic of imagination recently proposed in Wansing. Completeness of the axiom system is shown by the method of canonical models; completeness of the tableau system is also shown by using standard methods.

Der Autor analysiert die methodologische Grundlegung der Transzendentalphilosophie durch Fichte. Als entscheidenden Punkt arbeitet er den durch Fichte vollzogenen Paradigmenwechsel heraus Danach kommt der Systembegründung nicht mehr ein vorwissenschaftlicher Status zu, sondern diese wird Moment der Systemkonstitution und Systemkonstruktion. Das erlaubt Fichte, die philosophische Methode in ihrer Strenge von der Methode der Mathematik abzuheben. The author analyzes the methodological basis of Fichte's transcendental philosophy. As a decisive point, he works out the paradigm shift that Fichte carried out. According to this, (...) the justification of the system no longer has a pre-scientific status, but becomes a moment of the system constitution and system construction. This allows Fichte to distinguish the philosophical method in its rigor from the method of mathematics. (shrink)

Context: Although the theory of autopoietic systems was originally formulated to explain the phenomenon of life from an operational and temporal perspective, sociologist Niklas Luhmann incorporated it later within his theory of social systems. Due to this adoption, there have been several discussions regarding the applicability of this concept beyond its biological origins. Problem: This article addresses the conception of Luhman’s autopoietic social systems, and confronts this vision with criticism both of the original authors of the concept of autopoiesis and (...) of other social theorists in order to elucidate the main problems of this debate and its possible solutions. Method: The objectives of the article are reached by means of a theoretical reconstruction of the main issues of the debate on the concept of autopoiesis. The main method used for the research is the use of documentary sources to discuss the arguments. Results: We claim that it is justified to extend the concept of autopoiesis from its biological origin to other disciplines, and to develop its interdisciplinary character, following the spirit of systems theory and constructivism. Implications: Our results are useful for promoting the development of new interdisciplinary research in the field of systems theory and constructivism. Important changes to practice should be made, namely, the development of new research methods, new concepts and perspectives. Constructivist content: The concept of autopoiesis is one of the fundamental concepts of the constructivist epistemology. The discussion proposes a radical understanding of this concept in order to realize all its explanatory potential. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to develop practical recommendations for the development and improvement of the organization and methods of accounting and control of income and expenses of autonomous institutions. The scientific novelty of the study includes proposals for improving and formalizing the classification procedures and, accordingly, accounting for the income and expenses of autonomous institutions for exchange and non-exchange operations, also substantiated the directions for improving the quality of internal control procedures for the implementation of estimates by focusing (...) on the implementation of indicators of the state order, reporting on the results of the implementation of the estimate and the validity of determining the volume of extrabudgetary receipts. As a result, it was found that in modern conditions of reforming the public sector of the Russian economy, it is critically necessary to increase the effectiveness of the impact of accounting and control systems on the activities of autonomous institutions by improving their organization, accelerating the speed of obtaining initial data, using innovative analytical tools that can ensure the selection of the most optimal options management. (shrink)

An aim of all of the management of healthcare systems is the smooth provision of services. A great deal of effort is put into ensuring processes will obtain this ideal – the well‐run system. The central argument in this paper is that these processes result in a system that perpetrates violence and coercion on its clients and workers. This violence is structural and personalizing in its effects. Moreover, time and effort is taken away from the actual work of (...) the system for its management. Under such managerialist control, the idea of chaos and the need to ensure order are used to fuel an apparatus that takes the focus from other aspects of the system such as the power relations that keep the system as it is. In such an ordering, the clinical audit is promoted as a method to ensure order by keeping ahead of, or removing the potential for chaos. In using Žižek's ideas about violence it is possible to identify how efforts and attempts to correct the system are doomed to fail just as they hide how nurses' enrolment in the service of the system leads to alienation and subjectification. A central aim of this paper is to rethink how power and implicit violence are practised in such processes. To overcome the inherent violence of the audit culture, this paper suggests an interruption of audit cultures with a promotion of more radical positions for nursing practice and clinically based research. The hope is to recalculate and interrupt how nurses are to operate in the management structures that organize healthcare. (shrink)

With the publication of the notes from Bergson’s early courses it has become possible to investigate the tradition of thinking that Bergson understood himself to be working within. A historical investigation of this understanding is valuable for at least two reasons: first, it allows us to appreciate the decisive interventions that Bergson’s thought makes within the post-Kantian tradition. Part of Bergson’s popularity was due to his insistence upon ‘beginning anew’ in thinking. However, while there is certainly much that is new (...) in Bergson’s thought, to emphasize this element of novelty at the price of occluding Bergson’s scholarly work on the history of philosophy is to simultaneously deprive Bergson’s own philosophy of the depth and relevance that it gathers through its resonance with other great thinkers and, inversely, to fail to understand the critical force of Bergson’s intellectual creativity. In addition to being valuable as an elaboration of the stakes in a particular moment of the history of philosophy, a historical investigation of Bergson’s reading of Spinoza affords us the opportunity to work out and think through the motivating questions that animate Bergson’s own thought and which become visible in the way that he takes up other philosophical concepts and systems. Clearly, such a historical investigation is unconcerned with the question of whether or not Bergson “understood” Spinoza, or “got him right.” That Kierkegaard “misunderstood” Hegel is hardly a profound or even philosophically interesting statement. However, it becomes constructive when it drives us to ask, for instance, how it is that Kierkegaard misunderstands Hegel. What concerns motivate Kierkegaard to reject Hegel’s system? What are the points of disagreement and, perhaps most importantly, what new concepts, what new directions of thought, do these points allow Kierkegaard to create? This point can be generalized as follows: the historical investigation of a philosopher’s engagement with the philosophical tradition is productive (i.e. creative rather than reductive) when this engagement is taken up and interpreted as indicative of the new and distinctive concerns that drive the more recent philosopher’s thought – a thought whose distinction at the same time marks the distinctiveness of his or her historical interlocutor. As Deleuze writes of the concept of the subject, “it is never very interesting to criticize a concept: it is better to build the new functions and discover the new fields that make it useless or inadequate.” By extension, an “interesting” reading of Bergson’s interpretation of Spinoza ought not to emphasize the points of agreement and disagreement between them – as though it could be taken for granted that they have the same or equivalent concerns – but would inquire into the direction of Bergson’s thought that makes Spinoza simultaneously one of his closest philosophical allies and, at the same time, a thinker from whom Bergson repeatedly distances himself and critiques in order to elucidate his own thinking. (shrink)

Vera & Simon (1993a) have argued that the theories and methods known as situated action or situativity theory are compatible with the assumptions and methodology of the physical symbol systems hypothesis and do not require a new approach to the study of cognition. When the central criterion of computational universality is added to the loose definition of a symbol system which Vera and Simon provide, it becomes apparent that there are important incompatibilities between the two approaches such that situativity (...) theory cannot be subsumed within the symbol systems approach. Symbol systems and situativity theoretic approaches are, and should be seen to be, competing approaches to the study of cognition. (shrink)

This book presents emerging work in the co-evolving fields of design-led systemics, referred to as systemic design to distinguish it from the engineering and hard science epistemologies of system design or systems engineering. There are significant societal forces and organizational demands impelling the requirement for “better means of change” through integrated design practices of systems and services. Here we call on advanced design to lead programs of strategic scale and higher complexity while adapting systems thinking methods, creatively pushing the (...) boundaries beyond the popular modes of systems dynamics and soft systems. Systemic design is distinguished by its scale, social complexity and integration – it is concerned with higher-order systems that that entail multiple subsystems. By integrating systems thinking and its methods, systemic design brings human-centred design to complex, multi-stakeholder service systems. As designers engage with ever more complex problem areas, it is necessary to draw on a basis other than individual creativity and contemporary “design thinking” methods. Systems theories can co-evolve with a new school of design theory to resolve informed action on today’s highly resilient complex problems and can deal effectively with demanding, contested and high-stakes challenges. (shrink)

This is a collection of papers read at an international logic colloquium held at Oxford in 1963. The first half contains articles on intuitionistic and modal logics, the propositional calculus, and languages with infinitely long expressions by such logicians as Kripke, Bull, Harrop, and Tait. The second part is primarily concerned with recursive functions and features a monograph by Crossley on constructive order types, as well as contributions by Goodstein, Schütte, and Wang, among others. Especially noteworthy is Kripke's paper which (...) applies Cohen's methods to the semantics of intuitionistic logic.—P. J. M. (shrink)

There is an increase in the use of in-door wireless networking solutions via Wi-Fi and this increase infiltrated and utilized Wi-Fi enable devices, as well as smart mobiles, games consoles, security systems, tablet PCs and smart TVs. Thus the demand on Wi-Fi connections increased rapidly. Rule Based System is an essential method in helping using the human expertise in many challenging fields. In this paper, a Rule Based System was designed and developed for diagnosing the wireless connection (...) problems and attain a precise decision about the cause of the problem. SL5 Object expert system language was used in developing the rule based system. An Evaluation of the rule based system was carried out to test its accuracy and the results were promising. (shrink)

Background Given that AI-driven decision support systems (AI-DSS) are intended to assist in medical decision making, it is essential that clinicians are willing to incorporate AI-DSS into their practice. This study takes as a case study the use of AI-driven cardiotography (CTG), a type of AI-DSS, in the context of intrapartum care. Focusing on the perspectives of obstetricians and midwives regarding the ethical and trust-related issues of incorporating AI-driven tools in their practice, this paper explores the conditions that AI-driven CTG (...) must fulfill for clinicians to feel justified in incorporating this assistive technology into their decision-making processes regarding interventions in labor. Methods This study is based on semi-structured interviews conducted online with eight obstetricians and five midwives based in England. Participants were asked about their current decision-making processes about when to intervene in labor, how AI-driven CTG might enhance or disrupt this process, and what it would take for them to trust this kind of technology. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed with thematic analysis. NVivo software was used to organize thematic codes that recurred in interviews to identify the issues that mattered most to participants. Topics and themes that were repeated across interviews were identified to form the basis of the analysis and conclusions of this paper. Results There were four major themes that emerged from our interviews with obstetricians and midwives regarding the conditions that AI-driven CTG must fulfill: (1) the importance of accurate and efficient risk assessments; (2) the capacity for personalization and individualized medicine; (3) the lack of significance regarding the type of institution that develops technology; and (4) the need for transparency in the development process. Conclusions Accuracy, efficiency, personalization abilities, transparency, and clear evidence that it can improve outcomes are conditions that clinicians deem necessary for AI-DSS to meet in order to be considered reliable and therefore worthy of being incorporated into the decision-making process. Importantly, healthcare professionals considered themselves as the epistemic authorities in the clinical context and the bearers of responsibility for delivering appropriate care. Therefore, what mattered to them was being able to evaluate the reliability of AI-DSS on their own terms, and have confidence in implementing them in their practice. (shrink)

The notion of emergence is longstanding. To date, in the context of the paradigm of complexity, has become important to be co-opted by various schools. This is not a univocal term. However, independent of the perspective always relates to a system and the micro / macro relationship. Historically the emergence has been some kind of a black box of inputs and outputs. The mechanism has been inscrutable. To date there has been a qualitative change in that regard. Indeed, currently (...) available theoretical and methodological devices that allow revealing the black box, namely phenomenal, move from description to explanation of the mechanism of the emergent process. En el contexto del paradigma de la complejidad se trata la noción de emergencia. A la fecha, ha adquirido relevancia siendo cooptada por diversas escuelas. No se trata de un término unívoco. Sin embargo, independiente de la perspectiva siempre refiere a un sistema y a la relación micro/macro. Históricamente la emergencia ha sido una caja negra de inputs y outputs. El mecanismo ha sido inescrutable. A la fecha se ha producido un cambio cualitativo a este respecto. En efecto, actualmente se dispone de dispositivos teóricos y metodológicos que permiten develar la caja negra, a saber, pasar de la descripción fenoménica a la explicación del mecanismo del proceso emergente. Este texto articula la conceptualización de emergencia con su investigación empírica vía simulación computacional. (shrink)

Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics. This is not just another analytics book. 1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used (...) to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods. 3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers. 4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge(dot)info. This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications. (shrink)

Arthur Danto numbers among the few contemporary philosophers whose writing is really a pleasure to read. Although rarely recognized, the source of that pleasure is Danto’s humor. His philosophical writing is consistently comic. Of course, the humor is obviously not of the knee-slapping variety. Yet it is pervasively playful.Danto will introduce a thought experiment and then explore it in several directions. Unlike many other contemporary philosophers, he is not stingy in laying out his examples. Whereas it is customary for most (...) other philosophers to sharpen their thought experiments like arrows in order to hit their target while carrying no wasted verbiage, Danto elaborates his, often.. (shrink)

Brumbaugh divides Western philosophic systems into four families: Platonist, Aristotelian, Democritean, and Anaxagorean. He plots these on a graph with the X-axis designating the method of the system and the Y-axis the direction. Method refers to the system's tendency to employ either dialectical thinking in emphasizing the whole or analysis in emphasizing the parts out of which the whole is constructed. He uses Richard McKeon's terms "holoscopic" for the former, and "meroscopic" for the latter. Direction refers (...) to the system's emphasis on form or matter. The four possible combinations are graphed by Brumbaugh. Both axes are needed, "for the forms of the formalists may be hierarchical and continuous, as Plato's are, or actual only for a discrete set, as are Aristotle's. And the 'matter' of the y direction can be either the hard, insulated particles of Democritus' atomic theory or the continuous flow of Heraclitean process". (shrink)

I advocate a method that strives to interpret important historical figures in philosophy as presenting philosophical systems of thought. This kind of systematic interpretation, as I shall call it, begins with the supposition that the philosophy being interpreted is itself systematic. This sometimes requires recovering the obscured systematicity. Section I gives a positive characterization of systematic interpretations. Section II notes some of the special obstacles that these interpretations must overcome if they are to be successful. Section III gives a (...) brief sketch of how one might systematically approach Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. That text is a good test case because Locke professes systematicity, but historians have produced daunting arguments for the conclusion that the text fails to present a coherent system. (shrink)

In ‘The Human Condition’ Hannah Arendt presents a picture of what it is to be human based on the activities that we humans undertake. She distinguishes three forms of activity fundamental to our lives –labor, work and action. In her view the western intellectual tradition hasfailed to take proper account of the distinctions between the three activities. She considers that this way of categorising human actions is important to understanding the way that modern life has developed and seeks to describe (...) each one as fully as possible. Labor refers to the actions required to meet the unceasing need to satisfy our bodily needs. Work includes all those activities by which physical products are produced. It is through work that man transforms raw materials into tools and creates the human world we live in. However it is the third type of activity –action which promises to shine a different light on both the way organisations make use of Information and Communications Technology and the role current research methods play in developing our understanding of the potential value to be obtained by organisations from this technology. This paper presents Arendt’s analysis of these three human activities and then explores the implications for business research methods –in particular those applied within the Information Systems discipline. (shrink)

This two-volume work, first published in 1843, was John Stuart Mill's first major book. It reinvented the modern study of logic and laid the foundations for his later work in the areas of political economy, women's rights and representative government. In clear, systematic prose, Mill disentangles syllogistic logic from its origins in Aristotle and scholasticism and grounds it instead in processes of inductive reasoning. An important attempt at integrating empiricism within a more general theory of human knowledge, the work constitutes (...) essential reading for anyone seeking a full understanding of Mill's thought. Volume 1 contains Mill's introduction, which elaborates upon his definition of logic as 'not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence'. It also features discussions of the central components of logical reasoning - propositions and syllogisms - in relation to Mill's theories of inductive reasoning and experimental method. (shrink)

One of the greatest contributors to the field of Sociology, Jurgen Habermas has had a wide-ranging and significant impact on understandings of social change and social conflict. He has inspired researchers in a range of disciplines with his multidimensional social theory, however an overview of his theory in applied settings is long overdue. This collection brings together in one convenient volume a set of researchers who place Jurgen Habermas key concepts such as colonisation, deliberation and communication at the centre of (...) their research methodologies. Full of insight and innovation, this book is an essential read for those who want to harness the potential of Habermas core concepts in their own work, thereby helping to bridge the gap between theory and method in social research. Structured around three core themes, Habermas and Social Research provides a range of research case studies looking at system colonization, the politics of deliberation and communicative interactions. Issues as diverse as social movements, the digital public sphere, patient involvement, migration and preschool education, are all covered in the book, intertwined with a set of innovative approaches to theory application in social research. Designed to help researchers harness the potential of Habermas core concepts as methodological tools, this timely volume will prove highly useful for graduate and upper level undergraduates within the fields of theory and method, research design, public policy, education policy, urban and environmental planning. ". (shrink)

How might we usefully apply concepts and procedures derived from the study of other complex dynamical systems to analyzing systemic change in education? In this article we begin to define possible agendas for research toward developing systematic frameworks and shared terminology for such a project. We illustrate the plausibility of defining such frameworks and raise the question of the relation between such frameworks and the crucial task of aggregating data across ‘systemic experiments’, such as those conducted under the Urban Systemic (...) Initiative sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. Our discussion includes a review of key issues identified by groups of researchers regarding Defining the System, Structural Analysis, Relationships Among Subsystems and Levels, Drivers for Change, and Modeling Methods. (shrink)