This book reads major philosophers from the Western philosophical canon and beyond for the spirituality implicit in their metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and logic. Ernest Rubinstein revives for the modern reader the spiritual import of philosophy as an area of inquiry and study.

"In preparing this remarkable book, Ernest Hook persuaded an eminent group of scientists, historians, sociologists and philosophers to focus on the problem: why are some discoveries rejected at a particular time but later seen to be valid? The interaction of these experts did not produce agreement on 'prematurity' in science but something more valuable: a collection of fascinating papers, many of them based on new research and analysis, which sometimes forced the author to revise a previously-held opinion. The book (...) should be enthusiastically welcomed by all readers who are interested in how science works."—Stephen G. Brush, co-author of Physics, The Human Adventure: From copernicus to Einstein and Beyond "Prematurity and Scientific Discovery contains interesting and insightful papers by numerous well-known scientists and scholars. It will be of wide interest, not only to science studies scholars but also to working scientists and to science-literate general readers."—Thomas Nickles, editor of Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality. (shrink)

A telic virtue epistemology was presupposed in our treatment of insight and understanding. What follows will lay out the main elements of that telic theory and explore how it provides an epistemology of suspension.

Ernest Sosa extends his distinctive approach to epistemology, intertwining issues concerning the role of the will in judgment and belief with issues of epistemic evaluation. Questions about skepticism and the nature of knowledge are at the forefront. The answers defended are new in their explicit and sustained focus on judgment and epistemic agency. While noting that human knowledge trades on distinctive psychological capacities, Sosa also emphasizes the role of the social in human knowledge. Basic animal knowledge is supplemented by (...) a level of reflective knowledge focused on judgment, and a level of 'knowing full well' that is distinctive of the animal that is rational. (shrink)

Neuroeconomics is examined critically using data on the response times of subjects who were asked to express their preferences in the context of the Allais Paradox. Different patterns of choice are found among the fast and slow responders. This suggests that we try to identify types of economic agents by the time they take to make their choices. Nevertheless, it is argued that it is far from clear if and how neuroeconomics will change economics.

What on earth are economic theorists like me trying to accomplish? This paper discusses four dilemmas encountered by an economic theorist: The dilemma of absurd conclusions: Should we abandon a model if it produces absurd conclusions or should we regard a model as a very limited set of assumptions that will inevitably fail in some contexts? The dilemma of responding to evidence: Should our models be judged according to experimental results? The dilemma of modelless regularities: Should models provide the hypothesis (...) for testing or are they simply exercises in logic that have no use in identifying regularities? The dilemma of relevance: Do we have the right to offer advice or to make statements that are intended to influence the real world? (shrink)

The ability to compare possibilities and designate some as ‘better’ than others is a fundamental aspect of our use of modals and propositional attitude verbs. This article aims to support a proposal by Sloman that certain modal expressions, in particular, ought, in fact have a more pronounced comparative backbone than others . The connection between ‘ought’ and ‘better’ is supported by linguistic data and a proposal is advanced for modeling ideals in a way that makes room for non-comparative, strong, priority-type (...) necessity. (shrink)

A Companion to Donald Davidson presents newly commissioned essays by leading figures within contemporary philosophy. Taken together, they provide a comprehensive overview of Davidson’s work across its full range, and an assessment of his many contributions to philosophy. Highlights the breadth of Davidson's work across philosophy Demonstrates the continuing influence his work has on the philosophical community Includes newly commissioned contributions from leading figures in contemporary philosophy Provides an in-depth exposition and analysis of Davidson's work across the range of areas (...) to which he contributed, including philosophy of action, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein imagines a variety of eccentric social practices—like a tribe trained “to give no expression of feeling of any kind”. But he also speaks of “the common behavior of mankind” that is rooted in “natural/primitive reactions”. This emphasis on the uniformities of human behavior raises questions about the plausibility of some of his imagined language games. Indeed, it suggests the claim of evolutionary psychologists that there are biologically based human universals that shape social practices. But in contrast to E.O. (...) Wilson's belief that “genes hold culture on a leash”, Wittgenstein sees culture as a mediator—rather than a conduit—of “natural reactions”. This suggests that social science can incorporate the claims of evolutionary psychology without scanting the centrality of culture in action and allows that nature can be overwhelmed by culture. (shrink)

In many decision scenarios, one has to choose an element from a set S given some reference point e. For the case where S is a subset of a Euclidean space, we axiomatize the choice method that selects the point in S that is closest to e. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper studies a decision maker who for each choice set selects a subset of (at most) two alternatives. We axiomatize three types of procedures: (i) The top two: the decision maker has in mind an ordering and chooses the two maximal alternatives. (ii) The two extremes: the decision maker has in mind an ordering and chooses the maximal and the minimal alternatives. (iii) The top and the top: the decision maker has in mind two orderings and he chooses the (...) maximal element from each. (shrink)

This paper does not purport to offer yet another ‘solution’ to the much discussed ‘new riddle’ of induction. The focus, instead, is on the genesis of Goodman's paradox and its relation to the classic problem of induction. In the arguments which led Goodman from the dissolution of Hume's problem to the discovery of the new riddle, I reveal a fundamentally flawed assumption about the nature of inductive inference which undermines Goodman's contention that the genuine problem of induction consists in distinguishing (...) between projectible and non‐projectible regularities. I further show that if the same set of observations may indeed support an indefinitely large number of inductive predictions, then the rationale for dismissing the classic problem of induction disappears. Stripped of its erroneous assumptions, the new riddle becomes nothing more than a special case of Hume's problem. (shrink)

Economists generally associate the redistribution of resources with the apparatus of taxes and transfer payments. Such redistributions are done by the power of the authorities. However, resources are redistributed by other means as well. People give away income in a variety of ways, deliberate and unintentional. In this paper, agents transfer consumption goods in return for a good which lacks material qualities and affects their preferences because it has “value”. An example of a real life commodity without intrinsic value is (...) diamonds. The standard consumption value of a diamond is low, especially as artificial diamonds look the same as real ones to the naked eye. Many luxury goods such as art pieces have similar characteristics. Owning a house in a “rich” area could have extra benefits in consumption and, yet, one important motivation is simply to live in an expensive neighborhood. By holding such a good an agent refrains from acquiring resources that he could consume and, thus, frees resources for other agents. Our thinking on this issue originates from a naive question. Why are wealthy people striving to be wealthier? It is quite absurd to think that rich people wish to increase the consumption of standard goods as assumed in the classical consumer model. Indeed, by acquiring an expensive diamond or an original piece of art, a consumer demonstrates his avoidance of consumption. We construct and analyse an elementary competitive equilibrium model in which the value of “useless” jewels enter the preferences of consumers. We show that if jewels are scarce, they can trade at a positive price despite having no intrinsic utility. Under fairly natural assumptions, a positive price equilibrium redistributes consumption from the rich to the poor. Thus, the model demonstrates the common wisdom that the existence of luxury goods can have a positive effect on income distribution. This paper is mainly expository. The idea of consumption goods lacking intrinsic value and of prices entering directly the utility functions is not original.. (shrink)

During the past two decades non-cooperative game theory has become a central topic in economic theory. Many scholars have contributed to this revolution, none more than John Nash. Following the publication of von Neumann and Morgenstern's book, it was Nash's papers in the early fifties which pointed the way for future research in game theory. The notion of Nash equilibrium is indispensable. Nash's formulation of the bargaining problem and the Nash bargaining solution constitute the cornerstone of modern bargaining theory. His (...) insights into the non-cooperative foundations of cooperative game theory initiated an area of research known as the Nash program. Nash's analysis of the demand game in which he uses a perturbation of a game to select an equilibrium inspired the construction of several refinements of the notion of Nash equilibrium. A scholar's influence does not necessarily qualify him for a Nobel prize. One may argue that such awards are a social institution established to serve social goals. It is legitimate to ask what message the Swedish Academy sends to the scientific community and the rest of the world. (shrink)

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Let me start with what you should not do. Do not attend too many seminars in your own field. Otherwise you may simply end up adding a comment to the existing literature, which is mostly made up of comments on previous comments which were themselves only marginal comments. If you want a good idea, look at the world around you or take courses in other disciplines. Some of the papers in my own dissertation (like my 1979 paper on a principal-agent (...) problem with moral hazard and an infinite horizon) were thought of while daydreaming in some law courses I took. (shrink)

The present research is the first part of econometric study of the so called sponsored goods and looks at one of the most common types of such goods namely art products created by theaters, concert organizations and museums. The aim of the paper is to analyse the performance of Russian art organizations to find out to what extend the conditions of their functioning in post Soviet times under the development of market economy, democratization of leisure and changes in consumer preferences (...) influence their economic results. Could Russian theaters, museums and concert organizations be self- sufficient in market economy established in Russian in 1991-2010?The set up task determined the object of the study and the statistical data to be used-40 years time series performance indicators that include equal time intervals-1971-1990 for performing arts organizations and 1991-2010-for theaters, concert organizations and museums. The specifics of calculations presented in the article result from the very approach to the testing of cost disease. Its essence is to reveal the symptoms of this disease in art organizations taken as an element of economy as a whole rather than only as a part of cultural activities. Accordingly a new method of diagnostics of the cost disease is suggested that is based on development of specific indexes measuring the lag of labor productivity, advancing dynamics of wages and priority growth in prices for tickets in relation to the corresponding indexes of macroeconomic dynamics as well as determination of cost disease consequences-the deficit of income of providers of cultural goods. The implementation of such an approach allowed to construct three-dimensional space which coordinates describe the dynamics of performance results of art organizations. (shrink)

The paper presents the second part of the study of “sponsored goods” in the cultural sector. It describes economic activities of theaters, concert organizations and museums in three dimensional index space coordinate axes being the lag of labor productivity, faster growth of salaries and tickets prices in relation to the corresponding macroeconomic indices. The methodology of constructing such indexes and statistical data used for this purpose are described in the first article published under the title “Symptoms and consequences of Baumol’s (...) cost disease in cultural sector: an econometric study of “sponsored goods”. The aim of the present article is to construct and analyse econometric model of cost disease based on statistical data on activities of Russian theaters, concert organizations and museums for the period of 1994-2010. The regression analysis based on structural model that reflects theoretically predictable links was chosen as a method of study. Such links include first, influence on cost growth of lag of labour productivity in arts organisations and parallel trend in salaries. Second, dependence of increase of income of such organizations on dynamics of labour productivity and ticket prices, third, balanced equation - product of equilibrium conditions for sponsored goods that describes the interrelation between costs of production, prices and budget subsidies. The calculations made it possible to construct basic and modified econometric models that establish statistical correlations between income deficit and three regressors, namely indexes of labour productivity, salaries and ticket prices. As a result of this model the article presents projections of regression relation of income deficit on «expenditures plane», «income plane» and «economic results plane». Theequations derived allow to conclude that there is a statistically significant income deficit negative elasticity by labour productivity index, positive elasticity by salaries index and ticket price index, as well as rising dynamics of Russian performing arts organization income deficit and its compensation in the nearest future. (shrink)

from now on , was to point out that the model commonly used to describe . a decision problem with imperfect recall suffers from major ambiguities in its interpretation. We claimed that several issues which were immaterial in decision problems with perfect recall may be of importance in the analysis of decision problems with imperfect recall. The issues that we raised can be summarized by the following questions.

This article suggests that when the engagement with photography is limited to questions of recognition and resemblance, such approach stifles our experience of the world and directs us towards monotonous homogeneity in which everything can be represented in a photograph, and a photograph is always a representation of something or other. And yet, a photograph has the potential to move our gaze beyond representation of events and situations in a way that allows us to penetrate the appearance of things and (...) to sense their inner reality, rather than act as a mere illustration. (shrink)

In strategic situations, being wealthy andpowerful is consid eredto be advantageous. However, imagine a world where being powerful means being able to seize control of the assets heldandaccumulatedby others. Then, being wealthy might attract the attention of those who are powerful andbe detrimental to one’s wealth. So is being powerful, as those who seize control of the wealth of others will in turn become a desirable target for those who are in a position to seize their acquired wealth. In this (...) short paper, we identify a class of situations where one agent is stronger than another andyet ends up being poorer. (shrink)