In this, the first book devoted to Peter Achinstein's influential work in philosophy of science, twenty distinguished philosophers, including four Lakatos award winners, address various aspects of Achinstein's influential views on the nature of scientific evidence, scientific explanation, and scientific realism. It includes short essays by Steve Gimbel and Jeff Maynes, Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Victor DiFate, Jerry Doppelt, Adam Goldstein, Philip Kitcher, Fred Kronz, Deborah Mayo, Greg Morgan, Helen Longino, John Norton, Michael Ruse, Bas van Fraassen, Stathis Psillos, (...) Larry Laudan, Richard Richards, Kent Staley, and Jim Woodward with replies to each contributor from Peter Achinstein. Readers will come away with an understanding of the current debate in multiple areas of philosophy of science and how various contemporary issues are connected. (shrink)

There are propositions constituting the content of fictions—sometimes of the utmost importance to understand them—which are not explicitly presented, but must somehow be inferred. This essay deals with what these inferences tell us about the nature of fiction. I will criticize three well-known proposals in the literature: those by David Lewis, Gregory Currie, and Kendall Walton. I advocate a proposal of my own, which I will claim improves on theirs. Most important for my purposes, I will argue on this (...) basis, against Walton’s objections, for an illocutionary-act account of fiction, inspired in part by some of Lewis’s and Currie’s suggestions, but (perhaps paradoxically) above all by Walton’s deservedly influential views. (shrink)

La antropología, en una escueta pero certera definición, es la “ciencia que estudia la cultura”. Aserto que exige una comprensión clara de lo que significa lo que es la cultura y su evolución; particularmente considerando que desde mediados del Siglo XX vivimos en la Era de la Información, elemento que algunos consideran fundamental, a la par con la materia y/o energía. Este articulo propone una nueva interpretación de la antropología, considerando el impacto de la información. Para formular dicha construcción es (...) necesario no solo definir lo que es la información como objeto de estudio, sino también naturalizarla, hacerla asequible a nuestra experiencia diaria. Este afán logra descubrir el papel fundamental de la información en la antropología, tanto en sus orígenes como en su actual desarrollo local y global. (shrink)

The concept of information has been extensively studied and written about, yet no consensus on a unified definition of information has to date been reached. This paper seeks to establish the basis for a unified definition of information. We claim a biosemiotics perspective, based on Gregory Bateson’s definition of information, provides a footing on which to build because the frame this provides has applicability to both the sciences and humanities. A key issue in reaching a unified definition of information (...) is the fundamental problem of identifying how a human organism, in a self-referential process, develops from a state in which its knowledge of the human-organism-in-its-environment is almost non-existent to a state in which the human organism not only recognizes the existence of the environment but also sees itself as part of the human-organism-in-its-environment system. This allows a human organism not only to self-referentially engage with the environment and navigate through it, but also to transform it in its own image and likeness. In other words, the Fundamental Problem of the Science of Information concerns the phylogenetic development process, as well as the ontogenetic development process of Homo sapiens sapiens from a single cell to our current multicellular selves, all in a changing long-term and short-term environment, respectively. (shrink)

This article is a preliminary exploration of a large and relatively unknown sample of reactionary uchronias—works of fiction that imagine future revolutionary societies in dystopian terms1—published in Spain between the 1870s and the 1950s. Gregory Claeys has found the origins of this distinctively modern literary subgenre—which, as we will see, overlaps with many others—in what he calls the “second dystopian turn” of the late nineteenth century, born as a reaction against the promises of science and socialism.2 However, other historians (...) have described the emergence in France in the mid-nineteenth century of an anti-utopian genre that anticipates the classic novels written by Zamyatin, Huxley, and Orwell in the.. (shrink)

Gregory Bateson is well known for defining information by stating “In fact what we mean by information – the elementary unit of information – is a difference which makes a difference…” This conceptual perspective has the merit of simplicity and generality. Simplicity, in addressing the complexity of information. Generality, in seeking applicability to any and every field of human experience. The purpose of this paper is to focus the applicability of this conceptual approach by Bateson and use it to (...) perform a calculation of taking the difference between two grey-level digital images that are shifted one relative to the other. The digital images take the place of the field of view that a human being would have access through her sense of vision at two different spatial/temporal instances. The results show that it is possible to highlight the edges of the objects under scrutiny, as well as to highlight other differences within the object. Bateson’s “difference that makes a difference” would seem to provide a first step in the elusive meaning making process of humans. (shrink)

Rreview of Maughn Rollins Gregory and Megan Jane Laverty, eds.. In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp: Childhood, Philosophy, and Education. Routledge, 2018, Pp. 264.

A Greenberger, Horne and Zeilinger - type construction is realized in the position properties of three particles whose wave functions are distributed over three two - chambered boxes. The same system is modeled more realistically using three spatially separated, singly ionized hydrogen molecules.

A simple indeterministic system is displayed and it is urged that we cannot responsibly infer inductively over it if we presume that the probability calculus is the appropriate logic of induction. The example illustrates the general thesis of a material theory of induction, that the logic appropriate to a particular domain is determined by the facts that prevail there.

Discusses mental processes, the role of humans in nature, experience, and the connection between myth, religion, and science.

Landauer’s principle is the loosely formulated notion that the erasure of n bits of information must always incur a cost of k ln n in thermodynamic entropy. It can be formulated as a precise result in statistical mechanics, but for a restricted class of erasure processes that use a thermodynamically irreversible phase space expansion, which is the real origin of the law’s entropy cost and whose necessity has not been demonstrated. General arguments that purport to establish the unconditional validity of (...) the law fail. They turn out to depend on the illicit formation of a canonical ensemble from memory devices holding random data. To exorcise Maxwell’s demon one must show that all candidate devices—the ordinary and the extraordinary—must fail to reverse the second law of thermodynamics. The theorizing surrounding Landauer’s principle is too fragile and too tied to a few specific examples to support such general exorcism. Charles Bennett’s recent extension of Landauer’s principle to the merging of computational paths fails for the same reasons as trouble the original principle. (shrink)

This paper presents statistical default logic, an expansion of classical (i.e., Reiter) default logic that allows us to model common inference patterns found in standard inferential statistics, including hypothesis testing and the estimation of a populations mean, variance and proportions. The logic replaces classical defaults with ordered pairs consisting of a Reiter default in the first coordinate and a real number within the unit interval in the second coordinate. This real number represents an upper-bound limit on the probability of accepting (...) the consequent of an applied default and that consequent being false. A method for constructing extensions is then defined that preserves this upper bound on the probability of error under a (skeptical) non-monotonic consequence relation. (shrink)

Volumes 1 and 2 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, first published in January 1739, were soon after publication the subject of five notices and four reviews. Volume 3, published at the end of October 1740, received no notices and was reviewed only in the Bibliothèque raisonnée. This anonymous review of vol. 3 is of interest not only for David Norton is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, McGill University, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of Victoria. His address is 8-4305 (...) Maltwood Lane, Victoria, BC, Canada V8X 5G9. what it says about Hume’s views as set out in the third book of the Treatise, but also because of questions that have arisen about the authorship of this and an earlier review of vol. 1 of the Treatise published in the same journal. In Part I of this paper we begin by reviewing the grounds for attributing to Pierre Des Maizeaux the notice of vols. 1 and 2 of the Treatise published by the Bibliothèque raisonnée in its April–June, 1739 issue. We then focus principally on the question of the authorship of the review of vol. 3 of the Treatise published by the Bibliothèque raisonnée in its April–June, 1741 issue, but we also consider in passing the grounds that have been offered for attributing to Francis Hutcheson the critical components of the Bibliothèque raisonnée review of vol. 1 of the Treatise. In Part II of the paper we present a transcription of the French text, never before reprinted, of this review. Part III is a new English translation of this text. In an effort to show the differences between the sense of the Treatise presented by translated quotations of it and Hume’s original texts, Part IV offers some three-column comparisons of three relatively lengthy French “quotations” of Treatise 3 found in the review, our back-translations of these texts, and the versions of these texts found in the Treatise. It then offers in a similar format, comparisons of the present and earlier translations of passages of the review of vol. 3. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued that self-fulfilling beliefs constitute an important counter-example to the widely accepted theses that we ought not and cannot believe at will. Cases of self-fulfilling belief are thought to constitute a special class where we enjoy the epistemic freedom to permissibly believe for pragmatic reasons, because whatever we choose to believe will end up true. In this paper, I argue that this view fails to distinguish between the aim of acquiring a true belief and the aim of (...) believing what is true. While one cannot usually fail to establish that one will acquire a true belief without establishing the truth of the believed proposition, in the case self-fulfilling belief the two can come apart. I argue that insofar as the aim of belief has to do with determining whether the believed proposition is true, it will be both impossible and impermissible to believe for pragmatic reasons. (shrink)

For centuries, moral philosophers have attempted to clarify the relationship between morality and rational self-interest. They have been especially interested in the possibility that there are situations in which it is perceptibly against one’s interests to act morally, e.g., situations in which it clearly pays to lie, cheat, or steal. Hobbes, who held an egoistic view of human nature, was especially troubled by this possibility. For if psychological egoism is true and this possibility is a real one, there may be (...) situations in which people must act in a way that is either immoral or irrational. To avoid this unpalatable conclusion, Hobbes seeks to show that the aforementioned possibility is illusory, that no real conflict between morality and rational prudence can occur. (shrink)

supplies English-language readers with a crucial missing link in Nietzsche's development by reproducing the text of a lecture series delivered by the young philosopher at the University of Basel between 1872 and 1876. In these lectures, Nietzsche surveys the Greek philosophers from Thales to Socrates, establishing a new chronology for the progression of their natural scientific insights. He also roughly sketches concepts such as the will to power, eternal recurrence, and self-overcoming and links them to specific pre-Platonics.

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

Resumen. En esta exploración se centra en identificar y desarrollar en dos grupos de la materia deComportamiento Organizacional a nivel licenciatura la competencia de auto-administración y ética conun enfoque humanista y para ello, se comienza por utilizar un instrumento que permita realizar un primeracercamiento se presentan los resultados preliminares.Palabras clave. Auto-administración, ética y competencia.. This exploration is focused on identifying and developing into two groups regardingorganizational behavior undergraduate competence and ethical self-administration with a humanisticapproach and for that, you begin to (...) use a tool to make a first approach preliminary results.Keywords. Self-management, ethics y competence. (shrink)