We introduce an implication-with-possible-exceptions and define validity of rules-with-possible-exceptions by means of the topological notion of a full subset. Our implication-with-possible-exceptions characterises the preferential consequence relation as axiomatized by Kraus, Lehmann and Magidor [Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor, 1990]. The resulting inference relation is non-monotonic. On the other hand, modus ponens and the rule of monotony, as well as all other laws of classical propositional logic, are valid-up-to-possible exceptions. As a consequence, the rules of classical propositional logic do not determine the (...) meaning of deducibility and inference as implication-without-exceptions. (shrink)

We give a precis of our book Insensitive Semantics.

This essay critically examines some classic philosophical and legal theories of privacy, organized into four categories: the nonintrusion, seclusion, limitation, and control theories of privacy. Although each theory includes one or more important insights regarding the concept of privacy, I argue that each falls short of providing an adequate account of privacy. I then examine and defend a theory of privacy that incorporates elements of the classic theories into one unified theory: the Restricted Access/Limited Control (RALC) theory of privacy. Using (...) an example involving data-mining technology on the Internet, I show how RALC can help us to frame an online privacy policy that is sufficiently comprehensive in scope to address a wide range of privacy concerns that arise in connection with computers and information technology. (shrink)

Why did nineteenth‐century German historians and physicists habitually warn against vices that they believed philosophers in particular embodied: speculation, absence of common sense, and excessive systematizing? Drawing on a rich array of sources, this article interprets this vice‐charging as a rhetorical practice aimed at delineating empirical research from Naturphilosophie and Geschichtsphilosophie as practiced in the heyday of German Idealism. The strawman of “the philosopher” as invoked by historians and physicists served as a negative model for strongly empiricist scholars committed to (...) virtues like precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness. In their historical narratives, historians and physicists consistently depicted philosophy either as a relic from the past or as a phase that they had virtuously left behind. This boundary work was central to the self‐positioning of both history and physics, which makes clear that the persona of the philosopher mattered not only to philosophers but also to scholars in adjacent disciplines. (shrink)

Privacy concerns involving data mining are examined in terms of four questions: What exactly is data mining? How does data mining raise concerns for personal privacy? How do privacy concerns raised by data mining differ from those concerns introduced by traditional information-retrieval techniques in computer databases? How do privacy concerns raised by mining personal data from the Internet differ from those concerns introduced by mining such data from data warehouses? It is argued that the practice of using data-mining techniques, whether (...) on the Internet or in data warehouses, to gain information about persons raises privacy concerns that go beyond concerns introduced in traditional information-retrieval techniques in computer databases and are not covered by present data-protection guidelines and privacy laws. (shrink)

This paper examines the question whether, and to what extent, John Locke’s classic theory of property can be applied to the current debate involving intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the information commons. Organized into four main sections, Section 1 includes a brief exposition of Locke’s arguments for the just appropriation of physical objects and tangible property. In Section 2, I consider some challenges involved in extending Locke’s labor theory of property to the debate about IPRs and digital information. In Section (...) 3, it is argued that even if the labor analogy breaks down, we should not necessarily infer that Locke’s theory has no relevance for the contemporary debate involving IPRs and the information commons. Alternatively, I argue that much of what Locke has to say about the kinds of considerations that ought to be accorded to the physical commons when appropriating objects from it – especially his proviso requiring that “enough and as good” be left for others – can also be applied to appropriations involving the information commons. Based on my reading of Locke’s proviso, I further argue that Locke would presume in favor of the information commons when competing interests (involving the rights of individual appropriators and the preservation of the commons) are at stake. In this sense, I believe that Locke offers us an adjudicative principle for evaluating the claims advanced by rival interests in the contemporary debate about IPRs and the information commons. In Section 4, I apply Locke’s proviso in my analysis of two recent copyright laws: the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I then argue that both laws violate the spirit of Locke’s proviso because they unfairly restrict the access that ordinary individuals have previously had to resources that comprise the information commons. Noting that Locke would not altogether reject copyright protection for IPRs, I conclude that Locke’s classic property theory provides a useful mechanism for adjudicating between claims about how best to ensure that individuals will be able to continue to access information in digitized form, while at the same time also allowing for that information to enjoy some form of legal protection. (shrink)

This essay concerns the multiple faces of science in ethical environmental decision-making. Environmental crises pose existential threats to human and non-human life. Science is essential to any meaningful response to these crises, but science as it is conventionally understood and practiced is not adequate to the task. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour in his 2013 Gifford Lectures on ―Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature,‖1 I will critique this understanding and practice in relation to four (...) faces of science - capacity builder, informer and guide, philosophy, and institution—and propose reforms. (shrink)

After twenty-five years sustainable development is not a reality. Policies and practices focus on the short-term and economists regard sustainable development as extraneous to their core responsibilities. Science, economics and self- interest have not proven a sufficient ground for sustainable development. Ethics calling for moral reasoning and courageous action, spirit offering transcendence, vision and sustenance, and value asking what is development for are needed. United Nations negotiations have shaped, are shaping, and will continue to shape the meaning and practice of (...) sustainable development. A global citizens‘ movement to build the political will for change is needed. To catalyze sustainable development ethics, religion and spirituality must operate out of a historical context and narrative of a ―Great Transition. ‖ Ethics must enter at the ground level in determining how science, technology, and economics are to be conceived. Religion and spirit must begin with respect for the order of existence. A particular ―Ethics and Spirituality Initiative for Sustainable Development‖ is building a coalition of religious, spiritual and secular values based-organizations to bring ethics and spirituality into the sustainable development process. (shrink)

This essay examines issues involving personal privacy and informed consent that arise at the intersection of information and communication technology and population genomics research. I begin by briefly examining the ethical, legal, and social implications program requirements that were established to guide researchers working on the Human Genome Project. Next I consider a case illustration involving deCODE Genetics, a privately owned genetics company in Iceland, which raises some ethical concerns that are not clearly addressed in the current ELSI guidelines. The (...) deCODE case also illustrates some ways in which an ICT technique known as data mining has both aided and posed special challenges for researchers working in the field of population genomics. On the one hand, data-mining tools have greatly assisted researchers in mapping the human genome and in identifying certain “disease genes” common in specific populations. On the other hand, this technology has significantly threatened the privacy of research subjects participating in population genomics studies, who may, unwittingly, contribute to the construction of new groups that put those subjects at risk for discrimination and stigmatization. In the final section of this paper I examine some ways in which the use of data mining in the context of population genomics research poses a critical challenge for the principle of informed consent, which traditionally has played a central role in protecting the privacy interests of research subjects participating in epidemiological studies. (shrink)

The present study examines certain challenges that KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Databases) in general and data mining in particular pose for normative privacy and public policy. In an earlier work (see Tavani, 1999), I argued that certain applications of data-mining technology involving the manipulation of personal data raise special privacy concerns. Whereas the main purpose of the earlier essay was to show what those specific privacy concerns are and to describe how exactly those concerns have been introduced by the use (...) of certain KDD and data-mining techniques, the present study questions whether the use of those techniques necessarily violates the privacy of individuals. This question is considered vis-à-vis a recent theory of privacy advanced by James Moor (1997). The implications of that privacy theory for a data-mining policy are also considered. (shrink)

Interpretations of Poetry and Religion is the third volume in a new critical edition of the complete works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information.Published in the spring of 1900, Interpretations of Poetry and Religion was George Santayana's first book of critical prose. It developed his view that "poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life, and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry." This statement (...) and the point of view it espoused contributed significantly to the debate between science and religion at the turn of the century, and its eloquence and clearsightedness continue to have an impact on current discussions about the nature of religion.Interpretations of Poetry and Religion affronted Santayana's peers with its assault on literary and religious pieties of the cultivated classes. William James called its philosophy of harmonious and integral ideal systems nothing less than "a perfection of rottenness."In his insightful introductory essay, Joel Porte observes that while Santayana's theory of correlative objects, his espousal of the "ideal" - the normal human affinity for abstraction - and exaltation of the imagination may have offended some at Harvard, these ideas had a significant influence on other Harvard scholars T.S. Eliot and Santayana's "truest disciple," Wallace Stevens.Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., heads the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A & M University. William G. Holzberger is a Professor of English at Bucknell University. Joel Porte is Whiton Professor of American Literature at Cornell University. (shrink)

This research aims to present a literature review regarding developments in financial performance in the latest research in the electricity industry. This research uses a qualitative analysis approach with the Connected Paper application. The keywords used are financial performance and the electricity industry. The study found that financial performance was used in research by linking it to various aspects of corporate organization, including technological activities, innovation exploitation and exploration, alliances and performance, the importance of geographic location in exploration and exploitation, (...) as well as environmentally friendly innovation and its driving factors. These findings also show that social, economic and environmental factors have a significant influence on environmentally friendly innovation in the long term. The originality of this research lies in the comprehensive approach taken in reviewing various related literature sources so that this research can provide important insights for readers, open up new opportunities for further research, and enrich understanding of the topic of company financial performance. (shrink)

I explore the connection between expertise and rationality. I first make explicit the philosophically dominant view on this connection, i.e., the ‘expert-consultation’ view. This view captures the rather obvious idea that a rational way of proceeding on a matter of importance when one lacks knowledge is to consult experts. Next, I enumerate the difficulties which beset this view, locating them to some extent in the current philosophical literature on expertise and rationality. I then propose that different lessons should be drawn (...) for rationality from the fact of expertise. One is that some empirical and phenomenological studies of the nature of expertise can be fruitfully applied by analogy to theories of the rational agent. (shrink)

The essay challenges the de facto dichotomy between the discipline of logic and the activity of social criticism, i.e., it provides an illustrated reminder to philosophers that the gulf between these two areas of philosophy is not quite as wide as our curriculum andspecialization designations tend to suggest. Social criticism plays some necessary roles in certain branches of logic, and the second-order accounting of the contents of these branches leads back to social criticism. These points suggest an adjusted conception of (...) logic that would, among other things, render phrases such as “applying logic to social criticism” as misleading since certain branches of logic would not even coherently exist apart from social criticism. The lead illustrations are the identification of basic, pervasive, and thought-impeding logical errors that have been missed by numerous logic texts, and the assessment of contemporary academic logic as properly a quest for communal sanity that lies caught between communal insanity and communal mendacity. (shrink)

I argue that the love of wisdom can be recovered by reawakening in humans the genuine sense of wonder, i.e., by recovering the transformed condition in which humans experience philosophical asking as a meaning-bestowing and existentially-transforming phenomenon. Wonder in this sense is primarily a metaphysical and not psychological state, and it is evoked by the transforming phenomenon of philosophical asking. Philosophical asking is not reducible to a something, e.g., a sentence in question-form, that provokes the setting up and critique of (...) theories but rather is essentially a way of existing, a dwelling, that is marked by the astonishment of watching the world, and ourselves, open up and transfigure by our very asking, i.e., by our existing as askers. (shrink)

I entitled the paper ‘An Essay in Speculative Mysticism’ because it undertakes, in the tradition of such ancient and mediaeval mystics as Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hugh and Richard of St Victor, Nicholas of Cusa, Ruysbroeck, and Meister Eckhart, to mate psychological introspection with ontological speculation, focusing on the rather fundamental themes of Identity, Alterity, Transcendant Identity , and Illusion . I acknowledge my more recent, general indebtment to the rich reservoir of contemporary research in the area of Transpersonal Psychology, a research (...) amply documented in the journal of Transpersonal Psychology , as well as in the bibliographies, most notably provided among others, in the respective works of Charles Tart, John White, and Ken Wilber. Since Transpersonal Psychology embraces within its attempts at controlled studies such sundries as altered states of consciousness, parapsychological phenomena, yoga, as well as doctrines which skirt the very frontiers of psychology's experimental ingenuity, namely the tenets of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, H. P. Blavatsky, Oscar Icazo, John Lilly, Roberto Assagioli, and many others, the rapport between a speculative study in mysticism and the background data supplied by Transpersonal Psychology becomes readily apparent. Furthermore, I accede to any reader's deft detection in my essay of a rather uncommon medley of remnants from Thomism, German Romanticism, British Neo-Hegelianism, Vitalism, and Structuralism. If, at last, I were to be questioned on the methodology of my paper, I would have to respond that it probably resembles most closely the methodology of two French Reflective thinkers, viz., Jean Nabert and Henry Duméry, and the French existential metaphysician, Jean Wahl. Since I owe so much to so many, I simply acknowledge my general indebtedness at the beginning and allow the essay to emerge with its own internal cogency. The paper's rationale should, therefore, emanate from a clear inner coherence of its ideas as these reflect communicable psychological experience and unfold some of the latter's ontological implications. (shrink)

The article deals with semiosis and its dimensions as a theoretical construct to show some elementary differences between spheres of semiotic activity. In essence, one sign will be dissected into four categories of existence to show it may have different relations depending on the dimension it happens to be in. The general framework is that of human consciousness and its two distinct states: awake cognition and asleep dreaming with emphasis on the latter. From our point of view, the concepts of (...) ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ have two layers: the manifest form and the latent function, the seen and the unseen. These are used as parallels to support the central thesis of this article that human cognition has dreaming as its countepart.The main theoretical frame is drawn from the work of Greimas and Courtes with emphasis on the semiotic square. The concept of the sign is taken from Peirce, whereas ‘sign-ness’ is adopted from Pyatigorskij. By projecting the triadic sign onto the semiotic square and excluding the concept ‘sign system’ along with the syntactic aspect, the basic fourfold dimension of the sign as such will be brought to view based on the distinct sign-relations in each given dimension. In order to double the square, semiosis will be endowed with features of ‘being-able’, thus affording the initial expression of dominant modalities serving as basis for the structure(s) of the elementary function and mechanism in each of the four dimensions. This will also enable bringing into view some elementary restrictions on semiosis in each dimension. Lastly, some new terms are suggested in accordance with what has been presented.В статье рассматривается семиозис и его измерения как теоретическая конструкция, чтобы показать некоторые элементарные различия между сферами семиотического действия. По сути знак будет разделен на четыре категории существования, чтобы показать, что он может иметь разные отношения в зависимости от того, в каком измерении он находится. Основной рамкой, вместе с тем, является человеческое сознание в его двух состояниях: в состоянии бодрствования и сна со сновидениями, с акцентом на последнее. Несмотря на широкое использование универсальных понятий ‘природа’ и ‘культура’, статья не сосредоточивается на семиотических особенностях этих доменов. С нашей точки зрения ‘природа’ и ‘культура’ имеют два уровня, т.е. проявленную форму и скрытую функцию, видимое и невидимое. Они используются параллельно, поддерживая центральный тезис этой статьи о том, что человеческое познание имеет соответствие в виде сновидения.Теоретическая рамка взята из работы Греймаса и Курте с акцентом на семиотический квадрат. Понятие знака трактуется в духе Пирса, тогда как понятие ≪знаковости≫ дается по Пятигорскому. При проекции триадического знака на семиотический квадрат и исключении понятия ≪знаковой системы≫ вместе с синтаксическим аспектом, обнаруживается основное четырехкратное измерение знака, опирающаяся на определенные знаковые отношения в каждом данном измерении. Чтобы удвоить квадрат, семиозис будет наделен функцией ≪быть способным≫, таким образом обеспечивая начальное выражение доминирующих модальностей, служащих в каждом из четырых измерений основой для структуры (структур) элементарной функции и механизма. Это также даст возможность рассмотреть некоторые элементарные ограничения семиозиса в каждом из измерений. Наконец, предлагаются некоторые новые термины в соответствии с тем, что было представлено.Artikkel tegeleb semioosi ja selle mootmetega kui teoreetilise konstruktsiooniga, et demonstreerida moningaid elementaarseid erinevusi semiootilise tegevuse sfaarides. Sisuliselt lahatakse uks mark neljaks eksistentsikategooriaks, naitamaks, et sel voivad olla erinevad suhted olenevalt mootmest, milles see olema juhtub. Uldiseks raamiks on inimteadvus ja selle kaks eristuvat olekut: arkvelolek ja uni, rohuasetusega viimasel. Vaatamata universaalsete terminite nagu ‘loodus’ ja ‘kultuur’ ohtrale kasutamisele, ei tegele kaesolev artikkel nende valdkondade semiootiliste eriparadega. Meie seisukohast on ‘loodusel’ ja ‘kultuuril’ kaks kihti – manifestne vorm ja latentne funktsioon, nahtav ja nahtamatu. Neid vaadeldakse paralleelselt, et toetada kaesoleva artikli keskset teesi, et inimkognitsiooni vasteks on unenagemine.Peamine teoreetiline raam tuleneb Greimase ja Courtes’ toodest, rohuasetusega semiootilisele ruudule. Margi moiste voetakse Peirce’ilt ning “margilisus” Pjatigorskilt. Projitseerides triaadilist marki semiootilisele ruudule ning valistades ‘margisusteemi’ moiste koos suntaktilise aspektiga, tuuakse nahtavale margi neljakordne alusdimensioon, mis tugineb kindlatele margisuhetele igas antud mootmes. Et ruutu kahekordistada, antakse semioosile ‘suutlikkuse’ jooned, lubades domineerivate modaalsuste algset valjendumist, mis igas neljast dimensioonist toimivad elementaarse funktsiooni struktuuri(de) ja mehhanismi alusena. See voimaldab vaatluse alla tuua ka moned elementaarsed piirangud semioosile iga dimensioonis. Viimaks pakutakse valja moned uued terminid. (shrink)