In this concise book based on his Arne Ryde Lectures in 2002, Young suggests a conceptual framework for studying strategic learning and highlights theoretical developments in the area. He discusses the interactive learning problem; reinforcement and regret; equilibrium; conditional no-regret learning; prediction, postdiction, and calibration; fictitious play and its variants; Bayesian learning; and hypothesis testing. Young's framework emphasizes the amount of information required to implement different types of learning rules, criteria for evaluating their performance, and alternative notions of equilibrium to (...) which they converge. He also stresses the limits of what can be achieved: for a given type of game and a given amount of information, there may exist no learning procedure that satisfies certain reasonable criteria of performance and convergence. In short, Young has provided a valuable primer that delineates what we know, what we would like to know, and the limits of what we can know, when we try to learn about a system that is composed of other learners. (shrink)

The dominant approach to environmental policy endorsed by conservative and libertarian policy thinkers, so-called “free market environmentalism”, is grounded in the recognition and protection of property rights in environmental resources. Despite this normative commitment to property rights, most self-described FME advocates adopt a utilitarian, welfare-maximization approach to climate change policy, arguing that the costs of mitigation measures could outweigh the costs of climate change itself. Yet even if anthropogenic climate change is decidedly less than catastrophic, human-induced climate change is likely (...) to contribute to environmental changes that violate traditional conceptions of property rights. Viewed globally, the actions of some countries—primarily industrialized nations—are likely to increase environmental harms suffered by other countries—less developed nations that have not made any significant contribution to climate change. It may well be that aggregate human welfare would be maximized in a warmer, wealthier world, or that the gains from climate change will offset environmental losses. Yet such claims, even if demonstrated, would not address the normative concern that the consequences of anthropogenic global warming would infringe upon the rights of people in less-developed nations. As a consequence, this paper calls for a rethinking of FME approaches to climate change policy. (shrink)

A Guide to Plato's Republic provides an integral interpretation of the Republic which is accessible even to readers approaching Plato's masterwork for the first time. Written at a level understandable to undergraduates, it is ideal for students and other readers who have little or no background in philosophy or political theory. Rice anticipates their inevitable reactions to the Republic and treats them seriously, opening the way to an appreciation of the complexities of the text without oversimplifying it. While many books (...) on the Republic never stray far from explicating Plato's text, this work contrasts Plato's responses to perennial issues in philosophy and political theory with those of several key subsequent thinkers. It uses engaging examples to show the continuing relevance of Plato's arguments and introduces some basic vocabulary of philosophy and political theory, going beyond terse dictionary definitions by illustrating what technical terms mean in the context of Plato's work. The author's interpretative posture is appreciative but respectfully critical of Plato's vision. Stressing the relationship between Plato's politics and metaphysics, Rice argues that Plato's reluctance to accept the reality and consequences of finitude accounts for much of what many readers find objectionable in his politics. Lively, relatively brief, and designed to provoke discussion in the classroom, A Guide to Plato's Republic is ideal for political theory and introduction to philosophy courses as well as other courses that assign the Republic as a primary text. (shrink)

Studying Mesilat Yesharim with Hadar Goldin.

The Travail of Nature shows that the theological tradition in the West is neither ecologically bankrupt, as some of its popular and scholarly critics have maintained, nor replete with immediately accessible, albeit long-forgotten, ecological riches hidden everywhere in its deeper vaults, as some contemporary Christians, who are profoundly troubled by the environmental crisis and other related concerns, might wistfully hope to find. This is why it is appropriate to speak of the ambiguous ecological promises of Christian theology.

Social scientists and data analysts are increasingly making use of Big Data in their analyses. These data sets are often “found data” arising from purely observational sources rather than data derived under strict rules of a statistically designed experiment. However, since these large data sets easily meet the sample size requirements of most statistical procedures, they give analysts a false sense of security as they proceed to focus on employing traditional statistical methods. We explain how most analyses performed on Big (...) Data today lead to “precisely inaccurate” results that hide biases in the data but are easily overlooked due to the enhanced significance of the results created by the data size. Before any analyses are performed on large data sets, we recommend employing a simple data segmentation technique to control for some major components of observational data biases. These segments will help to improve the accuracy of the results. (shrink)

يتناول محمد حيان السمّان في كتابه في "تدبير القداسة: الحجابة والحجاب - أدب الدخول على السلطان في التراث العربي الإسلامي"، الصادر عن المركز العربي للأبحاث ودراسة السياسات، العلاقة بين السلطة السياسية والمجتمع في السياق العربي - الإسلامي، من خلال موضوع الحجابة والسلطان المحتجِب عن رعيته، والوقائع المتصلة بالقدوم على أصحاب السلطة من خلفاء وملوك وسلاطين ووزراء وغيرهم، وانتظار الإذن بلقائهم. يتألف الكتاب (407 صفحات بالقطع الوسط، موثقًا ومفهرسًا) من مدخل، وقسمين فيهما عشرة فصول. في المدخل، تأسيس وإضاءة، يعالج المؤلف مسألة (...) الحجابة والحاجب من حيث اللغة والاصطلاح، ومسألة الحجابة عند ابن خلدون من منطلق الحضارة الداعية إلى انتحال الألقاب وتمييزها، ومسألة الاستئذان الشرعي والحجابة والفرق بينهما. (shrink)

Trataremos de acercarnos a la concepción clásico-cristiana de oíkois y téine a partir del planteo actual de la relación, tan problemática, de técnica y medio ambiente. Marcharemos, por tanto, en pos de la noción clásica, no sólo como quien busca en la antigüedad un par de términos epónimos, sino con la aspiración de hallar las formas modélicas que puedan inspirar la solución de una aguda crisis cultural. Esta crisis se caracteriza por la crispada relación establecida, en el mundo moderno, entre (...) el desarrollo tecnológico y el ámbito vital del hombre, su entorno, su "casa". Ante todo, es necesario observar que la técnica moderna no representa simplemente el último estadio de la téjne, como continuidad, en extensión e intensidad, del milenario esfuerzo del hombre por dominar a la naturaleza mediante el empleo de habilidades artesanales. Hay en la técnica moderna algo de absolutamente peculiar, de cualitativamente diverso. Debemos subrayar, por tanto, para alcanzar su plena comprensión, el calificativo de moderna: la téjne ha cambiado de sentido. No se trata ya de un fenómeno más de nuestro mundo, sino que ahora el mundo moderno puede ser calificado como mundo técnico; técnica es también la cultura propia de la modernidad. (shrink)