Ceteris Paribus clauses in reasoning are used to allow for defeaters of norms, rules or laws, such as in von Wright’s example “I prefer my raincoat over my umbrella, everything else being equal”. In earlier work, a logical analysis is offered in which sets of formulas Γ, embedded in modal operators, provide necessary and sufficient conditions for things to be equal in ceteris paribus clauses. For most laws, the set of things allowed to vary is small, often finite, and so (...) Γ is typically infinite. Yet the axiomatisation they provide is restricted to the special and atypical case in which Γ is finite. We address this problem by being more flexible about ceteris paribus conditions, in two ways. The first is to offer an alternative, slightly more general semantics, in which the set of formulas only give necessary but not sufficient conditions. This permits a simple axiomatisation. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the relationship between norms of belief revision that may be adopted by members of a community and the resulting dynamic properties of the distribution of beliefs across that community. We show that at a qualitative level many aspects of social belief change can be obtained from a very simple model, which we call ‘threshold influence’. In particular, we focus on the question of what makes the beliefs of a community stable under various dynamical situations. We (...) also consider refinements and alternatives to the ‘threshold’ model, the most significant of which is to consider changes to plausibility judgements rather than mere beliefs. We show first that some such change is mandated by difficult problems with belief-based dynamics related to the need to decide on an order in which different beliefs are considered. Secondly, we show that the resulting plausibility-based account results in a deterministic dynamical system that is non-deterministic at the level of beliefs. (shrink)

Dynamic epistemic logic (DEL) extends purely modal epistemic logic (S5) by adding dynamic operators that change the model structure. Propositional dynamic logic (PDL) extends basic modal logic with programs that allow the de nition of complex modalities. We provide a common generalisation: a logic that is dynamic in both senses, and one that is not limited to S5 as its modal base. It also incorporates, and signi cantly generalises, all the features of existing extensions of DEL such as BMS [3] (...) and LCC [21]. Our dynamic operators work in two steps. First, they provide a multiplicity of transformations of the original model, one for each action in a purely syntactic action structure (in the style of BMS). Second, they specify how to combine these multiple copies to produce a new model. In each step, we use the generality of PDL to specify the transformations. The main technical contribution of the paper is to provide an axiomatisation of this general dynamic dynamic logic (GDDL). This is done by providing a computable translation of GDDL formulas to equivalent PDL formulas, thus reducing the logic to PDL, which is decidable. The proof involves switching between representing programs as terms and as automata. We also show that both BMS and LCC are special cases of GDDL, and that there are interesting applications that require the additional generality of GDDL, namely the modelling of private belief update. More recent extensions and variations of BMS and LCC are also discussed. (shrink)

It is now standard to interpret Aquinas as recognizing two main types of material objects: substances and artifacts, where substances are those material objects that result from some particular substantial form inhering in prime matter, and artifacts are those material objects that result from some particular accidental form inhering in one or more material substances. There are two problems with this standard interpretation. First, there are passages in which Aquinas states that accidental forms should be understood not as inhering in (...) substances from the outside, but as entering into their composition so as to be included among their metaphysical parts. Second, there are passages in which Aquinas states that it is impossible for any accidental form to be shared by two or more substances. This article considers what implications these two observations might have for how we understand the metaphysical structure of artifacts in Aquinas’s ontology. (shrink)

Jeremy Sherman distills Terrence Deacon's breakthrough natural science hypothesis for the emergence of agents and agency, selves and aims in an otherwise aimless universe. The theory cuts a new path through the dualistic spirit vs. mechanism debate, unifying the hard and soft sciences and suggesting new solutions to philosophical mysteries.

Currently the dominant interpretation of Hobbes in the field of moral and political philosophy is as a social contract theorist: that he legitimates moral rules and sovereign power by arguing that we would agree we are better off obeying a sovereign than living in a state of nature, and that we are best off if that sovereign is an absolute monarch. There are interesting alternatives to this reading of Hobbes—Warrender’s divine-command interpretation and Boonin-Vail’s virtue theory interpretation, to name just two—but (...) it is not my purpose here to debate their relative merits. Rather, I want to comment on one of the main features of the social contract view, namely, the means of maintaining political stability. (shrink)

We argue that knowledge doesn‘t require any of truth, justification, or belief. This is so for four primary reasons. First, each of the three conditions has been subject to convincing counterexamples. In addition, the resultant account explains the value of knowledge, manifests important theoretical virtues (in particular, simplicity), and avoids commitment to skepticism.

Quizás sea lícito decir que este Tratado de los Sofismas Políticos es, en alguna medida, el libro síntesis de toda la obra de Jeremías Bentham, porque con demoledora lógica se aplica a mostrar las inconsistencias y falacias de los opositores a la deliberación política, vale decir, al ejercicio de la democracia, en última instancia. Bentham es una figura que espera el reconocimiento de los americanos todos, en la medida en que impulsó con su racionalismo revolucionario (valga la contradicción), la capacidad (...) de todo el continente americano para constituirse como un ámbito de libertad, frente a la opresión colonial europea. Es conocida su correspondencia con grandes figuras de la emancipación americana, y con Bernardino Rivadavia entre nosotros. Todavía no lo hemos ubicado suficientemente en nuestra conciencia ideológica. (shrink)

The core of human cooperation is people's ability to perform joint actions. Frequently, this requires effectively decomposing a joint task into individual subtasks, for example, when jointly shopping at the market to buy food. Surprisingly, little is known about how collaborators balance the costs of establishing a joint strategy for such decompositions and its expected benefits for a joint goal. We created a new online task that required pairs of randomly matched participants to jointly collect colored items. We then systematically (...) varied the cognitive costs and benefits of applying a color‐splitting strategy. The results showed that pairs adopted a color‐splitting strategy more often when necessary to lower cognitive costs. However, once the strategy was jointly adopted, it continued to be used even when the cost–benefits changed. Our results provide first insights on how people decompose joint tasks into individual components and how decomposition strategies may evolve into conventions. (shrink)

Doug McGill published several articles about the massacre of 425 members of the Anuak tribe by the Ethiopian military in 2003 and 2004 on his Web site, The McGill Report. The mainstream news media ignored it. McGill's narrative demonstrates the impact of his reporting on the Anuak community worldwide, its impact on several beneficiary groups in the United States, and the lack of interest by the mainstream news media that failed to fulfill journalism's primary purpose. Two responses follow McGill's narrative. (...) Jeremy Iggers examines the social and economic realities that make it difficult for journalists to fulfill their primary purpose. He suggests that partnerships between journalists and engaged citizens may provide a new model for journalism. Andrew Cline examines the rhetorical and ethical nature of the journalistic transaction between journalist and audience. Who counts as a journalist arises from the experiences of an audience that uses a journalist's work as a civically important text. (shrink)

Four classes of naturally rare vascular plant species are described and classified, based on parameters of spatial distribution and longevity. Properties intrinsic to these time/space parameters are explored and an importance hierarchy of causes of rarity is proposed for each class. These hierarchies serve as the basis for a predictive classification. Human causes of rarity such as habitat destruction and taxonomic difficulties are not considered in detail here but are discussed as confounding factors in the elucidation of rarity in vascular (...) plants. Several examples are provided to illustrate this classification and provide testable hypotheses concerning the origins of natural rarity in plant species. (shrink)

Tolman's paradox arises in Lorentz-invariant theories of superluminal particles. In this paper we first try to clarify the nature of the paradox and what it means to solve it. We then analyze the various attempts made to either solve or eliminate it. We show that general consequences can be drawn which hold in essentially all paradox-free schemes proposed so far.

Climate change, while potentially impacting many industries, appears to have considerable significance to the wine industry. Yet little is known about how firms acquire knowledge and gain an understanding of climate change and its impacts. This study, exploratory in nature and studying firms from the wine-producing region of Tasmania, is one of the first in the management literature to use cluster theory to examine the climate change issue. Firms are predicted to exchange knowledge about climate change more readily with other (...) firms internal to the sub-cluster than with those external to the sub-cluster. The hypothesis does not find support. The study also proposes that the different characteristics of knowledge can either increase or decrease their flows in and around clusters. Specifically, “public” knowledge about climate change is predicted to flow more freely than “private” knowledge about climate change. The hypothesis does not find support. Finally, firms are expected to acquire knowledge about climate change from sources other than cluster-entrenched firms, and in particular peak national industry bodies. The hypothesis finds partial support. A discussion of the findings is presented along with future research directions. (shrink)

N. G. de Bruijn, now professor emeritus of the Eindhoven University of Technology, was a pioneer in the field of interactive theorem proving. From 1967 to the end of the 1970’s, his work on the Automath system introduced the architecture that is common to most of today’s proof assistants, and much of the basic technology. But de Bruijn was a mathematician first and foremost, as evidenced by the many mathematical notions and results that bear his name, among them de Bruijn (...) sequences, de Bruin graphs, the de Bruijn-Newman constant, and the de Bruijn-Erd¨. (shrink)

In November of 1959, William Bean published in the Archives of Internal Medicine a scathing review of Félix Martí-Ibañez’s Centaur: Essays on the History of Medical Ideas. Martí-Ibañez and Bean were two of the leading exponents of the importance of medical humanism during a formative period from the 1950s through the 1970s. But the two physicians differed fundamentally in their views of the ideal relationships among the pharmaceutical industry, the medical profession, and the medical humanities. We situate Bean’s review within (...) its historical context, shedding light on the history and diverging uses of the medical humanities. (shrink)

This article posits that Andy Clark’s model of distributed cognition manifests socially through the agonism of human activity, and that rhetorical theory offers an understanding of human conflicts as productive and necessary elements of collective response to situation rather than as problems to be solved or noise to be eliminated. To support this assertion, the paper aligns Clark’s argument that cognition responds to situated environmental conditions with the classical concept of kairos, it associates Clark’s assertion that language structures behavior with (...) the long-held rhetorical stance that language is constitutive, and it examines the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as an enactment of what Clark and rhetorical theorists claim about productive agonism and the litigious nature of identity and cognition. (shrink)

Using simple stochastic models, we discuss how cooperative breeders, especially wasps and bees, can improve their productivity by reducing foraging work. In a harsh environment, where foraging is the main cause of mortality, such breeders achieve greater productivity by reducing their foraging effort below full capacity, and they may thrive by adopting cooperative breeding. This could prevent the population extinction of cooperative breeders under conditions where a population of lone breeders cannot be maintained.

In his recent book on Darwinism, Daniel Dennett has offered up a species of a priori selectionism that he calls algorithmic. He used this view to challenge a number of positions advocated by Stephen J. Gould. I examine his algorithmic conception, review his unqualified enthusiasm for the a priori selectionist position, challenge Dennett's main metaphors (cranes vs. skyhooks and a design space), examine ways in which his position has lead him to misunderstand or misrepresent Gould (spandrels, exaptation, punctuated equilibrium, contingency (...) and disparity), and discuss recent results in developmental biology that suggest that an a priori position does not fill the demands of an evolutionary biology. I conclude by insisting that evolutionary biology is many leveled, complicated, and is carried on an ever shifting and expanding empirical base that when disregarded results in caricature. (shrink)

In 1973 Girard was invited by the editors of Esprit in Paris to discuss his work with several interlocutors from the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, and theology. In this exchange Girard addresses challenges to his thinking, and is further prompted to consider the relation between his critique of primitive or archaic religion and the role of Judeo-Christianity, which Western culture has adopted as its own, and to which his book pays scant attention.

L'univers de René Girard est un univers complexe dans lequel se mêlent étroitement les éléments biographiques et les différentes disciplines auxquelles il a fait appel pour mener à bien ses travaux. Centrés sur le phénomène du désir mimétique, ces entretiens dévoilent la genèse de sa théorie dans les domaines littéraires et religieux. Le fil conducteur en est le principe des doubles mimétiques qu'il a analysés chez des auteurs comme Stendhal, Proust, Dostoïevski et Shakespeare. Il se réfère également à la (...) Bible, considérant que " la donnée fondamentale de notre temps est la crise du religieux ". Ses ouvrages relèvent à la fois de la littérature comparée, de l'anthropologie et de l'histoire des religions. Il trouve aussi, dans les échanges économiques, la confirmation de sa théorie. En effet, selon lui, le monde moderne est à la recherche du sacré qu'il a perdu, et, dans ce processus, il se retrouve victime d'un mimétisme exacerbé. René Girard déploie son esprit critique à l'encontre de la société de concurrence et de la consommation ; ce faisant, il compare les sociétés française et américaine du point de vue d'un intellectuel français installé au coeur de l'Amérique. (shrink)

In 1988, Nadine Dormoy conducted a series of interviews with Rene Girard after a number of books and conferences had situated his work in a new context of research on self-organizing systems. In these interviews, Girard discusses the intellectual activity that followed the 1982 Stanford University conference, Disorder and Order. Girard also discusses Theater of Envy, his book on Shakespeare, as well as corrects several misunderstandings of his mimetic hypothesis.

For three decades Jeremy Holmes has been a leading figure in psychodynamic psychiatry in the UK and across the world. He has played a central role in promoting the ideas of John Bowlby and in developing the clinical applications - psychiatric and psychotherapeutic - of Attachment Theory in working with adults. Drawing on both psychoanalytic and attachment ideas, Holmes has been able to encompass a truly biopsychosocialperspective. As a psychotherapist Holmes brings together psychodynamic, systemic and cognitive models, alert to (...) vital differences, but also keenly sensitive to overlaps and parallels. This volume of selected papers brings together the astonishing range of Holmes' interests and contributions. The various sections in the book cover: An extended interview - covering Holmes' career and philosophy as a psychodynamic psychiatrist 'Juvenilia' - sibling relationships, the psychology of nuclear weapons, and the psychodynamics of surgical intervention. Psychodynamic psychiatry: Integrative and Attachment-Informed A psychotherapy section inwhich he develops his model of psychotherapeutic change 'Heroes' - biographical pieces about the major influences including, John Bowlby, Michael Balint, David Malan, Jonathan Pedder and Charles Rycroft. 'Ephemera' - brief pieces covering such topics as frequency of psychodynamic sessions and fees. Attachments: Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis - The Selected Works of Jeremy Holmeswill be essential and illuminating reading for practitioners and students of psychiatry and psychotherapy in all its guises. (shrink)

The essays which Bentham collected together for publication in 1830 under the title of Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized, written at various times between 1810 and 1830, deal with the means of achieving efficient and economical government. In considering a wide range of themes in the fields of constitutional law, public finance, and legal reform, Bentham places the problem of official corruption at the centre of his analysis. He contrasts his own recommendations for good administration, which he had fully developed (...) in his magisterial Constitutional Code, with the severe deficiencies he saw in English practice. The core of the volume consists of four major essays directed against the principles and policies of four leading statesmen: Edmund Burke, George Rose, Robert Peel, and Lord Chancellor Eldon. Of particular concern to Bentham were the abuses sanctioned by the judges and their officials in the Westminster Hall courts, which, he argues, resulted in the denial of justice to the majority of the population. In this volume, Bentham not only displays the precise logical reasoning for which he is well known, but also his considerable skills as a rhetorician of reform. (shrink)