This paper is devoted to the formulation and investigation of a dynamic semantic interpretation of the language of first-order predicate logic. The resulting system, which will be referred to as ‘dynamic predicate logic’, is intended as a first step towards a compositional, non-representational theory of discourse semantics. In the last decade, various theories of discourse semantics have emerged within the paradigm of model-theoretic semantics. A common feature of these theories is a tendency to do away with the principle of compositionality, (...) a principle which, implicitly or explicitly, has dominated semantics since the days of Frege. Therefore the question naturally arises whether non-compositionality is in any way a necessary feature of discourse semantics. Since we subscribe to the interpretation of compositionality as constituting primarily a methodological principle, we consider this to be a methodological rather than an empirical question. As a consequence, the emphasis in the present paper lies on developing an alternative compositional semantics of discourse, which is empirically equivalent to its non-compositional brethren, but which differs from them in a principled methodological way. Hence, no attempts are made to improve on existing theories empirically. Nevertheless, as we indicate in section 5, the development of a compositional alternative may in the end have empirical consequences, too. First of all, it can be argued that the dynamic view on interpretation developed in this paper suggests natural and relatively easy to formulate extensions which enable one to deal with a wider range of phenomena than can be dealt with in existing theories. Moreover, the various approaches to the model-theoretic semantics of discourse that have been developed during the last decade, have constituted a ‘fresh start’ in the sense that much of what had been accomplished before was ignored, at least for a start. Of course, this is a justified strategy if one feels one is trying to develop a radically different approach to recalcitrant problems. However, there comes a time when such new approaches have to be compared with the older one, and when an assessment of the pros and cons of each has to be made. One of the main problems in semantics today, we feel, is that a semantic theory such as Montague grammar, and an approach like Kamp’s discourse representation theory, are hard to compare, let alone that it is possible to unify their insights and results.. (shrink)

Metaphysicians of composite objects commonly distinguish two types of composite objects: wholes and sums. The former can survive some changes of parts, while the latter cannot. This paper investigates how the distinction between wholes and sums can be respected, while denying that a sum is an individual composite object. In particular, the view presented here identifies wholes with the fusions of (extensional) mereology – hence going against a common tendency to identify sums with mereological fusions – and identifies sums with (...) the pluralities of plural logic. It is argued that this view better captures the ideas behind the whole/sum-distinction while also avoiding various challenges the other accounts face. (shrink)

The power of technology to transform religions, science, and political institutions has often been presented as nothing short of revolutionary. Does technology have a similarly transformative influence on societies’ morality? Scholars have not rigorously investigated the role of technology in moral revolutions, even though existing research on technomoral change suggests that this role may be considerable. In this paper, we explore what the role of technology in moral revolutions, understood as processes of radical group-level moral change, amounts to. We do (...) so by investigating four historical episodes of radical moral change in which technology plays a noteworthy role. Our case-studies illustrate the plurality of mechanisms involved in technomoral revolutions, but also suggest general patterns of technomoral change, such as technology’s capacity to stabilize and destabilize moral systems, and to make morally salient phenomena visible or invisible. We find several leads to expand and refine conceptual tools for analysing moral change, specifically by crystallizing the notions of ‘technomoral niche construction’ and ‘moral payoff mechanisms’. Coming to terms with the role of technology in radical moral change, we argue, enriches our understanding of moral revolutions, and alerts us to the depths of which technology can change our societies in wanted and unwanted ways. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of wh-complements in Montague Grammar. We will be concerned primarily with semantics, though some remarks on syntax are made in Section 4. Questions and wh-comple ments in Montague Grammar have been studied in Hamblin (1976), Bennett (1979), Karttunen (1977) and Hauser (1978) among others. These proposals will not be discussed explicitly, but some differences with Karttunen's analysis will be pointed out along the way.

Scholarly discourse on “disruptive technologies” has been strongly influenced by disruptive innovation theory. This theory is tailored for analyzing disruptions in markets and business. It is of limited use, however, in analyzing the broader social, moral and existential dynamics of technosocial disruption. Yet these broader dynamics should be of great scholarly concern, both in coming to terms with technological disruptions of the past and those of our current age. Technologies can disrupt social relations, institutions, epistemic paradigms, foundational concepts, values, and (...) even the nature of human cognition and experience – domains of disruption that are largely neglected in existing discourse on disruptive technologies. Accordingly, this paper seeks to reorient scholarly discussion around a broader notion of technosocial disruption. This broader notion raises three foundational questions. First, how can technosocial disruption be conceptualized in a way that clearly sets it apart from the disruptive innovation framework? Secondly, how does the notion of technosocial disruption relate to the concordant notions of “disruptor” and “disruptiveness”? Thirdly, can we advance criteria to assess the “degree of social disruptiveness” of different technologies? The paper clarifies these questions and proposes an answer to each of them. In doing so, it advances “technosocial disruption” as a key analysandum for future scholarship on the interactions between technology and society. (shrink)

The idea that two objects can coincide—by sharing all their proper parts, or matter—yet be non-identical, results in the “Problem of Coincident Objects”: in what relation do objects stand if they are not identical but share all their proper parts? One solution is to introduce material constitution. In this paper, I argue that this is ad hoc since, first, this solution cannot be generalized to solve similar problems, and, second, there are pseudo cases of coincidence that should not trigger the (...) introduction of material constitution and these cannot be distinguished in any principled way from the allegedly real cases of coincidence. (shrink)

This paper introduces an extension of the de Broglie-Bohm-Bell formulation of quantum mechanics, which includes intrinsic particle degrees of freedom, such as spin, as elements of reality. To evade constraints from the Kochen-Specker theorem the discrete spin values refer to a specific basis – i.e., a single spin vector orientation for each particle; these spin orientations are, however, not predetermined, but dynamic and guided by the wave function of the system, which is conditional on the realized location values of the (...) particles. In this way, the unavoidable contextuality of spin is provided by the wave function and its realized particle configuration, whereas spin is still expressed as a local property of the individual particles. This formulation, which furthermore features a rigorous discrete-time stochastic dynamics, allows for numerical simulations of particle systems with entangled spin, such as Bohm’s version of the EPR experiment. (shrink)

Bayesian networks (BN) and argumentation diagrams (AD) are two predominant approaches to legal evidential reasoning, that are often treated as alternatives to one another. This paper argues that they are, instead, complimentary and proposes the beginnings of a method to employ them in such a manner. The Bayesian approach tends to be used as a means to analyse the findings of forensic scientists. As such, it constitutes a means to perform evidential reasoning. The design of Bayesian networks that accurately and (...) comprehensively represent the relationships between investigative hypotheses and evidence remains difficult and sometimes contentious, however. Argumentation diagrams are representations of reasoning, and are used as a means to scrutinise reasoning (among other applications). In evidential reasoning, they tend to be used to represent and scrutinise the way humans reason about evidence. This paper examines how argumentation diagrams can be used to scrutinise Bayesian evidential reasoning by developing a method to extract argument diagrams from BN. (shrink)

Over the course of human history there appears to have been a global shift in moral values towards a broadly ‘liberal’ orientation. Huemer argues that this shift better accords with a realist than an antirealist metaethics: it is best explained by the discovery of mind-independent truths through intuition. In this article I argue, contra Huemer, that the historical data are better explained assuming the truth of moral antirealism. Realism does not fit the data as well as Huemer suggests, whereas antirealists (...) have underappreciated resources to explain the relevant historical dynamics. These resources include an appeal to socialization, to technological and economical convergences, to lessons learned from history, to changes induced by consistency reasoning and to the social function of moral norms in overcoming some of the cooperation problems that globalizing societies face. I point out that the realist’s explanans has multiple shortcomings, that the antirealist’s explanans has several explanatory virtues, and conclude that the latter provides a superior account of the historical shift towards liberal values. (shrink)

Presents a concise introduction to the partition analysis of questions and outlines a theory of answerhood based on that.

Pleidooi voor een metafysische visie op hedendaagse sociale en economische problemen.

This book examines two problems in Private law which are posed by the 'Good Samaritan': First, is an intervener under a legal duty to come to the aid of a fellow human being and does he incur any criminal or tortious liability if he fails to do so? Second, having intervened, is an intervener entitled to reimbursement of expenses, remuneration, reward, or compensation for any loss he might have suffered? Does or should the remedy depend on the success of the (...) intervention? The author examines and compares the varied responses of the Roman, French, German, and English legal systems to these problems. (shrink)

This essay investigates the fit between solar radiation modification (SRM) and climate politics. Researchers, activists, and politicians often present SRM technologies as “radical.” According to this frame, SRM comes into view as a last-ditch effort to avoid climate emergencies. Such a rationale may be applicable to the scientists researching the potential of SRM, yet it only partially accounts for political and policy interest in SRM. In this contribution, I argue that there is an increasingly tight fit between the promise of (...) SRM technologies and the global regime of climate politics. Within this regime, SRM may not be a radical option but is more of a logical extension of current rationales. I argue that SRM corresponds to tightly controlled discursive rules within which climate politics operates, leading to a shifting narrative on the feasibility, desirability, and necessity of SRM. The ethical implications of this tight fit are threefold. First, it implies that SRM might be an instrument of mitigation deterrence, implicitly as much as explicitly. Second, ethical responsibility and political value debates are at risk of becoming invisible once SRM becomes embedded in the prevailing regime. Third, SRM use might become inevitable, despite the good intentions of most people involved. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 9, September 2020, Page 58-60.

Extensive overview and critical analysis of various approaches to the semantics of questions.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. It is a leading cause of cervical cancer in women but the virus is increasingly being linked to several other cancers in men and women alike. Since the introduction of safe and effective but also expensive vaccines, many developed countries have implemented selective vaccination programs for girls. Some however argue that these programs should be expanded to include boys, since (1) HPV constitutes non-negligible health risks for boys as (...) well and (2) protected boys will indirectly also protect girls. In this paper we approach this discussion from an ethical perspective. First, on which moral grounds can one justify not reimbursing vaccination for the male sex? We develop an ethical framework to evaluate selective vaccination programs and conclude that, in the case of HPV, efficiency needs to be balanced against non-stigmatization, non-discrimination and justice. Second, if vaccination programs were to be expanded to boys as well, do the latter then also have a moral duty to become immunized? Two arguments in favor of such a moral duty are well known in vaccination ethics: the duty not to harm others and to contribute to the public good of public health. However, we argue that these are not particularly convincing in the context of HPV. In contrast, we believe a third, more powerful but also more controversial argument is possible. In our view, the sexual mode of transmission of HPV constitutes an additional reason to believe that boys in fact may have a moral obligation to accept vaccination. (shrink)

Conceptual Engineering (CE) is thought to be generally aimed at ameliorating deficient concepts. In this paper, we challenge this assumption: we argue that CE is frequently undertaken with the orthogonal aim of _conceptual adaptation_. We develop this thesis with reference to the interplay between technology and concepts. Emerging technologies can exert significant pressure on conceptual systems and spark ‘conceptual disruption’. For example, advances in Artificial Intelligence raise the question of whether AIs are agents or mere objects, which can be construed (...) as a CE question regarding the concepts AGENT and OBJECT. We distinguish between three types of conceptual disruption (conceptual gaps, conceptual overlaps, and conceptual misalignments) and argue that when CE occurs to address these disruptions, its primary aim is not to improve concepts, but to retain their functional quality, or to prevent them from degrading. This is the characteristic aim of CE when undertaken in philosophy of technology: to _preserve_ the functional role of a concept or conceptual scheme, rather than _improving_ how a concept fulfills its respective function. (shrink)

How should we understand the notion of moral objectivity? Metaethical positions that vindicate morality’s objective appearance are often associated with moral realism. On a realist construal, moral objectivity is understood in terms of mind-, stance-, or attitude-independence. But realism is not the only game in town for moral objectivists. On an antirealist construal, morality’s objective features are understood in virtue of our attitudes. In this paper I aim to develop this antirealist construal of moral objectivity in further detail, and to (...) make its metaphysical commitments explicit. I do so by building on Sharon Street’s version of “Humean Constructivism”. Instead of the realist notion of attitude-independence, the antirealist account of moral objectivity that I articulate centres on the notion of standpoint-invariance. While constructivists have been criticized for compromising on the issue of moral objectivity, I make a preliminary case for the thesis that, armed with the notion of standpoint-invariance, constructivists have resources to vindicate an account of objectivity with just the right strength, given the commitments of ordinary moral thought and practice. In support of this thesis I highlight recent experimental findings about folk moral objectivism. Empirical observations about the nature of moral discourse have traditionally been taken to give prima facie support to moral realism. I argue, by contrast, that from what we can tell from our current experimental understanding, antirealists can capture the commitments of ordinary discourse at least as well as realists can. (shrink)

In this paper we study the admissible rules of intermediate logics. We establish some general results on extensions of models and sets of formulas. These general results are then employed to provide a basis for the admissible rules of the Gabbay–de Jongh logics and to show that these logics have finitary unification type.

In a recent paper on realism and pragmatism published in this journal, Osmo Kivinen and Tero Piiroinen have been pleading for more methodological work in the philosophy of the social sciences—refining the conceptual tools of social scientists—and less philosophically ontological theories. Following this de-ontologizing approach, we scrutinize the debates on social explanation and contribute to the development of a pragmatic social science methodology. Analyzing four classic debates concerning explanation in the social sciences, we propose to shift the debate away from (...) (a) the ontologizing defenses of forms of social explanation, and (b) a winner-takes-all-approach. Instead, we advocate (c) a pragmatic approach towards social explanation, elaborating a rigorous framework for explanatory pluralism detached from the debates on social ontology. (shrink)

Research on behavioral ethics is thriving and intends to offer advice that can be used by practitioners to improve the practice of ethics management. However, three barriers prevent this research from generating genuinely useful advice. It does not sufficiently focus on interventions that can be directly designed by management. The typical research designs used in behavioral ethics research require such a reduction of complexity that the resulting findings are not very useful for practitioners. Worse still, attempts to make behavioral ethics (...) research more useful by formulating simple recommendations are potentially very damaging. In response to these limitations, this article proposes to complement the current behavioral ethics research agenda that takes an ‘explanatory science’ approach with a research agenda that uses a ‘design science’ approach. Proposed by Joan van Aken and building on earlier work by Herbert Simon, this approach aims to develop field-tested ‘design propositions’ that present often complex but useful recommendations for practitioners. Using a ‘CIMO-logic’, these propositions specify how an ‘intervention’ can generate very different ‘outcomes’ through various ‘mechanisms’, depending on the ‘context’. An illustration and a discussion of the contours of this new research agenda for ethics management demonstrate its advantages as well as its feasibility. The article concludes with a reflection on the feasibility of embracing complexity without drowning in a sea of complicated contingencies and without being paralyzed by the awareness that all interventions can have both desirable and undesirable effects. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Refutation systems are formal systems for inferring the falsity of formulae. These systems can, in particular, be used to syntactically characterise logics. In this paper, we explore the close connection between refutation systems and admissible rules. We develop technical machinery to construct refutation systems, employing techniques from the study of admissible rules. Concretely, we provide a refutation system for the intermediate logics of bounded branching, known as the Gabbay–de Jongh logics. We show that this gives a characterisation of these logics (...) in terms of their admissible rules. To illustrate the technique, we also provide a refutation system for Medvedev’s logic. (shrink)

The meta-ethical commitments of folk respondents – specifically their commitment to the objectivity of moral claims – have recently become subject to empirical scrutiny. Experimental findings suggest that people are meta-ethical pluralists: There is both inter- and intrapersonal variation with regard to people’s objectivist commitments. What meta-ethical implications, if any, do these findings have? I point out that current research does not directly address traditional meta-ethical questions: The methods used and distinctions drawn by experimenters do not perfectly match those of (...) meta-ethicists. However, I go on to argue that, in spite of this mismatch, the research findings should be of interest to moral philosophers, including meta-ethicists. Not only do these findings extend the field of moral psychology with new data and hypotheses, but they also provide tentative evidence that touches on the adequacy of theses in moral semantics and moral metaphysics. Specifically, they put pressure on argum... (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 79-81.

In a recent paper on realism and pragmatism published in this journal, Osmo Kivinen and Tero Piiroinen have been pleading for more methodological work in the philosophy of the social sciences—refining the conceptual tools of social scientists—and less philosophically ontological theories. Following this de-ontologizing approach, we scrutinize the debates on social explanation and contribute to the development of a pragmatic social science methodology. Analyzing four classic debates concerning explanation in the social sciences, we propose to shift the debate away from (...) (a) the ontologizing defenses of forms of social explanation, and (b) a winner-takes-all-approach. Instead, we advocate (c) a pragmatic approach towards social explanation, elaborating a rigorous framework for explanatory pluralism detached from the debates on social ontology. (shrink)

In the present version of these lecture notes only a number of typos and a few glaring mistakes have been corrected. Thanks to Paul Dekker for his help in this respect. No attempt has been been made to update the original text or to incorporate new insights and approaches. For a more recent overview, see our ‘Questions’ in the Handbook of Logic and Language (edited by Johan van Benthem and Alice ter Meulen, Elsevier, 1997).

Spacing between study trials of an item increases the probability that item will be recalled. This article presents a new model for spacing based on the SAM theory of memory developed by Raaijmakers and Shiffrin (1980, 1981). The model is a generalization of the SAM model as applied to interference paradigms (Mensink & Raaijmakers, 1988, 1989) and may be viewed as a mathematical version of the Component‐Levels theory proposed by Glenberg (1979). It is assumed that on a second presentation of (...) an item, information is added to an existing trace if the episodic memory image corresponding to that item is retrieved. If it is not retrieved, a new image is stored. It is shown that the model predicts many standard findings including the lack of a spacing effect for the recall of at least one of two items each presented once (Ross & Landauer, 1978). (shrink)

When the likelihood ratio approach is employed for evidential reasoning in law, it is often necessary to employ subjective probabilities, which are probabilities derived from the opinions and judgement of a human. At least three concerns arise from the use of subjective probabilities in legal applications. Firstly, human beliefs concerning probabilities can be vague, ambiguous and inaccurate. Secondly, the impact of this vagueness, ambiguity and inaccuracy on the outcome of a probabilistic analysis is not necessarily fully understood. Thirdly, the provenance (...) of subjective probabilities and the associated potential sources of vagueness, ambiguity and inaccuracy tend to be poorly understood, making it difficult for the outcome of probabilistic reasoning to be explained and validated, which is crucial in legal applications. The former two concerns have been addressed by a wide body of research in AI. The latter, however, has received little attention. This paper presents a novel approach to employ argumentation to reason about probability distributions in probabilistic models. It introduces a range of argumentation schemes and corresponding sets of critical questions for the construction and validation of argument models that define sets of probability distributions. By means of an extended example, the paper demonstrates how the approach, argumentation schemes and critical questions can be employed for the development of models and their validation in legal applications of the likelihood ratio approach to evidential reasoning. (shrink)

Semantic Automata Johan van Ben them. INTRODUCTION An attractive, but never very central idea in modern semantics has been to regard linguistic expressions ...

Philosophers of technology have identified various mechanisms through which technology can change moral norms, values, beliefs and practices. Danaher and Sætra ( 2023 ) offer a useful systematization of these mechanisms, with no claim to being exhaustive. We contribute to their work by analyzing how the mediating role of moral concepts fits into this scheme. First, we point out that concepts mediate the moral effects of technological changes, a process we call conceptual mediation. We illustrate this with the concepts of (...) ‘brain death’ and ‘reproductive autonomy’, whose moral implications crystallized in the interplay with new medical technologies. Subsequently, we argue that conceptual mediation is best understood as a type of second-order mediation, which channels the moral implications of the first-order technological mediations identified by Danaher and Sætra (decisional, relational, perceptual). We conclude that second-order mediation plays a central and underappreciated role in processes of technomoral change. (shrink)

Some philosophers say that a whole is “nothing over and above” its parts. Most also take general extensilonal mereology to be treating wholes as “nothing over and above” their parts. It is not always clear, however, what exactly is meant by the phrase “nothing over and above.” Nor is it obvious why the phrase is associated with mereology, and what purpose it serves there. In the words of Peter Van Inwagen : “This slippery phrase has had a lot of employment (...) in philosophy, but what it means is never explained by its employers.” This paper sheds light on the various senses in which one might hold that a whole is “nothing over and above” its parts, and on how these senses are related both to each other and to mereology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically explore whether crowdsourced Big Data enables an inclusive humanitarian response at times of crisis. We argue that all data, including Big Data, are socially constructed artefacts that reflect the contexts and processes of their creation. To support our argument, we qualitatively analysed the process of ‘Big Data making’ that occurred by way of crowdsourcing through open data platforms, in the context of two specific humanitarian crises, namely the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and (...) the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. We show that the process of creating Big Data from local and global sources of knowledge entails the transformation of information as it moves from one distinct group of contributors to the next. The implication of this transformation is that locally based, affected people and often the original ‘crowd’ are excluded from the information flow, and from the interpretation process of crowdsourced crisis knowledge, as used by formal responding organizations, and are marginalized in their ability to benefit from Big Data in support of their own means. Our paper contributes a critical perspective to the debate on participatory Big Data, by explaining the process of in and exclusion during data making, towards more responsive humanitarian relief. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to this journal Paolo Gerbaudo has argued that an ‘elective affinity’ exists between social media and populism. The present article expands on Gerbaudo’s argument and examines various dimensions of this affinity in further detail. It argues that it is helpful to conceptually reframe the proposed affinity in terms of affordances. Four affordances are identified which make the social media ecology relatively favourable to both-right as well as left-wing populism, compared to the pre-social media ecology. These affordances (...) are neither stable nor uniquely fixed: they change in concordance with ongoing technological developments and in response to political events. Even though these dynamics can be quick-moving, a fairly stable alliance of interests between social media and populism seems to have emerged over the last decade. This raises the plausibility that as long as the current social media ecology persists, populist tendencies will remain prevalent in politics. (shrink)

Recent pleas for more heterodoxy in explaining economic action have been defending a pluralism for economics. In this article, I analyse these defences by scrutinizing the pluralistic qualities in the work of one of the major voices of heterodoxy, Tony Lawson. This scrutiny will focus on Lawson's alternatives concerning ontology and explanation to mainstream economics. Subsequently, I will raise some doubts about Lawson's pluralism, and identify questions that will have to be addressed by heterodox economists in order to maintain the (...) claim of pluralism. (shrink)

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In their target article, O'Regan & Noë (O&N) give convincing arguments for there being no elaborate internal representation of the outside world. We show two more categories of empirical results that can easily be understood within the view that the world serves as an outside memory that is probed only when specific information is needed.