Objective Bayesianism is a methodological theory that is currently applied in statistics, philosophy, artificial intelligence, physics and other sciences. This book develops the formal and philosophical foundations of the theory, at a level accessible to a graduate student with some familiarity with mathematical notation.

Bayesian nets are widely used in artificial intelligence as a calculus for causal reasoning, enabling machines to make predictions, perform diagnoses, take decisions and even to discover causal relationships. This book, aimed at researchers and graduate students in computer science, mathematics and philosophy, brings together two important research topics: how to automate reasoning in artificial intelligence, and the nature of causality and probability in philosophy.

How does vagueness interact with metaphysical modality and with restrictions of it, such as nomological modality? In particular, how do definiteness, necessity (understood as restricted in some way or not), and actuality interact? This paper proposes a model-theoretic framework for investigating the logic and semantics of that interaction. The framework is put forward in an ecumenical spirit: it is intended to be applicable to all theories of vagueness that express vagueness using a definiteness (or: determinacy) operator. We will show how (...) epistemicists, supervaluationists, and theorists of metaphysical vagueness like Barnes and Williams (2010) can interpret the framework.  We will also present a complete axiomatization of the logic we recommend to both epistemicists and local supervaluationists. . (shrink)

Could φ’s partially grounding ψ itself be a partial ground for ψ? I show that it follows from commonly accepted principles in the logic of ground that this sometimes happens. It also follows from commonly accepted principles that this never happens. I show that this inconsistency turns on different principles than the puzzles of ground already discussed in the literature, and I propose a way of resolving the inconsistency.

Practical reasoning requires decision—making in the face of uncertainty. Xenelda has just left to go to work when she hears a burglar alarm. She doesn’t know whether it is hers but remembers that she left a window slightly open. Should she be worried? Her house may not be being burgled, since the wind or a power cut may have set the burglar alarm off, and even if it isn’t her alarm sounding she might conceivably be being burgled. Thus Xenelda can (...) not be certain that her house is being burgled, and the decision that she takes must be based on her degree of certainty, together with the possible outcomes of that decision. (shrink)

This paper examines a number of questions about the degree to which the clinical practice of medicine is affected, if at all, by the legal systems in four countries: Chile, Germany, Japan and the United States. The focus on these four countries in four different regions of the world offers a unique perspective within which to examine medical treatment decisions made by patients and their proxies or surrogates, the potential role for universal written instruments such as advance directives, the cross-professional (...) tensions between clinical and legal concerns in very distinct cultures, and the degree to which legal activities can change or affect clinical realities in the context of these different political and health care systems. We have incorporated, whenever relevant, the insights of many disciplines, including the social sciences, in analyzing the existing interrelations between law and behavior in this specific context. Der Beitrag untersucht, inwieweit die klinische Praxis in vier Ländern mit unterschiedlichen Rechtssystemen und Berufskulturen durch Rechtsnormen oder das Verständnis von Recht beeinflußt wird. Es wird gefragt, welche Funktion rechtliche Interventionen bei der Veränderung von Verhaltensnormen in unterschiedlichen Gesundheitssystemen haben können. Folgende Themenbereiche werden diskutiert: Entscheidungen über die medizinische Behandlung, die von Patienten und ihren Angehörigen oder Stellvertretern getroffen werden; die mögliche Rolle umfassender schriftlicher Verfügungen wie z.B. der Patiententestamente ; die berufsübergreifenden Spannungen zwischen medizinischen und rechtlichen Belangen in sehr unterschiedlichen Kulturen; der Einfluß, den gesetzgeberische Aktivitäten im Kontext der verschiedenen politischen und Gesundheitssysteme auf die medizinische Wirklichkeit haben. Bei ihrer Analyse der in diesem Zusammenhang bestehenden Beziehungen im Verhältnis von Recht und Verhalten haben die Autoren die Erkenntnisse vieler Disziplinen unter Einschluß der Sozialwissenschaften, soweit sie als relevant erscheinen, in ihren Beitrag eingearbeitet. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview of the major interpretations of probability followed by an outline of the objective Bayesian interpretation and a discussion of the key challenges it faces. I discuss the ramifications of interpretations of probability and objective Bayesianism for the philosophy of mathematics in general.

A philosophy of nursing is to express our considered opinion on what we believe to be true about the nature of the profession of nursing and provide a basis for nursing activities. It affirms the ethical values that we hold as fundamental to our practice. For many of us in nursing, our philosophy derives from Nightingale and phenomenology. We believe Nightingale and phenomenology are uniquely placed within nursing philosophies, to assist the nurse to understand the use of music within a (...) holistic, caring‐healing paradigm, as nursing continues to adapt and evolve in the 21st century. This article proposes that both Nightingale's environmental philosophy and phenomenology are excellent intellectual and practice frameworks for nurses to consider music‐based interventions for older adults who experience dementia. The potential outcome is an enhanced understanding of the well‐being of this vulnerable group of older persons. (shrink)

No articulation of `historical thinking' has been as influential as Sam Wineburg's position, according to which historical thinking is, fundamentally, the recognition of the ways in which the past is different than the present. Wineburg argues, further, that achieving that state is `unnatural.' This paper critiques both of these claims, arguing instead that we should replace a generic conception of historical thinking with one that is much more rooted in the specific practice of the discipline. It is surely necessary for (...) students to learn this practice, but it is not unnatural. Instead, learning to think historically is learning to speak the language of the discipline that we call ‘history.’. (shrink)

In biology and philosophy of biology, discussing the notion of interaction leads to an examination of interactionism, which is, broadly speaking, the view that rejects gene-centrism and gene determinism and instead emphasizes the fact that traits of organisms are always the result of genes and environments. It has long been asserted that the nature-nurture problem requires an interactionist solution of sorts, the so-called interactionist consensus. This consensus, however, has been deemed insufficient and challenged by several authors triggering an extension of (...) the debate among contestants and defenders. Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the views on causation that would ground claims about interactionism are not always made explicit in this debate, which renders those views somewhat complicated to assess. Moreover, it seems to be assumed that causal complexity excludes the possibility of characterizing, distinguishing, or comparing among causal contributions. By turning to a detailed survey of the origin of the debate and to some developments in the philosophy of causation, we will contend that this view is unwarranted, and that much of the debate around interactionism is based on the drawing of this conclusion. We also examine implications of this analysis for the project to develop a framework based on the notion of inter-identities. (shrink)

Carruthers presents evidence concerning the cross-modular integration of information in human subjects which appears to support the “cognitive conception of language.” According to this conception, language is not just a means of communication, but also a representational medium of thought. However, Carruthers overlooks the possibility that language, in both its communicative and cognitive roles, is a nonrepresentational system of conventional signals – that words are not a medium we think in, but a tool we think with. The evidence he cites (...) is equivocal when it comes to choosing between the cognitive conception and this radical communicative conception of language. (shrink)

© 2003 by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

From the one-room chapel in a prairie town to the grandiose cathedral on a city street, churches stand at the heart of the Minnesota landscape.

This chapter addresses two questions: what are causal relationships? how can one discover causal relationships? I provide a survey of the principal answers given to these questions, followed by an introduction to my own view, epistemic causality, and then a comparison of epistemic causality with accounts provided by Judea Pearl and Huw Price.

In “Proof-Theoretic Justification of Logic”, building on work by Dummett and Prawitz, I show how to construct use-based meaning-theories for the logical constants. The assertability-conditional meaning-theory takes the meaning of the logical constants to be given by their introduction rules; the consequence-conditional meaning-theory takes the meaning of the logical constants to be given by their elimination rules. I then consider the question: given a set of introduction rules \, what are the strongest elimination rules that are validated by an assertability (...) conditional meaning-theory based on \? I prove that the intuitionistic introduction rules are the strongest rules that are validated by the intuitionistic elimination rules. I then prove that intuitionistic logic is the strongest logic that can be given either an assertability-conditional or consequence-conditional meaning-theory. In “Grounding Grounding” I discuss the notion of grounding. My discussion revolves around the problem of iterated grounding-claims. Suppose that \ grounds \; what grounds that \ grounds that \? I argue that unless we can get a satisfactory answer to this question the notion of grounding will be useless. I discuss and reject some proposed accounts of iterated grounding claims. I then develop a new way of expressing grounding, propose an account of iterated grounding-claims and show how we can develop logics for grounding. In “Is the Vagueness Argument Valid?” I argue that the Vagueness Argument in favor of unrestricted composition isn’t valid. However, if the premisses of the argument are true and the conclusion false, mereological facts fail to supervene on non-mereological facts. I argue that this failure of supervenience is an artifact of the interplay between the necessity and determinacy operators and that it does not mean that mereological facts fail to depend on non-mereological facts. I sketch a deflationary view of ontology to establish this. (shrink)

Hesiod: Kierkegaard and the Greek Gods -- Homer: Kierkegaard's Use of the Homeric Poems -- Plutarch: A Constant Cultural Reference -- Sophocles: The Tragic of Kierkegaard's Modern Antigone -- Index of Persons -- Index of Subjects.

The VIDAS data set presents data from 200 participants from different countries and language backgrounds. They completed an oral expression and interaction test in the context of a Spanish certification exam for adult migrants. The aim of the VIDAS data set is to provide researchers in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition with a Spanish spoken corpus of traditionally marginalized and underrepresented learners, providing a compelling data set of oral interactions by migrants and refugees. The corpus contains more than 29 h (...) of recordings of the oral interactions of the participants with trained interviewers, as well as background information about the participants. It furthermore contains the scores obtained by the participants in the oral expression and interaction exam. The VIDAS corpus allows for the development of studies on L2 spoken language comprehension and processing, as well as for comparative analyses of language acquisition between different L1 groups at different linguistic levels. (shrink)

The relationship between machine learning and the philosophy of science can be classed as a dynamic interaction: a mutually beneficial connection between two autonomous fields that changes direction over time. I discuss the nature of this interaction and give a case study highlighting interactions between research on Bayesian networks in machine learning and research on causality and probability in the philosophy of science.

The aim of this article is to discuss how the increasing social control of violence and aggression, which characterized the period from the Archaic to the Classical Age in ancient Greece, can be explained as an Eliasian civilizing process. Particularly crucial for this development is the question of how the city-state’s distinctive urban-political structures were the locus of this civilizing process. Accordingly, it is argued that not only are Elias’s key concepts analytically relevant to the ancient Greek civilizing process, but (...) also that they are to be reassessed in the light of the ancient Greek city-state culture. Thus, by the advancing of the argument that the civilizing process is not a uniquely western phenomenon, which occurred in western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century, the analytical relevance of Elias is re-evaluated and augmented. (shrink)

Scientific and ethical misconduct has increased at an alarming rate as a result of the privatization of knowledge. What began as an effort to stimulate entrepreneurship and increase discovery in biomedical research by strengthening the ties between industry and academics has led to an erosion of confidence in the reporting of research results. Inherent tensions between profit-directed inquiry and knowledge-directed inquiry are instantiated in psychopharmacology, especially in the co-option of academic activity to corporate objectives. The effects of these tensions are (...) visible in research agendas, publication practices, postgraduate education, academic-industry partnerships and product promotion. (shrink)

The need for a coherent answer to this question has become increasingly urgent in the past few years, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence. There, both logical and probabilistic techniques are routinely applied in an attempt to solve complex problems such as parsing natural language and determining the way proteins fold. The hope is that some combination of logic and probability will produce better solutions. After all, both natural language and protein molecules have some structure that admits logical representation (...) and reasoning; yet inherent uncertainties also demand the use of probabilistic methods: this structure is only partially known and does not in any case fully determine a solution—context or environment also play a role. (shrink)

Despite popular representations to the contrary, creative people are rarely insane. But creativity and madness may be connected in other ways; we find suggestions of schizotypy in the biographies of many artists, and schizophrenia and related conditions seem to be disproportionately represented in talented and creative families. There are attractions, therefore, in the idea that creativity depends on the controlled deployment of capacities that are uncontrolled in psychosis: an idea explored by psychoanalytically inclined writers such as Ernst Kris and Hanna (...) Segal. (shrink)

This note responds to some criticisms of my recent book In Defence of Objective Bayesianism that were provided by Gregory Wheeler in his ‘Objective Bayesian Calibration and the Problem of Non-convex Evidence’.