Scientific reasoning is—and ought to be—conducted in accordance with the axioms of probability. This Bayesian view—so called because of the central role it accords to a theorem first proved by Thomas Bayes in the late eighteenth ...

Bacon's scientific method is commonly thought to proceed mechanically to its infallible end. In this book however, Urbach presents Bacon's philosophy in an alternative light which acquits him of several errors. Urbach describes Bacon as an experimental scientist and examines the criticisms made against him, one of which was that he did not understand the roles of mathematics and science. Bacon was not a traditional metaphysician and was alarmed at the lack of progress in science since ancient times, (...) especially the lack of practical results. He attempted to open up a middle path between practical experience and unsupported theorizing. The author intends to clarify rather than defend Bacon's work. (shrink)

The starting point of this conversation with philosopher Mathieu Triclot is the issue of the causal contribution of video game playing in school shootings. Triclot explains the limitations of current psychological approaches regarding video game violence. He further develops on the peculiar features of the video game medium and how they relate to the problem of violence. Triclot eventually shows that, although players may relate to virtual violence in very different ways, violence in video games is not merely a (...) subjective phenomenon. He highlights that some “regimes of experience,” which got stable in the video game culture, cultivate a toxic relation to violence. (shrink)

Mayo (1987) sought to discredit Urbach's (1985) arguments against randomization as a universal requirement in clinical and agricultural trials. The present reply rebuts Mayo's criticisms.

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, (...) Number 3. (shrink)

In clinical and agricultural trials, there is the danger that an experimental outcome appears to arise from the causal process or treatment one is interested in when, in reality, it was produced by some extraneous variation in the experimental conditions. The remedy prescribed by classical statisticians involves the procedure of randomization, whose effectiveness and appropriateness is criticized. An alternative, Bayesian analysis of experimental design, is shown, on the other hand, to provide a coherent and intuitively satisfactory solution to the problem.

In fungi, cell fusion between genetically unlike individuals triggers a cell death reaction known as the incompatibility reaction. In Podospora anserina, the genes controlling this process belong to a gene family encoding STAND proteins with an N‐terminal cell death effector domain, a central NACHT domain and a C‐terminal WD‐repeat domain. These incompatibility genes are extremely polymorphic, subject to positive Darwinian selection and display a remarkable genetic plasticity allowing for constant diversification of the WD‐repeat domain responsible for recognition of non‐self. Remarkably, (...) the architecture of these proteins is related to pathogen‐recognition receptors ensuring innate immunity in plants and animals. Here, we hypothesize that these P. anserina incompatibility genes could be components of a yet‐unidentified innate immune system of fungi. As already proposed in the case of plant hybrid necrosis or graft rejection in mammals, incompatibility could be a by‐product of pathogen‐driven divergence in host defense genes. (shrink)

A Polish space is not always homeomorphic to a computably presented Polish space. In this article, we examine degrees of non-computability of presenting homeomorphic copies of compact Polish spaces. We show that there exists a $\mathbf {0}'$ -computable low $_3$ compact Polish space which is not homeomorphic to a computable one, and that, for any natural number $n\geq 2$, there exists a Polish space $X_n$ such that exactly the high $_{n}$ -degrees are required to present the homeomorphism type of $X_n$. (...) Along the way we investigate the computable aspects of Čech homology groups. We also show that no compact Polish space has a least presentation with respect to Turing reducibility. (shrink)

Many engineering ethics classes and textbooks introduce theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism (and most others draw from these theories without mentioning them explicitly). Yet using ethical theories to teach engineering ethics is not devoid of difficulty. First, their status is unclear (should one pick a single theory or use them all? does it make a difference?) Also, textbooks generally assume or fallaciously ‘prove’ that egoism (or even simply accounting for one’s interests) is wrong. Further, the drawbacks of ethical theories (...) are underestimated and the theories are also otherwise misrepresented to make them more suitable for engineering ethics as the authors construe it, viz. the ‘moral reasoning’ process. Stating in what various theories disagree would allow the students to frame the problem more productively in terms of motive–consequence or society–individual dichotomies rather than in terms of Kant–utilitarian. (shrink)

We present a formal argumentation system for dealing with the detachment of prioritized conditional obligations and permissions. In the presence of facts and constraints, we answer the question whether an unconditional obligation or permission is detachable by considering arguments for and against its detachment. For the evaluation of arguments in favour of detachment, we use a Dung-style argumentation-theoretical semantics. We illustrate how violations and contrary-to-duty scenarios are dealt with in our framework and pay special attention to conflict-resolution via priorities.

Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2009-08-31 12:18:30.156.

This pioneering book demonstrates the crucial importance of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics to his philosophy as a whole. Marion traces the development of Wittgenstein's thinking in the context of the mathematical and philosophical work of the times, to make coherent sense of ideas that have too often been misunderstood because they have been presented in a disjointed and incomplete way. In particular, he illuminates the work of the neglected 'transitional period' between the Tractatus and the Investigations.

Que serait une exposition qui, au lieu de prendre place dans un musée ou dans une galerie, prendrait place au cinéma? (un projet de Mathieu Copeland, avec Chantal Akerman, Peter Downsbrough, Liam Gillick, John Giorno, Philippe Grandrieux, Isidore Isou, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Meredith Monk, Lee Ranaldo, Susan Stenger, Alan Vega, Jacques Villeglé, Lawrence Weiner, Apichatpong Weerasethakul...).

Prominent ethical and policy issues such as affirmative action and female enrollment in science and engineering revolve around the idea that diversity is good. However, a precise definition is seldom provided. I show that diversity may be construed as a factual description, a craving for symmetry, an intrinsic good, an instrumental good, a symptom, or a side effect. These acceptions differ vastly in their nature and properties. Some are deeply mistaken and some others cannot lead to concrete policies. It is (...) thus necessary to clarify what one means by ‘diversity.’ It may be a neutral description of a given state; but this is insufficient to act. The idea that there should be the same representation in a specific context as in the overall population is both puzzling and arbitrary. Diversity as intrinsic good is a mere opinion, which cannot be concretely applied; moreover, the most commonly invoked forms of diversity are not intrinsically good. On the other hand, diversity as instrumental good can be evaluated empirically and can give rise to policies, but these may be very weak. Finally, symptoms and side effects are not actually about diversity. I consider the example of female enrollment in science and engineering, interpreting the various arguments found in the literature in light of this polysemy. (shrink)

Peter Urbach; X*—Random Sampling and the Principles of Estimation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 143–164, http.

High-fidelity cultural transmission, rather than brute intelligence, is the secret of our species’ success, or so many cultural evolutionists claim. It has been selected because it ensures the spread, stability and longevity of beneficial cultural traditions, and it supports cumulative cultural change. To play these roles, however, fidelity must be a causally-efficient property of cultural transmission. This is where the grain problem comes in and challenges the explanatory potency of fidelity. Assessing the degree of fidelity of any episode or mechanism (...) of cultural transmission always depends upon an investigator’s choice of grain of description at which cultural traditions are being studied. The fidelity of cultural transmission then appears to be relative to the granularity at which one approaches cultural variation, and since there is a multiplicity of grains of description by which the same tradition can be studied, there results a multiplicity of measures of fidelity for a same event or mechanism of cultural transmission. If this is correct, because fidelity is always relative to the grain of description dictated by the local and specific research interests of the investigator, then there seems to be no fact of the matter as to whether cultural transmission is faithful or not, independently from a researcher’s framework of analysis. The aims of this paper are to offer a conceptual clarification of the grain problem in cultural evolution, to assess its causes, to unpack its epistemological implications, and to examine its reach and consequences for a science of cultural evolution. (shrink)

La base de données orales de français de Suisse romande (OFROM) contient des transcriptions d’enregistrements auxquels ont participé des locuteurs nés et vivant en Suisse. Elle a été créée par des linguistes soucieux de documenter les usages oraux du français en Suisse romande, et de combler ainsi le retard dans la description des usages oraux de la langue parlée dans cette partie de la francophonie, notamment sur le plan du lexique, de la syntaxe et de la phonologie. La base de (...) données OFROM a été mise en ligne en décembre 2012 ; elle est encore jeune et d’ampleur modeste (65 heures de parole pour près de 410 000 mots transcrits, au moment où nous écrivons), mais il est prévu de l’enrichir et de la diversifier régulièrement au cours des années à venir. La première partie de cet article présente les principes fondamentaux qui ont guidé la constitution de la base (choix des locuteurs, des supports et conventions de transcription, annotations, etc.). La seconde partie contient les résultats obtenus à l’issue d’études en cours ou de sondages prospectifs, portant sur la variation lexicale et la variation syntaxique. Ils permettront d’illustrer quelques-unes des potentialités qu’offrent la base et son moteur de recherche. (shrink)

This article focuses on defective conditionals ? namely indicative conditionals whose antecedents are false and whose truth-values therefore cannot be determined. The problem is to decide which formal connective can adequately represent this usage. Classical logic renders defective conditionals true whereas traditional mathematics dismisses them as irrelevant. This difference in treatment entails that, at the propositional level, classical logic validates some sentences that are intuitively false in plane geometry. With two proofs, I show that the same flaw is shared by (...) a family of trivalent logics. I go on to examine the strict conditional and its derivatives. This family is the only one to avoid the faulty inference but it does so without addressing the status of the truth-value assigned to defective conditionals. (shrink)

What may we learn about the life of human beings with Evolutionary Biology? In order to answer this question, without taking a distrustful stance, I think that Daniel Dennett’s evolutionary cognitivism and Foucault s archaeological approach are not unreconciliable but complementary traditions. Indeed, Derrnett’s originality, thanks to his interpretation of the Baldwin Effect and his thesis of Self as a Narrative Center of Gravity, manages to present the human being’s world as the living fulfilment of a set of historical products, (...) without giving up the properly creative dimension of the individual . In this way, devices of domination and processes of « subjectivisation » belong to the broader transfornzative process of the evolution of life on Earth. In return, Dennett s philosophy, rightfully careful when it comes to political questions, should be complemented by a critical analysis. (shrink)

An essay on whether or not we today are the 'heirs' of the materialist Enlightenment.

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 92 Heft: 2 Seiten: 332-366.