Probability distributions play an essential role in modeling and predicting biomedical datasets. To have the best description and accurate prediction of the biomedical datasets, numerous probability distributions have been introduced and implemented. We investigate a novel family of lifetime probability distributions to represent biological datasets in this paper. The proposed family is called a new flexible logarithmic- X family. The suggested NFLog- X family is obtained by applying the T- X method together with the exponential model having the PDF m (...) t = e − t. Based on the NFLog- X approach, a three parameters probability distribution, namely, a new flexible logarithmic-Weibull distribution is introduced. The method of maximum likelihood estimation is adopted for estimating the parameters of the NFLog- X family. In the end, we examine three different biological datasets in order to give a thorough numerical research that illustrates the NFLog-Wei distribution. Comparisons are made between the analytical goodness-of-fit metrics of the suggested distribution. We made comparison with the alpha power transformed Weibull, exponentiated Weibull, Weibull, flexible reduced logarithmic-Weibull, and Marshall–Olkin Weibull distributions. After performing the analyses, we observe that the proposed method outclassed other competitive distributions. (shrink)

In this book the author treats art as an action performed by the artist as agent, rather than examining it from the point of view of its audience as ...

Professor Nicholas Rescher (1928-) is an unusually prolific philosopher who has published more than 175 books between 1960 and 2016.1 When I first came across his work I thought that it might be th...

This paper presses the programmatic idea that it is fruitful to think of genders as constituted by aesthetic rational social practices; in particular, that doing so can illuminate the relation between social role and self-identity. The first part of the paper describes rational social practices, and then interprets two social-role approaches to genders in light of that description. The interpretation places the two approaches in different domains of reason, one epistemic, one practical; this makes apparent the conceptual space for a (...) model of gender roles inhabiting the aesthetic domain. The second part of the paper articulates such a model, according to which the feminine and masculine roles in a social context consist in aesthetic constraints, enablements and norms. These depend on rational, social, human-centred aesthetic practices in which gender differentiation is essential. The third part of the paper demonstrates the utility of this model by using it to explore the relation between social role and self-identity; it argues that one identifies with a gender by actively participating in the very aesthetic practices that constitute it, and so generating reasons for self-valuation. Throughout, the point is not so much to defend the specific details of the suggested views, but more to show that the idea that aesthetic practices play a significant role in constituting gender merits serious consideration. (shrink)

According to recent orthodoxy, imagination is best characterised in terms of distinctive imaginative states. But this view is ill-suited to characterisation of the full range of imaginative activities—creation, fantasy, conceiving, and so on. It would be better to characterise imagination in terms of a distinctive imaginative process, with the various imaginative activities as more determinate implementations of the determinable process.

White opposes the long-standing view that ancient Greek ethics is fundamentally different from modern ethical views. He examines the ways in which Greek ethics has been interpreted since the 18th century, and traces the history in Greek ethical thought of the idea of conflict among human aims, in particular the conflict between conformity to ethical standards and one's own happiness.

Designing policy for climate change requires analyses which integrate the interrelationship between the economy and the environment. We argue that, despite their dominance in the economics literature and influence in public discussion and policymaking, the methodology employed by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) rests on flawed foundations, which become particularly relevant in relation to the realities of the immense risks and challenges of climate change, and the radical changes in our economies that a sound and effective response require. We identify a (...) set of critical methodological problems with the IAMs which limit their usefulness and discuss the analytic foundations of an alternative approach that is more capable of providing insights into how best to manage the transition to net-zero emissions. (shrink)

This book explores the core categories of communism and capital in conjunction with a wealth of contemporary and historical political concepts and movements - from the lumpenproletariat and anarchism, to Italian autonomia and Antonia Negri, immaterial labour and the refusal of work. Drawing on literary figures such as Kafka and Beckett, Deleuze, Marx and Politics develops a politics that breaks with the dominant frameworks of post-Marxism and one-dimensional models of resistance toward a concern with the inventions, styles and knowledges that (...) emerge through minority engagement with social flows and networks. (shrink)

AS SOME PHILOSOPHERS KNOW, the paradox about inquiry at 80d-e of Plato’s Meno is more than a tedious sophism. Plato is one such philosopher. The puzzle is an obstacle to his project of discovering definitions, and is introduced as such. And it is met with an elaborate response: the theory of recollection, explicitly presented as an answer to the obstacle. But then what of the famous conversation in which Socrates coaxes a geometrical theorem from a slave boy Is the theory (...) not designed to explain the boy’s ability to respond to the coaxing? It is, certainly, but that is not its only purpose. The structure of the passage is this: the theory is there to disarm the paradox, and the conversation is there to support the theory. To see this structure is to understand a notorious and otherwise troubling fact, that Plato is so very quick to take the slave’s behavior—which he might have tried to explain in some other way-to be clear evidence for recollection. The reason why he so takes it is that the paradox has led him to think that only if recollection occurs is fruitful inquiry possible—and he is very anxious indeed to be assured that it is possible. He would not have been so enticed by explanations of the boy’s behavior which did not also seem to him to dispose of the puzzle. Here now is Plato’s setting of the paradox. (shrink)

:This paper argues that capitalist social relations do not presuppose wage-labour. The paper defends a functional definition of the capitalist relations of production, in terms of what Marx calls the ’subsumption of labour by capital’. I argue that there are at least four modes of subsumption, one transitional to and one transitional from the capitalist mode of production. Unlike the capitalist mode of production, capitalist relations of production are compatible with the absence of a labour market, and even with the (...) absence of workplace authority relations. The ambit of capitalist domination is therefore broader than typically thought. (shrink)

In this article I review some of the more important developments in philosophy of the past fifty years with the aim of pointing out the contribution that the work of Alvin Plantinga has made to these developments. Along the way I also highlight the most important enduring themes in Plantinga’s work.

Philosophers of physics and physicists have long been intrigued by the analogies and disanalogies between gravitational theories and gauge theories. Indeed, repeated attempts to collapse these disanalogies have made us acutely aware that there are fairly general obstacles to doing so. Nonetheless, there is a special case space-time dimensions) in which gravity is often claimed to be identical to a gauge theory. I subject this claim to philosophical scrutiny in this article. In particular, I analyse how the standard disanalogies can (...) be overcome in dimensions, and consider whether really licenses the interpretation of gravity as a gauge theory. Our conceptual analysis reveals more subtle disanalogies between gravity and gauge, and connects these to interpretive issues in classical and quantum gravity. 1 Introduction1.1 Motivation1.2 Prospectus2 Disanalogies3 Three-dimensional gravity and gauge3.1 gravity3.2 Chern–Simons3.2.1 Cartan geometry3.2.2 Overcoming obst-gauge via Cartan connections3.3 Disanalogies collapsed4 Two More Disanalogies4.1 What about the symmetries?4.2 The phase spaces of the two theories5 Summary and Conclusion. (shrink)

The Revenge Problem threatens every approach to the semantic paradoxes that proceeds by introducing nonclassical semantic values. Given any such collection Δ of additional semantic values, one can construct a Revenge sentence:This sentence is either false or has a value in Δ.TheEmbracing Revengeview, developed independently by Roy T. Cook and Phlippe Schlenker, addresses this problem by suggesting that the class of nonclassical semantic values is indefinitely extensible, with each successive Revenge sentence introducing a new ‘pathological’ semantic value into the discourse. (...) The view is explicitly motivated in terms of the idea that every notion thatseemsto be expressible should, if at all possible,beexpressible. Extant work on the Embracing Revenge view has failed to live up to this promise, since the formal languages developed within such work are expressively impoverished. We rectify this here by developing a much richer formal language, and semantics for that language, and we then prove an extremely powerful expressive completeness result for the system in question. (shrink)

My aim in this essay is to understand why it is that we stomp on images of persons that we hate or dislike and kiss or light candles in front of images of persons that we love, honor, or admire. Far and away the most probing and intense discussion of the nature and significance of such actions was that which took place among the Byzantines in the so-called iconoclast controversy, from early in the eighth century until the middle of the (...) ninth century. The bulk of my essay consists of identifying and analyzing the arguments developed in this period for and against icon veneration. After concluding that the Byzantines did not succeed in developing a plausible account of what goes on in icon veneration, I offer my own account of what is going on when someone kisses an icon or stomps on a picture of her mother. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss an issue concerning how faith ought to be held. Traditionally there have been those who contended that faith should be held with full certainty, with great firmness. John Calvin is an example. John Locke offered both epistemological and pragmatic considerations in favor of the view that faith should be held with distinctly less than maximal firmness. He proposed a Principle of Proportionality. I assess the tenability of Locke’s proposal-while also suggesting that Calvin’s position is different (...) from whaton first reading it would appear to be. It is not straightforwardly in conflict with Locke’s position. (shrink)

Abstract:Many discussions in the philosophy of psychiatry hinge on, among other things, the concepts of disorders, the role of underlying mechanisms, and the merits of various diagnostic models. Yet, some such disputes rest on assumptions about vagueness in the sense of susceptibility to the Sorites paradox as opposed to mere uncertainty in clinical practice. Studying borderline cases of psychiatric conditions—those where it is indeterminate whether applying a diagnosis is appropriate—may shed light on broader debates about the nature and boundaries of (...) these conditions. In this article, I will argue that if psychiatric vagueness exists, then some instances of it stem at least partially from how we describe the world instead of the state of the world or what we know about it. In other words, vagueness in psychiatric terms and concepts is at least in part semantic and neither solely epistemic nor solely ontic. On this view, slight differences in how various linguistic communities apply diagnostic terms modify their referents, making their precise extension indeterminate. This implies that we can sometimes answer questions about diagnosis by settling disagreements about language, which may provide traction in debates about the philosophy of nosology and help inform psychiatric practice. (shrink)

In 1985, after nearly a decade of inconclusive professional response to public concern about misconduct in research, Congress passed legislation requiring action. Subsequent to this legislation, federal agencies and research universities adopted policies for responding to allegations of misconduct in research. Conferences, sessions at professional meetings, and special publications were organized. New educational initiatives were begun, many in response to a 1989 National Institutes of Health/ Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration requirement to include ethics instruction in training grants. (...) Notwithstanding a few key unresolved issues, such as the lack of a uniform federal definition of misconduct in research, the years since 1985 have witnessed a marked change in the professional response to misconduct in research. This paper evaluates the change since 1985 from the perspective of three key goals: 1) confronting misconduct, 2) promoting integrity and 3) ensuring integrity. While significant progress has been made in achieving the first two goals, the third remains largely unaddressed. The latter is due to the fact that researchers have not been interested in studying the integrity of their own profession. It is therefore suggested that studies are needed of routine or normal research practices and their impact on integrity for use in making decisions about research conduct policy. (shrink)

This article takes the suggestions by Jameson and Žižek that Hardt and Negri's recent Empire is an important `new theoretical synthesis' and a challenge to a politically complacent Cultural Studies as its starting point to explore Negri's understanding of `production'. It opens out Negri's apparent synthesis to consider the formative elements of his work: operaismo's `social factory', Marx's `Fragment on Machines' and Deleuze's figure of `control society'. The article argues that whilst Negri develops the important analytic categories of socialized and (...) affective labour, he breaks with operaismo's and Deleuze's `cramped' and `minor' interrogation of the intricacies of capitalized production to develop a problematic understanding of an emerging autonomy-in-production. In this Negri makes a strange return to the orthodox Marxian and - in an inverted way - neo-Gramscian positions which operaismo had sought to undermine; so making Empire less a synthesis of, than a break with some of the core theoretical principles of operaismo, Marx and Deleuze. (shrink)

In the letter of dedication addressed to the Right Honourable Earl of Findlatter and Seafield which accompanied his Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Thomas Reid remarked “that I never thought of calling in question the principles commonly received with regard to the human understanding, until the ‘Treatise of Human Nature’ was published in the year 1739. The ingenious author of that treatise upon the principles of Locke—who was no sceptic—hath built a system of scepticism, (...) which leaves no ground to believe any one thing rather than its contrary. His reasoning appeared to me to be just; there was, therefore, a necessity to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclusion.”. (shrink)

How may progressive political theorists advance the Enlightenment after Darwin shifted the conversation about human nature in the nineteenth century, the Holocaust displayed barbarity at the historical center of the Enlightenment, and 9/11 showed the need to modify the ideals and strategies of the Enlightenment? Kantian Courage considers how several figures in contemporary political theory--including John Rawls, Gilles Deleuze, and Tariq Ramadan--do just this as they continue Immanuel Kant's legacy.

After discussing the nature of toleration, giving a brief history of the emergence of religious toleration in the West, and presenting my understanding of religion, I develop what I call ‘the dignity argument’ for religious toleration: to fail to tolerate a person’s religion is to treat that person in a way that does not befit their dignity. And to treat them in a way that does not befit their dignity is to wrong them, to treat them unjustly.

A philosophical treatment of the idea of authority, this book is a dialogue between three characters. "Director," a philosopher, challenges the others to think through their ideas of authority, how it is established, how it works, and how it can be either subtle or bold.

Reid's theory of perception has long been cited as a paradigmatic example of direct realism; and the term “direct” undoubtedly carries the connotation that external objects are items in “the manifold of intuition.” There are important ways in which perception, on Reid's analysis, undoubtedly is immediate and direct. Nonetheless, this paper contends that, with the exception of his account of our perception of visible fi gure, Reid's theory is not an example of direct realism, if a condition of a theory (...) of percep- tion's being a direct realist theory is that it hold that perception yields acquaintance with external objects, so that those objects are present to consciousness. The defense given in Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology of the no-acquaintance interpretation of Reid's theory occurred in the context of a comprehensive account of Reid's theory of perception, and was accordingly brief. This essay places that interpretation in the center of attention so as to offer a more adequate defense, developing somewhat more fully the arguments briefly presented in the book, and adding some additional considerations. (shrink)

This article reassesses Suárez’s claim that real essences are intrinsically logically possible. (Henceforth, this claim is referred to as ‘ILP.’) Most scholars have understood ILP as asserting the independence of logical possibility from God’s power; on their view, it in fact asserts that real essences in themselves explain logical possibility. As a result, the claim is in tension with Suárez’s other thesis that real essences are nothing in themselves. Scholars have taken two main approaches to assessing this tension. Some, like (...) John Doyle and Norman Wells, argue that Suárez contradicts himself. There is no way for real essences both to be intrinsically logically possible and also to be nothing. More recently, however, scholars have jumped to Suárez’s defense. They argue that he avoids contradiction because they claim that he accepts some further radical thesis which allows him to remove the tension. But these scholars still accept the claim that ILP asserts that real essences explain logical possibility. This article contests this basic interpretation. I will argue that ILP is not a thesis about the explanation or ground of logical possibility. First, it abstracts from notions of actual existence; as a result, it cannot be a claim about ontological explanation. Second, in order to conceive of logical possibility, intellectual operation is necessary; thus, it is not the sort of property which can have an ontological explanation in the usual sense. Third and finally, insofar as logical possibility can be explained, Suárez turns out to explain it through God’s power. (shrink)

The Mahāvairocana sūtra was translated into Chinese by the Indian monk Śubhakarasiṃha 善無畏 (637–735) and the Chinese monk Yixing 一行 (683–727), and Yixing also composed an elaborate commentary based on the teachings of Śubhakarasiṃha. Their efforts to introduce to China this key source for esoteric Buddhist doctrine and ritual offer us a remarkable case study of Buddhological translation. The two translators respond with particular flair to the perennial challenge of translating any Buddhist scriptures, namely, how to deal with foreign terms (...) or phrases that might appear untranslatable. Looking at both the translation and commentary, we can observe how the two translators employed multiple strategies and frequently relied on commentary to clarify the multiple layers of meaning embedded in the source text. In particular, the polysemous Sanskrit word kalpa highlights the ingenuity of the two translators, as their interpretation of this term differs considerably from that implied in the Tibetan translation. Some of their specific choices in the translation had a substantial impact on the future of esoteric Buddhism in East Asia. (shrink)

One of the most puzzling things about Stoicism has always been its position concerning the so-called “indifferents”. Let me summarize it. The Stoics seem to hold that all states of affairs other than virtue are indifferent as to goodness. At the same time they seem to think that virtue is partially constituted by a propensity to choose certain such indifferent states of affairs. For they maintain that the end, which they identify with virtue and the sole good, is “to live (...) in agreement with nature”, in a sense that is taken to involve selecting things that are in accord with nature, even though these things, it seems, are indifferent. They make two seemingly evaluative distinctions within the class of indifferents, one between things that are “preferred” and things that are “dispreferred”, and another between “appropriate acts” and others. All of this is well known and uncontroversial. (shrink)

This article investigates the complex object of the political book. Mobilising Deleuze and Guattari's typology of the book, the article assesses the material properties of four specific books (or sets of books): Mao Zedong's ‘Little Red Book’, Russian Futurist books, Antonin Artaud's paper ‘spells’, and Guy Debord and Asger Jorn's ‘anti-book’ Mémoires. Highly critical of the dominant mode of the political book, what they call the ‘root-book’, Deleuze and Guattari draw attention to the troubling religious structures and passions that order (...) its field. Here the book internalises the world as the origin and source of truth and authority – a mode of existence as dear to the avant-garde as it is to religious formations: ‘Wagner, Mallarmé, and Joyce, Marx and Freud: still Bibles.’ But the book also features in Deleuze and Guattari's counter-figure of the ‘rhizome-book’, where they foreground the dynamic materiality of this medium: ‘A book has neither object nor subject; it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds.’ The rhizome-book is an enticing concept for assessing the political book, yet Deleuze and Guattari pay little attention to the specific, concrete attributes of this medium. In focusing on the properties of particular books this article seeks to address that absence, and so contribute to an understanding of the political book that is fully engaged with its material forms. (shrink)