This qualitative study examined hospital nurses’ methods in handling meal and nutrition care during inpatient time, with an underlying focus on undernourished older adult. Observations and interviews were used to document nurses’ methods through the span of a transition (defined by an entry, passage, and exit). The study finds inconsistencies in care methods due to institutional processes restricting both mealtime care and nutritional logging of information throughout hospitalization. It is concluded that the consequences of these inconsistencies must be recognized and (...) that new approaches to meals and nutritional care should be introduced in order to provide greater flexibility. Based on the assumption that mobilizing patient resources is pivotal for meal and nutritional care, it is argued that it may be important to mobilize patient resources during mealtime and in nutritional logging of information in order to increase the visibility of meal and nutritional care in patient transitions within the institution and across settings. Both nurses’ methods and institutions developmental initiatives regarding meal and nutritional care need to accommodate the differences between what in this paper is defined as social‐bodily care and text‐based care. This could be met through care methods that take place with, more than for the patient. (shrink)

We analyse the connection between the computability and continuity of functions in the case of homomorphisms between topological algebraic structures. Inspired by the Pour-El and Richards equivalence theorem between computability and boundedness for closed linear operators on Banach spaces, we study the rather general situation of partial homomorphisms between metric partial universal algebras. First, we develop a set of basic notions and results that reveal some of the delicate algebraic, topological and effective properties of partial algebras. Our main computability concepts (...) are based on numerations and include those of effective metric partial algebras and effective partial homomorphisms. We prove a general equivalence theorem that includes a version of the Pour-El and Richards Theorem, and has other applications. Finally, the Pour-El and Richards axioms for computable sequence structures on Banach spaces are generalised to computable partial sequence structures on metric algebras, and we prove their equivalence with our computability model based on numerations. (shrink)

Previous studies of auditory expectation have focused on the expectedness perceived by listeners retrospectively in response to events. In contrast, this research examines predictive uncertainty —a property of listeners' prospective state of expectation prior to the onset of an event. We examine the information-theoretic concept of Shannon entropy as a model of predictive uncertainty in music cognition. This is motivated by the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, which proposes that schematic expectations reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory events learned implicitly through exposure. Using (...) probability estimates from an unsupervised, variable-order Markov model, 12 melodic contexts high in entropy and 12 melodic contexts low in entropy were selected from two musical repertoires differing in structural complexity (simple and complex). Musicians and non-musicians listened to the stimuli and provided explicit judgments of perceived uncertainty (explicit uncertainty). We also examined an indirect measure of uncertainty computed as the entropy of expectedness distributions obtained using a classical probe-tone paradigm where listeners rated the perceived expectedness of the final note in a melodic sequence (inferred uncertainty). Finally, we simulate listeners' perception of expectedness and uncertainty using computational models of auditory expectation. A detailed model comparison indicates which model parameters maximize fit to the data and how they compare to existing models in the literature. The results show that listeners experience greater uncertainty in high-entropy musical contexts than low-entropy contexts. This effect is particularly apparent for inferred uncertainty and is stronger in musicians than non-musicians. Consistent with the Statistical Learning Hypothesis, the results suggest that increased domain-relevant training is associated with an increasingly accurate cognitive model of probabilistic structure in music. (shrink)

Despite acknowledging that musicality evolved to serve multiple adaptive functions in human evolution, Savage et al. promote social bonding to an overarching super-function. Yet, no unifying neurobiological framework is offered. We propose that oxytocin constitutes a socio-allostatic agent whose modulation of sensing, learning, prediction, and behavioral responses with reference to the physical and social environment facilitates music's social bonding effects.

An algebra is effective if its operations are computable under some numbering. When are two numberings of an effective partial algebra equivalent? For example, the computable real numbers form an effective field and two effective numberings of the field of computable reals are equivalent if the limit operator is assumed to be computable in the numberings . To answer the question for effective algebras in general, we give a general method based on an algebraic analysis of approximations by elements of (...) a finitely generated subalgebra. Commonly, the computable elements of a topological partial algebra are derived from such a finitely generated algebra and form a countable effective partial algebra. We apply the general results about partial algebras to the recursive reals, ultrametric algebras constructed by inverse limits, and to metric algebras in general. © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. (shrink)

The period in the foundations of mathematics that started in 1879 with the publication of Frege's Begriffsschrift and ended in 1931 with Gödel's Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I can reasonably be called the classical period. It saw the development of three major foundational programmes: the logicism of Frege, Russell and Whitehead, the intuitionism of Brouwer, and Hilbert's formalist and proof-theoretic programme. In this period, there were also lively exchanges between the various schools culminating in (...) the famous Hilbert-Brouwer controversy in the 1920s. -/- The purpose of this anthology is to review the programmes in the foundations of mathematics from the classical period and to assess their possible relevance for contemporary philosophy of mathematics. What can we say, in retrospect, about the various foundational programmes of the classical period and the disputes that took place between them? To what extent do the classical programmes of logicism, intuitionism and formalism represent options that are still alive today? These questions are addressed in this volume by leading mathematical logicians and philosophers of mathematics. (shrink)

An organizing theme of the dissertation is the issue of how to make philosophical theories useful for scientific purposes. An argument for the contention is presented that it doesn’t suffice merely to theoretically motivate one’s theories, and make them compatible with existing data, but that philosophers having this aim should ideally contribute to identifying unique and hard to vary predictions of their theories. This methodological recommendation is applied to the ranking-theoretic approach to conditionals, which emphasizes the epistemic relevance and the (...) expression of reason relations as part of the semantics of the natural language conditional. As a first step, this approach is theoretically motivated in a comparative discussion of other alternatives in psychology of reasoning, like the suppositional theory of conditionals, and novel approaches to the problems of compositionality and accounting for the objective purport of indicative conditionals are presented. In a second step, a formal model is formulated, which allows us to derive quantitative predictions from the ranking-theoretic approach, and it is investigated which novel avenues of empirical research that this model opens up for. Finally, a treatment is given of the problem of logical omniscience as it concerns the issue of whether ranking theory (and other similar approaches) makes too idealized assumptions about rationality to allow for interesting applications in psychology of reasoning. Building on the work of Robert Brandom, a novel solution to this problem is presented, which both opens up for new perspectives in psychology of reasoning and appears to be capable of satisfying a range of constraints on bridge principles between logic and norms of reasoning, which would otherwise stand in a tension. (shrink)

Combining all four distinct volumes in the series, this compilation explores the philosophical reasons behind the existence of humanity. The first volume investigates the concept of relations, revealing that unique, complex relationships come into being simultaneously and exponentially through the combination of multiple elements. The second volume focuses on intellect, probing the most obscure corners of comprehension and conducting a fascinating tour of the human psyche. The third volume addresses volition, analyzing the extent to which human judgment, decisions, and actions (...) impact future prospects for mankind and deflect the course of nature. The fourth and final volume delves into affections, dispassionately highlighting the merits and shortcomings of man’s most ethereal faculties. (shrink)

Absolutism about mass within Newtonian gravity claims that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Comparativism denies this. Defenders of comparativism promise to recover all the empirical and theoretical virtues of absolutism, but at a lower ‘metaphysical cost’. This article develops a Machian form of comparativism about mass in Newtonian gravity, obtained by replacing Newton’s constant in the law of universal gravitation by another constant divided by the sum over all masses. Although this form of comparativism is indeed empirically (...) equivalent to the absolutist version of Newtonian gravity—thereby meeting the challenge posed by the comparativist’s bucket argument—it is argued that the explanatory power and metaphysical parsimony of comparativism are highly questionable. (shrink)

While there has been extensive work on the textual realizations of climate change in the media, there has been little on the way such discourses are realized and promoted visually. This article addresses this using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis to examine a new collection of images from the globally operating Getty Images intended for use in promotions, advertisements and editorials. Getty is promoting this collection in terms of Green Issues being a `marketing opportunity'. In this article we consider the results (...) of these issues being recontextualized through this process, where they are shaped to fit the culture of branding. Analysis is of the images and the search terms where Getty lay out what can be said with the images. (shrink)

Absolutism about mass claims that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Comparativism denies this. Dasgupta, Oxford studies in metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) argues for comparativism about mass, in the context of Newtonian Gravity. Such an argument requires proving that comparativism is empirically adequate. Dasgupta equates this to showing that absolute masses are undetectable, and attempts to do so. This paper develops an argument by Baker to the contrary: absolute masses are in fact empirically meaningful, that is (...) detectable. Additionally, it is argued that the requirement of empirical adequacy should not be cashed out in terms of undetectability in the first place. The paper closes by sketching the possible strategies that remain for the comparativist. Along the way a framework is developed that is useful for thinking about these issues: Ozma games—how could one explain to an alien civilisation what an absolute mass is? (shrink)

Comparativism—the view that mass ratios are not grounded in absolute masses—faces a challenge by Baker which suggests that absolute masses are empirically meaningful. Regularity comparativism uses a liberalized version of the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis Best Systems Account to have both the laws of Newtonian gravity and the absolute mass scale supervene on a comparativist Humean mosaic as a package deal. I discuss three objections to this view and conclude that it is untenable. The most severe problem is that once we have reduced (...) away the absolute masses, there is nothing that stops us from also reducing the mass ratios. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Sven Danielsson argued that the ‘original paradoxes' of deontic logic, in particular Ross's paradox and Prior's paradox of derived obligation, can be solved by restricting the modal inheritance rule. I argue that this does not solve the paradoxes.

In this paper it is argued that physicians’ restrictive attitudes in offering abortions during 1946–1965 in Sweden were due to their private values. The values, however, were rarely presented openly. Instead physicians’ values influenced their assessment of the facts presented—that is, the women's’ trustworthiness. In this manner the physicians were able to conceal their private values and impede the women from getting what they wanted and needed. The practice was concealed from both patients and physicians and never publicly discussed. It (...) is also argued that a similar tacit practice could currently be applied by palliative care physicians. Such practice might allow palliative care physicians to be restrictive when offering sedation therapy without appearing paternalistic or declaring conscientious objections. However, the practice runs counter to patients’ right to participate in making decisions. The women seeking abortion began to oppose the situation and eventually a new abortion law was introduced 1975. Patients at the end of life will never be able to protest against palliative care physicians’ restrictive attitudes. This is a vulnerable and weak group, unable to lodge complaints after the treatment. In order to respect patients’ autonomy, even suffering patients at the end of their lives, it is suggested that physicians should openly declare their values when it comes to providing treatments that might shorten life. Such transparency might facilitate more genuine shared decision-making and accordingly less suboptimal end-of-life care. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the metaphysics of scale. It investigates the implications of a physical determinable being dimensionful. In particular, it considers the case study of mass, as it features within Newtonian Gravity. Nevertheless, most of the terminology, methodology and arguments developed should be relatively straightforwardly applicable to other determinables and theories. -/- Weak Absolutism about mass holds that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Weak Comparativism denies this. In the first five chapters I argue in favour of Weak (...) Absolutism over Weak Comparativism. The sixth chapter argues against reducing mass to other non-mass facts. The overall conclusion is Strong Absolutism about mass within Newtonian Gravity: mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses, which themselves are fundamental (i.e. they do not require anything further in order to obtain). -/- Comparativism promises to recover all the virtues of absolutism, in particular its empirical adequacy, but at a lower 'metaphysical cost'. Special attention is given to Dasgupta's recent comparativist proposal. Dasgupta interprets the requirement of empirical adequacy in terms of the undetectability of the absolute mass scale. I argue that undetectability is an unsuitable way of understanding empirical adequacy and that we would do better to understand it in terms of a theory's ability to correctly generate the set of empirically possible worlds (or at least the actual world). I refute Dasgupta's comparativism both on my terms and on his own terms. I subsequently develop and strongly criticise alternative versions of comparativism. Chapter five sheds doubt on the supposed 'metaphysical parsimony' of comparativism. -/- This debate should be of particular interest to readers who engage with the substantivalism-relationalism debate. These debates are much more entwined than previously acknowledged, which provides a significant source of mutual inspiration, although I do also draw out some important disanalogies. -/- . (shrink)

The debate concerning the ontological status of spacetime is standardly construed as a dilemma between substantivalism and relationalism. I argue that a trilemma is more appropriate, emergent spacetime theories being the third category. Traditional philosophical arguments do not distinguish between emergent spacetime and substantivalism. It is arguments from physics that suggest giving up substantivalism in favour of emergent spacetime theories. The remaining new dilemma is between emergent spacetime and relationalism. I provide a list of questions, which one should consider when (...) discussing emergent spacetime theories, and apply them to a quantum superfluid toy model of emergent spacetime. (shrink)

This book presents a new nominalistic philosophy of mathematics: semantic conventionalism. Its central thesis is that mathematics should be founded on the human ability to create language – and specifically, the ability to institute conventions for the truth conditions of sentences. This philosophical stance leads to an alternative way of practicing mathematics: instead of “building” objects out of sets, a mathematician should introduce new syntactical sentence types, together with their truth conditions, as he or she develops a theory. Semantic conventionalism (...) is justified first through criticism of Cantorian set theory, intuitionism, logicism, and predicativism; then on its own terms; and finally, exemplified by a detailed reconstruction of arithmetic and real analysis. Also included is a simple solution to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes that have traditionally been recognized as semantic. And since it is argued that mathematics is semantics, this solution also applies to Russell’s paradox and the other mathematical paradoxes of self-reference. In addition to philosophers who care about the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics or the paradoxes of self-reference, this book should appeal to mathematicians interested in alternative approaches. (shrink)

With regard to organ donation, Germany is an ‘opt-in’ country, which requires explicit consent from donors. The relatives are either asked to decide on behalf of the donors’ preferences, if these are unknown or if the potential donor has explicitly transferred the decision to them. At the core of this policy lies the sociocultural and moral premise of a rational, autonomous individual, whose rights require legal protection in order to guarantee a voluntary decision. In concrete transplantation practices, the family plays (...) an even more important role. Potential donors and their families decide while being embedded in relations, a point which does still not gain full recognition. This particular discrepancy between policy and practice creates conflicts, which remain taboos of academic inquiry and public discourse. Our analysis shows a plurality of the family’s role in the transplantation process, which reveals an inner tension of the organ donation system. This tension provokes epistemic opacity on the one hand and different collective strategies as responses to discursive exclusion on the other. In future deliberations about organ donation, it is important to create spaces for open discussion, but also practices of communicative engagement, which take care of the needs and emotions attached to taboos. (shrink)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

This book brings together an impressive group of leading scholars in the sciences of complexity, and a few workers on the interface of science and religion, to explore the wider implications of complexity studies. It includes an introduction to complexity studies and explores the concept of information in physics and biology and various philosophical and religious perspectives. Chapter authors include Paul Davies, Greg Chaitin, Charles Bennett, Werner Loewenstein, Paul Dembski, Ian Stewart, Stuart Kauffman, Harold Morowitz, Arthur Peacocke, and Niels (...) H. Gregersen. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the social herding phenomenon known as informational cascades, in which sequential inter-agent communication might lead to epistemic failures at group level, despite availability of information that should be sufficient to track the truth. We model an example of a cascade, and check the correctness of the individual reasoning of each agent involved, using two alternative logical settings: an existing probabilistic dynamic epistemic logic, and our own novel logic for counting evidence. Based on this analysis, we (...) conclude that cascades are not only likely to occur but are sometimes unavoidable by "rational" means: in some situations, the group’s inability to track the truth is the direct consequence of each agent’s rational attempt at individual truth-tracking. Moreover, our analysis shows that this is even so when rationality includes unbounded higher-order reasoning powers, as well as when it includes simpler, non-Bayesian forms of heuristic reasoning. (shrink)

A scientific paradigm typically embraces research norms and values, such as truth-seeking, critical thinking, disinterestedness, and good scientific practice. These values should prevent a paradigm from introducing defective assumptions. But sometimes, scientists who are also physicians develop clinical norms that are in conflict with the scientific enterprise. As an example of such a conflict, we have analyzed the genesis and development of the shaken baby syndrome paradigm. The point of departure of the analysis is a recently conducted systematic literature review, (...) which concluded that there is very low scientific evidence for the basic assumption held by Child Protection Teams: when certain signs are present the infant has been violently shaken. We suggest that such teams have developed more value-based than scientific-based criteria when classifying SBS cases. Further, we suggest that the teams are victims of “groupthink,” aggravating the difficulties in considering critics’ questioning the criteria established by the teams. (shrink)

Cognitive architectures are theories of cognition that try to capture the essential representations and mechanisms that underlie cognition. Research in cognitive architectures has gradually moved from a focus on the functional capabilities of architectures to the ability to model the details of human behavior, and, more recently, brain activity. Although there are many different architectures, they share many identical or similar mechanisms, permitting possible future convergence. In judging the quality of a particular cognitive model, it is pertinent to not just (...) judge its fit to the experimental data but also its simplicity and ability to make predictions. (shrink)

Ideals (or ideal values) help people to navigate in social life. They indicate at a very fundamental level what people are concerned about, what they strive for, and what they want to be affiliated with. Transferring this to a leader-follower analysis, our first study (n = 306) confirms that followers' identification and satisfaction with their leaders are stronger, the more leaders match followers' ideal leader values. Study 2 (n = 244) extends the perspective by introducing the novel concept of counterideals (...) (i. e., how an ideal leader should not be) as a second, non-redundant point of reference. Results confirm that a leader's match on ideal and on counter-ideal values have independent effects in that both explain unique variance in followers' identification and satisfaction with their leader. Study 3 (n = 136) replicates the previous results in an experimental scenario study and provides evidence for the proposed causal direction of the underlying process. We conclude that counter-ideal values might be an additional point of reference that people use to triangulate targets above and beyond ideal values and discuss the implications of our findings for value research and management. (shrink)

More than 20 years ago, Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel started the philosophical research program of Discourse Ethics. This led to a broad discussion about the correct justification and application of basic principles of Discourse Ethics, from which several comprehensive new conceptions emerged in recent years. The authors of this anthology discuss central problems of the previous designs in a constructive way, they carry out alternative designs and thus open up new perspectives for discourse ethics. Niels Gottschalk-Mazouz: Einleitung - (...) William Rehg: Discourse Ethics and Individual Conscience - Thomas Webler und Seth Tuler: Fairness an Competence in Citizen Participation: Theoretical Reflections from a Case Study - Nadia Mazouz: Das Gute Leben in der Diskursethik - Adela Cortina: Virtualitäten in einer erneuerten Diskursethik für die Bioethik - Micha H. Werner: Kants pflichtenethischer Rigorismus und die Diskursethik: Eine maximenethische Deutung des Anwendungsproblems - Niels Gottschalk-Mazouz: Diskursethik als kognitivistisches Rahmenkonzept - Konrad Ott: Noch einmal: Diskursethik - Hans Schelkshorn: Dialogische Vernunft und die Grundlagen interkultureller Ethik; Thesen zu einer Revision der Diskursethik - Matthias Kettner: Diskursethik: Moralische Verantwortung für diskursive Macht. (shrink)