Developed as the text for the basic computer architecture course at MIT, Computation Structures integrates a thorough coverage of digital logic design with a comprehensive presentation of computer architecture.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:207 THE CARELESS SKEPTIC THE 'PAMPHILIAN' IRONIES IN HUME'S DIALOGUES In "Hume and the Legacy of the Dialogues" E. C. Mossner sets out a widely accepted interpretation of one of Hume's major intentions in that great work. He argues that Hume's main use of irony therein is to dissimulate with respect to his true religious convictions. The purpose is to provide Hume with a defense against the expected negative (...) reaction to the powerful attack on religion mounted 2 in the Dialogues. The attack, as is well known, is set out in the arguments of Philo against natural and revealed religion as espoused by Cleanthes and Demea, and Philo's views are taken to be those of Hume. It is argued or assumed that since such attacks were in Hume's day imprudent, they must be made by indirection, that is, by a device such as irony. Thus the Dialogues have surface meanings in which the religious views under attack are said (by Pamphilus) to win out; they also have other meanings, underlying or implicit, in which the religious views are conclusively refuted. That they are refuted is a conclusion drawn by the interpreters, in the present case Mossner and those who share his views. These destructive refutations are derived from explication and assessment of the ongoing argument as embodied in the explicit statements of the contestants, and are thus not explicitly linked to Hume. In consequence, quite often from one standpoint (a trivial one of external comment by an immature and prejudiced onlooker) the design argument wins; and from another, more sophisticated one, it loses. The upshot is that "Philo, who as Hume's spokesman for mitigated 208 skepticism will perforce be the victor in the philosophic debate, will nevertheless be 'artfully' depicted as being vanquished by the antagonist." The strategy Mossner finds in the Dialogues thus has the youthful Pamphilus, a ward of Cleanthes, and one who takes no actual part in the adversarial discussions, interposing (in brief asides) comments that superficially but subtly belittle Philo's philosophical position. Philo is characterized, for instance, as having a "careless scepticism," in contrast with Cleanthes, who has an "accurate philosophical turn [of mind]" (D 128). Similarly, at the end of the Dialogues, Pamphilus awards the victory to Cleanthes. In support of his thesis that Philo is a devious Hume's mouthpiece, Mossner brings forth two kinds of evidence, roughly characterizable as external and internal. One kind of external evidence is exemplified in Hume's correspondence with Gilbert 4 5 Elliot of Minto, and Adam Smith; the letters involved are interpreted as showing that Philo represents Hume. Another kind involves comparing the amount of space devoted to the arguments of the three adversaries. The internal evidence is derived from the explication and appraisal of the explicit statements of the contestants; and it is essentially identified with the arguments and conclusions of Philo, except where Cleanthes can be said to make claims which square with those made by Hume in other works such as the Treatise. Thus Hume's views and the related arguments are interpreted as those of Philo, in part because they are considered to be more valid and sound than those of Cleanthes, and in part because they are held to square with the views and arguments affirmed in Hume's other writings. Hume's views, as indicated above, are taken to be those of 209 Philo except where Philo appears to agree with Cleanthes and to accept a form of the design argument. Hume is Cleanthes when Cleanthes sets forth doctrines of the Treatise and the Enquiry that are in accordance with the received (more or less) positivistic interpretation of Hume's skepticism. It is this view that requires that in those places in Parts III, X, and XII, where Philo appears to avow a form of the design argument or to let it stand unrefuted, he be (ironically) dissimulating. Thus the surface victories of Cleanthes and natural religion, which the adversarial flow of the statements of Philo and Cleanthes exhibits, are refuted by the propositions derived from the assessed form and content of the philosophical debate. The basic irony, therefore, lies in aspects of the... (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NECESSARY PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION MARK ROBERTS University of Rhode Island Kingston, Rhode Island IT IS COMMONPLACE to define contradictory, contrary, and subcontrary propositions in the following way: contradictory propositions cannot both be true and cannot both be false; contrary propositions cannot both be true but can both be false; and subcontrary propositions can both be true but cannot both be false. In his Introduction to Logic (...) 1 Irving Copi raises a problem with two of these definitions which he believes forces him to limit the range of propositions which can be used in the square of opposition. Since contrary propositions can both be false, but the falsity of a necessarily true proposition is not possible, a necessarily true proposition has no contrary. Therefore, only contingent propositions can be contraries. Subcontrary propositions can both be true, but the truth of a necessarily false proposition is not possible.2 This problem is rarely raised in other logic texts, but, it is interesting to note, it is mentioned by a number of neoscholastic philosophers, for example, P. Nicholas Russo,3 Rev. H. Grenier,4 1 Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 178-179. Copi first introduced this problem in the fifth edition of his work on the basis of an article by David H. Sanford entitled " Contraries and Subcontraries,'' Nous 2 (1968) : 95-96. Sanford argues that the most reasonable way to resolve the problem of necessary propositions is to assume that contingent propositions comprise the square of opposition. 2 Copi, pp. 178-179. 8 Nicholas Russo, Summa Philosophica (Boston: Apud Marlier et Socios, 1[;85), p. 23. 4 Henri Grenier, Thomistic Philosophy, Vol. I (Charlottetown, Canada: St. Dunstan's University, 1950), p. 69. 427 428 MARK ROBERTS G. Sanseverino,5 Jacques Maritain,6 F.-X. Maquart,7 P. Coffey,8 and others.9 (It is also mentioned by Bishop Whately.10 ) Each of these philosophers makes necessarily true or false propositions an exception to the definition of contrary and subcontrary propositions. The reason is they and Copi interpret the definitions of contrary and subcontrary propositions to mean that the falsity of each contrary proposition is possible and the truth of each subcontrary proposition is possible. It should be mentioned, however, that the position of the philosophers cited above is not entirely the same as Copi's. Copi reasons that these definitions imply that necessary propositions have no contrary or subcontrary. The other philosophers believe that necessary propositions can be contraries and subcontraries. Thus, in the case of necessary propositions contrary and subcontrary propositions are, instead, defined merely in terms of their quantity and quality, not by whether or not they can both be false or can both be true. In fact, Coffey and some of the other philosophers cited above assert that, when the propositions composing the square are necessary, one can infer the truth of the universal from the truth of 5 Gaietano Sanseverino, Philosophia Christiana, Vol. II (Neapoli: Vincentii Manfredi, 1862), pp. DCCXXXVIII ff. 6 J. Maritain, An Introduction to Logic (London: Sheed & Ward, 1937), p. 135, notes 1 & 2. 7 F.-X. Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Parisiis: Andreas Blot, 1937)' p. 126 ff. 8 P. Coffey, The Science of Logic, Vol. 1 (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1918), p. 225, 226. 9 Joseph Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Friburgi: Herder, 1929), p. 46, notes 1 & 2; Sylvester J. Hartman, A Textbook of Logic (New York: American Book Co., 1936), p. 162 ff; Roland Houde and Jerome J. Fischer, Handbook of Logic (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1954), p. 61; Eduard Hugon, Cursus Philosophiae Thomisticae, Vol. I (Parisiis: P. Lethielleux n.d), p. 155; Dennis C. Kane, Logic: The Art of Predication and Inference (Providence: Providence College Press, 1978), p. 98 ff; Francis P. Siegfried, Essentialia Philosophiae (Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1927), p. 25; Francis Varvello, Minor Logic, trans. and supplemented Arthur D. Fearon (San Francisco: Univ. of San Francisco Press, 1933), p. 73 ff. 10 Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1854), p. 77 ff. PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION 429 the particular and the falsity of the particular from the falsity of the universal.11 Maritain maintains that in the case... (shrink)

Tocqueville pessimistically predicted that liberty and equality would be incompatible ideas. Robert Dahl, author of the classic _A Preface to Democratic Theory,_ explores this alleged conflict, particularly in modern American society where differences in ownership and control of corporate enterprises create inequalities in resources among Americans that in turn generate inequality among them as citizens. Arguing that Americans have misconceived the relation between democracy, private property, and the economic order, the author contends that we can achieve a society of (...) real democracy and political equality without sacrificing liberty by extending democratic principles into the economic order. Although enterprise control by workers violates many conventional political and ideological assumptions of corporate capitalism as well as of state socialism. Dahl presents an empirically informed and philosophically acute defense of "workplace democracy." He argues, in the light of experiences here and abroad, that an economic system of worker-owned and worker-controlled enterprises could provide a much better foundation for democracy, political equality, and liberty than does our present system of corporate capitalism. (shrink)

Menzius war ein prominenter politischer Denker des antiken China und ein hochrangiger Berater des mächtigen Fürsten von Qí. Im Werk Mèngzi “Junker Mèng” sind Dialoge zu politischen Fragen überliefert, die er mit wichtigen Fürsten, mit seinen Gefolgsleuten und mit Gegnern führte. Angesichts des Niedergangs der Zhou-Könige sind Fragen der Herrschaftsform sowie der adäquaten Verwaltung zentral. Dabei behandelte er anthropologische Aspekte der geistigen Konstitution der Menschen und verteidigte so die traditionelle verwandtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Organisation und ihre Werte. Das Werk bietet eine (...) neue Rekonstruktion der Biographie und der Zeit des Menzius, eine darauf fussende Übersetzung in neuer Anordnung mit detaillierten Kommentaren sowie umfangreiche Anhänge zu Chronologie, Geschichte, Personen und zentralen Begriffen. Es richtet sich an ein sinologisches Fachpublikum und an ideengeschichtlich Interessierte. (shrink)

In this book, I make use of an idea from economics to suggest how noble human tendencies might not only have survived the ruthless pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them.

Vulnerabilities often characterize the availability of immigrant populations of interest in social behavioral science, public health, and medical research. Refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants present unique vulnerabilities relevant to protocol development as well as ethics review procedures and criteria. This paper describes vulnerable populations in relation to the Belmont Report and US federal regulations for the protection of human subjects, both of which are commonly used in international research contexts. It argues for safeguards for immigrants comparable to protections for (...) such populations as pregnant women, prisoners, and children. The paper further presents a two-part model for the review of protocols that involve immigrants. The model is intended to help identify the risks to immigrants associated with participation in research, and to suggest how researchers can responsibly frame studies and access to research participant immigrants through community-based, and/or non-governmental organizations that serve immigrants and immigrant communities. (shrink)

Sympathy and other moral emotions described by David Hume (1740/1978) and Adam Smith (1759/1966) motivate people to incur a host of costs they could easily avoid. Such emotions pose a challenge to evolutionary biologists, who have long stressed the primacy of narrow self-interest in Darwinian selection. In earlier work, I argued (Frank, 1987, 1988) that natural selection might have favored moral sentiments because of their capacity to facilitate solutions to one-shot social dilemmas. Here, I present a capsule summary of the (...) basic argument. (shrink)

How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine. In Success and Luck, bestselling author and New York Times economics (...) columnist Robert Frank explores the surprising implications of those findings to show why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in success--and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy. Frank describes how, in a world increasingly dominated by winner-take-all markets, chance opportunities and trivial initial advantages often translate into much larger ones--and enormous income differences--over time; how false beliefs about luck persist, despite compelling evidence against them; and how myths about personal success and luck shape individual and political choices in harmful ways. But, Frank argues, we could decrease the inequality driven by sheer luck by adopting simple, unintrusive policies that would free up trillions of dollars each year--more than enough to fix our crumbling infrastructure, expand healthcare coverage, fight global warming, and reduce poverty, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. If this sounds implausible, you'll be surprised to discover that the solution requires only a few, uncontroversial steps. Compellingly readable, Success and Luck shows how a more accurate understanding of the role of chance in life could lead to better, richer, and fairer economies and societies. (shrink)

While private sector investment plays a key role in fostering sustainable economic development in developing countries, respect for internationally recognized worker rights is also a vital component. The paper presents a methodology to assist investors in largescale private infrastructure and other industry sector projects to utilize internationally recognized core labor rights and related standards for fostering sound labor management. The methodology involves due diligence or analysis of labor conditions and subsequent supervision and monitoring of performance and promotes the use of (...) best practices to complement existing minimum requirements. Case study examples are presented and challenges in applying the approach are discussed. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉEn réponse à Paul Hurley, je soutiens que l'argument de la triangulation de Donald Davidson ne peut s'appliquer aux croyances normatives que si ces croyances correspondent à des propriétés à la fois normatives et causales. L'argument engage donc Davidson à une forme de naturalisme non-réductif et étonnamment non-révisionniste. En réponse à Kirk Ludwig, je soutiens que Davidson avait de bonnes raisons d'abandonner les théories humiennes des pro-attitudes, parce qu'il avait de bonnes raisons d'accepter la forme de naturalisme non-réductive et non-révisionniste (...) qui émerge une fois que l'argument de la triangulation est appliqué aux croyances normatives. (shrink)

Many developing and transitional countries have grown faster than advanced countries in the past decade, resulting in a shift in the distribution of world income in their favor. China is now the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States and ahead of Japan. As the relative economic weight of China and several others has come to match or exceed that of the middle-ranking G7 economies, the world economy has shifted from “unipolar” toward “multipolar,” less dominated by the (...) G7. How is this change being translated into changes in authority and influence within multilateral organizations like the G20, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund? Alarm bells are ringing in G7 capitals about G7 loss of influence. According to a WikiLeaks cable from the senior U.S. official for the G20 process, from January 2010, “It is remarkable how closely coordinated the BASIC group of countries [Brazil, South Africa, India, China] have become in international fora, taking turns to impede US/eu initiatives and playing the US and EU off against each other.” This essay suggests that the shift in power is much smaller than the headlines or private alarm bells suggest. The United States remains the dominant state, and the G7 states together continue to exercise primacy, but now more fearfully and defensively. China is split between asserting itself as “the wave of the future” and defending itself as too poor to take on global responsibilities. The combination of G7 defensiveness and emerging states’ jealous guarding of sovereignty produces a spirit of Westphalian assertion in international fora, or “every state for itself.” On the assumption that the world economy is in a transitional period, the article suggests reforms in the G20 and the World Bank that would boost their role and legitimacy as multilateral organizations in a more multipolar world. (shrink)

In earlier work, I proposed the ‘adaptive standard of rationality’, according to which narrow self-interest models can be broadened by positing additional tastes, but only upon a plausible showing that those tastes do not hamper resource acquisition in competitive environments. This proposal is related to the green beard hypothesis from biology, according to which altruism might be adaptive if its presence could be reliably signaled by some observable feature, such as a green beard. In their contribution to this issue Ernst (...) Fehr and Urs Fischbacher offer theoretical arguments and describe laboratory experiments whose results they interpret as refuting my version of the green beard hypothesis. In this response, I argue that their theoretical arguments and experimental evidence pose no threat to the green beard hypothesis. (shrink)

SummaryIn this essay I offer a set of characteristic scientific activities, accompanied by principles to be used as guides in performing these activities, and dispositions that are desirable for the person performing these activities to have. This set is intended to provide a rough and ready elaboration of scientific thinking as a goal for our schools and colleges.Although they are here labeled scientific, they are intended to apply to other activities than doing what is standardly called science. This wider application (...) is part of the justification for offering science in our schools and colleges. We want people to think scientifically about many other aspects of their lives, as well as about science content.There is no suggestion that science content is not important, nor that scientific thinking should be taught apart from science content. In fact I think that a very good way to teach scientific thinking is by infusing such instruction in the instruction of science content. See Swartz for a discussion of infusion, and Ennis, for treatments of the subject‐specificity issue that is generally raised when thinking and content are discussed.This essay contains one brief case study that exemplifies most of the activities, principles, and dispositions suggested as goals for the schools. I realize that the validity and comprehensiveness of these goals has not been here demonstrated. The scientists, science educators, philosophers of science, and critical thinking specialists to whom1 have shown them are in general agreement about them, but the ultimate test will be in whether the goals are widely adopted and successfully serve as guidance in the promotion of scientific thinking.I hope that this elaboration of scientific thinking and its formulation in terms of a suggested set of goals are “dear and precise as is needed in the situation”. (shrink)

This paper accepts as given that business students want to get ahead. It criticizes business schools for their failure to reduce the incongruence between doing what is right and doing what it takes to get ahead. Because of this failure business school graduates carry negative ideas, attitudes and behaviors vis-à-vis social responsibility from business schools into the business world. Recommendations are made for increasing the social responsibility of business schools.

A popular three-stage argument appraisal strategy calls for (1) identifying the parts of the argument, (2) classifYing the argument as deductive, inductive, or some other type, and (3) appraising the argument using the standards appropriate for the type. This strategy fails for a number of reasons. I propose a comprehensive alternative approach that distinguishes between inductive, deductive, and other standards; calls for the successive application of standards combined with assumption-ascription, according to policies that depend for their selection on the goals (...) of the appraiser; and provides for qualified reasoning. (shrink)

Existing research has examined if undergraduate factors influence chemistry and physics, or physical science, doctoral degree entry and whether variables during PhD programs associate with graduation. Yet research on the transition from bachelor’s degree to doctoral degree entry (i.e., PhD entry in less than 6 months, attainment of a master’s degree prior to doctoral degree entry, or working in a science-related job for more than a year prior to doctoral degree entry) on PhD degree graduation remains scarce. Our study examines (...) the transition from bachelor’s to doctoral degrees to see if experiences therein associate with female PhD graduation, after doctoral degree enrollment. Our logistic regression analysis, of female chemistry and physics doctorates (n = 867), indicated that attainment of a master’s degree did not change the likelihood of graduation, when compared to direct entry into physical science doctoral programs. Meanwhile working in a science-related job for a year or more is associated with a significantly lower likelihood of physical science doctoral graduation when compared to women who entered directly into PhD programs or received a master’s degree prior to enrollment. (shrink)

This volume focuses on issues involving the inviolability of the human body and the decision to end life. The contributors explore the difficulties in framing a public policy that legalizes aid in dying, and return to the more general question of what is the most fair and effective relationship between private medical authority and public policy.

This brief review of the efficacy, safety, and costs of IVF demonstrates that this procedure has become accepted medical practice without adequate scientific assessment. Its rapid proliferation especially in the market-oriented USA system, has preceded the type of outcomes research that is essential in order to protect both individual patients and the health care system. In addition, concern over the psychological costs borne by the vast majority of women who unsuccessfully pursue pregnancy through these techniques should warrant a level of (...) caution which to date has not been forthcoming. The demand for pregnancy, the organisation of medical specialties surrounding these procedures, the open-ended reimbursement and incentive structure, and powerful market forces make it unlikely that IVF and a whole range of medical technologies can be regulated without some semblance of a national health system. These findings clearly reinforce the themes raised by the Radical Statistics Health Group and illustrate some of the weaknesses of a market approach to medical care. (shrink)