In his 1961 paper "Tithenai ta Phainomena",1 G. E. L. Owen addressed the problem of the relationship between science as preached in the Analytics and the practice of the Aristotelian treatises. However, he gave this venerable crux a novel twist by focusing on a different aspect of the issue. According to the Prior Analytics , it appears that the first premises of scientific demonstrations must be obtained from collections (historiai) of facts derived from empirical observation. However, many of the treatises (...) seem to make little use of empirical inquiry and instead concern themselves more with 'conceptual analysis.' This is especially true in the Metaphysics and the ethical treatises, but it is also very much characteristic of the Physics. How are these two kinds of inquiry related? (shrink)

This early work by Robin G. Collingwood was originally published in 1939 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'An Autobiography' is the story of Collingwood's personal and academic life. Robin George Collingwood was born on 22nd February 1889, in Cartmel, England. He was the son of author, artist, and academic, W. G. Collingwood. He was greatly influenced by the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile, and Guido de Ruggiero. Another important influence was his father, (...) a professor of fine art and a student of Ruskin. He published many works of philosophy, such as Speculum Mentis (1924), An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). (shrink)

Donnellan famously argued that while one can fix the reference of a name with a definite description, one cannot thereby have a de re belief about the named object. All that is generated is meta-linguistic knowledge that the sentence “If there is a unique F, then N is F” is true. Donnellan’s argument and the sceptical position are extremely influential. This article aims to show that Donnellan’s argument is unsound, and that the Millian who embraces Donnellan’s scepticism that the reference-fixer (...) cannot secure the relevant de re belief faces a serious problem: Millianism about names plus scepticism about the reference-fixer’s de re belief conflicts with what seems to be an analytical thesis about the relationship between semantic content and understanding. The upshot is that the Millian has good reason to seek an alternative to scepticism. (shrink)

This explains how to smoothly integrate booked orders with a combinatorial market maker, all for the general case of bets on E[x|A] for arbitrary random variables x and sets A.

Future Forms in English. A look at "will" and the futurates. Pretty basic stuff, but some people might find it useful. Register in Academic Writing . This is where I get Hallidayan for a change: an analysis of two different academic genres, with some comments about the teaching of academic writing (this is the paper I would have given at the Reading University conference on writing if I'd been able to afford the air fare!).

This paper investigates whether gender affects ethically sensitive decisions of a personal or business nature. Data from 51 practicing accountants from both public accounting and private industry suggest that while differences exist between female and male accountants in responses to specific situations, overall responses are quite similar. Statistically significant differences were found for only five of the sixteen ethically sensitive situations. Further, when personal and business situations of a similar nature were paired together, two of the eight differences between personal (...) and business responses were significantly different between females and males. Taken as a whole, the results refute the suggestion that the ethical decision making of organizations may be enhanced as more women enter the business field. (shrink)

We confirm a conjecture, about neat embeddings of cylindric algebras, made in 1969 by J. D. Monk, and a later conjecture by Maddux about relation algebras obtained from cylindric algebras. These results in algebraic logic have the following consequence for predicate logic: for every finite cardinal α ≥ 3 there is a logically valid sentence X, in a first-order language L with equality and exactly one nonlogical binary relation symbol E, such that X contains only 3 variables (each of which (...) may occur arbitrarily many times), X has a proof containing exactly α + 1 variables, but X has no proof containing only α variables. This solves a problem posed by Tarski and Givant in 1987. (shrink)

We consider the problem of finding and classifying representations in algebraic logic. This is approached by letting two players build a representation using a game. Homogeneous and universal representations are characterized according to the outcome of certain games. The Lyndon conditions defining representable relation algebras (for the finite case) and a similar schema for cylindric algebras are derived. Finite relation algebras with homogeneous representations are characterized by first order formulas. Equivalence games are defined, and are used to establish whether an (...) algebra is ω-categorical. We have a simple proof that the perfect extension of a representable relation algebra is completely representable. An important open problem from algebraic logic is addressed by devising another two-player game, and using it to derive equational axiomatisations for the classes of all representable relation algebras and representable cylindric algebras. Other instances of this approach are looked at, and include the step by step method. (shrink)

Theorizing about human character to understand what it is to be a morally good person and how being morally good relates to acting rightly and living well has always been a central concern of moral philosophy. Traditional virtue theory, however, neglects two significant matters. The first is the sociopolitical dimensions of character: how character is shaped by, supports, and resists domination and subordination. While feminist ethics has begun to theorize virtue in relation to oppression, it shares with traditional virtue theory (...) a second problematic inattention to something of equal importance for understanding character and moral life, namely, bad character or vice. I argue that rich accounts of vice are needed to achieve the aims not only of traditional and feminist ethical theory but also of every moral agent facing the central moral task of trying to become a morally good person leading a morally worthy life. This paper explicates a substantive reorientation in moral theory in general and feminist ethics in particular, arguing for two changes. The first is a move to “critical character theory,” which seeks to understand moral character as both a site and source of domination and subordination, as a center of resistance both to oppression and to change, and as both subject and object of liberatory struggle. The second change is more serious and sustained attention to theorizing vice both as damage inflicted by domination, subordination, and by struggles both to maintain and to resist and overthrow them, and as a mechanism through which domination persists and emancipation is thwarted. (shrink)

Humans have slowly built more productive societies by slowly acquiring various kinds of capital, and by carefully matching them to each other. Because disruptions can disturb this careful matching, and discourage social coordination, large disruptions can cause a “social collapse,” i.e., a reduction in productivity out of proportion to the disruption. For many types of disasters, severity seems to follow a power law distribution. For some of types, such as wars and earthquakes, most of the expected harm is predicted to (...) occur in extreme events, which kill most people on Earth. So if we are willing to worry about any war or earthquake, we should worry especially about extreme versions. If individuals varied little in their resistance to such disruptions, events a little stronger than extreme ones would eliminate humanity, and our only hope would be to prevent such events. If individuals vary a lot in their resistance, however, then it may pay to increase the variance in such resistance, such as by creating special sanctuaries from which the few remaining humans could rebuild society. (shrink)

Research has increasingly focussed on the benefits of meditation in everyday life and performance. Mindfulness in particular improves attention, working memory capacity, and reading comprehension. Given its emphasis on moment-to-moment awareness, we hypothesised that mindfulness meditation would alter time perception. Using a within-subjects design, participants carried out a temporal bisection task, where several probe durations are compared to “short” and “long” standards. Following this, participants either listened to an audiobook or a meditation that focussed on the movement of breath in (...) the body. Finally, participants completed the temporal bisection task for a second time. The control group showed no change after the listening task. However, meditation led to a relative overestimation of durations. Within an internal clock framework, a change in attentional resources can produce longer perceived durations. This meditative effect has wider implications for the use of mindfulness as an everyday practice and a basis for clinical treatment. (shrink)

In standard belief models, priors are always common knowledge. This prevents such models from representing agents’ probabilistic beliefs about the origins of their priors. By embedding standard models in a larger standard model, however, pre-priors can describe such beliefs. When an agent’s prior and pre-prior are mutually consistent, he must believe that his prior would only have been different in situations where relevant event chances were different, but that variations in other agents’ priors are otherwise completely unrelated to which events (...) are how likely. Due to this, Bayesians who agree enough about the origins of their priors must have the same priors. (shrink)

Forty years after it first appeared, Sidney Shoemaker's much-read article, "Time without Change" , with its striking thought experiment, still dominates discussions of this intriguing topic. And rightly so: it is imaginative, subtle, and controversial. But times have changed, as they do, and in particular, the epistemological context in which Shoemaker was writing, overshadowed as it was by verificationism, no longer constrains our thinking as once it did. This is the age of bold and unashamedly realist metaphysical argument, in which (...) demands for evidential, as opposed to a priori, support for its theses are rarely made. (shrink)

Through an analysis of two highly routinized interactive service jobs, fast food service and insurance sales, this article explores the interrelationship of work, gender, and identity. While notions of proper gender behavior are quite flexible, gender-segregated service jobs reinforce the conception of gender differences as natural. The illusion that gender-typed interaction is an expression of workers' inherent natures is sustained, even in situations in which workers' appearances, attitudes, and demeanors are closely controlled by their employers. Gender-typed work has different meanings (...) for women and men, however, because of differences in the cultural valuation of behavior considered appropriate to each gender. (shrink)

The Identity of Indiscernibles is the principle that there cannot be two individual things in nature that are qualitatively identical. The principle is not exactly popular. Michael Della Rocca tries to resurrect it by arguing that we must accept this principle, for otherwise we cannot explain the impossibility of completely overlapping indiscernible objects of the same kind that share all their parts and exist in the same place at the same time. I try to show that his argument goes wrong: (...) we need not embrace the identity of indiscernibles to deal with the co-location problem. (shrink)

Employees with self-perceived misattributed culpability or incompetence are on the receiving end of complaints, reprimands, or accusations which, from their perspective, incorrectly assume that that they have fallen short of required standards or outcomes. We analyzed an archive of 23 personal stories featuring SMCI, which had been provided by 16 Hong Kong Chinese employees. The stories indicated that the most severe impacts on employee morale had arisen from punitive and targeted feedback based on misrepresentations by superiors, who had engaged in (...) blame deflection, politicking and manipulation, conflict and retaliation, and/or prejudice and stereotyping. We also identified organizational processes, such as soliciting and accepting voice and engaging in problem solving discussions that could attenuate any adverse emotional impact. (shrink)

In this paper I address two concerns with Kelly Trogdon’s grounding mechanism view, i.e. the idea that metaphysical explanation can be modeled on causal-mechanical explanation. The first concern threatens to undermine the unity that grounding-mechanical explanations imposes on metaphysical explanation; and the second concern requires the grounding mechanic to put forth a formal condition on grounding-mechanical models. After having discussed both of these, I provide a solution to the first and argue that the second concern is unwarranted.

This paper reports on a survey of college students which was designed to provide insights into associations of advertising with the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa and bulemia. The study involved measuring self image and ideal self image and relating these measures to the incidence of the eating disorders and to advertising and merchandising measures. Based upon the findings, various tentative recommendations were made to advertisers who desire to assist in containing eating disorders through their efforts in the marketplace.

Despised since ancient times, ugliness gains unprecedented appeal among early modern writers and painters. Subverting all norms, they value the beauty of deformity and, by extolling the paradoxical pleasure of mimesis, they helped create a new subjectivity.

The original book chapter does not have an abstract. However, I have written an abstract for this repository: Religious life encompasses a wide diversity of situations for which the emotional tone is on a continuum from extreme euphoria to extreme dysphoria. In this book chapter, we propose the novel hypothesis that euphoria and dysphoria have distinctly separate functional consequences for religious evolution and survivability. This is due to the differential cognitive states that are created in euphoric and dysphoric situations. Based (...) on readings from religious studies and cognitive psychology, we propose that euphoria in religion is conducive to social bonding and situations needing lateral thinking and creativity; whereas dysphoria in religion is conducive to situations where precision and analogical reasoning are necessary. (shrink)

In a simple model of conflict, two agents fight over a fixed prize, and how hard they fight depends on what they believe about their abilities. To this model I add “preagents,” representing parents, leaders, or natural selection, who choose each agent’s confidence in his ability. Depending on the reason for such confidence, I find five different patterns in how confidence varies with ability. Agents who estimate their ability with error have under-confidence when ability is high and over-confidence when ability (...) is low, while strategic commitment incentives induce the opposite pattern. Agents who misjudge their value for the prize, relative to their cost of effort, induce an overor under-confidence that is independent of ability, while cooperating pre-agents choose extreme under-confidence. Agents who use confidence to signal ability have a relatively uniform over-confidence. (shrink)