First-ever comprehensive introduction to the major new subject of quantum computing and quantum information.

In this paper I offer an analysis of Plotinus’ argument for the existence of a quasi-psychic entity, the so-called ‘trace of soul’, that functions as an immanent cause of life for an organism’s body. I argue that Plotinus posits this entity primarily in order to account for the body’s possession of certain quasi-psychic states that are instrumental in his account of soul-body interaction. Since these quasi-psychic states imply that an organism’s body has vitality of its own , and Platonic souls (...) are no part or aspect of any body, Plotinus draws the conclusion that the soul must be a cause of the body’s life by imparting a quasi-psychic qualification to it. In so doing, Plotinus introduces elements of hylomorphism into Platonist psychology, and addresses a problem for the animation of the body that Platonic soul-body dualism may plausibly be thought to face. (shrink)

Traces the decentered formulation of self at the heart of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy from his earliest works to his most recent.

Ectogenesis, or “artificial womb technology,” has been heralded by some, such as prominent feminist Shulamith Firestone, as a way to liberate women. In this chapter, we challenge this view by offering an alternative analysis of the technology as relying upon and perpetuating a problematic model of pregnancy which, rather than liberating women, serves to devalue them. We look to metaphysics as the abstract study of reality to elucidate how the entities in a pregnancy are related to one another. We consider (...) two models of the metaphysics of pregnancy: (1) the Parthood Model, whereby the fetus is a part of what/who gestates it; and (2) and the Fetal Container Model, whereby the gestator is a container for the fetus. We suggest that under the assumption of the Fetal Container Model, we are more likely to think that any container will suffice for gestation, even an artificial one. In contrast, under the assumption of the Parthood Model, we are less likely to treat the gestator as interchangeable or replaceable, given the parthood relationship between gestator and fetus. This chapter argues that ectogenesis is conceptually linked to the Fetal Container Model and advocates a more cautious approach in promoting ectogenesis as a tool for women’s liberation. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the foundations of Plotinus’ innovative theory that prime matter is unaffectable. I begin by showing that Plotinus’ main arguments for this thesis (in Ennead 3.6) all rely upon the controversial assumption that the properties prime matter underlies are not properties of prime matter itself. It is then argued that prime matter’s privation of sensible qualities has its conceptual basis in an idiosyncratic understanding of form-matter composition generally, and its primary doctrinal basis in Aristotle’s critical reports (...) on the Platonists’ substratum in Physics 1.9. While Plotinus finds Platonic authority for unaffectible matter in the Receptacle passage of the Timaeus, it is Aristotle’s testimony that provides the crucial impetus for reading that text in this way. On this basis, Plotinus develops a Platonist conception of form’s inherence in matter with distinctively non-Aristotelian features. (shrink)

Mill defines utilitarianism as the combination of a “theory of life” and a moral claim: only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends, and the promotion of happiness is the sole goal of moral action. So defined, utilitarianism is open to ad hominem pessimistic objection: a “theory of life” which entails the impossibility of happiness fits poorly with a morality centered on its promotion. The first two challenges Mill confronts in Utilitarianism share this pessimistic structure. Interestingly, however, these (...) challenges paint inverted pictures of the best utilitarian life: one suggests this life is satisfying but ignoble, the other that it is noble but unsatisfying. I explain Mill's treatment of both challenges as genuinely pessimistic interpretations of utilitarianism's “theory of life.” Read through the lens of Mill's engagement with pessimism, these challenges point to distinctive conceptions of dignity and satisfaction that play a significant role in Mill's ethics. (shrink)

The 2015 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes nootropic drugs should be available under prescription”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, now in its seventh year, provided the starting point for arguments on the subject. The present article brings together and extends many of the arguments put forward during the debate. We explore the current usage of nootropic drugs, their safety and whether it would be beneficial to individuals and (...) society as a whole for them to be available under prescription. The Varsity Medical Debate was first held in 2008 with the aim of allowing students to engage in discussion about ethics and policy within healthcare. The event is held annually and it is hoped that this will allow future leaders to voice a perspective on the arguments behind topics that will feature heavily in future healthcare and science policy. This year the Oxford University Medical Society at the Oxford Union hosted the debate. (shrink)

In developing his theory of aether in De Caelo 1, Aristotle argues, in DC 1.4, that one circular motion cannot be contrary to another. In this paper, I discuss how Aristotle can maintain this position and accept the existence of celestial spheres that rotate in contrary directions, as he does in his revision of the Eudoxan theory in Metaphysics 12.8.

Schopenhauer repeatedly claims that all pleasure is negative, and this view seems to play key roles throughout his work. Nonetheless, many scholars have argued that Schopenhauer actually acknowledges certain positive pleasures. Two major arguments have been offered for this reading, one focused on the link between Schopenhauer's view of pleasure and Plato's, and one focused on Schopenhauer's distinction between two components of aesthetic pleasure. I argue that neither way of motivating the positive pleasure reading succeeds. Both overlook a key aspect (...) of Schopenhauer's account: namely, his suggestion that there are two distinct kinds of negative pleasure, pleasures of satisfaction and pleasures of distraction. When Schopenhauer claims that all pleasure is negative, he means it. (shrink)

On the dominant interpretation, Schopenhauer possesses a will to will view of boredom: boredom consists in the dissatisfaction of a second-order desire to pursue objects of first-order desire. I ch...

The essays in this volume trace the fluid movement between phenomenological and religious descriptions of the capable self that emerges across Ricoeur's oeuvre ...

In the age of the `return to the empirical' in which the theoretical disputes of an earlier era seem to have fallen silent, we seek to excavate the intellectual conditions for reviving theoretical debate, for it is upon this recovery that deeper understanding of the nature and purpose of empirical social science depends. We argue against the all too frequent turn to ontology, whereby critical realists have sought an epistemological guarantor of sociological validity. We seek, to the contrary, to crystallize (...) a culturally-based, hermeneutic account of a rational social science. Derived from disputes within the sociology of culture, on the one hand, and the long-standing concerns of interpretive philosophy, on the other, we offer a cultural-sociological approach to epistemology. We view the production of truth in social science as a reading of a meaningful social world, and as a performance of truth-claims that is constrained by evidence, but whose success depends on other contextual factors. We conclude that the rationality of social science can be achieved only by forgoing ontology. Theories are abstractions of investigators' meanings that allow the interpretation of social meanings in turn, whether those are actions, relations, or structures. Successful explanations are those that intertwine these meaning structures of investigators and actors in an effective way. (shrink)

Esta obra se concentra en cuatro temas cruciales de la formación de docentes, tanto antes como durante el servicio y en la enseñanza en diferentes áreas y niveles educativos. En primer lugar, se aborda el asunto de las creencias que los docentes tienen sobre el proceso educativo, las cuales parecen influir en la práctica profesional que estos desarrollan y, por lo tanto, deberían recibir la atención explícita de los procesos de formación de docentes que deseen promover prácticas específicas. El segundo (...) tema de la obra es la relación entre la formación de docentes y la política pública que la rige. En particular, se analizan las reformas curriculares implementadas por varias licenciaturas en universidades privadas colombianas, en respuesta a reformas a la normatividad sobre las condiciones de calidad que a las que deben ajustarse todas las licenciaturas del país. El tercer tema analizado es en qué medida los docentes en educación superior van más allá del dominio de su saber disciplinar atribuyendo importancia a la pedagogía, la didáctica y la práctica reflexiva en su propia práctica docente. Finalmente, se discuten aspectos de la formación de docentes relacionados con los procesos vividos y los retos encontrados por los docentes al entrar en la profesión, su socialización en la comunidad docente, sus identidades como maestros y su motivación para ser docentes. Vale la pena señalar que las contribuciones a este libro comparten el uso de metodologías cualitativas y presentan los resultados de historias de vida, entrevistas, observaciones, y análisis documentales, entre otros. (shrink)

The present paper shows how one might model Everettian quantum mechanics using hyperfinitely many worlds. A hyperfinite model allows one to consider idealized measurements of observables with continuous-valued spectra where different outcomes are associated with possibly infinitesimal probabilities. One can also prove hyperfinite formulations of Everett’s limiting relative-frequency and randomness properties, theorems he considered central to his formulation of quantum mechanics. Finally, this model provides an intuitive framework in which to consider no-collapse formulations of quantum mechanics more generally.

Mechanism realists assert the existence of mechanisms as objective structures in the world, but their exact metaphysical commitments are unclear. We introduce Local Hierarchy Realism (LHR) as a substantive and plausible form of mechanism realism. The limits of LHR reveal a deep tension between two aspects of mechanists’ explanatory strategy. Functional decomposition identifies locally relevant entities and activities, while these same entities and activities are also embedded in a nested hierarchy of levels. In principle, a functional decomposition may identify entities (...) engaging in causal interactions that crosscut the hierarchical structure of composition relations, violating the mechanist’s injunction against interlevel causation. We argue that this possibility is realized in the example of ephaptic coupling, a subsidiary process of neural computation that crosscuts the hierarchy derived from synaptic transmission. These considerations undermine the plausibility of LHR as a general view, yet LHR has the advantages that (i) its metaphysical implications are precisely stateable; (ii) the structure it identifies is not reducible to mere aggregate causation; and (iii) it clearly satisfies intuitive and informal definitions of mechanism. We conclude by assessing the prospects for a form of mechanism realism weaker than LHR that nevertheless satisfies all three of these requirements. (shrink)

Dominant normative theories of armed conflict orientate themselves around the ultimate goal of peace. Yet the deployment of these theories in the international sphere appears to have failed in advancing toward this goal. In this paper, we argue that one major reason for this failure is these theories’ use of essentially contested concepts—that is, concepts whose internally complex character results in no principled way of adjudicating between rival interpretations of them. This renders the theories susceptible to manipulation by international actors (...) who are able to pursue bellicose policies under the cover of nominally pacific frameworks, and we show how this happened historically in a case study of the Korean War of 1950–1953. In order to better serve the goals of peace, we suggest, the rules of war should be reframed to simpler, but more restrictive, normative principles. (shrink)

The paper examines some doctrines of the Davidsonian Programme of truth conditional Semantics that relates truth to meaning using Tarski’s T-Convention, in relation to its efficacy in a semantic valuation of the EkeGusii proverb: Nda ’indongi ereta morogi ereta moibi which exemplifies a kind of complex sentence that a given system of Semantics is meant to account for. The coverage of Davidsonian truth-conditional notion of T-convention and that of compositionality are considered to have only a partial reach in accounting for (...) the meaning of the proverb by not incorporating pragmatic aspects. The failure of T-convention is not alleviated by the adoption of radical interpretation as posited by Davidson but is extended to consider aspects of pragmatic enrichment and dynamic Semantics. (shrink)

Una respuesta al debate metafilosófico sobre si hay o no unos criterios regulativos en filosofía cómo área de investigación lo ofrece la denominada filosofía sintética. Dentro de esta posición se propone una forma de abordar toda la filosofía y teorizar en base a diferentes criterios propuestos, que suelen ser generalmente: la claridad semántica, la coherencia interna, la coherencia externa con las ciencias y la fecundidad teórica con otros campos de estudio. Estos criterios de corte naturalista a su vez se ofrecen (...) como debatibles y ampliables a otros criterios. Se razonará la necesidad de demarcar la filosofía, y, poniendo el foco en su metodología, se argumentarán los previos criterios con tal de fomentar la filosofía sintética como marco general de trabajo filosófico riguroso. Esto excluye de la disciplina tanto aquello que no sea filosófico como aquello que intente emular la filosofía sin serlo en verdad, la pseudofilosofía. (shrink)

Drawing on early work on ethical leadership, we argue that when leaders engage in leader moral hypocrisy (i.e., ethical promotion without ethical demonstration), followers can experience psychological reactance—a negative response to a perceived restriction of freedom—which can have negative downstream consequences. In a survey of employee–manager dyads (study 1), we demonstrate that leader moral hypocrisy is positively associated with follower psychological reactance, which increases follower deviance. In two subsequent laboratory experiments, we find similar patterns of results (study 2) and explore (...) potential alternative mechanisms (study 3). We demonstrate in a final experiment with working adults that the relationship between leader moral hypocrisy and psychological reactance is partly explained by increased perceptions of a leader’s use of power (study 4). We discuss the implications of our findings and advocate for further understanding of the risks associated with psychological reactance in response to leaders and other workplace situations. (shrink)

We study ultraproducts of finite residue rings \ where \ is a non-principal ultrafilter. We find sufficient conditions of the ultrafilter \ to determine if the resulting ultraproduct \ has simple, NIP, \ but not simple nor NIP, or \ theory, noting that all these four cases occur.

Plotinus maintains that there is a single first principle, the One (or the Good), from which all other things derive. He is usually thought to hold this view on the grounds that any other thing’s existence depends on its participation in a paradigm of unity. This paper argues that Plotinus has a further, independent argument for adopting a single first principle, according to which principle pluralism is committed (unacceptably) to attributing good cosmic states of affairs to chance. This argument exhibits (...) similarities to ancient design arguments, but is used to draw the more radical conclusion that there is only one non-derivative existent. (shrink)

Defining roles of agents (i.e., people, organisations, etc.) is required in various Semantic Web applications, including access control, knowledge management and skill repository. So far, many theo...

Talk at the Philosophy [in:of:for:and] Digital Knowledge Infrastructures online workshop 2023 (28/09/2023).

This article will argue that the church is the mystic body of Christ that believers must guard from purveyors bend on twisting the truth. There is no doubt that the Catholic social teaching on medical and moral matters has proven to be pertinent and applicable to the ever-changing circumstances of health care and its delivery. In response to today’s challenges, these same moral principles of Catholic teaching provide the rationale and direction for the community of faith. In times of coronavirus (...) characterized by falsehoods, the truth is a virtue the church must strive for: “… If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”(John 8: 31-32). The truth is Christ; it is Christological. Christians must understand the clash of worldviews that is changing the face of Zimbabwean society. A worldview is simply the sum total of our beliefs about the world; Christianity is a worldview that directs our daily decisions and actions. Worldviews affect the way we think. A worldview is a well-reasoned framework of beliefs and convictions that gives a true and unified perspective on the meaning of human existence. To paraphrase from the book of First Samuel (16: 7) – to see as God sees and not how the world sees. Beliefs are not simple propositions held inside us which drive our outward behaviour in predictable ways, they are more of acts of commitment than anything else. There is no doubt that the future of Catholicism lies in the hands of the church’s leadership and the believing Christians. Catholics look to their faith leaders for guidance on big decisions as regards COVID-19 issues. Conspiracy theories around COVID-19 deny that the COVID-19 pandemic is a biological virus. Catholics require direction from the Pope down to the episcopal leadership to chart the way forward. A worldview not only impacts how one understands and makes sense of the world but also influences how one expresses oneself in the world. The constellation of personal values, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and ideas that make up our worldview have an effect on our understanding of reality. Coronavirus has caused uncertainty among believers and confusion as to how to cope with the complex problems that arise in COVID-19 related issues. This article will aver that the nature of drawing the contours of catholicity regarding the biblical foundations of the health falls in the hands of orthodox Catholic teachings. (shrink)

Mechanistic explanation involves the attribution of functions to both mechanisms and their component parts, and function attribution plays a central role in the individuation of mechanisms. Our aim in this paper is to investigate the impact of a perspectival view of function attribution for the broader mechanist project, and specifically for realism about mechanistic hierarchies. We argue that, contrary to the claims of function perspectivalists such as Craver, one cannot endorse both function perspectivalism and mechanistic hierarchy realism: if functions are (...) perspectival, then so are the levels of a mechanistic hierarchy. We illustrate this argument with an example from recent neuroscience, where the mechanism responsible for the phenomenon of ephaptic coupling cross-cuts the more familiar mechanism for synaptic firing. Finally, we consider what kind of structure there is left to be realist about for the function perspectivalist. (shrink)

We consider the complexity (in terms of the arithmetical hierarchy) of the various quantifier levels of the diagram of a computably presented metric structure. As the truth value of a sentence of continuous logic may be any real in [0, 1], we introduce two kinds of diagrams at each level: the closed diagram, which encapsulates weak inequalities of the form $$\phi ^\mathcal {M}\le r$$, and the open diagram, which encapsulates strict inequalities of the form $$\phi ^\mathcal {M}< r$$. We show (...) that the closed and open $$\Sigma _N$$ diagrams are $$\Pi ^0_{N+1}$$ and $$\Sigma ^0_N$$ respectively, and that the closed and open $$\Pi _N$$ diagrams are $$\Pi ^0_N$$ and $$\Sigma ^0_{N + 1}$$ respectively. We then introduce effective infinitary formulas of continuous logic and extend our results to the hyperarithmetical hierarchy. Finally, we demonstrate that our results are optimal. (shrink)

Busca identificar as produções acadêmicas dos egressos dos cursos de mestrado e doutorado do Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação da Universidade Federal da Paraíba que possuem eixos temáticos relacionados às tecnologias da informação e comunicação, a fim de subsidiar a inquietação que originou a questão norteadora da pesquisa, a saber: Existe interesse dos pesquisadores da CI em discutir criticamente acerca da fundamentação, consistência e qualidade das informações produzidas e compartilhadas perante o alto índice de produção e disseminação ocasionado (...) pelo avanço das TICs e, que trazem em sua essência posicionamentos críticos-reflexivos quanto à produção, uso e compartilhamento das informações diante do progresso dessas tecnologias. A pesquisa traz resultados quantitativos e qualitativos sobre os discentes e docentes do PPGCI/UFPB quanto aos interesses e posicionamentos críticos dos seus pesquisadores. Enfatiza a preocupação com a necessidade de habilitar os usuários das TICs para melhor aproveitar a dinamicidade e a capacidade produtiva e de compartilhamento resultantes dos avanços tecnológicos. (shrink)

We should disassociate ourselves from wrongdoing. If Hobby Lobby is against LGBTQ rights, we shouldn’t shop there. If Old Navy sources their clothing from sweatshops, we shouldn’t buy them. If animals are treated terribly in factory farms, we shouldn’t eat the meat, eggs, and dairy products that come from them. Let’s call these disassociation intuitions. What explains the existence and force of disassociation intuitions? And based on that explanation, are they intuitions worth taking seriously? In other words, depending on the (...) etiology of these intuitions, should we accept that you ought to dissociate yourself from wrongdoing? Our aim here is to outline a hypothesis that would, if true, answer the first question, and which suggests a way to vindicate some disassociation intuitions as morally correct. (shrink)

ḳunṭres 1. ʼOr ha-emunah --ḳunṭres 2. Śimḥah ṿe-hitḥazḳut, ha-derekh le-hatsalah li-nevukhim.

The randomization of a complete first-order theory [Formula: see text] is the complete continuous theory [Formula: see text] with two sorts, a sort for random elements of models of [Formula: see text] and a sort for events in an underlying atomless probability space. We study independence relations and related ternary relations on the randomization of [Formula: see text]. We show that if [Formula: see text] has the exchange property and [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] has a strict independence (...) relation in the home sort, and hence is real rosy. In particular, if [Formula: see text] is o-minimal, then [Formula: see text] is real rosy. (shrink)

We present a decision-theoretically motivated notion of contraction which, we claim, encodes the principles of minimal change and entrenchment. Contraction is seen as an operation whose goal is to minimize loses of informational value. The operation is also compatible with the principle that in contracting A one should preserve the sentences better entrenched than A (when the belief set contains A). Even when the principle of minimal change and the latter motivation for entrenchment figure prominently among the basic intuitions in (...) the works of, among others, Quine and Ullian (1978), Levi (1980, 1991), Harman (1988) and Gärdenfors (1988), formal accounts of belief change (AGM, KM – see Gärdenfors (1988); Katsuno and Mendelzon (1991)) have abandoned both principles (see Rott (2000)). We argue for the principles and we show how to construct a contraction operation, which obeys both. An axiom system is proposed. We also prove that the decision-theoretic notion of contraction can be completely characterized in terms of the given axioms. Proving this type of completeness result is a well-known open problem in the field, whose solution requires employing both decision-theoretical techniques and logical methods recently used in belief change. (shrink)

Morbidity of birth asphyxia has been estimated to be 42 million disability-adjusted life years. The study sought to assess the impact of the use and completion of partograph during labour on reducing birth asphyxia at the St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, in the Volta Region of Ghana. A retrospective study design using a quantitative approach was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 200 folders of labouring women who were admitted and delivered (...) at St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, between 1st May 2015 and 30th April 2016. A structured checklist, which was developed by using labour and foetal monitoring parameters based on the standards of the World Health Organization partograph usage, was used to review all the 200 existing maternal records. The findings revealed that partographs were used by midwives at St Anthony’s Hospital with the majority of the maternal folders fully completed. The use and completion of partograph were found to be associated with less non-asphyxiated birth outcomes. Labours which were monitored with partograph were 4.29 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 4.29 ], and those that were monitored with a completed partograph were 5.3 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 5.31 ]. Midwives used partographs during labour at St Anthony’s Hospital. The use and completion of partograph were significantly associated with a reduced incidence of birth asphyxia at the hospital. Birth asphyxia could be reduced if partographs are used and completed by midwives during labour in all cases. (shrink)