In a recent article entitled “The problem of molecular structure just is the measurement problem”, Alexander Franklin and Vanessa Seifert argue that insofar as the quantum measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. The purpose of the present article is to show that such a claim is too optimistic. Although the solution of the quantum measurement problem is relevant to how the problem of molecular structure is faced, such a solution is not sufficient to (...) account for the structure of molecules as understood in the field of chemistry. (shrink)

The modal-Hamiltonian interpretation belongs to the modal family of interpretations of quantum mechanics. By endowing the Hamiltonian with the role of selecting the subset of the definite-valued observables of the system, it accounts for ideal and non-ideal measurements, and also supplies a criterion to distinguish between reliable and non-reliable measurements in the non-ideal case. It can be reformulated in an explicitly invariant form, in terms of the Casimir operators of the Galilean group, and the compatibility of the MHI with the (...) theory of decoherence has been proved. Nevertheless, perhaps its main advantage in the eyes of a scientist is given by its several applications to well-known physical situations, leading to results compatible with experimental evidence. The purpose of this paper is to add a new application to the list: the case of optical isomerism, which is a central issue for the philosophy of physics and of chemistry since it points to the core of the problem of the relationship between physics and chemistry. Here it will be shown that the MHI supplies a direct and physically natural solution to the problem, a solution that does not require putting classical assumptions in “by hand.”. (shrink)

The well known AGM framework for belief revision has recently been extended to include a model of the research agenda of the agent, i.e. a set of questions to which the agent wishes to find answers (Olsson & Westlund in Erkenntnis , 65 , 165–183, 2006 ). The resulting model has later come to be called interrogative belief revision . While belief revision has been studied extensively from the point of view of modal logic, so far interrogative belief revision has (...) only been dealt with in the metalanguage approach in which AGM was originally presented. In this paper, I show how to model interrogative belief revision in a modal object language using a class of operators for questions. In particular, the solution I propose will be shown to capture the notion of K-truncation , a method for agenda update in the case of expansion constructed by Olsson & Westlund. Two case studies are conducted: first, an interrogative extension of Krister Segerberg’s system DDL, and then a similar extension of Giacomo Bonanno’s modal logic for belief revision. Sound and complete axioms will be provided for both of the resulting logics. (shrink)

The interpretation of the concept of reduced state is a subtle issue that has relevant consequences when the task is the interpretation of quantum mechanics itself. The aim of this paper is to argue that reduced states are not the quantum states of subsystems in the same sense as quantum states are states of the whole composite system. After clearly stating the problem, our argument is developed in three stages. First, we consider the phenomenon of environment-induced decoherence as an example (...) of the case in which the subsystems interact with each other; we show that decoherence does not solve the measurement problem precisely because the reduced state of the measuring apparatus is not its quantum state. Second, the non-interacting case is illustrated in the context of no-collapse interpretations, in which we show that certain well-known experimental results cannot be accounted for due to the fact that the reduced states of the measured system and the measuring apparatus are conceived as their quantum states. Finally, we prove that reduced states are a kind of coarse-grained states, and for this reason they cancel the correlations of the subsystem with other subsystems with which it interacts or is entangled. (shrink)

According to the biological objection against strong artificial intelligence (AI), machines cannot have human mindedness – that is, they cannot be conscious, intelligent, sentient, etc. in the precise way that a human being typically is – because this requires being alive, and machines are not alive. Proponents of the objection include John Lucas, Hubert Dreyfus, and John Searle. The present paper explains the nature and significance of the biological objection, before arguing that it currently represents an essentially irrational position.

Belief revision theory and philosophy of science both aspire to shed light on the dynamics of knowledge – on how our view of the world changes in the light of new evidence. Yet these two areas of research have long seemed strangely detached from each other, as witnessed by the small number of cross-references and researchers working in both domains. One may speculate as to what has brought about this surprising, and perhaps unfortunate, state of affairs. One factor may be (...) that while belief revision theory has traditionally been pursued in a bottom- up manner, focusing on the endeavors of single inquirers, philosophers of science, inspired by logical empiricism, have tended to be more interested in science as a multi-agent or agent-independent phenomenon. (shrink)

We propose a new perspective on logics of computation by combining instantial neighborhood logic INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document} with bisimulation safe operations adapted from PDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {PDL}$$\end{document}. INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document} is a recent modal logic, based on an extended neighborhood semantics which permits quantification over individual neighborhoods plus their contents. This system has a natural interpretation as a (...) logic of computation in open systems. Motivated by this interpretation, we show that a number of familiar program constructors can be adapted to instantial neighborhood semantics to preserve invariance for instantial neighborhood bisimulations, the appropriate bisimulation concept for INL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {INL}$$\end{document}. We also prove that our extended logic IPDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {IPDL}$$\end{document} is a conservative extension of dual-free game logic, and its semantics generalizes the monotone neighborhood semantics of game logic. Finally, we provide a sound and complete system of axioms for IPDL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {IPDL}$$\end{document}, and establish its finite model property and decidability. (shrink)

While largely studied because of their harmful effects on human health, there is growing appreciation that bacteria are important partners for invertebrates and vertebrates, including man. Epithelia in metazoans do not only select their microbiota; a coevolved consortium of microbes enables both invertebrates and vertebrates to expand the range of diet supply, to shape the complex immune system and to control pathogenic bacteria. Microbes in zebrafish and mice regulate gut epithelial homeostasis. In a squid, microbes control the development of the (...) symbiotic light organ. These discoveries point to a key role for bacteria in any metazoan existence, and imply that beneficial bacteria‐host interactions should be considered an integral part of development and evolution. (shrink)

Two recent papers appeared in FOOP disagree regarding the role played by decoherence in quantum physics. On the one hand, Elise Crull considers that decoherence, by itself, solves many conceptual problems in quantum physics, with no need of interpretative considerations. On the other hand, Antonio Vassallo and Michael Esfeld reply by correctly claiming that, although decoherence is a powerful tool to deal with conceptual problems, it does not dispense us from interpreting the formalism. In this brief note we want to (...) contribute to the debate with further considerations from another viewpoint. In this work we show that the discussions "decoherence versus interpretation" revolve around whether the theory of decoherence requires interpretive considerations to solve the measurement problem. In general, those discussions take the theory of decoherence for granted, as if it would not involve any difficulty. Therefore, they commonly focus on the "interpretation" wing: even in the case that the open system decoheres in a given basis, the whole closed system is still in a superposition and, thus, without an adequate interpretation, it cannot be said that the observables defined by that basis behave classically. Here we have focused on the "decoherence" wing: given the conceptual challenges that the theory must face and the alternative approaches to the orthodox view, the understanding of the very phenomenon of decoherence still requires a great deal of interpretive work. (shrink)

The Received View on scientific theories is a framework for formalizing and analyzing theories mainly developed by Rudolf Carnap and Carl Gustav Hempel within logical empiricism. Its central assumptions are that theories and observations can be formalized in predicate logic, that the language of formalization has a context-dependent observational sub-language or separate observation language, and that the interpretation of the language is restricted only by theories and the interpretation of the observational language. For the observational language as a sub-language, non-observational (...) terms were initially assumed to be explicitly definable in observational terms, and later assumed to have necessary or sufficient conditions in observational terms. In the final version of the Received View, no specific relations between observational terms and theoretical terms were assumed. The Received View also provided the framework for conceptualizations of explanation, confirmation, reduction, criteria of cognitive significance, the analytic-synthetic distinction, and concept formation. Many criticisms of the Received View in the philosophy of science rely on misrepresentations. (shrink)

Recent years have seen incredible advances in our abilities to gather and store data, as well as in the computational power and methods—most prominently in machine learning—to do things with those data. These advances have given rise to the emerging field “data science.” Because of its immense power for providing practically useful information about the world, data science is a field of increasing importance. This paper argues that a core part of what data scientists are doing should be understood as (...) conceptual engineering. At all stages of the data science process, data scientists need to deliberate about, evaluate, and make classificatory choices in a variety of ways, including as part of training and evaluating machine learning models. Viewing these activities as involved in conceptual engineering offers a new way to think about them, one that helps to clarify what is at stake in them, what sorts of considerations are relevant, and how to systematically think about the choices faced. Given the increasing importance of data science, if conceptual engineering is relevant for activities in data science, this also highlights the relevance and impact of conceptual engineering as a method. Furthermore, the paper also suggests that machine learning opens distinctive and novel ways in which data scientists engage in conceptual engineering. (shrink)

There are several known Lindström-style characterization results for basic modal logic. This paper proves a generic Lindström theorem that covers any normal modal logic corresponding to a class of Kripke frames definable by a set of formulas called strict universal Horn formulas. The result is a generalization of a recent characterization of modal logic with the global modality. A negative result is also proved in an appendix showing that the result cannot be strengthened to cover every first-order elementary class of (...) frames. This is shown by constructing an explicit counterexample. (shrink)

This paper discusses the project of a globalised philosophy of religion as proposed recently by Yujin Nagasawa, Victoria Harrison, and others. While this project is a laudable attempt to overcome the strict focus on theistic forms of religion in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion, it is argued that current proposals for a globalised philosophy of religion have ignored the important role of theism for giving the discipline its structure. Therefore, any viable global approach to philosophy of religion needs to delineate (...) a concept of religion that doesn’t draw on the concept of a theistic god. The paper argues that the best choice for this is a cluster concept of religion so that, even if the phenomena covered by the term ‘religion’ have no common core, the term isn’t meaningless, and philosophy of religion can still be a meaningful academic project. (shrink)

I develop a dynamic logic for reasoning about "interrogative belief revision", a new branch of belief revision theory that has been developed in a small number of papers, beginning with E. J. Olsson and D. Westlund's paper "On the role of the research agenda in epistemic change" [12]. In interrogative belief revision, epistemic states are taken to include a research agenda, consisting of questions the agent seeks to answer. I present a logic for revision of such epistemic states based on (...) the notion of an epistemic strategy, a stable plan of action that determines changes in the agent's research agenda. This idea is a further development of an idea put forward in [6], that changes in the research agenda of an agent should be determined by stable, "long term" research interests. I provide complete axioms and a decidability result for the logic. (shrink)

In the paper "On the role of the research agenda in epistemic change", Olsson and Westlund have suggested that the notion of epistemic state employed in the standard framework of belief revision (Alchourrón et al. 1985; Gärdenfors 1988) should be extended to include a representation of the agent's research agenda (Olsson and Westlund 2006). The resulting framework will here be referred to as interrogative belief revision. In this paper, I attempt to deal with the problem of how research agendas should (...) change in contraction, a problem largely left open by Olsson and Westlund. Two desiderata of an appropriate solution are suggested: one is a principle of continuity, stating that changes in the research agenda should somehow reflect that certain long term research interests are kept fixed. The other desideratum, which is based on part of Olsson and Westlund's motivation for adding research agendas to the epistemic states, is that we should be able to account for how contraction may serve to open up new, fruitful hypotheses for investigation. In order to achieve these desiderata, I base my solution on a revised version of Olsson and Westlund's notion of epistemic state. (shrink)

El objetivo de las presentes páginas consiste en analizar el concepto de libertad en las Disertaciones de Epicteto, centrándonos sobre la posibilidad de la libertad y su articulación con el concepto de proaíresis. Demostraremos que la libertad no puede ser comprendida en la obra de Epicteto simplemente como un proceso negativo de liberación respecto de determinaciones (externas e internas), sino que exige un momento complementario de sustitución de las determinaciones erróneas por determinaciones racionales/virtuosas. Tal conclusión exigirá precisar que la proaíresis (...) no es en absoluto una facultad naturalmente indeterminada y libre, sino que su libertad opera como un horizonte regulativo al que sólo se puede acceder mediante el correcto cuidado (epiméleia) del alma. (shrink)

Hempel publicly abandoned the Received View on scientific theories in the 1960s in favor of a new view. However, Hempel misrepresents his own works within the Received View in a number of his criticisms, and his new view turns out to be identical to the Received View on correspondence rules, observational terms, theoretical terms, and the demarcation between basic principles of a theory and correspondence rules. Hempel’s criticism of the assumption of axiomatization has counterexamples in his own previous work within (...) the Received View, and his criticism of the meaning of theoretical terms in the Received View ignores developments he witnessed and discussed. (shrink)

In this work we present a dynamical approach to quantum logics. By changing the standard formalism of quantum mechanics to allow non-Hermitian operators as generators of time evolution, we address the question of how can logics evolve in time. In this way, we describe formally how a non-Boolean algebra may become a Boolean one under certain conditions. We present some simple models which illustrate this transition and develop a new quantum logical formalism based in complex spectral resolutions, a notion that (...) we introduce in order to cope with the temporal aspect of the logical structure of quantum theory. (shrink)

A number of concerns have been recently raised regarding the possibility of human agents to effectively maintain control over intelligent and (partially) autonomous artificial systems. These issues have been deemed to raise “responsibility gaps.” To address these gaps, several scholars and other public and private stakeholders converged towards the idea that, in deploying intelligent technology, a meaningful form of human control (MHC) should be at all times exercised over autonomous intelligent technology. One of the main criticisms of the general idea (...) of MHC is that it could be inherently problematic to have high degrees of control and high degrees of autonomy at the same time, as the two dimensions appear to be inversely related. Several ways to respond to this argument and deal with the dilemma between control and autonomy have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we further contribute to the philosophical effort to overcome the trade-off between automation and human control, and to open up some space for moral responsibility. We will use the instrument of conceptual engineering to investigate whether and to what extent removing the element of direct causal intervention from the concept of control can preserve the main functions of that concept, specifically focusing on the extent it can act as a foundation of moral responsibility. We show that at least one philosophical account of MHC is indeed a conceptually viable theory to absolve the fundamental functions of control, even in the context of completely autonomous artificial systems. (shrink)

In this review, we present a rigorous construction of an algebraic method for quantum unstable states, also called Gamow states. A traditional picture associates these states to vectors states called Gamow vectors. However, this has some difficulties. In particular, there is no consistent definition of mean values of observables on Gamow vectors. In this work, we present Gamow states as functionals on algebras in a consistent way. We show that Gamow states are not pure states, in spite of their representation (...) as Gamow vectors. We propose a possible way out to the construction of averages of observables on Gamow states. The formalism is intended to be presented with sufficient mathematical rigor. (shrink)

We characterize the expressive power of the modal mu-calculus on monotone neighborhood structures, in the style of the Janin-Walukiewicz theorem for the standard modal mu-calculus. For this purpose we consider a monadic second-order logic for monotone neighborhood structures. Our main result shows that the monotone modal mu-calculus corresponds exactly to the fragment of this second-order language that is invariant for neighborhood bisimulations.

El presente artículo dialoga con la perspectiva del profesor de la Universidad de Stanford, John Searle en su perspectiva acerca de la conciencia, los actos de habla en lo que tiene que ver con la creación de hechos institucionales y su tesis emergentista. Esto con la idea de proponer la lectura del filósofo estadounidense en base a una pragmática de la expresión, que identifica al agente como centro de la creación y transformación social, y por tanto de movilización política, al (...) ser el reconocimiento colectivo quien mantiene el orden institucional. Por lo tanto, esa pragmática de la expresión identifica a los agentes como puntos esenciales de la creación del mundo social, desde el punto de vista del libre albedrio y la creación de mundos sociales posibles. (shrink)

In April 2016, Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner published an article online in which they introduce a Gedankenexperiment that led them to conclude that single-world interpretations of quantum theory cannot be self-consistent. In a new version of the paper, published in September 2018, the authors moderate their original claim by concluding that quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner. The purpose of this short article is to clarify the core of the F-R (...) argument, in order to show how the contradiction is obtained. On the basis of this clarification, we argue that the result of the F-R argument has been overestimated and should be reconsidered from a more cautious perspective. (shrink)

Although the electron density can be calculated with the formal resources of quantum mechanics, in physics it does not play the leading role that the quantum state does. In contrast, the concept of electron density is central in quantum chemistry. There is no doubt about how the electron density is computed in terms of the wave function of an atom or molecule. However, when the interpretation of the concept is at stake, there is no general agreement. In this article we (...) will analyze the two main interpretations of the concept of electron density: the Born-style probability density interpretation and the Schrödinger-style charge density interpretation. In particular, we will examine their differences, their relations with quantum mechanics and the consequences that each of them entails from a strictly quantum point of view. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: Aktuelle Debatten zu gesellschaftspolitischen Folgen der Corona-Pandemie zeigen, dass Intellektuelle wie Giorgio Agamben und Roberto Esposito den Begriff „Biopolitik“ ins Treffen führen, um Regierungsmaßnahmen zur Eindämmung des Virus zu analysieren. Seit Michel Foucaults Überlegungen zur Funktionsweise und Genealogie der Biopolitik birgt der Begriff jedoch eine gewisse Problematik: Aufgrund strukturell bedingter Mechanismen der Inklusion und Exklusion menschlichen Lebens gelingt es den biopolitischen Modellen nach Agamben und Esposito nicht – so die These –, ein zentrales Element des Politischen zu beschreiben. Unberücksichtigt (...) bleibt die Möglichkeit des Widerstands und der Kritik an Regierungsmaßnahmen; eine Möglichkeit, die gerade die Heterogenität politischer Ordnungsstrukturen anzeigt. Im Zuge der Analytik moderner Machttechniken verschiebt Foucault anders als Agamben und Esposito den Fokus von der Biopolitik hin zu einem umfassenderen Paradigma des „Regierens“, der Gouvernementalität. Infolgedessen lässt sich die Biopolitik als Regierungsweise thematisieren, mit der immer schon Formen widerständigen Handelns einhergehen. Um dieser Perspektive Rechnung zu tragen, argumentiert mein Beitrag mit Foucault gegen die primär strukturale Auffassung politischer Ordnungen nach Agamben und Esposito. (shrink)

Schools in Germany are frequently named after people. Thus, these persons are remembered in the public sphere. This article answers the question to what extent the school names in the federal state of Thuringia correspond with the history of scientific pedagogy. For this purpose, in a first step, the controversial discussion about key figures in pedagogy and history of education is presented. In a second step the entirety of all school names in Thuringia is considered and individual results are discussed. (...) As a rule, it is not pedagogues who lend their names to schools but writers, artists and political figures. Only one fifth of all schools named after a person are named after educators. It is found that the key figures in pedagogy are rarely available as namesakes, whereas in practice successful school founders are preferred as name-givers. Accordingly, the history of pedagogy is represented in a filtered way in school names. Based on these results, further research perspectives for research on school names are formulated. (shrink)

Background: Predatory publishing poses a fundamental threat to the development of nursing knowledge. Previous research has suggested that authors of papers published in predatory journals are mainly inexperienced researchers from low- and middle-income countries. Less attention has been paid to contributors from high-income countries. Aim: To describe the prevalence and characteristics of Swedish authors publishing in predatory nursing journals. Design: Quantitative descriptive case study. Participants and research context: Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the academic positions and academic affiliations of (...) the authors of 39 papers published in predatory nursing journals during 2018 and 2019. Predatory nursing journals with Swedish contributors were identified by searching public listings of papers and applying a set of criteria. Journal site archives were used to identify additional papers with Swedish authors. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted in accordance with national regulations and ethical principles of research. Results: Almost two-thirds of Swedish authors publishing in predatory nursing journals hold senior academic positions. A small group of higher education institutions account for a majority of academic affiliations. Findings suggest that higher education institutions and experienced nursing researchers from Sweden make substantial contributions to predatory nursing journals, but that predatory publication habits might be concentrated in a limited number of academics and research milieus. A year-to-year comparison indicates that the prevalence of publishing in predatory journals might be diminishing. Discussion: Swedish nurse researchers help legitimize predatory journals, thus jeopardizing the trustworthiness of academic nursing knowledge. Substandard papers in predatory journals may pass as legitimate and be used to further academic careers. Experienced researchers are misleading junior colleagues, as joint publications might become embarrassments and liabilities. Conclusion: While the academic nursing community needs to address the problem of predatory publishing, there is some hope that educational efforts might have an effect on combating predatory publishing in nursing. (shrink)

The shift from state-led import-substitution industrialization to more market-oriented economic models often has the result of shrinking and demobilizing the labor movement. Yet, evidence from Argentina suggests that a subsequent resurgence of even a downsized labor movement may occur and furthermore that a type of “segmented neocorporatism” may be established in the new economic context. We argue that the establishment of this new form of interest intermediation is driven by economic and political factors that are both immediate and longer term. (...) In addition to the short-term condition of the labor market and the political strategy of the government in power, of longer-term importance are structural and institutional conditions that derive from the earlier process of market reform, specifically the nature of sectoral shifts in the economy and the degree of labor law deregulation affecting the “associational power” of unions. (shrink)

Es reconocido desde hace tiempo por la crítica que en su estructura y contenido el libro de los signos comparte cierta semejanza con las secciones iniciales de los tres primeros evangelios. También sus matices teológicos propios han sido resaltados, así como sus fuentes. Este encuentro y diferencia entre el cuarto evangelio y los sinópticos ha divido a los estudiosos respecto al análisis de sus fuentes y sus rasgos teológicos, como lo son el uso de sus fuentes, los relatos de milagros, (...) su escatología y cristología. Este artículo pretende dar una mirada de conjunto a las líneas de investigación más relevantes en estos puntos. (shrink)

The book offers an up-to-date introduction to the essential phenomena, issues, and theoretical approaches of linguistic semantics. It covers the key aspects of word and sentence semantics. In his step-by-step development of the theme, the author puts great stock in the consistency, coherence, and understandability of the scientific approach. The new edition has been extensively revised, expanded, and updated.

Long description: Trotz ”Spatial Turn“ in den Kulturwissenschaften bildet die Verknüpfung von Raum, Wissen und Medien noch immer ein Forschungsdesiderat. Dem begegnet dieser Band, indem er die Wechselverhältnisse von räumlichen Zusammenhängen, medialen Konstellationen und Wissenskonstitution untersucht. Die medien- und geschichtswissenschaftlichen Beiträge analysieren sowohl räumliche und mediale Bedingungen wissenschaftlicher Praxis als auch Räume und Räumlichkeiten von Medien. Dabei richten sie den Blick vornehmlich auf die Konstruktionsweisen von Wissensräumen durch analoge und digitale Medien und fragen aus einer topologischen Perspektive nach der epistemischen (...) Relevanz medialer Anordnungen. (shrink)