En este artículo, presentamos y analizamos críticamente el enfoque tecnicista en teoría de los medios. Abordamos una de sus propuestas más radicales, a saber: la eliminación de la dimensión del sentido y de las instancias agenciales humanas en favor de la dimensión de la información y de sistemas automatizados de procesamiento de señales y datos. En nuestro análisis consideramos las dificultades del gesto eliminacionista y ofrecemos un enfoque alternativo que atienda a los aspectos técnico-materiales, pero sin eliminar la dimensión del (...) sentido. Se trata de un enfoque basado en los planteos derridianos sobre la huella. Examinaremos la mediación de la huella con vistas a tres aspectos decisivos: la conformación de relaciones lógicas y lenguajes formales, el funcionamiento de los sistemas de información y la producción de significaciones. (shrink)

Assyriologists who have studied Mesopotamian commentary formation have drawn upon ideas from scholars of religion in treating the creation of a static canon at the end of the second millennium bce as a necessary precondition for the emergence of cuneiform commentaries. The present contribution argues against the idea that Mesopotamian commentaries emerged in response to a closed canon by marshaling evidence from Mesopotamian divinatory compositions, including the celestial-divinatory series Enūma Anu Enlil and its associated aḫû, or “extraneous” tradition, as well (...) as the extispical treatise Bārûtu. These compositions illustrate that commentaries could be written about texts that were still fluid and malleable in ancient Mesopotamia. Moreover, a brief look at the phenomenon of inner biblical exegesis in the Hebrew Bible supports the idea that texts need not be unchanging to be the subject of interpretation, whether in ancient Mesopotamia or elsewhere. In response to these conclusions, I outline an alternate theory for Mesopotamian commentary formation that eschews the importance of a closed canon and stresses instead ideas of scholarly bilingualism, divination, authority, and textual decorum in ancient Iraq. (shrink)

In his entertaining and informative book Graphic Discovery, Howard Wainer unlocked the power of graphical display to make complex problems clear. Now he's back with Picturing the Uncertain World, a book that explores how graphs can serve as maps to guide us when the information we have is ambiguous or incomplete. Using a visually diverse sampling of graphical display, from heartrending autobiographical displays of genocide in the Kovno ghetto to the "Pie Chart of Mystery" in a New Yorker cartoon, (...) Wainer illustrates the many ways graphs can be used--and misused--as we try to make sense of an uncertain world. Picturing the Uncertain World takes readers on an extraordinary graphical adventure, revealing how the visual communication of data offers answers to vexing questions yet also highlights the measure of uncertainty in almost everything we do. Are cancer rates higher or lower in rural communities? How can you know how much money to sock away for retirement when you don't know when you'll die? And where exactly did nineteenth-century novelists get their ideas? These are some of the fascinating questions Wainer invites readers to consider. Along the way he traces the origins and development of graphical display, from William Playfair, who pioneered the use of graphs in the eighteenth century, to instances today where the public has been misled through poorly designed graphs. We live in a world full of uncertainty, yet it is within our grasp to take its measure. Read Picturing the Uncertain World and learn how. (shrink)

In this explosive book, Howard Wainer uses statistical evidence to show why some of the most widely held beliefs in education today--and the policies that have resulted--are wrong.

The class of all recursive functions fails to possess a natural hierarchical structure, generated predicatively from "within". On the other hand, many (proof-theoretically significant) sub-recursive classes do. This paper attempts to measure the limit of predicative generation in this context, by classifying and characterizing those (predictably terminating) recursive functions which can be successively defined according to an autonomy condition of the form: allow recursions only over well-orderings which have already been "coded" at previous levels. The question is: how can a (...) recursion code a well-ordering? The answer lies in Girard's theory of dilators, but is reworked here in a quite different and simplified framework specific to our purpose. The "accessible" recursive functions thus generated turn out to be those provably recursive in $(\prod_{1}^{1}-CA)_{0}$. (shrink)

The philosophical interest in experimental practice in neuroscience has brought renewed attention to the study of the development and use of techniques and tools for data production. John Bickle has argued that the construction and progression of theories in neuroscience are entirely dependent on the development and ingenious use of research tools. In Bickle's account, theory plays a tertiary role, as it depends on what the tools allow researchers to manipulate, and the tools, in turn, are developed not in order (...) to test theories but as solutions to engineering problems. However, Bickle's account is not entirely precise in explaining what informs researchers' decision-making in their atheoretical laboratory tinkering. Identifying the sources that guide researchers in tool development and use is crucial if one wishes to contribute to the philosophical or meta-scientific understanding of experimental practice in neuroscience. In the following paper, I claim that decision-making in tools' development and use in neuroscience is doubly guided. Pre-existing theory and concepts determine information's relevance, whereas tools' functioning in controlled situations determines information's reliability. Accordingly, experimenters' decision-making is situated both in the context of analysing, modelling or interpreting information and in the context of producing information. I study the case of the tungsten microelectrode developed by David Hubel during the 1950s. First, I show that pre-existing theory and concepts determine in advance what information would be relevant to obtain from the microelectrode. Second, I show that Hubel's tinkering follows the guidelines derived from the very structure of what we recognise as reliable experimentally produced information. Finally, I suggest that data-production processes allow experimenters to assess what to expect from an experimental system in terms of concept- and theory-generation and confirmation, thereby endorsing Bickle's tenet on the tertiary role of theory in neuroscience. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta os principais resultados de uma pesquisa que objetivou verificar a validade e viabilidade de aplicar modelos lógico-pragmáticos da Lingüística Cognitiva ao entendimento dos processos inferenciais nos diálogos de díades pacientepsicoterapeuta em Terapia Cognitivo-Comportamental ..

Girard’s maxim, that Peano Arithmetic is a theory of one inductive definition, is re-examined in the light of a weak theory EA formalising basic principles of Nelson’s predicative Arithmetic.

The general objective of this essay is to systematize Jean-Luc Nancy’s post- deconstructive reflections on the concept of evidence. A general claim of this paper is that the post-deconstructive concept of evidence is genuinely an epistemic concept of evidence insofar as it refers to structures involved in verification processes. Evidence is the presentation of a state of affairs that relates the presentation not only to what we claim about this state of affairs but also to the singular circumstances of its (...) production. Verification (the production of a claim’s truth) results directly from the singularities involved in the production or presentation of evidence. This means that evidence is never exhausted in the truth it produces or the knowledge it validates but remains a priori exposed or available to produce and validate unknown knowledge about unknown states of affairs. (shrink)

Each philosopher is preceded by an account of his life, academic career, and known extra-scholarly influences.

These eight essays present Chinese ideas and help build bridges to our Western ways of thinking.

Based on metatheoretical considerations, this article discusses what kinds of traffic forecasts are possible and what kinds are impossible to make with any reasonable degree of accuracy. It will be argued on ontological and epistemological grounds that it is inherently impossible to make exact predictions about the magnitude of the ‘general’ traffic growth 20-30 years ahead, since many of the influencing factors depend on inherently unpredictable geopolitical trajectories as well as contested political decision-making. Due to the context-dependency of each particular (...) planning situation, it is also hardly possible to make exact, quantitative predictions about the impact of implementing a specific infrastructure project, compared to ‘doing nothing’. Instead of relying on traffic model simulations as the general forecasting and assessment tool in transport planning, we propose to separate the so-called strategic, tactical and operational levels of traffic forecasting into three distinct methodological approaches reflecting the different degrees of openness/closure of the systems at hand: scenario analyses at the strategic level; theory-informed, mainly qualitative analyses supplemented with simple calculations at the tactical level; while more traditional micro-simulations should be applied only at a detailed operational level. (shrink)

This paper reports on an approach to model generalized implicatures using nonmonotonic logics. The approach, called compositional, is based on the idea of compositional semantics, where the implicatures carried by a sentence are constructed from the implicatures carried by its constituents, but it also includes some aspects nonmonotonic logics in order to model the defeasibility of generalized implicatures.

As a sovereign wealth fund, the $1 trillion Norwegian Government Pension Fund-Global, which is managed by Norges Bank Investment Management on behalf of the welfare of Norway’s citizens, is supposed to be a flagship for socially responsible investments through its Council of Ethics. However, its investment in Delta Topco, the holding company of Formula 1 world championship that, through Formula One Group, brokered a deal with Russia to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2014, raises the question of whether (...) the Oil Fund should enhance its due diligence processes. Although no evidence of corruption related to the race is introduced, the complex relation between financial logic and the world of sports still raises questions about the ethical solidity of the Oil Fund’s investment. Drawing upon reports of the relationship between political economy and sporting events, this paper therefore analyses, in light of the Oil Fund’s ethical guidelines, the complexities of its investment in Delta Topco. As a result, it is argued that a new set of examination methods by the Council of Ethics may be warranted. (shrink)

Ecology, Community and Lifestyle is a revised and expanded translation of Naess' book Okologi, Samfunn og Livsstil, which sets out the author's thinking on the relevance of philosophy to the problems of environmental degradation and the rethinking of the relationship between mankind and nature. The text has been thoroughly updated by Naess and revised and translated by David Rothenberg.

This conceptual paper explores whether the normative legitimacy of International Sports Associations such as Fédération Internationale de Football Association and Fédération Internati...

This article addresses the moral and legal difficulties sport governing bodies encounter as human rights promoters. The case presented here is the 2023 decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete in international sport under neutral colours, after recommending complete exclusion a year before due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While IOC’s change of mind was influenced by UN experts on human rights, claiming that the ban discriminated against Russian athletes, the (...) same experts fail to take into account competing human rights elements that could favour the ban. To that end, this article discusses the complexities of prioritizing human rights in an Olympic context and, deriving from that, demonstrates the existence of moral and legal support for upholding the exclusion of Russia. Finally, the analysis of how to prioritize morally and legally between competing human rights offers deliberative material to other sport governing bodies which could be used to carve out preventive measures prior to their next encounter with a similar situation. (shrink)

This paper discusses the practice of cost-benefit analyses of transportation infrastructure investment projects from the meta-theoretical perspective of critical realism. Such analyses are based on a number of untenable ontological assumptions about social value, human nature and the natural environment. In addition, main input data are based on transport modelling analyses based on a misleading `local ontology' among the model makers. The ontological misconceptions translate into erroneous epistemological assumptions about the possibility of precise predictions and the validity of willingness-to-pay investigations. (...) Accepting the ontological and epistemological assumptions of cost-benefit analysis involves an implicit acceptance of the ethical and political values favoured by these assumptions. Cost-benefit analyses of transportation investment projects tend to neglect long-term environmental consequences and needs among population groups with a low ability to pay. Instead of cost-benefit analyses, impact analyses evaluating the likely effects of project alternatives against a wide range of societal goals is recommended, with quantification and economic valorisation only for impact categories where this can be done in an ontologically and epistemologically defensible way. (shrink)

Wilfred Sieg and Stanley S. Wainer. Program Transformation and Proof Transformation.

Following our [6], though with somewhat different methods here, further variants of Goodstein sequences are introduced in terms of parameterized Ackermann–Péter functions. Each of the sequences is shown to terminate, and the proof-theoretic strengths of these facts are calibrated by means of ordinal assignments, yielding independence results for a range of theories: PRA, PA,$\Sigma ^1_1$-DC$_0$, ATR$_0$, up to ID$_1$. The key is the so-called “Hardy hierarchy” of proof-theoretic bounding finctions, providing a uniform method for associating Goodstein-type sequences with parameterized normal (...) form representations of positive integers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInternational sporting associations like the International Federation of Football Associations, the International Olympic Committee and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile have throughout the twentieth century promoted political neutrality as a source of autonomy. With FIFA and the IOC’s official adherence to the United Nations’ human rights conventions in 2017, FIA remains one of the few large ISAs where neutrality is not underpinned by a corrective on human rights. However, this position is in conflict with the ethical obligations FIA contracted when it (...) was given full recognition by the IOC in 2013. To discuss this problematic, this paper draws upon J.S. Mill’s On Liberty and the concept of ‘inaction’ as a source for ways in which the FIA might reconsider its current stance.Abbreviations: IOC ; FIA ; FIFA ; ICRC (International Committee of... (shrink)