This article shows how activists in the open data movement re-articulate notions of democracy, participation, and journalism by applying practices and values from open source culture to the creation and use of data. Focusing on the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and drawing from a combination of interviews and content analysis, it argues that this process leads activists to develop new rationalities around datafication that can support the agency of datafied publics. Three modulations of open source are identified: First, by regarding (...) data as a prerequisite for generating knowledge, activists transform the sharing of source code to include the sharing of raw data. Sharing raw data should break the interpretative monopoly of governments and would allow people to make their own interpretation of data about public issues. Second, activists connect this idea to an open and flexible form of representative democracy by applying the open source model of participation to political participation. Third, activists acknowledge that intermediaries are necessary to make raw data accessible to the public. This leads them to an interest in transforming journalism to become an intermediary in this sense. At the same time, they try to act as intermediaries themselves and develop civic technologies to put their ideas into practice. The article concludes with suggesting that the practices and ideas of open data activists are relevant because they illustrate the connection between datafication and open source culture and help to understand how datafication might support the agency of publics and actors outside big government and big business. (shrink)

Users of sociotechnical systems often have no way to independently verify whether the system output which they use to make decisions is correct; they are epistemically dependent on the system. We argue that this leads to problems when the system is wrong, namely to bad decisions and violations of the norm of practical reasoning. To prevent this from occurring we suggest the implementation of defeaters: information that a system is unreliable in a specific case (undercutting defeat) or independent information that (...) the output is wrong (rebutting defeat). Practically, we suggest to design defeaters based on the different ways in which a system might produce erroneous outputs, and analyse this suggestion with a case study of the risk classification algorithm used by the Dutch tax agency. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction General Scenario for the Transmission of Information and Its Application to Genetics Semiotic Dimensions of Biological Information Syntactic Dimension I: Measuring the Statistical Entropy of Signals and Messages Syntactic Dimension II: Estimating the Algorithmic Complexity of Signals and Messages Semantic Dimension: Classifying the Mutual Complexity of Transmitters and Receivers Acknowledgment References Further Reading.

It is widely recognized that the innate versus acquired distinction is a false dichotomy. Yet many scientists continue to describe certain traits as “innate” and take this to imply that those traits are not acquired, or “unlearned.” This article asks what cognitive role, if any, the concept of innateness should play in the psychological and behavioural sciences. I consider three arguments for eliminating innateness from scientific discourse. First, the classification of a trait as innate is thought to discourage empirical research (...) into its developmental origin. Second, this concept lumps together a number of different biological properties that ought to be treated as distinct. Third, innateness is associated with the outmoded folk biological theory of essentialism. In response to these objections, I consider two attempts to revise the concept of innateness which aim to make it more suitable for scientific explanation and research. One proposal is that innateness can be defined in terms of the biological property of environmental canalization. On this view, a trait is innate to the extent that it is developmentally buffered against a range of different environments. Another proposal is that innateness serves as an explanatory primitive for cognitive science. This view holds that there exist a sharp boundary between psychological and biological explanations and that to identify a trait as innate means that it falls into the latter explanatory domain. This essay ends with some questions for future research. (shrink)

In their paper Nothing but the Truth Andreas Pietz and Umberto Rivieccio present Exactly True Logic, an interesting variation upon the four-valued logic for first-degree entailment FDE that was given by Belnap and Dunn in the 1970s. Pietz & Rivieccio provide this logic with a Hilbert-style axiomatisation and write that finding a nice sequent calculus for the logic will presumably not be easy. But a sequent calculus can be given and in this paper we will show that a calculus for (...) the Belnap-Dunn logic we have defined earlier can in fact be reused for the purpose of characterising ETL, provided a small alteration is made—initial assignments of signs to the sentences of a sequent to be proved must be different from those used for characterising FDE. While Pietz & Rivieccio define ETL on the language of classical propositional logic we also study its consequence relation on an extension of this language that is functionally complete for the underlying four truth values. On this extension the calculus gets a multiple-tree character—two proof trees may be needed to establish one proof. (shrink)

Within evolutionary biology, life-history theory is used to explain cross-species differences in allocation strategies regarding reproduction, maturation, and survival. Behavioral scientists have recently begun to conceptualize such strategies as a within-species individual characteristic that is predictive of behavior. Although life history theory provides an important framework for behavioral scientists, the psychometric approach to life-history strategy measurement—as operationalized by K-factors—involves conceptual entanglements. We argue that current psychometric approaches attempting to identify K-factors are based on an unwarranted conflation of functional descriptions and (...) proximate mechanisms—a conceptual mix-up that may generate unviable hypotheses and invites misinterpretation of empirical findings. The assumptions underlying generic psychometric methodology do not allow measurement of functionally defined variables; rather these methods are confined to Mayr’s proximate causal realm. We therefore conclude that K-factor scales lack validity, and that life history strategy cannot be identified with psychometrics as usual. To align theory with methodology, suggestions for alternative methods and new avenues are proposed. (shrink)

This article investigates corporate governance reform in South Africa in the context of the country’s international links with Anglo-American corporate governance and domestic pursuit of socioeconomic development. Two key questions are evaluated. (a) How has divergence within the Anglo-American model influenced corporate governance reform in South Africa? (b) Can South Africa’s historical closeness to the Anglo-American model be combined with increasing attention to stakeholder issues to produce a hybrid “African model” of corporate governance? Evaluating these questions, the following issues are (...) explored in turn: the contrast between shareholder and stakeholder models, divergence between U.S. and U.K. approaches to corporate governance as exemplified by Sarbanes-Oxley, locating a South African approach in context of the Anglo-American model, the King reports and an emerging “African” model of corporate governance, and the role of international and domestic factors in shaping South Africa’s ongoing reform process. (shrink)

Construction grammar organizes its basic elements of description, its constructions, into networks that range from concrete, lexically-filled constructions to fully schematic ones, with several levels of partially schematic constructions in between. However, only few corpus studies with a constructionist background take this multi-level nature fully into account. In this paper, we argue that understanding language variation can be advanced considerably by systematically formulating and testing hypotheses at various levels in the constructional network. To illustrate the approach, we present a corpus (...) study of the Dutch naar-alternation. It is found that this alternation primarily functions at an intermediate level in the constructional network. (shrink)

The culture of honour hypothesis offers a compelling example of how human psychology differentially adapts to pastoral and horticultural environments. However, there is disagreement over whether this pattern is best explained by a memetic, evolutionary psychological, dual inheritance, or niche construction model. I argue that this disagreement stems from two shortcomings: lack of clarity about the theoretical commitments of these models and inadequate comparative data for testing them. To resolve the first problem, I offer a theoretical framework for deriving competing (...) predictions from each of the four models. In particular, this involves a novel interpretation of the difference between dual inheritance theory and cultural niche construction. I then illustrate a strategy for testing their predictions using data from the Human Relations Area File. Empirical results suggest that the aggressive psychological phenotype typically associated with honour culture is more common among pastoral societies than among horticultural societies. Theoretical considerations suggest that this pattern is best explained as a case of cultural niche construction. (shrink)

Most accounts of our knowledge of the successor axiom claim that this is based on the procedure of adding one. While they usually don’t claim to provide an account of how children actually acquire this knowledge, one may well think that this is how they get that knowledge. I argue that when we look at children’s responses in interviews, the time when they learn the successor axiom and the intermediate learning stages they find themselves in, that there is an empirically (...) viable alternative. I argue that they could also learn it on the basis of a method that has to do with the structure of the numeral system. Specifically, that they (1) use the syntactic structure of the numeral system and (2) attend to the leftmost digits, the one with the highest place-value. Children can learn that this is a reliable method of forming larger numbers by combining two elements. First, a grasp of the syntactic structure of the numeral system. That way they know that the leftmost digit receives the highest value. Second, an interpretation of numerals as designating cardinal values, so that they also realise that increasing or adding digits on the lefthand side of a numeral produces a larger number. There are thus two, currently equally well-supported, ways in which children might learn that there are infinitely many natural numbers. (shrink)

Synthesizing important research traditions in information theory, structuralist semiotics, and generative linguistics, at least three main types of semiotic indeterminacy must be distinguished: Kolmogorov’s notion of randomness defined as sequential incompressibility, de Saussure’s principle of contingency of sign which ensures the possibility of translation between different sign systems, and Chomsky’s idea of indefiniteness in generative mechanisms as a requirement for the explanation of semiotic creativity. These types of semiotic indeterminacy form an abstract system useful for the description of concrete sign (...) processes in their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic dimension. In his philosophical reflections on modern biology, Jacques Monod used the conceptual opposition chance versus necessity to analyse several phenomena of indeterminacy (especially in molecular biology). The biosemiotic approach to life permits to apply the suggestedsystem of semiotic indeterminacy on these phenomena. (shrink)

Lawton’s contingency thesis states that there are no useful generalizations at the level of ecological communities because these systems are especially prone to contingent historical events. I argue that this influential thesis has been grounded on the wrong kind of evidence. CT is best understood in Woodward’s terms as a claim about the instability of certain causal dependencies across different background conditions. A recent distinction between evolution and ecology reveals what an adequate test of Lawton’s thesis would look like. To (...) date, CT remains untested. But developments in genome and molecular ecology point in a promising direction. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a Gentzen calculus for (a functionally complete variant of) Belnap's logic in which establishing the provability of a sequent in general requires \emph{two} proof trees, one establishing that whenever all premises are true some conclusion is true and one that guarantees the falsity of at least one premise if all conclusions are false. The calculus can also be put to use in proving that one statement \emph{necessarily approximates} another, where necessary approximation is a natural dual (...) of entailment. The calculus, and its tableau variant, not only capture the classical connectives, but also the `information' connectives of four-valued Belnap logics. This answers a question by Avron. (shrink)

In the following pages I intend to bring to attention the way in which the concrete effort of comprehension (as sensitive yet lucid grasping of a state of affairs) becomes critical reflection. I am constantly referring to several of Aurel Codoban’swritings, using as a departure point his 2001 book, Sign and intepretation. A postmodern introduction in semiotics and hermeneutics, whose pages might serve as a good guide for such a discussion. I remark than that criticalreflection manifests in several ways: as (...) a reflexive philosophical exercise (when the conscience of the self is assuming her actual philosophical condition), as a careful examination of the phenomenon of communication and of our world of signs and, lastly, as hermeneutical ontology. This is a type of reflections that leaves space to critical judgement, sharp irony and free, relaxed meditation, in equal proportion. Such an effort is always laudable in a philosophical community and, consequently, worthy of appreciation. (shrink)

I start from a relatively simple idea: the human being is constantly making a multiple experience of truth (once again, in reference to Gadamer's statement), both scientifical and technical, as well as religious or aesthetic. Still, what is the relationship between those experiences of truth? Can they express somehow, precisely by their multiplicity, a neutral ethos of today's man, or do they manage to take part in a larger and more elevated experience of truth? In the following paper I will (...) try to bring into focus precisely such issues. I return to the meaning given by Gadamer to the experience of truth. Then I make the distinction between the common sense and the proper sense of alternative. The later concerns the correlation - sometimes paradoxical - of different experiences of truth. For instance, the correlation between the technical and the religious experience. So one can understand that religious experience is above all an experience of human finitude. (shrink)

The series of Velvet revolutions in 1989, which brought about the collapse of communism in Europe, seem to have vindicated those political theorists and activists who believed in the possibility of non-violent power. The relative success of the 1989 revolutions has validated a new paradigm of revolutionary change based on the assumption that radical changes were attainable through moderate means. Yet the legacy of these non-violent revolutions also points towards the limits of political strategies fundamentally opposed to violence. The article (...) shows that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom. (shrink)

Excerpt“Europe is not America,” opined the leading editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung1 in the midst of the most severe financial crisis that the United States has experienced in its history. A few days later, when it became obvious that European-style capitalism was not immune to the problems caused by the reckless investment strategies of banks around the globe, the outburst of this European (German?) Schadenfreude dissipated. Yet, the underlying assumption remained: the economic downturn in the United States was indicative (...) of a profound crisis of the neo-liberal capitalist order that had been championed by different U.S. administrations for at…. (shrink)

Mathematical cognition has become an interesting case study for wider theories of cognition. Menary :1–20, 2015) argues that arithmetical cognition not only shows that internalist theories of cognition are wrong, but that it also shows that the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition is right. I examine this argument in more detail, to see if arithmetical cognition can support such conclusions. Specifically, I look at how the use of numerals extends our arithmetical abilities from quantity-related innate systems to systems that can deal (...) with exact numbers of arbitrary size. I then argue that the system underlying our grasp of small numbers is an unhelpful case study for Menary; it doesn’t support an argument for externalism over internalism. The system for large numbers, on the other hand, clearly displays important interactions between public numeral systems and our cognitive processes. I argue that the large number system supports an argument against internalist theories of arithmetical cognition, but that one cannot conclude that the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition is correct. In other words, the large number case doesn’t decide between the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition and the Hypothesis of EMbedded Cognition. (shrink)

Linsky and Zalta try to explain how we can refer to mathematical objects by saying that this happens through definite descriptions which may appeal to mathematical theories. I present two issues for their account. First, there is a problem of finding appropriate pre-conditions to reference, which are currently difficult to satisfy. Second, there is a problem of ensuring the stability of the resulting reference. Slight changes in the properties ascribed to a mathematical object can result in a shift of reference (...) and this leads to various problems, e.g., it makes inferring knowledge much harder than it is. (shrink)

In this paper we give an analytic tableau calculus P L 1 6 for a functionally complete extension of Shramko and Wansing’s logic. The calculus is based on signed formulas and a single set of tableau rules is involved in axiomatising each of the four entailment relations ⊧ t, ⊧ f, ⊧ i, and ⊧ under consideration—the differences only residing in initial assignments of signs to formulas. Proving that two sets of formulas are in one of the first three entailment (...) relations will in general require developing four tableaux, while proving that they are in the ⊧ relation may require six. (shrink)

There is no consensus as to whether a Liar sentence is meaningful or not. Still, a widespread conviction with respect to Liar sentences (and other ungrounded sentences) is that, whether or not they are meaningful, they are useless . The philosophical contribution of this paper is to put this conviction into question. Using the framework of assertoric semantics , which is a semantic valuation method for languages of self-referential truth that has been developed by the author, we show that certain (...) computational problems, called query structures , can be solved more efficiently by an agent who has self-referential resources (amongst which are Liar sentences) than by an agent who has only classical resources; we establish the computational power of self-referential truth . The paper concludes with some thoughts on the implications of the established result for deflationary accounts of truth. (shrink)

I compare Sellars’s criticism of the ‘myth of the given’ with Quine’s criticism of the ‘two dogmas’ of empiricism, that is, the analytic–synthetic distinction and reductionism. In Sections I to III, I present Quine’s and Sellars’s views. In IV to X, I discuss similarities and differences in their views. In XI to XII, I show that Sellars’s arguments against the ‘myth of the given’ are incompatible with Quine’s rejection of the analytic–synthetic distinction.

Post-translational histone modifications and their biological effects have been described as a ‘histone code’. Independently, Barbieri used the term ‘organic code’ to describe biological codes in addition to the genetic code. He also provided the defining criteria for an organic code, but to date the histone code has not been tested against these criteria. This paper therefore investigates whether the histone code is a bona fide organic code. After introducing the use of the term ‘code’ in biology, the criteria a (...) putative organic code such as the histone code must conform to in order to be recognised as an organic code are described. Our current knowledge of histones and their major post-translational modifications, and the specific protein binding domains that recognise and translate these into specific biological effects, is then reviewed in detail. The histone modification system is then placed in the context of an organic code and it is concluded that it fulfils all the requirements of an organic code. The marks produced on histones by processes such as acetylation and methylation act as organic signs that are translated into unique biological effects, their biological meanings. These translations are accomplished by effector proteins that consist of a binding domain that recognises a specific histone mark and a regulatory domain that mediates the biological effect. Crucially, these domains can be experimentally interchanged between different effector proteins, thus altering the rules that specify the relationships between sign and meaning. The effector proteins therefore fulfil the role of adaptor molecules. (shrink)

This manuscript describes the institutional and clinical considerations that apply to the question of whether to mandate opioid dose reduction in patients who have received opioids long-term. It describes how a calamitous rise in addiction and overdose involving opioids has both led to a clinical recalibration by healthcare providers, and to strong incentives favoring forcible opioid reduction by policy making agencies. Neither the 2016 Guideline issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor clinical evidence can justify or promote (...) such policies as safe or effective. (shrink)