f gravity is examined in the context of a five-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory with degenerate metric. In this theory electromagnetism is described by two vector fields, and there is a reflection symmetry between them which unifies them with gravitation. For matter, it is shown how the Lagrangian may be any function and still generate the same equations of motion, provided that some simple conditions are satisfied. The field equations are derived, and it is found that f gravity is not consistent with (...) the reflection symmetry. (shrink)

The physical environment leads to a thermal sensation that is perceived and appraised by occupants. The present study focuses on the relationship between sensation and evaluation. We asked 166 people to recall a thermal event from their recent past. They were then asked how they evaluated this experience in terms of 10 different emotions (frustrated, resigned, dislike, indifferent, angry, anxious, liking, joyful, regretful, proud). We tested whether four psychological factors (appraisal dimensions) could be used to predict the ensuing emotions, as (...) well as comfort, acceptability, and sensation. The four dimensions were: the Conduciveness of the event, who/what caused the event (Causality), who had control (Agency), and whether the event was expected (Expectations). These dimensions, except for Expectations, were good predictors of the reported emotions. Expectations, however, predicted the reported thermal sensation, its acceptability, and ensuing comfort. The more expected an event was, the more uncomfortable a person felt, and the less likely they reported a neutral thermal sensation. Together, these results support an embodied view of how subjective appraisals affect thermal experience. Overall, we show that appraisal dimensions mediate occupants' evaluation of their thermal sensation, which suggests an additional method for understanding psychological adaption. (shrink)

A mirror world consisting of matter which interacts with ordinary matter via gravity and weakly via other forces has been considered, inter alia, as a model for dark matter. A discrete symmetry under the interchange of fields means that both sectors experience the same forces. Separately it has been shown that it is possible to unify gravitation and electromagnetism by using a degenerate metric in five dimensions; in this theory there are two possible representations of charge, and there is a (...) reflection symmetry between them which, along with a gauge-like invariance, achieves the unification. Here it is shown that mirror matter arises naturally out of the degenerate theory, and as a result a new means for measuring the Brans–Dicke constant is obtained. (shrink)

Prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological endowment consists of numerous domainspecific cognitive resources, rather than a few domaingeneral ones. In the light of some conceptual clarification, we examine the central inprinciple arguments that evolutionary psychologists mount against domaingeneral cognition. We conclude (a) that the fundamental logic of Darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domainspecific features, and (b) that a mixed innate cognitive economy of domainspecific (...) and domaingeneral resources remains a genuine conceptual possibility. However, an examination of evolutionary psychology's 'grain problem' reveals that there is no way of establishing a principled and robust distinction between domainspecific and domaingeneral features. Nevertheless, we show that evolutionary psychologists can and do live with this grain problem without their whole enterprise being undermined. (shrink)

Unethical behavior coordinated and concealed by teams continues to represent a troubling and all-too-frequent occurrence in organizations. Unfortunately, those who are most knowledgeable about this behavior and thereby best suited to report it to authorities—the complicit members themselves—are susceptible to unique pressures that often discourage them from blowing the whistle. Team members rely on their teammates for relational and other beneficial resources, making it more difficult to potentially break those ties by snitching. However, we argue that the pressure to stay (...) silent is alleviated for members who are ostracized by their team members. Drawing on social exchange theory, we theorize that ostracism decreases positive affect and increases negative affect, decreasing individuals’ communion striving motivation and, in turn, increasing the propensity to blow the whistle. In Study 1, we examined the link between ostracism and whistleblowing utilizing a field sample of diverse employees surveyed over time. In Study 2, we built upon Study 1 and conducted a lab study to examine affect and communion striving motivation as serial mediators. Results were generally supportive of our arguments, although we did not find support for the mediating effect of negative affect. (shrink)

This work treats in one volume the most important fields in Islamic studies: Persian literature and philology; Islamic history and historiography; Arabic literature and philology; and Islamic philosophy and jurisprudence. The essays are representative of the fields in which one of the most illustrious Arabists and Persianists in the world, Ahmad Mahdavi Damgani, has been an indispensible contributor for close to 65 years.

The Canadian province of Ontario introduced philosophy as a secondary school subject in 1995 (Pinto, McDonough, & Boyd, 2009). Since publicly-funded Catholic schools teach approximately 32% of all students in Ontario (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2022), the question arises regarding how teachers in those schools coordinate philosophy and Catholic teachings. This study employs a secondary analysis of interviews with six teachers from Ontario’s Catholic schools, and employs two of Avery Dulles’ (2002) conceptions of church (institution and mystical communion) to determine (...) how they consider the choices available within their own tradition that could answer this question. Rather than looking only at the shortcomings of treating magisterial teaching as philosophy, this paper argues that there are also conceptual problems that these courses must address in order to improve their ecclesiological adequacy, and illustrates how an apparent null curriculum privileges the institutional ecclesiology. (shrink)

Scale is a contested concept in human geography fostering debates and contestation that have escalated to the point where some have argued for the term to be expunged from the geographical lexicon. Yet, despite the importance of scale in the geography of religion, the scalar debates in human geography have only rarely penetrated the conceptual base of the sub-discipline. This article addresses the scale debate through a case study of adherents in three churches in West Virginia, USA. The study explores (...) these highly theoretical scalar issues through an empirical analysis of adherents, congregations and denominational leaders. A critical realist framework of emergence is used to demonstrate the value of a stratified, non-reductionist approach to the geography of religion. An emergent geography of religion is considered alongside other forms of religious social analysis such as poststructural ‘crossings and dwellings’ and actor network theory, and the role of critical realism in the broader scale debates in geography is evaluated. (shrink)

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

This paper examines three forest value orientations - clusters of interrelated values and basic beliefs about forests - that emerged from an analysis of the public discourse about forest planning, management, and policy in the United States. The value orientations include anthropocentric, biocentric, and moral/spiritual/aesthetic orientations toward forests. Computer coded content analysis was used to identify shifts in the relative importance of these value orientations over the period 1980 through 2001. The share of expressions of anthropocentric forest value orientations declined (...) over this period, while the share of biocentric value expressions increased. Moral/spiritual/aesthetic value expressions remained constant over time. The observed shifts in forest value orientations have implications for identifying appropriate goals for public forest management and policy, developing socially acceptable means for accomplishing those goals, and dealing with inevitable conflict over forest management. (shrink)

Andy Clark has argued that language is “in many ways the ultimate artifact” (Clark 1997, p.218). Fuelling this conclusion is a view according to which the human brain is essentially no more than a patterncompleting device, while language is an external resource which is adaptively fitted to the human brain in such a way that it enables that brain to exceed its unaided (pattern-completing) cognitive capacities, in much the same way as a pair of scissors enables us to “exploit our (...) basic manipulative capacities to fulfill new ends” (Clark 1997, pp.193-4). How should we respond to this bold reconceptualization of our linguistic abilities? First we need to understand it properly. So I begin by identifying and unpacking (and making a small “Heideggerian” amendment to) Clark’s main language-specific claims. That done I take a step back. Clark’s approach to language is generated from a theoretical perspective which sees cognition as distributed over brain, body, and world. So I continue my investigation of Clark’s incursion into linguistic territory by uncovering and illustrating those key ideas from the overall distributed cognition research programme which are particularly relevant in the present context. I then use this analysis as a spring-board from which to examine a crucial issue that arises for Clark’s account of language, namely linguistic inner rehearsal. I argue that while there is much to recommend in Clark’s treatment of this issue, some significant difficulties remain to be overcome. Via this critique of Clark’s position, alongside some proposals for how the revealed problems might be addressed, I hope to edge us that bit closer to a full understanding of our linguistic abilities. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

In the business world, one of the key challenges is how to survive in ever changing business environments and outperforming the competitors, while keeping the operational cost at minimum and profits at maximum level. In other words, this can be described as the problem of improving operational efficiency and reducing cost. Over the past few years due to global financial challenges, it has become even more important to improve the operational efficiency and reduce costs to survive through these tough conditions. (...) Like other successful implementations of Lean philosophy, especially in automobile, aerospace, steel and healthcare, it can be applied in cable manufacturing to achieve competitive, sustainable and profitable processes. The main focus of Lean philosophy is to create value for the stakeholders and end customers by reducing the non-value added activities or waste, and laying a strong foundation towards sustainable growth, by focusing on continuous process improvement. The overall philosophy provides a focused approach for continuous process improvement and the targeting of a variety of tools and methods to bring improvements. This paper presents case studies for Lean scheduling of manufacturing processes and exemplify how Lean scheduling processes allow organisations to maintain the continuous improvement philosophy. This paper also addresses the key elements of rescheduling processes i.e. how to schedule and when to schedule. Further, the paper will exemplify key benefits of Lean scheduling and how the Cable industry could benefit from the proposed approach. (shrink)

We examine the notion of conditionals and the role of conditionals in inductive logics and arguments. We identify three mistakes commonly made in the study of, or motivation for, non-classical logics. A nonmonotonic consequence relation based on evidential probability is formulated. With respect to this acceptance relation some rules of inference of System P are unsound, and we propose refinements that hold in our framework.

This paper will explore an epistemic aspect of hope, namely hope’s relationship to knowledge. It has been taken for granted that people do not hope for things to occur that they know will occur. I will be giving an argument that hope and knowledge are compatible, and I will defend that argument against one primary objection. More specifically, I will argue that there are instances when an agent knows that p and still hopes that p.

Institute of Theoretical Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK 3fS. received 28th August 1970, in final revised form 1st July 1971..

C.P. Snow observed that universities are largely made up of two broad types of people, literary intellectuals and scientists, yet a typical individual of each type is barely able, if able at all, to communicate with his counterpart. Snow's observation, popularized in his 1959 lecture Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution (reissued by Cambridge 1993), goes some way to explaining the two distinct cultures one hears referred to as "the humanities" and "the sciences." Snow's lecture is a study of these (...) two cultures, their rules, hierarchies, and educational traditions, which raises the following question: to what degree are "the humanities" and "the sciences" a consequence of how we organize and fund modern universities? Rather than a happenstance of interests and temperament, perhaps "humanist" and "scientist" are largely bureaucratic categories. (shrink)

Henry Kyburg’s lottery paradox (1961, p. 197) arises from considering a fair 1000 ticket lottery that has exactly one winning ticket. If this much is known about the execution of the lottery it is therefore rational to accept that one ticket will win. Suppose that an event is very likely if the probability of its occurring is greater than 0.99. On these grounds it is presumed rational to accept the proposition that ticket 1 of the lottery will not win. Since (...) the lottery is fair, it is rational to accept that ticket 2 won’t win either—indeed, it is rational to accept for any individual ticket i of the lottery that ticket i will not win. However, accepting that ticket 1 won’t win, accepting that ticket 2 won’t win, . . . , and accepting that ticket 1000 won’t win entails that it is rational to accept that no ticket will win, which entails that it is rational to accept the contradictory proposition that one ticket wins and no ticket wins. (shrink)

This short book is a history of what might be called the Chicago school of pragmatist evolutionary ethics. It places John Dewey and Jane Addams in their late-nineteenth-century intellectual context, emphasizing in particular how they drew on the work of Herbert Spencer, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Peter Kropotkin. Eddy suggests in her introduction that because today’s “social climate” is similar in many respects to that of the United States circa 1900, pragmatism may offer “significant insights for our situation now” (p. (...) xi). Her overall thesis is that although the ethical approach of Dewey and Addams was sometimes marred by a commitment to “teleological progress” (p. 38), at its best it defended a “melioristic hope” (p. 119): we try to make the world better, but there are no guarantees. Although the book provides some helpful context for the ethical work of the Chicago pragmatists, Eddy does not convincingly show that Addams and Dewey ever saw progress as “teleological,” in the sense of inevitable movement toward a specific end. (shrink)

A bounded formula is a pair consisting of a propositional formula φ in the first coordinate and a real number within the unit interval in the second coordinate, interpreted to express the lower-bound probability of φ. Converting conjunctive/disjunctive combinations of bounded formulas to a single bounded formula consisting of the conjunction/disjunction of the propositions occurring in the collection along with a newly calculated lower probability is called absorption. This paper introduces two inference rules for effecting conjunctive and disjunctive absorption and (...) compares the resulting logical system, called System Y, to axiom System P. Finally, we demonstrate how absorption resolves the lottery paradox and the paradox of the preference. (shrink)

Is it possible to gain knowledge about the real world based solely on experiences in virtual reality? According to one influential theory of knowledge, you cannot. Robert Nozick's truth-tracking theory requires that, in addition to a belief being true, it must also be sensitive to the truth. Yet beliefs formed in virtual reality are not sensitive: in the nearest possible world where P is false, you would have continued to believe that P. This is problematic because there is increasing awareness (...) from philosophers and technologists that virtual reality is an important way in which we can arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world. Here I argue that a suitably modified version of Nozick's sensitivity condition is able to account for knowledge from virtual reality. (shrink)

Sheehan and coworkers have claimed [D. P. Sheehan et al., Found. Phys. 30, 1227 ; 32, 441 ; D. P. Sheehan, in Quantum Limits to the Second Law, AIP Conference Proceedings 643, p. 391] that a dilute gas trapped between an external shell and a gravitator can support a steady state in which energy flux by particles in one direction is balanced by energy flux by radiation in the opposite direction, and in which work can be extracted from an isothermal (...) heat reservoir, thereby violating the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper, we identify a fundamental error in their simulation and analysis of their model system that vitiates their conclusions. We analyze a simpler, exactly soluble, three-dimensional model of a very dilute gas in a gravitational field between two thermal reservoirs, and show that their conclusions are not supported for the simple model. We show that their method of simulation, when applied to either the simple model or their more complex model under simpler conditions where the answers are known, leads to unphysical results. We also show that, when appropriate sampling is done, their model gives results in accord with the second law and detailed balance. (shrink)