People are generally more accurate at categorizing objects at the basic level (e.g., dog) than at more general, superordinate categories (e.g., animal). Recent research has suggested that this basic‐level advantage emerges from the linguistic‐distributional and sensorimotor relationship between a category concept and object concept, but the proposed mechanisms have not been subject to a formal computational test. In this paper, we present a computational model of category verification that allows linguistic distributional information and sensorimotor experience to interact in a grounded (...) implementation of a full‐size adult conceptual system. In simulations across multiple datasets, we demonstrate that the model performs the task of category verification at a level comparable to human participants, and—critically—that its operation naturally gives rise to the basic‐level‐advantage phenomenon. That is, concepts are easier to categorize when there is a high degree of overlap in sensorimotor experience and/or linguistic distributional knowledge between category and member concepts, and the basic‐level advantage emerges as an overall behavioral artifact of this linguistic and sensorimotor overlap. Findings support the linguistic–sensorimotor preparation account of the basic‐level advantage and, more broadly, linguistic–sensorimotor theories of the conceptual system. (shrink)

This comprehensive anthology draws together writings by leading philosophers on the philosophy of science. Each section is prefaced by an introductory essay from the editors, guiding students gently into the topic. Accessible and wide-ranging, the text draws on both contemporary and twentieth century sources. The readings are designed to complement Alex Rosenberg's textbook, _Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction_, but can also serve as a stand-alone volume in any philosophy of science course. Includes readings from the following leading philosophers: Achinstein, (...) Anderson, Bloor, Earman, Feyerabend, Gutting, Hanson, Hempel, Kitcher, Kuhn, Laudan, Leplin, Mackie, McMullin, Nagel, Popper, Quine, Rosenberg, Russell, Salmon, Schlick, Shapere, Van Fraassen. (shrink)

De heilige maand ramadan en het Suikerfeest vormen een tijd van bezinning op het islamitische geloof en staan in het teken van de hervertelling van religieuze verhalen. Iedere religie kent zulke momenten van religieuze reflectie. Die zijn bijzonder en betekenisvol. Maar helaas wordt de nadruk nog steeds vaak gelegd op bewijs voor het bestaan van God en de waarheid van religieuze overtuigingen.

How does an object persist through change? How can a book, for example, open in the morning and shut in the afternoon, persist through a change that involves the incompatible properties of being open and being shut? The goal of this reader is to inform and reframe the philosophical debate around persistence; it presents influential accounts of the problem that range from classic papers by W. V. O. Quine, David Lewis, and Judith Jarvis Thomson to recent work by contemporary philosophers. (...) The authors take on the question of persistence by examining three broad approaches: perdurantism, which holds that change over time is analogous to change over space; exdurantism, according to which identity over time is analogous to identity across possible worlds; and endurantism, which holds that ordinary objects persist by enduring. Each of these approaches appears to be coherent, but each also has its own metaphysical problems. Persistence includes papers that argue for perdurantism, exdurantism, or endurantism, as well as papers that explore some metaphysical difficulties challenging each account. In this way the collection allows readers to balance the trade-offs of each approach in terms of intuitiveness, theoretical attractiveness, and elegance.Contributors:Yuri Balashov, William Carter, Graeme Forbes, Sally Haslanger, Katherine Hawley, H. S. Hestevold, Mark Hinchliffe, Mark Johnston, Roxanne Marie Kurtz, David K. Lewis, Ned Markosian, D. H. Mellor, W. V. O. Quine, Theodore Sider, Richard Taylor, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman. (shrink)

'Verder vraag je mij terug te keren naar mijn vroegere levenswijze. Het was al lang mijn plicht te treuren, namelijk om de ondergang van de republiek; dat deed ik dan ook, maar minder heftig, want ik had een plek om tot rust te komen. Nu kan ik die wijze van leven en handelen volstrekt niet meer tot de mijne maken en om de mening van anderen daarover hoef ik me niet te bekommeren. Mijn eigen geweten is me meer waard (...) dan het gepraat van Jan en alleman.'. (shrink)

Onderzoek naar idealisme en betrokkenheid onder de Nederlandse bevolking.

An international legal agreement governing the global antimicrobial commons would represent the strongest commitment mechanism for achieving collective action on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Since AMR has important similarities to climate change—both are common pool resource challenges that require massive, long-term political commitments—the first article in this special issue draws lessons from various climate agreements that could be applicable for developing a grand bargain on AMR. We consider the similarities and differences between the Paris Climate Agreement and current governance structures for (...) AMR, and identify the merits and challenges associated with different international forums for developing a long-term international agreement on AMR. To be effective, fair, and feasible, an enduring legal agreement on AMR will require a combination of universal, differentiated, and individualized requirements, nationally determined contributions that are regularly reviewed and ratcheted up in level of ambition, a regular independent scientific stocktake to support evidence informed policymaking, and a concrete global goal to rally support. (shrink)

RESUMO Busco traçar uma articulação teórica em torno de duas obras póstumas de Mikhail Bakhtin e Yuri Lotman, expoentes chave para pensar a cultura sob uma perspectiva semiótica. Nessas produções tardias, os dois pensadores expõem um interesse compartilhado em refletir como o medo se materializa, podendo-se ler em textos concretos que buscam explicar os fenômenos que estão ocorrendo no horizonte cultural. Nesse sentido, Lotman e Bakhtin estão focados em investigar a aparência regular de um conjunto de princípios e motivos (...) que seriam sistematicamente atualizados na relação entre laços sociais e medo. Meu objetivo vai além do descritivo para delinear aparatos críticos sobre o medo na perspectiva semiótica, à luz da interpretação desses artigos que mantêm o poder heurístico e fornecem um instrumento para iniciar uma reflexão sobre esse modo cultural de sentimento.ABSTRACT I seek to draw a theoretical articulation around two posthumous works by Mikhail Bakhtin and Yuri Lotman, key exponents to think about culture from a semiotic perspective. In these late productions, both thinkers expose a shared interest in reflecting how fear materializes, being able to be read in concrete texts that seek to account for the phenomena that are occurring on the cultural horizon. In this sense, Lotman and Bakhtin focus on investigating the regular appearance of a set of principles and motives that would be systematically updated in the relationship between social ties and fear. My purpose is not only to describe, but also to outline a critical apparatus about fear from a semiotic perspective, in light of the interpretation of these articles that keep heuristic power and provide an instrument to initiate a reflection on this cultural mode of feeling.RESUMEN Busco trazar una articulación teórica en torno a dos trabajos póstumos de Mikhail Bakhtin y Yuri Lotman, exponentes clave para pensar la cultura desde una perspectiva semiótica. En estas producciones tardías, ambos pensadores exponen un interés compartido por reflexionar de qué manera el miedo se materializa, pudiendo leerse en textos concretos que buscan dar cuenta de los fenómenos que van produciéndose en el horizonte cultural. En tal sentido, Lotman y Bakhtin se abocan a indagar sobre la aparición regular de un conjunto de principios y motivos que se actualizarían, sistemáticamente, en la relación entre lazo social y miedo. Mi propósito irá más allá de lo descriptivo para esbozar aparato crítico sobre el miedo en perspectiva semiótica, a la luz de la interpretación de estos artículos que guardan potencia heurística y proveen de un instrumental para iniciar una reflexión sobre este modo cultural del sentir. (shrink)

This volume tackles Gödel's two-stage project of first using Husserl's transcendental phenomenology to reconstruct and develop Leibniz' monadology, and then founding classical mathematics on the metaphysics thus obtained. The author analyses the historical and systematic aspects of that project, and then evaluates it, with an emphasis on the second stage.

This book offers a new description of the significance of Hesiod's 'myth of the races' for ancient Greek and Roman authors, showing how the most detailed responses to this story go far beyond nostalgia for a lost 'Golden' age or hope of its return. Through a series of close readings, it argues that key authors from Plato to Juvenal rewrite the story to reconstruct 'Hesiod' more broadly as predecessor in forming their own intellectual and rhetorical projects; disciplines such as philosophy, (...) didactic poetry and satire all engage in implicit questions about 'Hesiodic' teaching. The first chapter introduces key issues; the second re-evaluates the account in Hesiod's Works and Days. A major chapter outlines Plato's use of Hesiod through close study of the Protagoras, Republic and Statesman. Subsequent chapters focus on Aratus' Phaenomena and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the final chapter, on the Octavia attributed to Seneca and Juvenal's sixth Satire, broadens ideas of Hesiod's reception in Rome. (shrink)

ON BROUWER, like other titles in the Wadsworth Philosopher's Series, offers a concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to this philosopher's most important ideas. Presenting the most important insights of well over a hundred seminal philosophers in both the Eastern and Western traditions, the Wadsworth Philosophers Series contains volumes written by scholars noted for their excellence in teaching and for their well-versed comprehension of each featured philosopher's major works and contributions. These titles have proven valuable in a number of ways. Serving as (...) standalone texts when tackling a philosophers' original sources or as helpful resources for focusing philosophy students' engagements with these philosopher's often conceptually daunting works, these titles have also gained extraordinary popularity with a lay readership and quite often serve as "refreshers" for philosophy instructors. (shrink)

The Lockean theory of property licenses unilateral appropriation on the condition that there be ‘enough, and as good left in common for others’. However, the meaning of this proviso is all but clear. This article argues that the proviso is centered around the Lockean theory of freedom. To be free, I argue, we must be ‘non-subjected’ in the exercise of our rights, including our rights to appropriate. We enjoy such freedom only when the ability to exercise our rights does not (...) depend on others. That can obtain if literally enough and as good is left in common. But it can also obtain in other ways, for example through competitive labour markets. The latter offer something as good as ‘enough and as good’. (shrink)

On Bicchieri's view, social norms most centrally involve a pattern of preferences among the members of a relevant population; according to Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin, and Southwood, social norms most centrally involve patterns of normative attitudes among the members of a given group. This paper argues, first, that social norms can require attitudes as well as behaviour, and, second, that the existence of such attitudinal social norms speaks in favour of the preference-based view and against the normative attitudes-based view.

This is a fully revised and updated version of Hans van der Doel"s Democracy and Welfare Economics.

Discourse Representation Theory is a specific name for the work of Hans Kamp in the area of dynamic interpretation of natural language. Also, it has gradually become a generic term for proposals for dynamic interpretation of natural language in the same spirit. These proposals have in common that each new sentence is interpreted in terms of the contribution it makes to an existing piece of interpreted discourse. The interpretation conditions for sentences are given as instructions for updating the representation of (...) the discourse. (shrink)

Digital farming technologies promise to help farmers make well-informed decisions that improve the quality and quantity of their production, with less labour and less impact on the environment. This future, however, can only become a reality if farmers are willing to share their data with agribusinesses that develop digital technologies. To foster trust in data sharing, in Europe the EU Code of Conduct for agricultural data sharing by contractual agreement was launched in 2018 which encourages transparency about data use. This (...) article looks at the EU Code through the lens of literature on trust and contract agreements. We agree with the makers of the EU Code that a contract can make an important contribution to trust relationships as it is needed to mitigate the detrimental effects of power relationships between experts and non-experts. Building on Onora O’Neills perspective to trust, however, we argued that a contract can only be successful in fostering trust when information is comprehended by the more vulnerable party in this relationship who has to sign the contract, the more powerful partner takes responsibility to provide that information, and information is tailored to the information needs of the party signing the contract, even when data are re-used over a longer period. In addition, we think that differences between trust relationships and relationships of accountability, give reason to add to informed consent other more substantive ethical components in a more encompassing code of conduct. (shrink)

... rushing around like the red queen in a world where change is virtuous merely because it is change, we can start by putting up some resistance. ...

Guarded actions are changes with preconditions acting as a guard. Guarded action models are multimodal Kripke models with the valuations replaced by guarded actions. Call guarded action logic the result of adding product updates with guarded action models to PDL (propositional dynamic logic). We show that guarded action logic reduces to PDL.

Bas van Fraassen’s Constructive Empiricism (CE) has been much discussed. There is, however, a curious feature of van Fraassen’s writings that has been overlooked up until now. This is that he sometimes capitalises certain key terms, notably “Induction”. This is done to differentiate a pragmatic small ‘i’ induction (which has epistemic import) from a rule-bound capital ‘I’ induction (which does not). In this paper, I argue that van Fraassen’s small letter/capital letter distinction reveals an underlying dualism, one that is reminiscent (...) of the notoriously problematic semantic dualism in Logical Positivism (between a theoretical language and an observation language). Despite partly developing CE to overcome Logical Positivism’s kind of dualism, van Fraassen seems to have tacitly endorsed it anyway. If so, then CE requires revision. It is, however, not clear how to conduct such a revision. It is not clear what the way forward should be once CE is understood as innately dualistic. (shrink)

Le culte grandiose de Kali, la Mère, son incomparable symbolisme, ses litanies et ses chants, embrasse l'âme de l'univers qu'il glorifie comme aucune conception religieuse ne le fit jamais. La terrifiante déesse sème la peste et les pires ravages sur ses pas, tout en accordant sa grâce et sa clémence à ses enfants assez hardis pour soulever l'horrible masque derrière lequel elle se cache la figure. Ceux-là retrouveront les traits radieux qui ont enchanté leur enfance. La sublime conception de Kali, (...) la Mère, découle d'une philosophie moniste qui s'écarte pourtant sensiblement de la philosophie Védanta de Shankara. Tous deux partent, il est vrai, de la même idée. Ils admettent l'un et l'autre une substance une, indivisible et éternelle, que les Védantins appellent Brahma et les adorateurs de Kali, la Mère, Siva. Mais il y a divergence quant aux manifestations. Pour Shankara il n'y a qu'illusion. Il tranche le lien qui rattache le phénomène à l'absolu. Il se demande qui a pu susciter l'apparence. Mais, l'absolu étant la vérité même, il n'a pu engendrer l'apparence pas plus que la lumière n'aurait pu engendrer l'obscurité. Qu'y avait-il donc de commun entre les Brahmas et Maya? A première vue il semble qu'il n'y a aucun rapport. Pour Shankara il n'était besoin d'aucune relation, puisque Maya n'existe pas en réalité et que le monde n'est que mirage. Le monde n'existe que pour l'esprit qui est lui-même sujet aux hallucinations. Adorer la Mère, c'est accepter l'univers dans ses aspects les plus terrifiants. Cette philosophie est diamétralement opposée au christianisme dans son culte du Dieu d'amour, du Père plein de miséricorde. Le christianisme enseigne que tout se fait pour notre bien, tandis que pour les adorateurs de Kali, l'univers est féroce et hostile à l'homme, qui avant tout doit se montrer supérieur aux événements. Mais Kali n'est pas seulement la destructrice. Si elle démolit inexorablement toutes les formes vitales qui ont fait leur temps et qui se détériorent, elle en crée au fur et à mesure des nouvelles. C'est dans cette conception de la Mère qu'il faut chercher tout d'abord le mystère de l'esprit indien. Dans son essence la plus intime la mère du monde est l'absolu, est Siva même. Comme telle elle représente la connaissance, l'entité et la joie absolues. Pour les adorateurs de Kali les mots Mantram Saham (je suis elle) renferment la clef de la vie et dissipent crainte et tristesse. (shrink)

Can the straight line be analysed mathematically such that it does not fall apart into a set of discrete points, as is usually done but through which its fundamental continuity is lost? And are there objects of pure mathematics that can change through time? The mathematician and philosopher L.E.J. Brouwer argued that the two questions are closely related and that the answer to both is "yes''. To this end he introduced a new kind of object into mathematics, the choice sequence. (...) But other mathematicians and philosophers have been voicing objections to choice sequences from the start. This book aims to provide a sound philosophical basis for Brouwer's choice sequences by subjecting them to a phenomenological critique in the style of the later Husserl. "It is almost as if one could hear the two rebels arguing their case in a European café or on a terrace, and coming to a common understanding, with both men taking their hat off to the other, in admiration and gratitude. Dr. van Atten has convincingly applied Husserl's method to Brouwer's program, and has equally convincingly applied Brouwer's intuition to Husserl's program. Both programs have come out the better." Piet Hut, professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A. (shrink)

De werkelijkheid is dat wat niet verdwijnt ook als we er niet meer in geloven. Het is niet erg om dingen niet te weten, maar het is ook niet nodig om deze werkelijkheid in twijfel te trekken wanneer dit geloof aan het wankelen wordt gebracht. Om de weg niet kwijt te raken is het van belang om zo goed en zo kwaad als we kunnen te blijven onderscheiden tussen zinnig en onzinnig, tussen verstandig en ondoordacht, tussen goed geïnformeerd en de (...) kluts kwijt. Dit boek helpt de lezer onderscheid te maken tussen propaganda en betrouwbare experts, om de werkelijkheid zo nooit uit het oog te verliezen."--Publisher information. (shrink)

A naturalistic theory of intentionality is proposed that differs from previous evolutionary and tracking theories. Full-blown intentionality is constructed through a series of evolvable refinements. A first, minimal version of intentionality originates from a conjectured internal process that estimates an organism’s own fitness and that continually modifies the organism. This process produces the directedness of intentionality. The internal estimator can be parsed into intentional components that point to components of the process that produces fitness. It is argued that such intentional (...) components can point to mistaken or non-existing entities. Different Fregian senses of the same reference correspond to different components that have different roles in the estimator. Intentional components that point to intentional components in other organisms produce directedness towards semi-abstract entities. Finally, adding a general, population-wide means of communication enables intentional components that point to fully abstract entities. Intentionality thus naturalized has all of its expected properties: being directed; potentially making errors; possibly pointing to non-existent, abstract, or rigid entities; capable of pointing many-to-one and one-to-many; distinguishing sense and reference; having perspective and grain; and having determinate content. Several examples, such as ‘swampman’ and ‘brain-in-a-vat’, illustrate how the theory can be applied. (shrink)

Online therapy sessions and other forms of digital mental health services (DMH) have seen a sharp spike in new users since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having little access to their social networks and support systems, people have had to turn to digital tools and spaces to cope with their experiences of anxiety and loss. With no clear end to the pandemic in sight, many of us are likely to remain reliant upon DMH for the foreseeable future. As such, (...) it is important to articulate some of the specific ways in which the pandemic is affecting our self and world-relation, such that we can identify how DMH services are best able to accommodate some of the newly emerging needs of their users. In this paper I will identify a specific type of loss brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and present it as an important concept for DMH. I refer to this loss as loss of perceptual world-familiarity. Loss of perceptual world-familiarity entails a breakdown in the ongoing effortless responsiveness to our perceptual environment that characterizes much of our everyday lives. To cash this out I will turn to insights from the phenomenological tradition. Initially, my project is descriptive. I aim to bring out how loss of perceptual world-familiarity is a distinctive form of loss that is deeply pervasive yet easily overlooked-hence the relevance of explicating it for DMH purposes. But I will also venture into the space of the normative, offering some reasons for seeing perceptual world-familiarity as a component of well-being. I conclude the paper with a discussion of how loss of perceptual world-familiarity affects the therapeutic setting now that most if not all therapeutic interactions have transitioned to online spaces and I explore the potential to augment these spaces with social interaction technologies. Throughout, my discussion aims to do justice to the reality that perceptual world-familiarity is not an evenly distributed phenomenon, that factors like disability, gender and race affect its robustness, and that this ought to be reckoned with when seeking to incorporate the phenomenon into or mitigate it through DMH services. (shrink)

Most philosophers still tend to believe that mathematics is basically about producing formal proofs. A consequence of this view is that some aspects of mathematical practice are entirely lost from view. My contention is that it is precisely in those aspects that similarities can be found between practices in the exact sciences and in mathematics. Hence, if we are looking for a (more) unified treatment of science and mathematics it is necessary to incorporate these elements into our view of what (...) mathematics is about. As a helpful tool I introduce the notion of a mathematical argument as a more liberalized version of the notion of mathematical proof. (shrink)

Twenty-five years ago, robotics guru Joseph Engelberger had a mission to motivate research teams all over the world to design the ‘Elderly Care Giver’, a multitasking personal robot assistant for everyday care needs in old age. In this article, we discuss how this vision of omnipotent care robots has influenced the design strategies of care robotics, the development of R&D initiatives and ethics research on use of care robots. Despite the expectations of robots revolutionizing care of older people, the role (...) of robots in human care has remained marginal. The value of world trade in service robots, including care robots, is rather small. We argue that the implementation of robots in care is not primarily due to negative user attitudes or ethical problems, but to problems in R&D and manufacturing. The care robots currently available on the market are capable of simple, repetitive tasks or colloquial interaction. Thus far, also research on care robots is mostly conducted using imaginary scenarios or small-scale tests built up for research purposes. To develop useful and affordable robot solutions that are ethically, socially and ecologically sustainable, we suggest that robot initiatives should be evaluated within the framework of care ecosystems. This implies that attention has to be paid to the social, emotional and practical contexts in which care is given and received. Also, the political, economic and ecological realities of organizing care and producing technological commodities have to be acknowledged. It is time to openly discuss the drivers behind care robot initiatives to outline the bigger picture of organizing care under conditions of limited resources. (shrink)

Dov Gabbay is a prolific logician just by himself. But beyond that, he is quite good at making other people investigate the many further things he cares about. As a result, King's College London has become a powerful attractor in our field worldwide. Thus, it is a great pleasure to be an organizer for one of its flagship events: the Augustus de Morgan Workshop of 2005. Benedikt Loewe and I proposed the topic of 'interactive logic' for this occasion, with an (...) emphasis on social software – the logical analysis and design of social procedures – and on games, arguably the formal interactive setting par excellence. This choice reflects current research interests in our logic community at ILLC Amsterdam and beyond. In this broad area of interfaces between logic, computer science, and game theory, this paper is my own attempt at playing Dov. I am, perhaps not telling, but at least asking other people to find out for me what I myself cannot. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that a corporate purpose aiming to benefit all stakeholders has a positive effect on employee motivation and engagement, but no empirical studies into these specific effects were found. To examine this assumption, a corporate mission and vision matching the definition of a higher purpose were tested in two subsequent studies. The first study (N = 270) was a cross-sectional self-report study. The second study included a longitudinal design (N = 56) modeling purpose, motivation, and engagement in (...) a cross-lagged panel design over three time-points. The results associated purpose with motivation and engagement. The subsequent longitudinal analysis confirmed the presumed directionality from purpose to engagement, but not to motivation. Hence, while a corporate purpose can be added to the list of antecedents to work engagement, the relationship with motivation, despite the significant association with purpose in the cross-sectional study, remains more complicated. The present study adds to the knowledge of the beneficial effects of a broader purpose and responds to the current surge of interest in purpose as an instrument for sustainable business. (shrink)