Strict/tolerant logic is a formally defined logic that has the same consequence relation as classical logic, though it differs from classical logic at the metaconsequence level. Specifically, it does not satisfy a cut rule. It has been proposed for use in work on theories of truth because it avoids some objectionable features arising from the use of classical logic. Here we are not interested in applications, but in the formal details themselves. We show that a wide range of (...) logics have strict/tolerant counterparts, with the same consequence relations but differing at the metaconsequence level. Among these logics are Kleene’s K3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {K_3}$$\end{document}, Priest’s LP\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf {LP}}$$\end{document}, and first-degree entailment, FDE. The primary tool we use is the bilattice. But it is more than a tool, it seems to be the natural home for this kind of investigation. (shrink)

This book is a collection of original essays offering the first full-length consideration of the problem of strict liability in the criminal law: that is, the problem of criminal offences that allow a defendant to be convicted without proof of fault. Because of its potential to convict blameless persons, strict liability is a highly controversial phenomenon in the criminal law. Including Anglo-American and European perspectives, the contributions provide a sustained and wide-ranging examination of the fundamental issues. The breadth (...) and depth of the chapters combine to present readers with a sophisticated analysis of the place and legitimacy of strict liability in the criminal law. (shrink)

According to semantic antirealism, intuitionistic logic satisfies the requirement that truth should be constrained by provability in principle. Some philosophers have argued that semantic antirealism must be committed to effective provability and that the commitment leads to a stronger kind of logical revisionism exemplified by substructural logics. I shall take into account two different kinds of reply. The first is concerned with meaning per se and grasp or fixing of meaning. It rests on the idea that if we have a (...) method which may be used over some surveyable range, we have determined a way of applying the method everywhere in principle, and that this is enough as far as fixing or grasping meaning is concerned. The second concerns two radical antirealist principles disqualifying structural rules: Token Preservation and Preservation of Local Feasibility. Against criticisms, I shall argue that conceptual support may be provided for both. The main point in this debate is that there is a decisive difference between the rejection of classical logic via the curbing of the epistemic idealizations embedded in structural rules and the rejection of classical logic via the intuitionistic criticism of invalid introduction and elimination rules. It will be explained why the second rejection is stronger than the former. (shrink)

von Fintel and Gillies : 329–360, 2007) have proposed a dynamic strict conditional account of counterfactuals as an alternative to the standard variably strict account due to Stalnaker and Lewis. Von Fintel’s view is motivated largely by so-called reverse Sobel sequences, about which the standard view seems to make the wrong predictions. More recently Moss :561–586, 2012) has offered a pragmatic/epistemic explanation that purports to explain the data without requiring abandonment of the standard view. So far the small (...) amount of subsequent literature has focused primarily on the original class of cases motivating the strict conditional view. What is needed in the debate is an examination of the predictions of the dynamic strict conditional account for a broader range of data. I undertake this task here, presenting a slew of cases that are problematic for the strict conditional view but not for Moss’s view, and considering some possible responses. Ultimately I take my contribution to constitute a significant blow to the dynamic strict conditional view, though not a decisive verdict against it. (shrink)

Call a quantifier ‘unrestricted’ if it ranges over absolutely all objects. Arguably, unrestricted quantification is often presupposed in philosophical inquiry. However, developing a semantic theory that vindicates unrestricted quantification proves rather difficult, at least as long as we formulate our semantic theory within a classical first-order language. It has been argued that using a type theory as framework for our semantic theory provides a resolution of this problem, at least if a broadly Fregean interpretation of type theory is assumed. However, (...) the intelligibility of this interpretation has been questioned. In this paper I introduce a type-free theory of properties that can also be used to vindicate unrestricted quantification. This alternative emerges very naturally by reflecting on the features on which the type-theoretic solution of the problem of unrestricted quantification relies. Although this alternative theory is formulated in a non-classical logic, it preserves the deductive strength of classical strict type theory in a natural way. The ideas developed in this paper make crucial use of Russell’s notion of range of significance. (shrink)

We obtain a nonasymptotic lower time bound for deciding sentences of bounded second-order arithmetic with respect to a form of the random access machine with stored programs. More precisely, let P be an arbitrary program for the model under consideration which recognized true formulas with a given range of parameters. Let p be the length of P and let N be an arbitrary natural number. We show how to construct a formula G with one free variable with length not (...) more than 400 symbols and a value f of x such that the time required by P to decide the truth of G is at least N+1 steps. Furthermore, the G constructed does not depend on P and the length of f is less than p+400. (shrink)

This article concerns the metatheory of a class of modal logics whose language includes propositional constants of various kinds. The main novelties are the use of general frames with specific restrictions and the definition of the strict range of a formula. Many examples from the literature are treated within the framework provided and some traditional model-theoretic issues such as preservation results concerning the validity of formulas and definability results concerning frame properties are addressed.

Technology assessment is generally classified as problem-oriented and thus transdisciplinary research. This is due to the fact that the aim of TA is to work out solutions for problems outside science in order to offer advice to its addressees, namely those working in politics and science and members of society in general. In this paper, we propose that the problem-oriented approach also be used as the basis for the decision regarding when a TA should be conducted in a particular situation, (...) and which TA should be used. As a first step to this end, a broad range—almost like a kind of coarse radar—and large number of topics or problem sketches are created, which then serve as a basis for a discursive process of negotiation, during which topics are to be carried over into a detailed problem analysis. These detailed problem analyses, which are important for transdisciplinary research, represent in themselves small research projects. They provide, in addition, some initial indications for a methodologically promising project design. The methodological approach described here is currently being tested in a procedure in which TA topics are being monitored for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. (shrink)

This is a wide ranging and deeply learned examination of evolutionary developmental biology, and the foundations of life from the perspective of information theory. Hermeneutics was a method developed in the humanities to achieve understanding, in a given context, of texts, history, and artwork. In Readers of the Book of Life, the author shows that living beings are also hermeneutical interpreters of genetics texts saved in DNA; an interpretation based on the past experience of the cell (cell lineage, species), confronted (...) with and incorporating present environmental clues. This approach stresses the history, not only of the digital record saved in the DNA, but also of the flesh - the cellular organization which has a direct time-continuity with the very origins of life. This book is aimed at reconciling two opposite approaches to life. The first strictly sticking to a belief that all phenomena observed in the realm of the living can be explained from laws of physics. The opposite stressing the importance of features characteristic for a given level of description. To bring both views into a common understanding, the first part gives a comparison of the two problem solving strategies. The second part surveys the development of 20th century biology, bringing to light branches that never became part of the research mainstream. The third section of the book reviews a large body of recent evidence that can be interpreted in favor of the hermeneutic arguments. (shrink)

As the range of potential uses for Artificial Intelligence, in particular machine learning, has increased, so has awareness of the associated ethical issues. This increased awareness has led to the realisation that existing legislation and regulation provides insufficient protection to individuals, groups, society, and the environment from AI harms. In response to this realisation, there has been a proliferation of principle-based ethics codes, guidelines and frameworks. However, it has become increasingly clear that a significant gap exists between the theory (...) of AI ethics principles and the practical design of AI systems. In previous work, we analysed whether it is possible to close this gap between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of AI ethics through the use of tools and methods designed to help AI developers, engineers, and designers translate principles into practice. We concluded that this method of closure is currently ineffective as almost all existing translational tools and methods are either too flexible or too strict. This raised the question: if, even with technical guidance, AI ethics is challenging to embed in the process of algorithmic design, is the entire pro-ethical design endeavour rendered futile? And, if no, then how can AI ethics be made useful for AI practitioners? This is the question we seek to address here by exploring why principles and technical translational tools are still needed even if they are limited, and how these limitations can be potentially overcome by providing theoretical grounding of a concept that has been termed ‘Ethics as a Service.’. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it sets out an interpretation of the relevant logic E of relevant entailment based on the theory of situated inference. Second, it uses this interpretation, together with Anderson and Belnap’s natural deduc- tion system for E, to generalise E to a range of other systems of strict relevant implication. Routley–Meyer ternary relation semantics for these systems are produced and completeness theorems are proven. -/- .

John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they (...) take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics. (shrink)

North Korea is under strict UN economic sanctions because it violated UN policy in its development of nuclear weapons and long range missiles as well as for its militant rhetoric. South Korea and Japan, as close allies of the USA, are unsure of the future. Is there a way to bring some peace and stability to the Korean peninsula? Some argue that this is a hopeless task as long as the current leadership of North Korea is in power. (...) This article takes a more positive stance and outlines a possible way forward. The study, following the position of the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, assumes that the conflict is at root one over ideology and power. The leadership of North Korea understands itself as “a revolutionary and socialist state” and is determined to continue to control the country through a rigorous and sometimes brutal government oversight of the culture. Although poverty and hunger are widespread, the people have little opportunity to be heard. What if the leaders of North Korea were persuaded that they could gain legitimacy through developing a dynamic economy that brought flourishing to their people and respect by fellow-nations in the global village? The article proposes to start this new adventure by developing enterprise zones in the North that would bring jobs and food to hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. To begin this project, there would need to be dramatic steps toward denuclearization on the part of the North in order to relax the UN economic sanctions. Is it possible? The article outlines a way forward. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Aristotle analyses a large range of objects as composites of matter and form. But how exactly should we understand the relation between the matter and form of a composite? Some commentators have argued that forms themselves are somehow material, that is, forms are impure. Others have denied that claim and argued for the purity of forms. In this paper, I develop a new purist interpretation of Metaphysics Z.10-11, a text central to the debate, which I call 'hierarchical purism'. I (...) argue that hierarchical purism can overcome the difficulties faced by previous versions of purism as well as by impurism. Roughly, on hierarchical purism, each composite can be considered and defined in two different ways: From the perspective of metaphysics, composites are considered only insofar as they have forms and defined purely formally. From the perspective of physics, composites are considered insofar as they have forms and matter and defined with reference to both. Moreover, while the metaphysical definition is a definition in the strict sense of 'definition', the physical definition is a definition in a loose sense. Analogous points hold for intelligible composites and geometry. Finally, neither sort of definitional practice implies that, for Aristotle, forms are impure. (shrink)

I develop and argue for a version of epistemic contextualism - the view that the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions depend upon and vary with the context in which they are uttered - that emphasises the roles played by both the practical interests of those in the context and the epistemic practices of the community of which they are part in determining the truth-values of their ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. My favoured way of putting it is that the truth of a ‘knowledge’ ascription (...) of the form ‘S knows that p’ requires that the subject of the ascription can rule out the relevant alternatives in which not-p, where the relevant alternatives are the ones that those in the ascriber’s context have a reason to consider. What alternatives those in the context have a reason to consider depends on their practical situation and on what alternatives are generally considered relevant within their community. I call this ‘interests contextualism’. The thesis splits into three parts. First, I deal with what I call ‘linguistic objections’, which purport to show that there’s no linguistic evidence that the expression ‘knows’ is context-sensitive, and objections concerning the way ‘knows’ behaves in intra- and inter-contextual disagreement reports. I argue that there are a number of ways in which contextualists can deal with these objections. Consequently, they provide no reason to reject contextualism. Second, there are a number of ways of going beyond the basic contextualist thesis, and I argue that the best way is along the lines indicated above, viz. interests contextualism. In the process I articulate a number of desiderata for a contextualist account of the features of context that are responsible for contextual variation in the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. I argue that, unlike its main rival - which I call ‘conversational contextualism’ - interests contextualism can satisfy all of the desiderata. Consequently, interests contextualism is preferable to conversational contextualism. Third, I argue that there is good reason to prefer interests contextualism to its noncontextualist rivals, strict invariantism, sensitive invariantism and relativism. The objections dealt with in the first part are meant to provide the main reason to prefer a sort of relativism to interests contextualism. Consequently, the upshot of the first part is that relativism is off the table. The considerations that tell in favour of interests contextualism and against sensitive invariantism are of two types. First, I argue that interests contextualism can deal with a wider range of cases than sensitive invariantism. Second, I argue that the influential account of the function of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions developed in Edward Craig tells against sensitive invariantism and in favour of interests contextualism. I also argue that the second consideration tells against strict invariantism as much as sensitive invariantism. Consequently, I conclude that interests contextualism is preferable to all of its rivals. (shrink)

The debate on whether insurance companies should be allowed to use results of individuals’ genetic tests for underwriting purposes has been both lively and increasingly relevant over the past two decades. Yet there appears to be no widely agreed upon resolution regarding appropriate and effective regulation. There exists today a gamut of recommendations and actual practices addressing this phenomenon ranging from laissez-faire to voluntary industry moratoria to strict legal prohibition. One obvious reason for such a variance in views and (...) approaches is that there are competing bases for evaluating the outcomes of restricting insurers’ use of such information. For example, an outright ban on the use of genetic test results may seem the best method for protecting against unfair discrimination, while allowing their use may seem to be the best way to foster efficiency in the market for insurance. However, there is also a lack of understanding about how restricting the use of genetic information would play out in the market through the so-called phenomenon of adverse selection. Using economic analysis, we discuss how the type of adverse selection that occurs in insurance markets affects various arguments both in favour and against an outright ban on insurers’ use of genetic tests for pricing insurance. We review arguments based on moral principles . Practical concerns from the insurance industry based on actuarial principles and economic efficiency are also compared. Each perspective is shown to lead to a range of conflicting recommendations about how genetic information should be regulated and these conclusions depend critically on whether one conducts the analysis from the ex ante temporal perspective , from the interim temporal perspective , or from the ex post temporal perspective. (shrink)

Species’ adaptation to their environments occurs via a range of mechanisms of adaptation. These include genetic adaptations as well as non-traditional inheritance mechanisms such as learned behaviors, niche construction, epigenetics, horizontal gene transfer, and alteration of the composition of a host’s associated microbiome. We propose to supplement these with another modality of eco-evolutionary dynamics: cases in which adaptation to the environment occurs via what may be called a “distributed adaptation,” in which the adaptation is not conferred via something carried (...) by an individual of the adapted species (as with genes, behavior, or associated microbes), but by some structural or compositional aspect of the population. Put differently, the adaptively relevant information cannot be reduced to information possessed by a single individual, whether genetic or otherwise. Rather, the adaptively relevant information is distributed, and is found strictly at the population level. While human culture is presumably such a case, as may be cases found in social insects, we want to suggest that there are other cases that belong to this category and to explore its evolutionary implications. In particular, we discuss the factors that affect whether adaptive information is stored in a distributed way, to what degree, and what kinds of adaptive information are most likely to be found in this modality of adaptation. (shrink)

Faculty across a wide range of academic disciplines at 89 AASCB-accredited U.S. business schools were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the ethical nature of faculty behaviors related to undergraduate course content, student evaluation, educational environment, research issues, financial and material transactions, and social and sexual relationships. We analyzed responses based on whether instruction in the academic discipline focused mainly on quantitative topics or largely on qualitative issues. Faculty who represented quantitative disciplines such as accounting and finance (n = 383) (...) were more likely to view behaviors such as selling complimentary textbooks and grading on a strict curve as more ethical than faculty representing more qualitative disciplines such as management and marketing (n = 447). In contrast, faculty in quantitative disciplines were more likely to view behaviors such as showing controversial media and bringing up sexual or racial charged matters as less ethical than their counterparts. Whereas these differences may be attributed to the respondents’ academic backgrounds, the large level of agreement on ethical behaviors raises questions about the growing influence of business disciplines that operate within more unified research and teaching paradigms. (shrink)

Idealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models in our scientific research and utopias in our political imaginations. Concepts like belief, desire, reason, and justice are bound up with idealizations and ideals. Life is a constant adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. In idealizing, we proceed “as if” our representations were true, while knowing they are not. This is not a dangerous or distracting occupation, Kwame Anthony Appiah shows. Our best chance (...) of understanding nature, society, and ourselves is to open our minds to a plurality of imperfect depictions that together allow us to manage and interpret our world. -/- The philosopher Hans Vaihinger first delineated the “as if” impulse at the turn of the twentieth century, drawing on Kant, who argued that rational agency required us to act as if we were free. Appiah extends this strategy to examples across philosophy and the human and natural sciences. In a broad range of activities, we have some notion of the truth yet continue with theories that we recognize are, strictly speaking, false. From this vantage point, Appiah demonstrates that a picture one knows to be unreal can be a vehicle for accessing reality. -/- As If explores how strategic untruth plays a critical role in far-flung areas of inquiry: decision theory, psychology, natural science, and political philosophy. A polymath who writes with mainstream clarity, Appiah defends the centrality of the imagination not just in the arts but in science, morality, and everyday life. (shrink)

There is a wide spectrum in reading Michael Ondaatje’s novel Anil’s Ghost, ranging from thinkers who explore literary, historical, to ethico-ontological and political aspects. I confine the study by strictly retrieving the subjectivity of the human rights victim as not rested in its being a subject and victim, hence as a specter that haunts or ‘retaliates’ into exposing its victimization. This article attempts to read the spectral nature of this victim using Derrida and Žižek. The Derridean reading grounds the central (...) spectrality on his hauntology and what it says about the victim’s ghostly character. Later, I expound on the act of haunting from a Žižekean standpoint by hinging on the notion of ‘drive’ that exposes the nature of victimization as depoliticizing the subject. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is an area of Physics that deals with subatomic phenomena. It can be extracted from a vision of the physical world which contradicts many aspects of our everyday perception, prompting many philosophical debates and admitting different interpretations. Among the wide range of problems within the interpretation of quantum theory, there is the measurement problem. Some philosophical aspects of the problems concerning the notion of “measurement” in quantum mechanics are analyzed in order to identify how the problem arises (...) in discussions about the foundations of the interpretation of quantum theory and how it holds up even in the most recent interpretations, conflicting in various ways (including ontological) with a worldview that can be drawn from classical physics – assuming that it provides a worldview. Although Bohr has, on several occasions, addressed the measurement problem, he did not get to properly formulate a measurement theory. This was done by von Neumann, who presented an axiomatic formulation of a measurement theory along with a critique of the Bohrian model and, at the same time, an alternative grounded in the introduction of a dualistic notion of consciousness (nonphysical) with causal power in quantum measurement. It is precisely the introduction of the dualistic concept of consciousness within the scope of the concept of measurement that inserts into the philosophical discussion as an ontological problem insofar as it comes to the introduction of a new entity in the universe. The first subjetivistic interpretations, proposed by London and Bauer, are analysed, passing through the solipsistic difficulty to this subjectivist interpretations placed through Wigner’s work, up to the interpretations inspired by the late work of the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, which proposes a monistic interpretation of the notion of “consciousness”. Some distinct attitudes towards measuring the philosophical problems are outlined very briefly in the form of sampling, to illustrate the plural character of the proposals for interpretation of the term “measurement” in quantum mechanics. Although strictly speaking there is no “best” interpretation of quantum mechanics, it is suggested that the formulation of an ontology that takes into account quantum mechanics could help in understanding certain concepts, such as “measurement” or “consciousness” without that philosophical difficulties – as dualism – or paradoxical situations – such as solipsism – necessarily accompany them. (shrink)

Under a policy first enacted in 1988 and expanded in 1996, federally funded public housing authorities (“PHAs”) and private landlords renting their properties to tenants receiving federal housing assistance have been required to include a provision in all leases under which drug-related criminal activity as well as criminal activity that in any way poses a threat to other tenants or nearby residents constitutes ground for initiating eviction proceedings. This strict liability eviction policy, which has become known as the “One-Strike (...) Rule,” was part of a broader congressional effort to combat the “reign of terror” that Congress believed drug dealers were imposing on public housing and assisted housing tenants. Like many of the crime-related policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, the One-Strike Rule has done little to reduce crime rates, but has been wildly successful in ensuring that the situation of poor households receiving federal assistance remains highly precarious. Calls for reform of the One-Strike Rule are almost as old as the policy itself, but given the political outlook of the current administration, the prospects for reform at the federal level are dim. While federal law and a combination of gridlock and unwillingness in the congressional and executive branches foreclose a range of possible strategies for reform, there is nonetheless room to mitigate the socially corrosive effects of the One-Strike Rule through legislative efforts at the state and local level. Courts in various jurisdictions have upheld state laws that protect vulnerable tenants despite the federal strict liability policy, and these holdings help to provide a framework for how state and local governments seeking to protect tenants can do so without their efforts necessarily falling prey to the Supremacy Clause. This article describes that framework and proposes three concrete measures that fit it. The article is structured as follows: after explaining the One-Strike Rule and the threat it poses to vulnerable tenants (Section II), the article discusses the burden the Rule imposes on tenants and the benefits it is supposed to bring to other parties, and argues that the resulting distribution of burdens and benefits is unjust (Section III). The article then lays out three concrete measures that state and local governments can enact to protect tenants who face eviction for criminal activity under the Rule without falling prey to a federal preemption challenge: requiring “good cause” for eviction, giving tenants the right to cure a breach of their lease, and providing tenants with free counsel in landlord-tenant court (Section IV). (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Franklin I. Gamwell offers a defense of transcendental metaphysics, especially in its neoclassical form, and builds a case for its importance as a tool for addressing abiding problems in morality and philosophical theology-including talk about God, human fault, moral decision, and the relationship of politics and religious freedom. In Part I, Gamwell argues against Kant and a wide range of contemporary philosophers, for the validity of transcendental metaphysics designated in the strict sense, i.e., (...) as an explication of the possible as such or existence as such, as the most general features or conditions all possible things have in common. He engages with Aquinas, Schleiermacher, Augustine, and Niebuhr to argue that neoclassical metaphysics, for which the divine whole is itself temporal or forever self-surpassing, provides a more coherent account of God than does classical metaphysics, for which the divine whole is completely eternal. In Part II, Gamwell looks at transcendental metaphysics designated in the broad sense, i.e., as an explication of possible subjectivity as such, as the most general features or conditions all possible subjects have in common. In particular, he takes up the moral opportunity that humans are presented with, and argues that the moral law depends on a comprehensive good, that is, a good defined metaphysically in the strict sense. He then offers an extended discussion of the relation between transcendental metaphysics (in the broad sense) and the meaning of religious freedom and explores Ronald Dworkin's view of the relationship between democracy and religion, the question of whether religious activities are properly exempted from generally applicable laws, and the constitutional debate about national and states' rights. (shrink)

Elsewhere I and others have argued that evidence one should have had can bear on the justification of one's belief, in the form of defeating one's justification. In this paper, I am interested in knowing how evidence one should have had (on the one hand) and one's higher-order evidence (on the other) interact in determinations of the justification of belief. In doing so I aim to address two types of scenario that previous discussions have left open. In one type of (...) scenario, there is a clash between a subject's higher-order evidence and the evidence she should have had: S's higher-order evidence is misleading as to the existence or likely epistemic bearing of further evidence she should have. In the other, while there is further evidence S should have had, this evidence would only have offered additional support for S's belief that p. The picture I offer derives from two “epistemic ceiling” principles linking evidence to justification: one's justification for the belief that p can be no higher than it is on one's total evidence, nor can it be higher than what it would have been had one had all of the evidence one should have had. Together, these two principles entail what I call the doctrine of Epistemic Strict Liability: insofar as one fails to have evidence one should have had, one is epistemically answerable to that evidence whatever reasons one happened to have regarding the likely epistemic bearing of that evidence. I suggest that such a position can account for the battery of intuitions elicited in the full range of cases I will be considering. (shrink)

Locked and unlocked strategies are at the center of this article, as ways of shedding new light on the cognitive aspects of deep learning machines. The character and the role of these cognitive strategies, which are occurring both in humans and in computational machines, is indeed strictly related to the generation of cognitive outputs, which range from weak to strong level of knowledge creativity. I maintain that these differences lead to important consequences when we analyze computational AI programs, such (...) as AlphaGo, which aim at performing various kinds of abductive hypothetical reasoning. In these cases, the programs are characterized by _locked_ abductive strategies: they deal with weak (even if sometimes amazing) kinds of hypothetical creative reasoning, because they are limited in what I call eco-cognitive openness, which instead qualifies human cognizers who are performing higher kinds of abductive creative reasoning, where cognitive strategies are instead _unlocked_. (shrink)

One of the problems that Bayesian regularity, the thesis that all contingent propositions should be given probabilities strictly between zero and one, faces is the possibility of random processes that randomly and uniformly choose a number between zero and one. According to classical probability theory, the probability that such a process picks a particular number in the range is zero, but of course any number in the range can indeed be picked. There is a solution to this particular (...) problem on the books: a measure that assigns the same infinitesimal probability to each number between zero and one. I will show that such a measure, while mathematically interesting, is pathological for use in confirmation theory, for the same reason that a measure that assigns an infinitesimal probability to each possible outcome in a countably infinite lottery is pathological. The pathology is that one can force someone to assign a probability within an infinitesimal of one to an unlikely event. (shrink)

In November 1996, Catherine Clément and Julia Kristeva began a correspondence exploring the subject of the sacred. In this collection of those letters Catherine Clément approaches the topic from an anthropologist's point of view while Julia Kristeva responds from a psychoanalytic perspective. Their correspondence leads them to a controversial and fundamental question: is there anything sacred that can at the same time be considered strictly feminine? The two voices of the book work in tandem, fleshing out ideas and blending together (...) into a melody of experience. The result is a dialogue that delves into the mysteries of belief -- the relationship between faith and sexuality, the body and the senses -- which, Clément and Kristeva argue, women feel with special intensity. Although their discourse is not necessarily about theology, the authors consider the role of women and femininity in the religions of the world, from Christianity and Judaism to Confucianism and African animism. They are the first to admit that what they have undertaken is "as impossible to accomplish as it is fascinating." Nevertheless, their wide-ranging and exhilarating dialogue succeeds in raising questions that are perhaps more important to ask than to answer. (shrink)

Peut-être que jusqu'ici dans les recherches philosophiques sur la nature du temps on a attribué trop peu d'attention à la distinction entre « temps » comme catégorie mathématique d'une part, et « temps » comme il est réalisé dans des processus et des périodes d'autre part. Quand on essaie de combler ce vide, on éprouve le besoin d'impliquer dans ses considérations l'apparition fréquente de « nouveauté » et de « commencement ». C'est pourquoi on examine dans la première partie de (...) cet article comment nous nous formons une notion mathématique du temps. Il apparaît que cela se fait en idéalisant la perception des périodes. On s'imagine que l'unité du temps une fois choisie peut être reproduite exactement, et même jusqu'à l'inñni. En outre on s'imagine que chaque période peut être divisée en des intervalles arbitrairement petits. Un instant est pensé comme une limite nette entre le temps qui précède et le temps qui suit ; ici la séparation entre les deux parties du temps est posée comme absolue contre arrière-plan d'un temps dont justement la cohérence est posée comme absolue. C'est ainsi que naît la catégorie du temps comme une possibilité homogène, toujours égale à elle-même pour indiquer des instants indivisibles et pour délimiter des périodes, à savoir une possibilité qui s'étend sans limites des deux côtés de l'instant actuel, aussi bien vers l'avenir que vers le passé. Quand on indique un instant, deux notions contradictoires sont posées en même temps, à savoir une séparation absolue et une cohérence absolue. Dans la physique ce schéma mathématique s'avère extrêmement utile. Pourtant il s'agit de se rendre toujours compte de l'applicabilité défectueuse de ce schéma, de sorte qu'on fasse attention aux complications qui exigent un complément et une correction de la théorie. Quand on applique le même schéma aussi aux processus vitaux et aux événements psychiques, alors l'incohérence entre le schéma mathématique et la succession réelle des périodes se trouve encore plus grande. Dans la deuxième partie on analyse le « commencement ». De la manière la plus originelle un commencement se présente devant nous, quand nous essayons d'avoir une vue d'ensemble de notre propre vie, comme elle se trouve dans notre mémoire. Dans le passé nous rencontrons alors une frontière que nous ne pouvons pas marquer cependant nettement sur une échelle mathématique. Ainsi en analysant chaque commencement on doit distinguer de nouveau soigneusement le commencement dans le domaine mathématique de celui dans l'ordre réel. Le caractère abrupt qui est propre à un commencement « mathématique » se trouve absent dans un commencement « réel ». Dans la troisième partie il est démontré que le temps et le commencement sont inséparablement liés l'un à l'autre. Le temps réel apparaît partout dans des périodes ayant un commencement et ainsi dans un ensemble compliqué de commencement et de permanence. Toutes les totalités dans la nature vivante et dans la nature inanimée, les individus ainsi que les espèces, ont été neuves une fois. Avant ce commencement multiple notre univers a été neuf. Cependant, alors il appert que cette mesure perd son utilité. Lorsque l'univers était encore en gestation, notre temps, lui aussi, avec sa mesure était en formation. C'est pourquoi une localisation exacte du commencement de l'univers sur l'échelle du temps n'est pas seulement impossible, mais même absurde. Cependant, si un commencement ne peut jamais être déñni de façon mathématique, il est pourtant défini de sa manière particulière dans le temps, c'est à dire par une définition qui essentiellement contient une certaine imprécision. Quant au commencement de l'univers les sciences physiques conduisent par des chemins différents à un même résultat, et font conclure à un âge de l'univers de quatre milliards et demi d'années environ. Finalement une question concernant la notion de création se présente. La tradition connaît en effet une notion de création dans un sens très stricte, distinguée des notions de « conservatio » et de « concursus ». On a l'habitude de lier le fait de la création à un seul ou à quelques instants. Mais nous croyons pouvoir démontrer que dans la dépendance que les créatures ont a l'égard du Créateur, il y a toujours aussi un aspect d' « être créé » dans le sens cité plus haut, un aspect qui se met d'autant plus au premier rang qu'il y a plus de nouveauté et de discontinuité vis à vis du passé. (shrink)

If a human subject knows they are being measured, this knowledge may affect their attitudes and behaviour to such an extent that it affects the measurement results as well. This broad range of effects is shared under the term ‘reactivity’. Although reactivity is often seen by methodologists as a problem to overcome, in this paper I argue that some quite extreme reactive changes may be legitimate, as long as we are measuring phenomena that are not simple biological regularities. Legitimate (...) reactivity is reactivity which does not undermine the accuracy of a measure; I show that if such reactivity were corrected for, this would unjustifiably ignore the authority of the research subject. Applying this argument to the measurement of depression, I show that under the most commonly accepted models of depression there is room for legitimate reactivity. In the first part of the paper, I provide an inventory of the different types of reactivity that exist in the literature, as well as the different types of phenomena that one could measure. In the second part, I apply my argument to the measurement of depression with the PHQ-9 survey. I argue that depending on what kind of phenomenon we consider depression to be, we will accept different kinds of reactivity. I show that both under the harmful dysfunction model and the practical kinds model, certain reactive changes in measuring depression are best seen as legitimate recharacterizations of the underlying phenomenon, and define what legitimate means in this context. I conclude that in both models, biological aspects constrain characterization, but the models are not so strict that only one concept is acceptable, leaving room for reactivity. (shrink)

Genetics is a biomedical science that investigates heredity, variability, occurrence of genetic diseases and their prevention. Genetic science has many fields of science, which deal with different genetic processes, methods, aspects and fields of application. The genetic research in Europe related to the individual as the main subject of the research is exposed to a wide range of ethical and legal issues. From the developments in genetic science other sciences have evolved, thanks to which the modern world is able (...) to protect the genetic information of data, and to receive the sanction while ignoring the laws of such data. However, many problems still persist in the field of protection of personal genetic information, such as regulatory standards, the inviolability of an individual, the assurance of freedom and privacy of information. This manuscript attempts to reveal the main aspects of genetic human data protection, to research conduct regulations, ethics and issues related to the protection of individuals, such as protection of privacy, discrimination, confidentiality, etc. The article mainly focuses on the Conventions and Protocols elaborated by the Council of Europe because of its role in bioethics and focus on human rights. The author examined the documents such as the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine concerning Biomedical Research, Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and others. Genetic discrimination is strictly forbidden by international conventions and declarations, which means that discrimination on the grounds of personal genetic information (diseases, abnormalities) is not possible in all areas, including employment and insurance. However, individuals face some problems in getting a job due to the publicity and information disclosure to their employers, or in increasing the amount of insurance premiums. However, the disclosure of genetic information may have relevant, statutory consequences and the victims may apply to court for defending these rights. It is essential to protect genetic rights, as any form of discrimination against a person on the grounds of their genetic heritage is prohibited and intervention in the health field or disclosure of such information is only possible after the person concerned has given their free and informed consent. (shrink)

This book collects John Gardner's celebrated essays on the theory of private law, alongside two new essays. Together they range across the central puzzles in understanding the significance of outcomes, the role of justice in private law, strict liability, the reasonable person standard, and the role of public policy in tort law.

In a nutshell, semantic antirealism is the doctrine that if a statement is true, then it must be possible, at least in principle, to determine that it is true. Consider the particular case of self-ascriptions of attitudes such as beliefs, desires and intentions, i.e. statements of the form "I φ [that] p", where φ ranges over propositional attitude verbs and p provides the content of whatever is φd by the self-ascriber. Should we be semantic antirealists about these when the putative (...) bearer of the attitude is the only individual who may retrieve a warrant in favour of his φing that p? We can't provide an answer to the question unless we're clear about (i) whether or not the "at least in principle" clause is too weak, and (ii) what the right construal of positive introspection should look like. 2 Thus two issues: strict finitism on the one hand and the phenomenological nature of introspective warrants on the other. I shall argue that recent views defended by Peacocke and Pryor are found wanting with respect to both. (shrink)

We present some new decision and comparison problems of unusually high computational complexity. Most of the problems are strictly combinatorial in nature; others involve basic logical notions. Their complexities range from iterated exponential time completeness to (0 time completeness to ((((,0) time completeness to ((((,,0) time completeness. These three ordinals are well known ordinals from proof theory, and their associated com- plexity classes represent new levels of computational complexity for natural decision problems. Proofs will appear in an extended version (...) of this manuscript to be published elsewhere. (shrink)

‘Futility’ is a contentious term that has eluded clear definition, with proposed descriptions either too strict or too vague to encompass the many facets of medical care. Requests for futile care are often surrogates for requests of a more existential character, covering the whole range of personal, emotional, cultural and spiritual needs. Physicians and other practitioners can use requests for futile care as a valuable opportunity to connect with their patients at a deeper level than the mere biomedical (...) diagnosis. Current debate around Canada’s changing regulatory and legal framework highlights challenges in appropriately balancing the benefits and burdens created by requests for futile care. (shrink)

Unatoč naslovu koji pokriva iznimno opširno područje, članak se usredotočuje na blisko pitanje da li Specijalna teorija relativnosti nužno zagovara ukidanje ontološke razlike između prošlih i budućih događaja, između prošlosti i budućnosti općenito. Izraženo žargonom koji uvodi Stein: jesmo li u okviru STR prinuđeni birati isključivo između ‘solipsizma’ i ‘determinizma’? Posebice će biti riječi o ulozi koju konvencionalnost istovremenosti u STR ima u pokušaju odgovora na ovo pitanje. Standardni argumenti pozivaju se na relativnost istovremenosti, tvrdnju da STR negira postojanje univerzalne (...) ‘sadašnjosti’ koja razgraničava ‘prošlost’ i ‘budućnost’, kako bi pokazali da nema ontološke razlike između prošlosti i budućnosti, da su obje jednako određene/zbiljne . Pritom se prešutno prelazi preko činjenice da je za uspostavu ontoloških tvrdnji vezanih uz relativnost istovremenosti potrebno prvo riješiti pitanje konvencionalnosti istovremenosti u okviru STR. U članku će se nastojati pokazati da promatranjem pitanja konvencionalnosti istovremenosti iz perspektive ‘čisto filozofskog’ Dummettovog određenja razlike između prošlosti i budućnosti možemo u okviru STR pokušati razviti shvaćanje razlikovanja prošlosti i budućnosti mimo stroge ontološke dihotomije ‘solipsizam’/‘determinizam’, ukoliko kriterij koji postavlja STR shvatimo kao epistemički, a ne kao ontološki.Despite a broad-range title the paper settles for the related issue of whether the Special Theory of Relativity necessarily advocates the demise of an ontological difference between past and future events, between past and future in general. In the jargon of H. Stein: are we forced, within the framework of the STR, to choose only between ‘solipsism’ and ‘determinism’ exclusively? A special emphasis is placed on the role that the conventionality of simultaneity plays in the STR with regards to this question. The standard arguments rely on the relativity of simultaneity, the claim that the STR negates the existence of a universal ‘present’ that divides the ‘past’ and the ‘future’, so as to conclude that there is no ontological difference between past and future events, that both are equally determined/real . This often neglects the fact that to establish the ontological claims related to relativity of simultaneity, one must first resolve the issues of conventionality of simultaneity within the STR. The paper will aim to show that by addressing the issue of conventionality from Dummett’s ‘purely philosophical’ determination of the difference between the past and the future, we develop an understanding of the said difference, within the framework of the STR, beyond the strict ontological dichotomy of ‘solipsism/determinism’, given that the criterion that is provided by the STR is understood as epistemic and not ontological. (shrink)

Like any philosophically interesting health care practice, ethical analysis of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis has produced a wide range of moral positions. For example, one might contrast David King's view that warns PGD should be strictly limited and regulated because it will soon result in the expansion of a troubling "laissez-faire eugenics" with Julian Savulescu's argument for the "principle of procreative beneficence" morally requiring parents to use information attained through PGD to select the "best child". That is, these authors represent (...) two poles of a sort of moral spectrum regarding PGD. At one end, we have a deep suspicion of the technology as directly leading to... (shrink)

Mack critically surveys a range of arguments characteristic of Randian writings in ethics (including Craig Biddle's Loving Life). He focuses on "the Shuffle," a set of argumentative moves in which there is illicit shifting back and forth between causal and conceptual understandings and defenses of claims of the form: Man's survival requires man's behaving in manner X (e.g., being rational, being productive). Mack concludes that much Randian argumentation is deeply flawed and urges admirers to discriminate between Rand's genuine individualist (...) ethical crusade and her line-by-line argumentation, which includes a much too strict identification of man's good with man's survival. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. (...) The book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

In 2017, Italy passed a law that provides for a systematic discipline on informed consent, advance directives, and advance care planning. It ranges from decisions contextual to clinical necessity through the tool of consent/refusal to decisions anticipating future events through the tools of shared care planning and advance directives. Nothing is said in the law regarding the issue of physician assisted suicide. Following the DJ Fabo case, the Italian Constitutional Court declared the constitutional illegitimacy of article 580 of the criminal (...) code in the part in which it does not exclude the punishment of those who facilitate the suicide when the decision has been freely and autonomously made by a person kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology, the source of physical or psychological suffering that he/she considers intolerable, but fully capable of making free and conscious decisions. Such conditions and methods of execution must be verified by a public structure of the national health service, after consulting the territorially competent ethics committee. This statement admits, within strict and regulated bounds, physician assisted suicide, so widening the range of end-of-life decisions for Italian patients. Future application and critical topics will be called into question by the Italian legislator. (shrink)

The program of “neurophenomenal structuralism” is presented as an agenda for a genuine structuralist neuroscience of consciousness that seeks to understand specific phenomenal experiences as strictly relational affairs. The paper covers a broad range of topics. It starts from considerations about neural change detection and relational coding that motivate a solution of the Newman problem of the brain in terms of spatiotemporal relations. Next, phenomenal quality spaces and their Q-structures are discussed. Neurophenomenal structuralism proclaims a homomorphic mapping of the (...) structures of self-organized neural maps in the brain onto Q-structures, and it will be demonstrated how this leads to a new and special version of structural representationalism about phenomenal content. A methodological implication of neurophenomenal structuralism is that it proposes measurement procedures that focus on the relationships between different stimuli (as, for instance, similarity ratings or representational geometry methods). Finally, it will be shown that neurophenomenal structuralism also has strong philosophical implications, as it leads to holism about phenomenal experiences and serves to reject inverted qualia scenarios. (shrink)

This book examines the conceptual and temporal frames through which modern Western historiography has linked itself to classical antiquity. In doing so, it articulates a genealogical problematic of what history is and a more strictly focused reappraisal of Greek and Roman historical thought. Ancient ideas of history have played a key role in modern debates about history writing, from Kant through Hegel to Nietzsche and Heidegger, and from Friedrich Creuzer through George Grote and Theodor Mommsen to Momigliano and Moses Finley; (...) yet scholarship has paid little attention to the theoretical implications of the reception of these ideas. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of relevant topics and approaches and boast distinguished authors from across Europe in the fields of classics, ancient and modern history and the theory of historiography. (shrink)

The Journal of Scientific Exploration is devoted to the open-minded examination of scientific anomalies and other topics on the scientific frontier. Its articles and reviews, written by authorities in their respective fields, cover both data and theory in areas of science that are too often ignored or treated superficially by other scientific publications. This issue of the Journal is devoted to a single multifaceted topic: mediumship, and mental mediumship in particular. The authors of the lead paper describe several varieties of (...) mediumship, and propose that the psychosocial and cultural aspects of mediumship are as important as its psychophysiological features. They consider the differences between spiritism and spiritualism, the relevance of the trance state to mediumship, and the extent to which processes properly considered mediumistic infiltrate many everyday human activities. The next paper surveys some of the major nonparapsychological issues that have fascinated researchers into mediumship. These include the nature and prevalence of the mediumistic trance, the varieties of mediumistic mentation, the evolution of mediumship over time, the dramatic capabilities of the subconscious, and the relationship between mediumship and psychopathology. The third paper focuses on positive aspects of mediumship, and in particular its connection with various forms of artistic and practical creativity, as well as its potential for personal development or transformation. The fourth paper considers whether mediumship ever indicates that human personality survives bodily death, or whether even the best cases instead indicate psychic functioning among the living. The author surveys types of mediumship that have been especially relevant to this question, and advocates the revival of so-called proxy sittings with mediums. The final paper recounts a period in France's recent history during which a group of researchers lobbied to have parapsychology broadened into a multidisciplinary field embracing (in additional to strictly experimental and proof-oriented investigations) wide-ranging enquiries that could be applied to mediumship and other apparent instances of psychic functioning in real-life settings. This issue of the JSE is then filled out, as usual, with correspondence and substantive book reviews. (shrink)

As far as logic is concerned, the conclusion of Michael Dummett's manifestability argument is that intuitionistic logic, as first developed by Heyting, satisfies the semantic requirements of antirealism. The argument may be roughly sketched as follows: since we cannot manifest a grasp of possibly justification-transcendent truth conditions, we must countenance conditions which are such that, at least in principle and by the very nature of the case, we are able to recognize that they are satisfied whenever they are. Intuitionistic logic (...) satisfies the semantic requirement that we should either eschew the notion of truth altogether and replace it by provability in principle, or constrain it by provability in principle (Dummett [1973] 1978). (Handout: 1-5). Some philosophers have argued that the traditional antirealist desideratum of decidability in principle is too weak, so that semantic antirealism properly construed must be committed to effective decidability. As such, it either leads to strict finitism (Wright [1982] 1993) [Handout: 6] or to a much stronger kind of logical revisionism than the one considered by intuitionists (whether or not they accept the manifestability argument): substructural logics, and in particular linear logics, rather than intuitionistic logic, satisfy the semantic requirements of strict antirealism (Dubucs and Marion 2004) [Handout: 8-9]. I shall develop two different kinds of replies. The first is concerned with the notion of meaning per se and looks to strict finitism directly, although not on the ground that it would provide a correct way of dealing with Soritic-type paradoxes (the original and primary focus of discussion in Wright [1982] 1993). The second is concerned with the justification of structural and logical rules in a natural deduction system à la Gentzen. It will deal in particular with the criticism of the structural rules of Weakening and Contraction [Handout: 10 and 11]. The first kind of reply, which Dummett has partially taken into consideration, is that if we jettison the effectively vs. in principle distinction, as applied to manifestability-type arguments, we end up with an unsatisfactory explanation of how the meaning of statements covering the practically unsurveyable or pro tempora undecided cases is fixed. The idea is that if we have a method which may be used over some small range, we have determined a way of applying the method everywhere in principle and that this is enough as far as fixing meaning is concerned. Decidability in principle is just what we need with respect to manifestation of grasp of meaning. In this perspective, antirealism shouldn't be strict and manifestability-type arguments need not be applied as far as the strict finitist would want to [Handout: 7]. It follows that there is no reason to think that practical feasibility should be built in assertibility conditions and proofs be construed dynamically as acts in the strict antirealist's acception of that term [Handout: 8]. I shall then look at one radical antirealist principle disqualifying structural rules, namely Token Preservation, arguing against Bonnay and Cozic's criticisms of Dubucs and Marion (Bonnay and Cozic 3 2007) that some conceptual support may be provided for Token Preservation, which doesn't rely on a causal misreading of the turnstile [Handout: 13, 14]. I shall then assess the merits and limits of radical antirealism and the logic of feasible proofs with respect to the original Dummettian argument in favour of semantic antirealism (provided it has indeed revisionist implications for logic), whether the radical antirealist merely stipulates what human feasibility amounts to, or dispenses with structural rules in order to argue in favour of a curb on the epistemic idealizations they unwarrantedly embed. It will be noted here that there is a great difference, conceptually speaking, between the rejection of classical logic via the curbing of the epistemic idealizations embedded in structural rules, and the rejection of classical logic via the criticism of the introduction and elimination rules which fix the meaning of the classical constants. The kind of logical revisionism envisaged by intuitionists from Heyting on is in many respects stronger than the one envisaged by advocates of linear logic, should they ground their arguments on an endorsement of strict antirealism. The crucial case of excluded middle is telling. Because of the splitting of the constants in linear logic (Handout: 12], two distinct laws of excluded middle may be formulated (Handout: 15), but the traditional arguments of Brouwer and Heyting against the classical law yield a stronger revision than the substructural revision with its admission of these two (very) weak versions of the law. (Project: a clearer conception is needed of how the introduction and elimination rules for the logical connectives in the intuitionistic calculus depend on the structural rules which the radical antirealist wishes to reject.). (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. (...) The book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. (...) The book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

The Hurvich-Jameson (H-J) opponent-process network offers a familiar account of the empirical structure of the phenomenological color space for humans, an account with a number of predictive and explanatory virtues. Its successes form the bulk of the existing reasons for suggesting a strict identity between our various color sensations on the one hand, and our various coding vectors across the color-opponent neurons in our primary visual pathways on the other. But anti-reductionists standardly complain that the systematic parallels discovered by (...) the H-J network are just empirical correspondences, constructed post facto, with no predictive or explanatory purchase on the intrinsic characters of qualia proper. The present paper disputes that complaint, by illustrating that the H-J model yields some novel and unappreciated predictions, and some novel and unappreciated explanations, concerning the qualitative characters of a considerable variety of color sensations possible for human experience, color sensations that normal people have almost certainly never had before, color sensations whose accurate descriptions in ordinary language appear semantically ill-formed or even self-contradictory. Specifically, these "impossible" color sensations are activation-vectors (across our opponent-process neurons) that lie inside the space of neuronally possible activation-vectors, but outside the central 'color spindle' that confines the familiar range of sensations for possible objective colors. These extra-spindle chimerical-color sensations correspond to no reflective color that you will ever see objectively displayed on a physical object. But the H-J model both predicts their existence and explains their highly anomalous qualitative characters in some detail. It also suggests how to produce these rogue sensations by a simple procedure made available in the latter half of this paper. The relevant color plates will allow you to savor these sensations for yourself. (shrink)

Seldom does human reasoning fit the standards of deduction. Yet logicians have tended to use the strict standards of deductive validity for assessing all inferences. _Within Reason_ develops instead a way of assessing arguments and inferences that is directly appropriate to the non-deductive forms people regularly use. It uses analogy, and argument from analogy, to provide a thread that unites various forms: raising objections, inductions of various sorts, arguments to explanation, and arguments to action. The discussion is developed progressively, (...) at each stage building on the skills learned previously. And at each stage the book suggetss ways of assessing the strength of reasoning. Most of the examples are taken from the great texts of the Western tradition. In the exercises that form an integral part of each chapter an even broader range of writing is presented, offering instructors an extraordinary variety of texts at various levels ot assign to their students. The thesis implicit in the book is that induction, arguments to explanation and arguments to action are all sophisticated forms of arguments from analogy. Burbidge is concerned not simply to warn against the misuse of non-deductive reasoning but also to develop a more positive theory that allows us both to better udnerstand the workings of non-deductive reasoning, and to better employ it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reconsiderations on History and Antiquarianism: Arnaldo Momigliano and the Historiography of Eighteenth-Century BritainMark Salber PhillipsQuando mia figlia era molto piccola si divertiva a entrare nel mio studio e a chiedermi con finta gravità: “Signore papà che cosa hai concluso?” La sua domanda mi è tornata in mente molte volte più tardi, e mi ritorna nella mente anche oggi. Concludere non è facile, in qualsiasi lingua. E io per natura (...) preferisco proporre problemi.—A. Momigliano, “Epilogo senza conclusione”The question is: can we save for ourselves and for our successors this immemorial tradition, this long-standing delight, of talking to past historians as if they were our senior colleagues?—A. Momigliano, “Polybius Between the English and the Turks”More than any other historian of this century, Arnaldo Momigliano shaped our understanding of the evolution of Western historiography from the ancient to the modern world. Fundamental to this continuity, as Momigliano saw it, was the revival in the Renaissance of the classical division of history into two distinct genres. The first (often called, without further qualification, “history”) is the narrative of public events organized in linear [End Page 297] and causal fashion; the second, antiquities, is a more diverse body of writing that neglects political narrative for philosophical, literary, topographical, and other concerns. After the Reformation antiquarianism took on new tasks in response to the religious controversies of the age, but it remained distinct from the narrative tradition. Only in the eighteenth century did a convergence begin that has finally been completed in the historical methods of our own time. 1This identification of the eighteenth century as the time when historical narrative and antiquarian research converged gives Momigliano’s views their particular interest to students of this period. His terms, however, are always far wider than any single century. In fact his argument constitutes a genealogy of modern historical method, since the merging of the two traditions—first witnessed in the erudite historiography of Edward Gibbon—was a precondition of modern practice. On these foundations, a modern historical discipline has grown up in which systematic research has become indivisible from the task of representing the past in narrative, with the consequence that the ancient separation of history and antiquities has at last been transcended.This essay is intended as a sketch of an alternative approach to the study of historical thought and writing in eighteenth-century Britain. In my view an essential point of departure is the interest of eighteenth-century writers in the structures and experiences of private life, their desire to explore the inward lives of individuals and the everyday life of societies. This revaluation of private life challenged the classical conception of history in fundamental ways, resulting in a fruitful tension between the social and sentimental interests of the age and its inherited view of history. At stake, in the very [End Page 298] broadest terms, was the need to find forms of historical narrative that met the needs of a commercial society and recognized the values and activities of a non-aristocratic audience.In the eighteenth century antiquarian erudition was far from the only genre bordering on the territory of political narrative. Conjectural history, religious history, history of manners, history of sciences and of literature, biography, memoir, and novel all defined themselves in relation to a traditional conception of history and claimed the attention of readers for their own rival narrative spaces. More particularly, these related genres ranged themselves against history’s strict identification with public life, with all the assumptions about audience, gender, and intellectual authority that accompanied the public domain. Without ever displacing the national narrative in the hierarchy of literatures, these other genres offered a variety of alternative histories whose common ground was their resistance to the assumed priority of politics. 2For a generation Momigliano’s dialectic of history and antiquarianism has served as an organizing principle for a good deal of teaching and writing on early modern historiography. 3 It is time, I believe, for a revaluation of this conceptual scheme. The wider consideration of genres I am urging would greatly enlarge the framework of discussion and give us a sharper sense of the interests of eighteenth-century historians and their... (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. (...) The book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)