in the treatise, hume claims to identify many “fictions of the imagination” among both “vulgar” and philosophical beliefs. To name just a few, these include the fiction of one aggregate composed of many parts,1 the fiction of a material object’s identity through change, and the fiction of a human mind’s identity through change and interruption in its existence. Hume claims that these fictions and others like them are somehow defective: in his words, they are “improper,” “inexact,” or not “strict”. I (...) will argue that this claim conflicts with other commitments.. (shrink)

This essay gives a new interpretation of Hume's second thoughts about minds in the Appendix, based on a new interpretation of his view of composition. In Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume argued that, as far as we can conceive it, a mind is a whole composed by all its perceptions. But—this essay argues—he also held that several perceptions form a whole only if the mind to which they belong supplies a “connexion” among them. In order to do so, it (...) must contain a further perception or perceptions. But when the perceptions in question are all of those belonging to a given mind—as in the section “Of personal identity” and the Appendix—there cannot be a further perception in that mind, and so those perceptions do not form a whole. Hence, Hume's views were inconsistent. This essay argues that, unlike most others, this interpretation explains his retreat to skepticism in the Appendix. (shrink)

Hume’s discussion of space in the Treatise addresses two main topics: divisibility and vacuum. It is widely recognized that his discussion of divisibility contains an answer to Bayle, whose Dictionary article “Zeno of Elea” presents arguments about divisibility as support for fideism. It is not so widely recognized that, elsewhere in the same article, Bayle presents arguments about vacuum as further support for fideism. This paper aims to show that Hume’s discussion of vacuum contains an answer to these vacuum-based fideistic (...) arguments. Key to this answer is a distinction between two ways in which vacuum was conceived in the early modern period: i) as a genuine thing that has spatial properties, and yet is immobile, indivisible, and penetrable ; ii) as a mere absence of spatial things. This paper also aims to provide a novel defense of Hume against the long-standing objection that he is inconsistent in denying that we can conceive of a vacuum, while allowing that we can conceive of “invisible and intangible distance.” As I interpret him, Hume consistently denies that we can conceive of a positive vacuum, while allowing that we can conceive of two or more objects’ being arranged so as to have privative vacuum between them. (shrink)

This is a transcript of a conversation between P F Strawson and Gareth Evans in 1973, filmed for The Open University. Under the title 'Truth', Strawson and Evans discuss the question as to whether the distinction between genuinely fact-stating uses of language and other uses can be grounded on a theory of truth, especially a 'thin' notion of truth in the tradition of F P Ramsey.

I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. (Revised) belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting (...) to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents. (shrink)

Abortion bans have been characterized as cruel especially in not allowing exceptions for rape or incest. The article first examines one approach to morally justifying bans based on the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) which distinguishes morally between killing or letting die intending death versus doing so only foreseeing death. It then presents some criticisms of the implications of the DDE but also argues that what the doctrine permits helps provide a ground for the permissibility of abortions even if the (...) fetus is a person. Whether there are limits on applying this argument is also considered. In conclusion, the article considers whether and why not permitting exceptions to bans for rape and incest is cruel and whether cruelty is a ground for opposition to bans. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put it: "...we (...) propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

This concluding chapter of _Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith_ examines the widespread overconfidence in present-day and proposed 'technological fixes', and provides guidelines - social, ethical and technical - for soberly assessing candidate technological solutions for societal problems.

Neuroscience has studied deductive reasoning over the last 20 years under the assumption that deductive inferences are not only de jure but also de facto distinct from other forms of inference. The objective of this research is to verify if logically valid deductions leave any cerebral electrical trait that is distinct from the trait left by non-valid deductions. 23 subjects with an average age of 20.35 years were registered with MEG and placed into a two conditions paradigm (100 trials for (...) each condition) which each presented the exact same relational complexity (same variables and content) but had distinct logical complexity. Both conditions show the same electromagnetic components (P3, N4) in the early temporal window (250–525 ms) and P6 in the late temporal window (500–775 ms). The significant activity in both valid and invalid conditions is found in sensors from medial prefrontal regions, probably corresponding to the ACC or to the medial prefrontal cortex. The amplitude and intensity of valid deductions is significantly lower in both temporal windows (p = 0.0003). The reaction time was 54.37% slower in the valid condition. Validity leaves a minimal but measurable hypoactive electrical trait in brain processing. The minor electrical demand is attributable to the recursive and automatable character of valid deductions, suggesting a physical indicator of computational deductive properties. It is hypothesized that all valid deductions are recursive and hypoactive. (shrink)

This article considers some different views of fairness and whether they conflict with the use of a version of Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) that calls for maximizing health benefits per dollar spent. Among the concerns addressed are whether this version of CEA ignores the concerns of the worst off and inappropriately aggregates small benefits to many people. I critically examine the views of Daniel Hausman and Peter Singer who defend this version of CEA and Eric Nord among others who criticize (...) it. I come to focus in particular on the use of CEA in allocating scarce resources to the disabled. (shrink)

Dennis Gabor devised a new concept for optical imaging in 1947 that went by a variety of names over the following decade: holoscopy, wavefront reconstruction, interference microscopy, diffraction microscopy and Gaboroscopy. A well-connected and creative research engineer, Gabor worked actively to publicize and exploit his concept, but the scheme failed to capture the interest of many researchers. Gabor’s theory was repeatedly deemed unintuitive and baffling; the technique was appraised by his contemporaries to be of dubious practicality and, at best, constrained (...) to a narrow branch of science. By the late 1950s, Gabor’s subject had been assessed by its handful of practitioners to be a white elephant. Nevertheless, the concept was later rehabilitated by the research of Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks at the University of Michigan, and Yury Denisyuk at the Vavilov Institute in Leningrad. What had been judged a failure was recast as a success: evaluations of Gabor’s work were transformed during the 1960s, when it was represented as the foundation on which to construct the new and distinctly different subject of holography, a re-evaluation that gained the Nobel Prize for Physics for Gabor alone in 1971. This paper focuses on the difficulties experienced in constructing a meaningful subject, a practical application and a viable technical community from Gabor’s ideas during the decade 1947-1957. (shrink)

Eastern philosophy and western science have convergent and divergent viewpoints for their explanation of consciousness. Convergence is found for the practice of meditation allowing besides a time dependent consciousness, the experience of a timeless consciousness and its beneficial effect on psychological wellbeing and medical improvements, which are confirmed by multiple scientific publications. Theories of quantum mechanics with non-locality and timelessness also show astonishing correlation to eastern philosophy, such as the theory of Penrose-Hameroff (ORC-OR), which explains consciousness by reduction of quantum (...) superposition in the brain. Divergence appears in the interpretation of the subjective experience of timeless consciousness. In eastern philosophy, meditation at a higher level of awareness allows the personal experience of timeless and non-dual consciousness, considered as an empirical proof for the existence of pure consciousness or spirituality existing before the material world and creating it by design. Western science acknowledges the subjective, non-dual experience, and its multiple beneficial effects, however, the interpretation of spirituality designing the material universe is in disagreement with the Darwinian Theory of mutation and selection. A design should create an ideal universe without the injustice of 3% congenital birth defects and later genetic health problems. The western viewpoint of selection is more adapted to explain congenital errors. The gap between subjectivity and objectivity, the mind-body problem, is in eastern philosophy reduced to the dominance of subjectivity over objectivity, whereas western science attributes equal values to both. Nevertheless, there remains an astonishing complementarity between eastern and western practices. (shrink)

Existing research suggests that people's judgments of actual causation can be influenced by the degree to which they regard certain events as normal. We develop an explanation for this phenomenon that draws on standard tools from the literature on graphical causal models and, in particular, on the idea of probabilistic sampling. Using these tools, we propose a new measure of actual causal strength. This measure accurately captures three effects of normality on causal judgment that have been observed in existing studies. (...) More importantly, the measure predicts a new effect ("abnormal deflation"). Two studies show that people's judgments do, in fact, show this new effect. Taken together, the patterns of people's causal judgments thereby provide support for the proposed explanation. (shrink)

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines from one node to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as (...) topics . Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom. (shrink)

The present article focuses on the idea that divine nature is prior to being. This idea was first articulated in John of Scythopolis’s commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius. It was adopted by Maximus Confessor and re-used in Meister Eckhart’s first Quaestio Parisiensis. The main tenet of this idea is that, if God is the origin of being, he must be more fundamental than being. Thus, being cannot be identical to divine nature. The conclusion that can be drawn from the discussion of this (...) idea is that the importance that has been traditionally attached to the "Exodusmetaphysik" must be reconsidered, and that the pro-ontological conception of divine nature constitutes an autonomous tradition in Christian thought. (shrink)

Politics is full of people who don’t care about the facts. Still, while not caring about the facts, they are often concerned to present themselves as caring about them. Politics, in other words, is full of bullshitters. But why? In this paper I develop an incentives-based analysis of bullshit in politics, arguing that it is often a rational response to the incentives facing different groups of agents. In a slogan: bullshit in politics pays, sometimes literally. After first outlining an account (...) of bullshit (Section 1), I discuss the incentives driving three different groups of agents to bullshit: politicians, the media, and voters (Section 2). I then examine several existing proposals to combat bullshit in politics, arguing that each will fail because they ignore the relevant underlying incentives (Section 3). I conclude somewhat pessimistically that a certain amount of bullshit in politics is inevitable (Section 4). (shrink)

The development of a professional identity is particularly interesting for those occupations that have a troubled emergence. The hinterland between science and technology accommodates many such ‘in-between’ subjects, which appear to have distinct attributes. Some of these specialisms disappear in the face of culturally stronger occupations. Others endure, their technical expertise becoming appropriated or mutated to serve the needs of different professional groups. This chapter is concerned with one extreme of these interstitial specialisms. Chemical engineering – a subject that by (...) its very name is between the science of chemistry and the technology of engineering – did eventually become a profession, in at least some countries. It had a relatively easy time becoming established in America in the first third of this century, but chemical engineering remained largely unrecognised in Germany until the 1960s, and has attracted a smaller professional community there. In Britain, the chemical engineering profession has evinced distinct transitions over a period of a century. It emerged to become an influential contributor to western economies and one of the ‘big four’ engineering professions (along with civil, mechanical and electrical engineering) after the second world war, due in large part to the unmindful aid of an influential, if capricious, sponsor: the state. Yet chemical engineers had a long and troubled history of contestation with other professions. Because of this, the British case is particularly appropriate for examining the continual re-casting of the professional identity in response to external and internal pressures. (shrink)

Robert Kimball, in “What’s Wrong with Argumentum Ad Baculum?” (Argumentation, 2006) argues that dialogue-based models of rational argumentation do not satisfactorily account for what is objectionable about more malicious uses of threats encountered in some ad baculum arguments. We review the dialogue-based approach to argumentum ad baculum, and show how it can offer more than Kimball thinks for analyzing such threat arguments and ad baculum fallacies.

On technical and social origins of telephone usage in Scotland.

Brain-related diseases are among the most difficult diseases due to their sensitivity, the difficulty of performing operations, and their high costs. In contrast, the operation is not necessary to succeed, as the results of the operation may be unsuccessful. One of the most common diseases that affect the brain is Alzheimer’s disease, which affects adults, a disease that leads to memory loss and forgetting information in varying degrees. According to the condition of each patient. For these reasons, it is important (...) to classify memory loss and to know the patient at what level and his assessment of Alzheimer's disease through CT scans of the brain. In this thesis, we review ways and techniques to use deep learning classification to classifying the Alzheimer's Disease The proposed method used to improve patient care, reduce costs, and allow fast and reliable analysis in large studies. The model will be designed using Python language for implementing the system, which is very useful for doctors, classifying the Alzheimer's Disease, was used. The model used 70% from image for training and 30% from image for validation, our trained model achieved an accuracy of 100% on a held-out test set. (shrink)

I agree that Wollheim is wrong in his reconstruction of Bradley's arguments on Subject-Predicate judgements, but not completely. Wollheim is right about the conclusion of Bradley's arguments. I argue that Bradley does not reject subject-predicate form of judgements rather he attack's the idea that there is some judgement in which the subject is the nude reality.

Complex human reasoning involves minimal abilities to extract conclusions implied in the available information. These abilities are considered “deductive” because they exemplify certain abstract relations among propositions or probabilities called deductive arguments. However, the electrophysiological dynamics which supports such complex cognitive pro- cesses has not been addressed yet. In this work we consider typically deductive logico- probabilistically valid inferences and aim to verify or refute their electrophysiological functional connectivity differences from invalid inferences with the same content (same relational variables, same (...) stimuli, same relevant and salient features). We recorded the brain electrophysiological activity of 20 participants (age 1⁄4 20.35 ± 3.23) by means of an MEG system during two consecutive reasoning tasks: a search task (invalid condition) without any specific deductive rules to follow, and a logically valid deductive task (valid condition) with explicit deductive rules as instructions. We calculated the functional connectivity (FC) for each condition and conducted a seed-based analysis in a set of cortical regions of interest. Finally, we used a cluster-based permutation test to compare the dif- ferences between logically valid and invalid conditions in terms of FC. As a first novel result we found higher FC for valid condition in beta band between regions of interest and left prefrontal, temporal, parietal, and cingulate structures. FC analysis allows a second novel result which is the definition of a propositional network with operculo-cingular, parietal and medial nodes, specifically including disputed medial deductive “core” areas. The experiment discloses measurable cortical processes which do not depend on content but on truth-functional propositional operators. These experimental novelties may contribute to understand the cortical bases of deductive processes. (shrink)

When agents violate norms, they are typically judged to be more of a cause of resulting outcomes. In this paper, we suggest that norm violations also affect the causality attributed to other agents, a phenomenon we refer to as "causal superseding." We propose and test a counterfactual reasoning model of this phenomenon in four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 provide an initial demonstration of the causal superseding effect and distinguish it from previously studied effects. Experiment 3 shows that this causal (...) superseding effect is dependent on a particular event structure, following a prediction of our counterfactual model. Experiment 4 demonstrates that causal superseding can occur with violations of non-moral norms. We propose a model of the superseding effect based on the idea of counterfactual sufficiency. (shrink)

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and its impact (...) on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

The process of cooperative problem solving can be divided into four stages. First, finding potential team members, then forming a team followed by constructing a plan for that team. Finally, the plan is executed by the team. Traditionally, very simple protocols like the Contract Net protocol are used for performing the first two stages of the process. In an open environment however, there can be discussion among the agents in order to form a team that can achieve the collective intention (...) of solving the problem. For these cases fixed protocols like contract net do not suffice. In this paper we present an alternative solution, using structured dialogues, with an emphasis on persuasion, that can be shown to lead to the required team formation. The dialogues are described formally using modal logics and speech acts. (shrink)

In “What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical?” (2013b), Lange uses several compelling examples to argue that certain explanations for natural phenomena appeal primarily to mathematical, rather than natural, facts. In such explanations, the core explanatory facts are modally stronger than facts about causation, regularity, and other natural relations. We show that Lange's account of distinctively mathematical explanation is flawed in that it fails to account for the implicit directionality in each of his examples. This inadequacy is remediable in each (...) case by appeal to ontic facts that account for why the explanation is acceptable in one direction and unacceptable in the other direction. The mathematics involved in these examples cannot play this crucial normative role. While Lange's examples fail to demonstrate the existence of distinctively mathematical explanations, they help to emphasize that many superficially natural scientific explanations rely for their explanatory force on relations of stronger-than-natural necessity. These are not opposing kinds of scientific explanations; they are different aspects of scientific explanation. (shrink)

In this paper, we presented antoher concept of neutrosophic open sets called neutrosophic semi-α-open sets and studied their fundamental poperties in neutrosophic topological spaces. We also present neutrospohic semi-α-interior and neutrosophic semi-α-closure and study some of their fundamental properties.

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

Holograms reached popular consciousness during the 1960s and have since left audiences alternately fascinated, bemused or inspired. Their impact was conditioned by earlier cultural associations and successive reimaginings by wider publics. Attaining peak public visibility during the 1980s, holograms have been found more in our pockets (as identity documents) and in our minds (as video-gaming fantasies and “faux hologram” performers) than in front of our eyes. The most enduring, popular interpretations of the word “hologram” evoke the traditional allure of magic (...) and galvanize hopeful technological dreams. This article explores the mutating cultural uses of the term “hologram” as marker of magic, modernity and optimism. (shrink)

Communities of nuclear workers have evolved in distinctive contexts. During the Manhattan Project the UK, USA and Canada collectively developed the first reactors, isotope separation plants and atomic bombs and, in the process, nurtured distinct cadres of specialist workers. Their later workplaces were often inherited from wartime facilities, or built anew at isolated locations. For a decade, nuclear specialists were segregated and cossetted to gestate practical expertise. At Oak Ridge Tennessee, for example, the informal ‘Clinch College of Nuclear Knowledge’ aimed (...) to industrialise the use of radioactive materials. ‘We were like children in a toy factory’, said its Director: ‘everyone could play the game of designing new nuclear power piles’. His counterpart at Chalk River, Ontario headed a project ‘completely Canadian in every respect’, while the head of the British project chose the remote Dounreay site in northern Scotland because of design uncertainties in the experimental breeder reactor. With the decline of secrecy during the mid-1950s, the hidden specialists lauded as ‘atomic scientists’ gradually became visible as new breeds of engineers, technologists and technicians responsible for nuclear reactors and power plants. Mutated by their different political contexts, occupational categories, labour affiliations, professional representations and popular depictions, their activities were disputed by distinct audiences. This chapter examines the changing identities of nuclear specialists and the significance of their secure sites. Shaped successively by Cold War secrecy, commercial competition and terrorist threats, nuclear energy remained out of site for wider publics and most nuclear specialists alike. The distinctive episodes reveal the changing working experiences of technical workers in late-twentieth and early twenty-first century environments. (shrink)

Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931), the American optical physicist best known for his precise determination of the velocity of light and for his experiments concerning aether drift, is less often acknowledged as the creator of new spectroscopic instrumentation and new spectroscopies. He devised a new method of light analysis relying upon his favourite instrument – a particular configuration of optical interferometer – and published investigations of spectral line separation, Doppler-broadening and simple high-resolution spectra (1887-1898). Contemporaries did not pursue his method. Michelson (...) himself discarded the technique by the end of the decade, promoting a new device, the ‘echelon spectroscope’, as a superior instrument. High-resolution spectroscopy was taken up by others at the turn of the century using the echelon, Fabry-Pérot etalon and similar instruments. Michelson’s ‘Light Wave Analysis’ was largely forgotten, but was rediscovered c1950 and developed over the following three decades into a technique rechristened ‘Fourier transform spectroscopy’. This paper presents Michelson’s interferometric work as a continuum of personal interests and historical context as an example of 'research technology' and 'peripheral science'. (shrink)

I discuss the early history of holography and explore how perceptions, applications, and forecasts of the subject were shaped by prior experience. I focus on the work of Dennis Gabor (1900–1979) in England,Yury N. Denisyuk (1927-2005) in the Soviet Union, and Emmett N. Leith (1927–2005) and Juris Upatnieks (b. 1936) in the United States. I show that the evolution of holography was simultaneously promoted and constrained by its identification as an analog of photography, an association that influenced its assessment by (...) successive audiences of practitioners, entrepreneurs, and consumers. One consequence is that holography can be seen as an example of a modern technical subject that has been shaped by cultural influences more powerfully than generally appreciated. Conversely, the understanding of this new science and technology in terms of an older one helps to explain why the cultural effects of holography have been more muted than anticipated by forecasters between the 1960s and 1990s. (shrink)

Canada, as one of the three Allied nations collaborating on atomic energy development during the Second World War, had an early start in applying its new knowledge and defining a new profession. Owing to postwar secrecy and distinct national aims for the field, nuclear engineering was shaped uniquely by the Canadian context. Alone among the postwar powers, Canadian exploration of atomic energy eschewed military applications; the occupation emerged within a governmental monopoly; the intellectual content of the discipline was influenced by (...) its early practitioners, administrators, scarce resources, and university niches; and a self-recognized profession coalesced later than did its American and British counterparts. This paper argues that the history of the emergence of Canadian nuclear engineers exemplifies unusually strong shaping of technical expertise by political and cultural context. (shrink)

Politics abounds with bad language: lying and bullshitting, grandstanding and virtue signaling, code words and dogwhistles, and more. But why is there so much bad language in politics? And what, if anything, can we do about it? In this paper I show how these two questions are connected. Politics is full of bad language because existing social and political institutions are structured in such a way that the production of bad language becomes rational. In principle, by modifying these institutions we (...) can reduce the prevalence of bad language. However, as I show, such practical efforts are fraught with difficulties. After first outlining an account of bad language (Section 1), I examine the rationality of three different types of bad language: inaccurate language, insincere language, and unclear language (Section 2). Next, I discuss the possibility of implementing institutional reforms to improve the quality of political discourse (Section 3). However, I then outline and discuss two serious complications for institutional reforms—namely, they create risk of abuse, and they could preclude instances of seemingly bad language that, in fact, are socially beneficial (Section 4). I conclude with some thoughts about how to pursue institutional reform in an appropriately circumspect manner (Section 5). (shrink)

En el artículo se critica la tesis de Javier Mosterín (defendida en su libro Vivan los Animales, Debate, 1998) de que los animales no humanos deben ser incluidos en la comunidad moral como resultado de un progreso moral en la sensibilidad de los humanos que llevará progresivamente a una mayor compasión por el sufrimiento ajeno. Tras señalar ciertas deficiencias metaéticas de esta propuesta y la no deseada implicación normativa de tener que incluir finalmente en la comunidad moral a cualquier ser (...) vivo, se esbozan en el artículo algunas razones para permitir una mejor consideración de los animales sin acabar por ello en ese radicalismo ecológico. (shrink)

En este artículo argumentamos que la naturaleza pública o privada de la educación tiene una incidencia directa en las instituciones que conforman la realidad social. Para sustentar lo anterior, en primer lugar discutimos cómo, según Searle, habitamos un mundo de instituciones gobernadas por reglas y poderes deónticos, ontológicamente irreductibles. Luego, postulamos que la intencionalidad colectiva requiere de la confianza para mantenerse, y esta aumenta cuando gobiernan reglas y poderes deónticos en circunstancias normales. Finalmente, planteamos que la educación pública es una (...) institución que, a diferencia de la privada, privilegia el espacio de lo común. Sócrates es un ejemplo de esto, al proponer una filosofía que no solo busca la verdad, sino que además privilegia el reconocimiento de la ley por sobre la satisfacción inmediata de deseos e inclinaciones personales. De todo esto se explica el círculo virtuoso: la educación pública, al ser inclusiva y beneficiar a todos, potencia las instituciones sociales que tutelan ese interés y, dentro de ellas, el servicio público. (shrink)

On the differing practices and assumptions in the academic specialisms of environmental studies and STS.

Given a subject so imbued with contention and conflicting theoretical stances, it is remarkable that automated instruments ever came to replace the human eye as sensitive arbiters of color specification. Yet, dramatic shifts in assumptions and practice did occur in the first half of the twentieth century. How and why was confidence transferred from careful observers to mechanized devices when the property being measured – color – had become so closely identified with human physiology and psychology? A fertile perspective on (...) the problem is via the history of science and technology, paying particular attention to social groups and disciplinary identity to determine how those factors affected their communities’ cognitive territory. There were both common and discordant threads motivating the various technical groups that took on the problems of measuring light and color from the late nineteenth century onwards, and leading them towards the development of appropriate instruments for themselves. The transition from visual to photoelectric methods could be portrayed as a natural evolution, replacing the eye by an alternative roviding more sensitivity and convenience – indeed, this is the conventional positivist view propounded by technical histories. However, the adoption of new measurement technologies seldom is simple, and frequently has a significant cultural component. Beneath this slide towards automation lay a raft of implicit assumptions about objectivity, the nature of the observer, the role of instruments, and the trade-offs between standardization and descriptive power. While espousing rational arguments for a physical detector of color, its proponents weighted their views with tacit considerations. The reassignment of trust from the eye to automated instruments was influenced as much by the historical context as by intellectual factors. I will argue that several distinct aspects were involved, which include the reductive view of color provided by the trichromatic theory; the impetus provided by its association with photometry; the expanding mood for a quantitative and objective approach to scientific observation; and, the pressures for commercial standardization. As suggested by these factors, there was another shift of authority at play: from one technical specialism to another. The regularization of color involved appropriation of the subject by a particular set of social interests: communities of physicists and engineers espousing a ‘physicalist’ interpretation, rather than psychologists and physiologists for whom color was conceived as a more complex phenomenon. Moreover, the sources for automated color measurement, and instrumentation for measuring color, were primarily from the industrial sphere rather than from academic science. To understand these shifts, then, this chapter explores differing views of the importance of observers, machines and automation. (shrink)

Theories of rational decision making often abstract away from computational and other resource limitations faced by real agents. An alternative approach known as resource rationality puts such matters front and center, grounding choice and decision in the rational use of finite resources. Anticipated by earlier work in economics and in computer science, this approach has recently seen rapid development and application in the cognitive sciences. Here, the theory of rationality plays a dual role, both as a framework for normative assessment (...) and as a source of scientific hypotheses about how mental processes in fact work. The latter project, often called rational analysis, depends for its success on a fine-grained characterization of the computational problem facing a decision maker, which may in turn depend on realistic assumptions about what the relevant agent is like. As a consequence, resource rationality involves a delicate, but often fruitful interplay between the normative and the descriptive. (shrink)

This book develops the law of political economy as a new field of scholarly enquiry. Bringing together an exceptional group of scholars, it provides a novel conceptual framework for studying the role of law and legal instruments in political economy contexts, with a focus on historical transformations and central challenges in both European and global contexts. Its chapters reconstruct how the law of political economy plays out in diverse but central fields, ranging from competition and consumer protection law to labour (...) and environmental law, giving a comprehensive overview of the central challenges of the law of political economy. It also provides a sophisticated and multifaceted framework for further enquires while outlining the contours of new law of political economy. (shrink)

The biological sciences study (bio)complex living systems. Research directed at the mechanistic explanation of the "live" state truly requires a pluralist research program, i.e. BioComplexity research. The program should apply multiple intra-level and inter-level theories and methodologies. We substantiate this thesis with analysis of BioComplexity: metabolic and modular control analysis of metabolic pathways, emergence of oscillations, and the analysis of the functioning of glycolysis.

The majority of studies on absorptive capacity (AC) underscore the importance of absorbing technological knowledge from other firms to create economic value. However, to preserve moral legitimacy and create social value, firms must also discern and adapt to (shifts in) societal values. A comparative case study of eight firms in the food industry reveals how organizations prioritize and operationalize the societal value health in product innovation while navigating inter- and intravalue conflicts. The value-sensitive framework induced in this article extends AC (...) by explaining how technically savvy, economic value–creating firms diverge in their receptivity, articulation, and reflexivity of societal values. (shrink)

Visual imagery is a form of sensory imagination, involving subjective experiences typically described as similar to perception, but which occur in the absence of corresponding external stimuli. We used the Activation Likelihood Estimation algorithm (ALE) to identify regions consistently activated by visual imagery across 40 neuroimaging studies, the first such meta-analysis. We also employed a recently developed multi-modal parcellation of the human brain to attribute stereotactic co-ordinates to one of 180 anatomical regions, the first time this approach has been combined (...) with the ALE algorithm. We identified a total 634 foci, based on measurements from 464 participants. Our overall comparison identified activation in the superior parietal lobule, particularly in the left hemisphere, consistent with the proposed ‘top-down’ role for this brain region in imagery. Inferior premotor areas and the inferior frontal sulcus were reliably activated, a finding consistent with the prominent semantic demands made by many visual imagery tasks. We observed bilateral activation in several areas associated with the integration of eye movements and visual information, including the supplementary and cingulate eye fields (SCEFs) and the frontal eye fields (FEFs), suggesting that enactive processes are important in visual imagery. V1 was typically activated during visual imagery, even when participants have their eyes closed, consistent with influential depictive theories of visual imagery. Temporal lobe activation was restricted to area PH and regions of the fusiform gyrus, adjacent to the fusiform face complex (FFC). These results provide a secure foundation for future work to characterise in greater detail the functional contributions of specific areas to visual imagery. (shrink)