This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

Historical processes exert an influence on the current state and evolution of situations of language contact, brought to bear from different domains, the economic and the political, the ideological and group identities, geo-demographics, and the habits of inter-group use. Clearly, this kind of phenomenon requires study from a complexical and holistic perspective in order to accommodate the variety of factors that belong to different levels and that interrelate with one another in the evolving dynamic of human languaging. Therefore, there (...) is a need for the restricted and general complexity approaches to come to a meeting of the minds, and take steps toward a mutual integration based on the acceptance of the shortcomings of each approach, achieving progress through a non-contradictory complementarity of perspectives. It must be conceded that the practical and methodological applications of basic complexical ideas need to be developed much farther in order to apply them to specific research. At the same time, the limits of complex adaptive systems as computational strategies must be accepted in the pursuit of a better understanding of the dynamic and evolutionary processes typical of human beings. New tools for the conception, apprehension and treatment of the data will need to be devised to complement existing ones and to enable us to make headway toward practices that better fit complexical perspectives. It seems obvious that human complexics must be seen as multi-methodological, insofar as necessary combining quantitative-computation methodologies and more qualitative methodologies aimed at understanding the historical mental and emotional world of people. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). The copyright page has the date of this first edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having (...) a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. -/- In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). The philosophy centers around the two writers I have found the most important, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. -/- Now that I think I understand how the games work I have mostly lost interest in philosophy, which of course is how Wittgenstein said it should be. But since they are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put, it due to the lack of perspicuity of language, the problems run throughout all human discourse, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning principally with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. -/- "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) -/- Nevertheless, a real understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, and hence of how our psychology functions, is only beginning to spread in the second decade of the 21st century, due especially to P.M.S. Hacker (hereafter H) and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (hereafter DMS),but also to many others, some of the more prominent of whom I mention in the articles. -/- When I read ‘On Certainty’ a few years ago I characterized it in an Amazon review as the Foundation Stone of Philosophy and Psychology and the most basic document for understanding behavior, and about the same time DMS was writing articles noting that it had solved the millennia old epistemological problem of how we can know anything for certain. I realized that W was the first one to grasp what is now characterized as the two systems or dual systems of thought, and I generated a dual systems (S1 and S2) terminology which I found to be very powerful in describing behavior. I took the small table that John Searle (hereafter S) had been using, expanded it greatly, and found later that it integrated perfectly with the framework being used by various current workers in thinking and reasoning research. -/- Since they were published individually, I have tried to make the book reviews and articles stand by themselves, insofar as possible, and this accounts for the repetition of various sections, notably the table and its explanation. I start with a short article that presents the table of intentionality and briefly describes its terminology and background. Next, is by far the longest article, which attempts a survey of the work of W and S as it relates to the table and so to an understanding or description (not explanation as W insisted) of behavior. -/- The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides Standard Social Science Model. Democracy and equality are wonderful ideals, but without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation and any world that adopts them. The monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we sell our children’s heritage for temporary comforts. -/- The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the thoughts of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves an heuristic for how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it,includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- Thus all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth. -/- My writings are available in updated versions as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C . (shrink)

Education is essential to ensure the overall development of individuals. However, there exists a symbiotic relationship between language and education: the language of education determines one’s socio-economic position. Notably, knowledge production and dissemination in South Africa is dominated by English and vernacular languages are neglected. This discriminatory binary exists from primary schools to universities. It creates challenges for black, underprivileged, rural and semi-urban students, as they lack proficiency in English (known as the language of elites). Along with (...) cultural and racial discrimination, students from South Africa are victims of linguicism. Similarly, the modern Indian state has made education mandatory as a policy measure but students from marginalised sections face a language barrier. Consequently, students feel physiological trauma including inferiority complexes, humiliation. (shrink)

Linguistic structures have recently started to attract attention from economists as determinants of economic phenomena. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of this nascent literature and its achievements so far. First, we explore the complex connections between language, culture, thought and behaviour. Then, we summarize the empirical evidence on the relationship between linguistic structures and economic and social outcomes. We follow up with a discussion of data, empirical design and identification. The paper concludes by discussing implications for future (...) research and policy. (shrink)

As a sort of intellectual provocation and as a lateral thinking strategy for creativity, this chapter seeks to determine what the study of the dynamics of biodiversity can offer linguists. In recent years, the analogical equation "language = biological species" has become more widespread as a metaphorical source for conceptual renovation, and, at the same time, as a justification for the defense of language diversity. Language diversity would be protected in a way similar to the mobilization that (...) has taken place to protect endangered species. Nevertheless, one must be careful when uncritically transferring conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks from one field to another, since obviously, these two phenomena are quite different in the real world. The dialogue with bioecologists starts by asking about the formation of diversity, i.e., about specialization. Here, one can observe the similarity between the processes of linguistic and genetic fragmentation, in the sense that both phenomena have a (socio)geographical basis for dispersion and consequently, for the loss of their original compact nature and their intercommunication. The self-organizing and creative properties of human beings favor the development of specific varieties for each subset, varieties that continue to evolve constantly, through the unceasing "languaging" of humanity. Regarding the continuity of species or languages, one can also observe the decisive role of intragroup relations. The staying power of linguistic varieties will increase in direct proportion to the intensity of the relationship among the components of the subset. On the other hand, if exotic elements are introduced, especially if these elements are aggressive in nature, the alteration of the ecological niche may turn out to be fatal for the continuity of the previously existing forms. This suggests to us the need to make an in-depth study of what the minimal contextual conditions would be so that a set linguistic group could be assured a sustainable continuity within a framework of linguistic contact. What type of minimum (socio-)ecological niche would a language have to have if we wished to ensure its habitual reproduction? A proposal is made here to explore the ideas of "exclusive functions" and "non-hierarchical functional distribution" for codes in situations where there is high contact and a danger of disuse. As regards change, this phenomenon is seen as an inherent element in the tendency of life to create new developments, which may or not be accompanied by an adaptation to changing environmental conditions. It is pointed out that, similar to what happens in biology, much of linguistic innovation stems from a systemically reorganized mixture of solutions from different codes. An important research question would be, however, to determine why some of these innovations disappear and others survive and extend throughout the community. The big question mark, as Mufwene points out, is, then how to manage to understand how "the evolution of language proceeds by naturally selecting from among the competing alternatives available through the idiolects of individual speakers". Extinction, whether it be of languages or of species, is caused in most cases "by a combination of demographic processes and environmental changes", as Brown points out. Thus, the environment plays a fundamental role in the direction of evolution, since the "the survival of the fittest is, in actuality, the survival of those who fit into the context (Allen and Hoekstra)". This allows us to see the great degree of importance of political-economic contexts in the case of languages. In the same way, migratory movements are also one of the major variables determining the extinction of biodiversity and language diversity. Species and habitat form the basic unit of existence, and this is the major point of departure for understanding the problem of the preservation and recovery of species or languages. Given the increase in the degree of linguistic contact, the continuity of language diversity depends on determining, as exactly as possible, as Prigogine, the physicist, would say, what precise conditions of imbalance may prove to be stable. The great challenge is not so much avoiding contact but managing it. And "restorative ecology" can also be of help to us here. Being able to reach sustainable solutions for language diversity implies a profound knowledge of the dynamics for determining the ways in which language is used in contact situations. The general conclusion is that linguistics is still terminologically and conceptually ill prepared to deal with the dynamic character of human languages. The world and our objects must be conceived of as elements in a state of flux, as changing systems in an unstable equilibrium. With respect to language policy, it would be necessary to make an effort to manage to establish some general principles regarding the linguistic organization of the human species that would make it possible for local linguistic diversity and communication on a planetary scale, which must necessarily take place, to be compatible with each other. To succeed, it will be necessary to continue promoting an autonomous socio-ecological perspective devoted to the comprehension of language phenomena. Such a perspective would be based on a paradigm of complexity, and would, at the same time, place human beings at the center of its theoretical underpinnings. (shrink)

Contact between culturally distinct human groups in the contemporary ‘glocal’ -global and local- world is much greater than at any point in history. The challenge we face is the identification of the most convenient ways to organise the coexistence of different human language groups in order that we might promote their solidarity as members of the same culturally developed biological species. Processes of economic and political integration currently in motion are seeing increasing numbers of people seeking to become polyglots. (...) Thus, English is establishing itself as the usual world supra-language, although it coexists with other lingua francas that are widely used in certain parts of the globe. All this communicative reorganization of the human species may very well pose new problems and aggravate existing tensions as regards language and identity. It would seem that these processes comprise at least four major conceptual dimensions which must be taken into account above all else, as they are both widespread and, left unaddressed, may lead to significant social instability. These dimensions concern linguistic recognition, communicability, sustainability and integration. While accepting the utility of having an inter-national language, the keystone of the system is clearly that it must ensure the linguistic sustainability of each group. The basic principle is likely to be functional subsidiarity, i.e., whatever can be done by the local language should not be done by another one which is more global. As in the quote from Paracelsus --“the dose alone makes the poison”-- contact between languages is not ‘poisonous’ per se, but when the correct dose is exceeded it can prove harmful to the language whose position is weaker. A multilingual and communicated humanity is possible. (shrink)

Language is the main resource for meaningful action, including the very formation of selves and psychosocial identities, shaped by practical norms, beliefs, and values. Thus, language education constitutes one of the most powerful means for both social reproduction and social production and ideological maintenance and utopian innovation. In this paper, we attempt to emphasise the invaluable psychosocial, political, economic, and cultural function of language education in order to propose a critical view of the current transition from the (...) monolingual to a multilingual paradigm. We maintain that multilingual approaches tend to serve the neoliberal framework and reproduce its systemic inequalities. Therefore, we argue in favour of emancipatory multilingual practices that could embody a translingual pedagogy capable of promoting the development of capabilities, the recognition of otherness, and the cultivation of diversity. Rooted in critical theory, namely in Foucault’s notion of subjectification and Freire’s view of conscientisation, an emancipatory translingual pedagogy would enable and empower every learner to synthesise a contextually creative field of new semantic and pragmatic relationships. Critical language education would enhance the ethos of biophilia that fosters what we term the poetics of communality and selfhood, that is to say, the proactive commitment to expanding symbolic and existential novelty. (shrink)

This article aims to show the emergence of Pre-Socratic Natural Philosophy using the cosmological Big-Bang analogy, where from a certain moment in time and space a universe appears, first in its "inflationary" moment and, soon, in constant expansion. In the case of natural philosophy, it arose with Thales at a certain moment in space and time. It also had its “inflationary” period marked by a large number of philoso-phers and a profound change in the understanding of nature. This period lasted (...) for about 5 generations until philosophy entered its paradigmatic period with Plato and Aristotle. How was the Natural Philosophy Big Bang (NPBB) possible? What were the main factors that made this possible? The text discusses these aspects, and for the author, the main factor must be sought in the internal dynamics of Greek thought and not in external causes, such as the exchange with Babylonians and Egyptians or the economic dynamics. -/- To explain the NPBB, I use the hypothesis of linguistic relativism, meaning that “lan-guage shapes the mind”, in the same line that Bruno Snell used in his 1956 book. That is, the development of the Greek language would be the preponderant factor to explain the dynamics that led to the NPBB. We believe that this hypothesis (currently criti-cized for being excessively deterministic) is justified when applied to the aforemen-tioned situation and can be summarized as follows: “An extraordinary situation re-quires an equally extraordinary explanation”. A set of historical occurrences justifies the application of the strong version of the concept of linguistic relativism, something that today would be difficult to occur. -/- The text synthesizes the main milestones of linguistic relativism, goes through the description of the turn of the oralist society to a society based on writing, which rad-ically changes the way knowledge is stored, in addition to enabling its critical evalua-tion, one of the foundations of philosophy and science. Several authors who are al-ready classics follow a similar line without, however, clearly adopting the author's position. These are the cases of Burnet, Havelock, and Ong. The text also shows some details of the linguistic evolution of Greek and its origins in the oralist mythical tradi-tion. -/- The main conclusion is that linguistic relativism in its strong version is an adequate method to deal with NPBB situation. -/- . (shrink)

This book aims to contribute to the overall, integrated understanding of the processes of language contact and their evolution, be they the result of political or economic (dis)integrations or migrations or for technological reasons. Via an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, it also aims to aid the theoretical grounding of a unified, common sociolinguistic paradigm, based on an ecological and complexical perspective. This perspective is based on the fact that linguistic structures do not live in isolation from their social functions and (...) must be situated in relation to the sub- and supra-systems that determine their existence if we are to understand their fortunes. It is a contribution in understanding and promoting the processes of linguistic revitalization in the world, combining at the same time the maintenance and development of diversity while ensuring the intercommunication of human species. (shrink)

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as (...) presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). (shrink)

Language, one of humanity’s major transformative innovations, is foundational for many cultural, artistic, scientific, and economic advancements, including the creation of artificial intelligence (AI). However, in the fight against climate change, the power of such innovation is constrained due to the boring language of climate science and science communication. In this essay, we encapsulated the situation and risks of boring language in communicating climate information to the public and countering climate denialism and disinformation. Based on the Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D (...) knowledge management framework, we recommend several strategies for climate scientists and science communicators to be more creative and make their communication more interesting, including collaboration with other cultural sectors (e.g., stand-up comedians, climate fiction, etc.) and AI. (shrink)

Our environment is saturated in the English language due to globalisation; yet accompanying western philosophical concepts can be contested, even resisted, in different cultural contexts. The philosophical ideas associated with the Anglosphere are rooted in the cultural, economic, religious and social traditions of broader Anglo-European, or “western” culture and are decontested ideologically within that culture. The contestation of western ideology is beneficial for global culture, but this aspect of cross-cultural dialogue is often neglected in South Asia where English (...) class='Hi'>language learning occurs in a post-colonial context and is often accompanied by the attempted internalisation of Anglo-European culture and norms. This paper contrasts the philosophical underpinnings of ethics in South Asia and the west. The metaphysical and cultural frameworks underlying these systems can result in conceptual misunderstandings that can only be resolved by dialogue. The aim of this theoretical paper is to examine ethical theories and show how English language can be instrumental in creating this cross-cultural dialogue. (shrink)

This paper identifies a new source that explains environmental behaviour: the presence of future tense marking in language. We predict that languages that grammatically mark the future affect speakers' intertemporal preferences and thereby reduce their willingness to address environmental problems. We first show that speakers of languages with future tense marking are less likely to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours and to support policies to prevent environmental damage. We then document that this effect holds across countries: future tense marking is (...) an important determinant of climate change policies and global environmental cooperation. The results suggest that there may be deep and surprising obstacles for attempts to address climate change. (shrink)

Drawing from Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte, this paper explores how and why China’s linguistic revolutions took place alongside the country’s quest for scientific, economic and political modernity. When discussing the contributions made by translation of Western texts to China’s modernization process, scholars have been focusing on content issues. They have overlooked how translation, _through effecting changes in the Chinese language, has transformed the Chinese people’s Weltanschauung at a fundamental level—only with that transformation did China become truly ready for modernity_. For example, (...) tenses did not exist in classical Chinese. But given the prominence of the temporal dimension in Western languages, time markers were gradually invented for the Chinese language as intellectuals engaged in translations of Western texts. These time markers brought a linear concept of time to Chinese society, and only with that new way of experiencing time could “the modern” become conceivable for the Chinese people. I examine how the _time consciousness gave the Chinese a new concept of the future and laid the path for China’s modernization_, and elaborate the subject at hand via an analysis of two waves of temporalization of the Chinese language. (shrink)

Mathias Risse’s On Global Justice is a unique and important contribution to the growing literature on global justice. Risse’s approach to a variety of topics, ranging from domestic justice and common ownership of the earth, to immigration, human rights, climate change, and labour rights, is one that conceives of global justice as a philosophical problem. In this commentary I focus on a number of reservations I have about approaching global justice as a philosophical rather than an inherently practical problem. To (...) his credit Risse does acknowledge at various stages of the book that a good deal of the applied terrain he ventures into presupposes complex and contentious empirical assumptions. A greater emphasis on those points would, I believe, helpfully reveal the shortcomings of tackling intellectual property rights by appealing to Hugo Grotius’s stance on the ownership of seas, or the shortcomings of tackling health by invoking the language of human rights without acknowledging and addressing the constraints and challenges of promoting health in an aging world. (shrink)

Socio-Economic Impacts of Co-operative Societies: An Empirical Study -/- Author / Authors :Md. Ruhul Amin and Mohammed Mahin Uddin Page no.179-193 Discipline : Applied Economics/ Management/ Commerce Script/language : English/Roman Category : Research paper Keywords: Co-operative, Development, Society, Constrains, Constitution, Comilla.

It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative linguistic System 2 and unconscious automated (...) prelinguistic System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- I provide a critical survey of some of the major findings of two of the most eminent students of behavior of modern times, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, on the logical structure of intentionality (mind, language, behavior), taking as my starting point Wittgenstein’s fundamental discovery –that all truly ‘philosophical’ problems are the same—confusions about how to use language in a particular context, and so all solutions are the same—looking at how language can be used in the context at issue so that its truth conditions (Conditions of Satisfaction or COS) are clear. The basic problem is that one can say anything, but one cannot mean (state clear COS for) any arbitrary utterance and meaning is only possible in a very specific context. I analyze various writings by and about them from the modern perspective of the two systems of thought (popularized as ‘thinking fast, thinking slow’), employing a new table of intentionality and new dual systems nomenclature. I show that this is a powerful heuristic for describing behavior. -/- Thus, all behavior is intimately connected if one takes the correct viewpoint. The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s future. -/- . (shrink)

Wittgenstein has shown that that life, in the sense that applies in the first place to human beings, is inherently linguistic. In this paper, I ask what is involved in language, given that it is thus essential to life, answering that language – or concepts – must be both alive and the ground for life. This is explicated by a Wittgensteinian series of entailments of features. According to the first feature, concepts are not intentional engagements. The second feature (...) brings life back to concepts by describing them as inflectible: Attitudes, actions, conversations and other engagements inflect concepts, i.e., concepts take their particular characters in our actual engagements. However, inflections themselves would be reified together with the life they ground unless they could preserve the openness of concepts: hence the third feature of re-inflectibility. Finally, the openness of language must be revealed in actual life. This entails the possibility of conceptual ambivalence. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship plays an indispensable role in the economic development and poverty reduction of emerging economies like Vietnam. The rapid development of technologies during the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) has a significant impact on business in every field, especially in the innovation-focused area of entrepreneurship. However, the topic of entrepreneurial activities with technology applications in Vietnam is under-researched. In addition, the body of literature regarding entrepreneurial finance tends to focus on advanced economies, while mostly neglecting the contextual differences in developing (...) nations. Therefore, this research contributes to these topics by investigating the main characteristics of a high potential market for entrepreneurs in Vietnam, which is the English language training market (ELTM). It also aims at indicating the impacts of technology on the entrepreneurial firms within this market, with an emphasis on financing sources. To answer the research questions, this study employs a qualitative analysis and conducts 12 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and researchers in the field. The key findings in our study highlight the main contributing factors to the growth of the market, both universally and context-specific for a developing nation like Vietnam. It also lists the leaders in each market segment and the industry’s potential profit margin. The results also show that most entrepreneurs in the ELTM utilized private sources of finance rather than external ones, such as bank loans. It again confirms the idea from previous works that even with the rapid development of the economic and technological landscape, entrepreneurial activities in general barely benefit from additional sources of funding. However, it also points out the distinct characteristics of the ELTM that may influence these financing issues; for example, English training services usually collect revenues from customers before delivering their classes. This is of advantage for entrepreneurs in this area and helps significantly reduce the financial barriers. These findings, which are among the first attempts to contribute to a better understanding of entrepreneurial opportunities in the Industry 4.0 in Vietnam, provide valuable insights for policymakers and entrepreneurs, as well as investors. (shrink)

Rural Green Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities in India -/- Author / Authors : Indal Kumar Page no.194-203 Discipline : Applied Economics/ Management/ Commerce Script/language : English/Roman Category : Research paper Keywords: Rural Green Product, Environmentally safe of rural market, opportunities and challenges of Green Marketing.

When an agent’s motivation is sensitive to how his supervisor thinks about the agent’s competence, the supervisor has to take into account both informational and expressive contents of her message to the agent. This paper shows that the supervisor can credibly express her trust in the agent’s ability only by being un- clear about what to do. Suggesting what to do, i.e., “directives,” could reveal the supervisor’s “distrust” and reduce the agent’s equilibrium effort level even though it provides useful information (...) about the decision environment. There is also an equilibrium in which directives are neutral in expressive content. However, it is shown that neologism proofness favors equilibria in which directives are double- edged swords. (shrink)

This paper defends a challenge, inspired by arguments drawn from contemporary ordinary language philosophy and grounded in experimental data, to certain forms of standard philosophical practice. The challenge is inspired by contemporary philosophers who describe themselves as practicing “ordinary language philosophy”. Contemporary ordinary language philosophy can be divided into constructive and critical approaches. The critical approach to contemporary ordinary language philosophy has been forcefully developed by Avner Baz, who attempts to show that a substantial chunk of (...) contemporary philosophy is fundamentally misguided. I describe Baz’s project and argue that while there is reason to be skeptical of its radical conclusion, it conveys an important truth about discontinuities between ordinary uses of philosophically significant expressions (“know”, e.g.) and their use in philosophical thought experiments. I discuss some evidence from experimental psychology and behavioral economics indicating that there is a risk of overlooking important aspects of meaning or misinterpreting experimental results by focusing only on abstract experimental scenarios, rather than employing more diverse and more ecologically valid experimental designs. I conclude by presenting a revised version of the critical argument from ordinary language. (shrink)

Business Process Reengineering and Organizational Structure – A Case Study of Indian Commercial Banks -/- Author / Authors : Dr. Naveeda Seher Page no. 126 -138 Discipline : Applied Economics/ Management/ Commerce Script/language : Roman/English Category : Research paper Keywords: Business Process Reengineering, organizational Structure, Effectiveness, competitive.

Pseudo-profound language is a stylistic means in many different contexts, like advertising, politics, economics, or even science. Contemporary visual art is notoriously known for its variant: artspeak. We develop a syntactical analysis and show how artspeak is constructed. We point out that it is “evocative” bullshit in that it aims at contextualizing art with traditional art myths (i.e., artists are, among other adjectives, autonomous, critical, or free). Furthermore, we argue that artspeak should be regarded as a particular type (...) of bullshit as it features a unique relation to truth. (shrink)

Linear Algebra is an extremely important field that extends everyday concepts about geometry and algebra into higher spaces. This text serves as a gentle motivating introduction to the principles (and philosophy) behind linear algebra. This is aimed at undergraduate students taking a linear algebra class - in particular engineering students who are expected to understand and use linear algebra to build and design things, however it may also prove helpful for philosophy majors and anyone else interested in the ideas behind (...) linear algebra. Linear algebra is used extensively in statistics, mechanical engineering, circuit theory, signal processing, economics and data science/machine learning. I have found in my teaching career that students tend to struggle the most with motivating the "why" behind the abstract concepts discussed in linear algebra. This can be difficult for professors to understand because we are so used to using the language of linear algebra we take for granted why these questions are important in the first place. In other words, we may understand the “why” (after years of using these tools), but our students may not. This text seeks to explain this “why” in an accessible, engaging way. (shrink)

The present proposal is an approach to the vision, cosmogony and philosophy of the Totonacapan people, and particularly with the inhabitants of the Totonacapan region in Veracruz Mexico, a town whose wisdom is manifested to this day, in the conservation of customs and traditions , as well as the hierarchy of collective desire that seeks health, well-being and peace in the region, are guides in the evolution of their cultural processes, where a closeness, respectful and deep with Mother Nature stands (...) out. This wisdom by the Council of Elders, transmitted to the new generations, by the Supreme Council of Totonacapan who seek share the basis to understand and conceive the current world, from the ancestral vision and cosmogony to identify their space, thought, spirituality and in the building your social context. In the Totonacapan region, the first pre-hispanic population concentrations were located around 1259 to 1311. Already by the year 1450, there is a record of incursions and the conquest of Totonaca territory, by the Mexica, establishing a relationship of domain and subordination. As a result of the presence of "Mexica" in the Totonaco territory, there was an imposition of customs and language, since in some areas they begin to speak in Nahuatl, resulting in the presence of a bilingualism (Nahuatl-Totonac) , situation that persists, until the encounter with the Spaniards in the year of 1519. At present, the Totonacapan region includes the area that extends from the Cazones River to the north, to the towns of Gutiérrez Zamora and Tecolutla, in the State of Veracruz in Mexico. 2 The importance of the document is that it constitutes an invitation to deepen and understand the vision of the inhabitants of Totonacapan, in the construction of their social context and their connection with nature, as part of an ancient culture, which creates and recreates their vision, in the search for the feeling of belonging and as an inheritance of the children of thunder (Tajin), as well as the need to preserve the benefits that nature itself offers them, seeking a peaceful and harmonious coexistence, in the social and environmental environment. However, the preservation of its history, tradition and philosophy of life, contrast with public policy strategies, particularly in the social sphere, and which are aimed at achieving economic development in the fight against multidimensional poverty and marginalization, all Once they have not incorporated into them, the feeling and living of the relationship between individual and nature, as the guiding axis, of the philosophy of the Totonacapan people. What is sustainability for the people of Totonacapan? What is social justice in the search for sustainability? And what is your concept of justice in sustainability and human development? From the vision and philosophy of the people of Totonacapan, as part of the history and tradition of the children of thunder "Tajin" and in whose worldview, he is responsible for regulating the rain, climate and life of the people of the region. How does the people of Totonacapan live and live in the face of the maelstrom of actions that, from public policy, that seek human development? How do you adjust, your way of life and how do you adapt to the requirements, which from the perspective of justice, are required to contribute to the objectives of the 2030 development agenda? This document is an effort to learn and recognize one of the most important millenary cultures in Mexico, in the construction of a more inclusive vision of the social development of the Totonacapan people, which invites us to reflect on the direction and scope of this response. (shrink)

The objectively best language is intended to refer to some metaphysically privileged language that ‘carves reality at its joints’ perfectly. That is, it is the kind of language that various ‘metaphysical deflationists’ have argued is impossible. One common line of argument amongst deflationists is that we have no means to compare languages that all express true facts about the world in such a way to decide which is ‘better’. For example, the language is physics is not (...) objectively better than the language of economics, as each language has the semantic purpose of expressing some domain of truths about the world inexpressible in the other language, and therefore neither could be ‘objectively best’. In this paper, I argue that metaphysical deflationists have failed to recognise a distinction between fine- and coarse-grained semantic purposes of languages, and that a recognition of that distinction provides us grounds to compare languages to see which is objectively best. I argue that once we recognise the distinction between fine- and coarse-grained semantic purposes, then we can see that it is relative to the coarse-grained purpose that we must compare putative objectively best ontological languages. (shrink)

Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior. Sadly he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work. Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a (...) few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article ‘Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -- A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012).’ Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public. -/- Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior. Of course the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one. Unfortunately he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project. Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science. As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value “There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics.” -/- It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century. -/- I discuss the errors of group selection and phenomenology that are the norm in academia as special cases of the near universal failure to understand human nature that are destroying America and the world. -/- Those who wish to read all my articles please consult the ebook here Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization -- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 by Michael Starks 662p (2016) -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to settle some challenging historiographic issues concerning the origin and development of the concept of economic equilibrium. Specifically, our research goal is to identify the philosophical and historical drivers of the mathematization of economic theory. To this end, we attempt to answer three fundamental research questions. First, why (and not how) has economics become a mathematical science? Second, what are the major methodological blunders that lie at the foundations of Modern General Equilibrium Theory? Third, is the (...) contemporary criticism of Modern General Equilibrium Theory meaningful and well-founded? In order, chapters 1-3 address the first question, chapters 4 and 5 address the second, whereas chapter 6 addresses the third question. Regarding the first question, we investigate the methodological relationships between Modern Physics, Modern Philosophy, and Walras’s Theory of General Equilibrium. Interestingly, our findings reveal that while the study of motion in Modern Physics relies upon a clear distinction between static and dynamic equilibrium, early mathematical economics borrows its methodology from Modern Physics but relies upon an Aristotelian conception of equilibrium. Furthermore, we identify exciting analogies between Kant’s philosophy and Walras’s Elements. Finally, we show that the so-called Walras Paradox also features another unexplored dimension. Namely, Walras’s work overall relies upon a bottom-up approach to mathematics. Yet Walras’s work includes problems that require a top-down approach to mathematics to be solved. Regarding the second question, we delve into the tight relationship between the History of Mathematics in the 19th Century, the Philosophy of Mathematics in the 20th Century, and the development of Modern General Equilibrium Theory in the 20th Century. Notably, we find that the top-down approach to mathematics provides economists with a reliable methodology to resolve the problems in Walras’s original work. Hence, the mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory in the 20th Century is a child of its time that carries the inapplicability of pure mathematics to real-world problems along with itself. Therefore, although the mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory is an unprecedented milestone in economic theory, the foundations of Modern General Equilibrium Theory inherit the methodological shortcomings of Contemporary Mathematics. That is why the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu does not overtake the Aristotelian conception of equilibrium. Accordingly, we rebut the claim that Debreu and colleagues' mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory resolves the fundamental methodological shortcomings of Walras’s original work. Eventually, we use our answers to our first and second research questions to address the contemporary criticism of General Equilibrium Theory. On the one hand, we show that the latter criticism does not account for the fact that General Equilibrium Theory inherits the scientific realism and determinism of Modern Physics. In other words, we argue that the inability of General Equilibrium models to manage uncertainty effectively has nothing to do with its mathematization in the 20th Century. Instead, it results from the unexplored dimension of the Walras Paradox, which we uncover. On the other hand, we show that common accusations of inconsistency, incompleteness, and undecidability in General Equilibrium Theory are ill-founded. That is because other rigorous alternatives to axiomatization in economics are not paradox-free. On these grounds, we conclude that a much better option is to employ a topic-neutral language to provide rigorous presentations of contested concepts in economics. Particularly, we show that formal mereology offers a convenient methodological framework to resolve the disagreement between the Neoclassical and Institutionalist economists’ respective definitions of the concept of the market. In this way, we show that the latter concept is definable as a process. But, more importantly, we note that formal mereology also offers a convenient framework to reformulate other economic concepts concisely and rigorously. In this regard, we observe that formal mereology might provide a resolution for Hayek’s Problem because it would enable economists to define general equilibrium as a perduring socioeconomic process. -/- In case you want a copy of my dissertation, please email me. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the current debate on the state of economics from a methodological perspective. We claim that the majority of contributions criticizing modern economics are not based on clear methodological principles and thus many of them are not correct. We show this with respect to such issues as the problem of realisticness of models and their assumptions, the role of mathematics in economics, the way we conceptualize the relation between economics (...) (theory) and economy (empiria), as well as the general problem of comparing theories. In doing so we use the research apparatus taken form the philosophy of science and also we benefit a lot from recent developments in the philosophy of economics. Finally, we show one of the paradoxes of that debate, namely that many critics of economics accuse economists of using the wrong language (mathematics) while they do not use proper language themselves while criticizing economics, namely the apparatus taken from the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Effective stakeholder engagement and inclusive governance are essential for effective and equitable ocean management. However, few cross-national studies have been conducted to examine how stakeholders’ economic and cultural benefit perceptions influence their support level for policies focused on ocean preservation. The current study aims to fill this gap by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries, a part of the MaCoBioS project funded by the European Commission H2020. We found that economic (...) and cultural benefit perceptions are generally negatively associated with the policy support level. Regarding economic aspects, stakeholders considering transportation and shipping, renewable energy generation, and oil and gas provision as the most crucial benefits their countries’ oceans provide tend to obtain less support for policies focusing on ocean preservation. Meanwhile, for cultural aspects, perceiving recreation and tourism, aesthetic pleasure, mental health and well-being support, and sense of identity provision as the most important benefits provided by the country’s ocean are negatively associated with the policy support level. The perceived economic, cultural, and environmental tradeoffs when supporting policies focused on ocean preservation were discussed. Recommendations for improving the effective management of multi-use marine space are also provided to reduce the perceived competing interests among stakeholders. (shrink)

Factor Affecting Customer Service in Supply Chain Management of Small and Medium Enterprises: An Empirical Study of Jammu Region -/- Author / Authors : Sanjeev Lalhotra and Prof. B.C Sharma Page no.149-165 Discipline : Applied Economics/ Management/ Commerce Script/language : Roman/English Category : Research paper Keywords: Customer services, Supply Chain Management, Small and Medium Enterprises.

The post-Westphalian Nation State developed by becoming more and more an Information Society. However, in so doing, it progressively made itself less and less the main information agent, because one of the main forces that made the Nation State possible and then predominant, as a historical driving force in human politics, namely Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), is also what is now making it less central, in the social, political and economic life of humanity across the world. ICTs enable and (...) promote the agile, temporary and timely aggregation, disaggregation and re-aggregation of distributed groups around shared interests across old, rigid boundaries represented by social classes, political parties, ethnicity, language barriers, physical and geographical barriers, and so forth. Similar novelties call for a serious exercise in conceptual re-engineering. This paper argues for the need to understand how the new informational multiagent systems may be designed in such a way as to take full advantage of the socio-political progress made so far, while being able to deal successfully with the new global challenges (from the environment to the financial markets) that are undermining the legacy of that very progress. (shrink)

This chapter considers possible moral grounds for recognizing and realizing economic and social rights (ESRs) as human rights. It begins by suggesting that ESRs fall into three families: (1) welfareoriented ESRs, which protect adequate income, education, health, and safe and healthful working conditions; (2) freedom-oriented ESRs, which prohibit slavery, ensure free choice of employment, and protect workers’ freedoms to organize and strike: and (3) fairness-oriented ESRs, which require nondiscrimination and equal opportunity in the workplace along with fair remuneration for one’s (...) work. To accommodate the normative diversity found in these three families, the chapter suggests a pluralistic justicatory framework that appeals to three kinds of moral reasons: human welfare, freedom, and fairness. A final section considers the possibility of subsuming all three of these approaches to justication under the idea of human dignity or the associated idea of equal respect for persons. (shrink)

With the release of Laudato Si (2015) Pope Francis has introduced new conceptual language into Catholic social teaching (CST), what he has called "integral ecology." His intent appears to be grounded in the realization that "It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions with natural systems themselves and with social systems" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Pope Francis goes on to make the case that ''We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, (...) but rather with one complex crisis with isboth social and environmental" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Consequently, in order to solve this crisis we need to utilize "an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time pro­ tecting nature" (LS, no. CXXXVlll). This perspective represents a major development in CST whereby the encyclical connects the dots between ecology/environment, economics and society, three essential aspects of what many in the environmental community and elsewhere see as in­ dispensable for humanity to achieve a sustainable relationship with the Earth. While this is extremely important for articulating a Catholic vision of sustainability, that is not the direction we take in this article. Rather our intent is to use the concept of integral ecology to do three things:(1) examine a current case in the U.S. that has received signif­ icant media attention as well as notoriety-the water crisis in Flint, Michigan; (2) describe how our recent understanding of the epigenetic impacts of environmental toxins casts a new and ominous light on this crisis and on other instances of environmental toxin exposure, and (3) propose some ideas on how epigenetic research might enlarge our in­ terpretation of basic aspects of CST highlighted in Laudato Si such as human dignity, justice and the common good. (shrink)

Right from traditional African philosophy, down to its modern and contemporary era, there has been a strong link between African philos ophy and language, underlined by the principle of complementarity. This is not disconnec ted with Placid Tempels’ employment of force to explain being, and Alexis Kagame’s NTU, as the underlying principle of reality. Pantaleon Iroegbu explained being as belon gingness. In the thoughts of Innocent Asouzu, Ibuanyidanda, was used to explain the compl ementary nature of reality. In the (...) face of ever growing complexities, African philosop hers have continued to employ African categories for the search for solutions to African problems. At a time like ours when many African governments have failed in national develop ment, especially in their ability to improve the social welfare of her people through th e provision of social amenities like quality education, portable water, transportation, good roads, good medical amenities, security of lives and property, basic infrastructur e, etc., this work employs Igwebuike philosophy, another African category, as a framewor k for Africa’s development. It develops a model of development which is inclusive and wholistic, and traces Africa’s problem of underdevelopment to the employment of no n-inclusive political and economic institutions. For the purpose of this research, the hermeneutic and Wholistic indigenous method of inquiry was employed. (shrink)

Since Gintis is a senior economist and I have read some of his previous books with interest, I was expecting some more insights into behavior. Sadly, he makes the dead hands of group selection and phenomenology into the centerpieces of his theories of behavior, and this largely invalidates the work. Worse, since he shows such bad judgement here, it calls into question all his previous work. The attempt to resurrect group selection by his friends at Harvard, Nowak and Wilson, a (...) few years ago was one of the major scandals in biology in the last decade, and I have recounted the sad story in my article ‘Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization -- A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’ (2012).’ Unlike Nowak, Gintis does not seem to be motivated by religious fanaticism, but by the strong desire to generate an alternative to the grim realities of human nature, made easy by the (near universal) lack of understanding of basic human biology and blank slateism of behavioral scientists, other academics, and the general public. -/- Gintis rightly attacks (as he has many times before) economists, sociologists and other behavioral scientists for not having a coherent framework to describe behavior. Of course, the framework needed to understand behavior is an evolutionary one. Unfortunately, he fails to provide one himself (according to his many critics and I concur), and the attempt to graft the rotten corpse of group selection onto whatever economic and psychological theories he has generated in his decades of work, merely invalidates his entire project. -/- Although Gintis makes a valiant effort to understand and explain the genetics, like Wilson and Nowak, he is far from an expert, and like them, the math just blinds him to the biological impossibilities and of course this is the norm in science. As Wittgenstein famously noted on the first page of Culture and Value “There is no religious denomination in which the misuse of metaphysical expressions has been responsible for so much sin as it has in mathematics.” -/- It has always been crystal clear that a gene that causes behavior which decreases its own frequency cannot persist, but this is the core of the notion of group selection. Furthermore, it has been well known and often demonstrated that group selection just reduces to inclusive fitness (kin selection), which, as Dawkins has noted, is just another name for evolution by natural selection. Like Wilson, Gintis has worked in this arena for about 50 years and still has not grasped it, but after the scandal broke, it took me only 3 days to find, read and understand the most relevant professional work, as detailed in my article. It is mind boggling to realize that Gintis and Wilson were unable to accomplish this in nearly half a century. -/- I discuss the errors of group selection and phenomenology that are the norm in academia as special cases of the near universal failure to understand human nature that are destroying America and the world. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate on the relationship between marketing and propaganda through an analysis of social marketing as a mode of governing in permanent campaigning. The working hypothesis is that social marketing operations are agitational rather than propagandistic. The conceptual approach stems from a comparison of propaganda and marketing with Fordist and post-Fordist modes of production and governance. The research into the role of agitation involves an empirical study of the UK government campaign against benefit fraud, the most (...) expensive of its kind. Using a combination of methodologies, the political context is framed through a discourse analysis that charts the historical emergence of the problem of benefit fraud and the material effects of this discourse on welfare spending allocation, content analysis is used to identify correspondences between different newspapers’ rhetoric and policy under different governments, and semiotic analysis helps to decode the message of the campaign against benefit fraud, as it relates to the overall government’s strategy on this issue. The study offers insights into the political strategy of the government of New Labour between 1997 and 2010 and its resort to agitational techniques, exposing the limitations of government marketing and public relations in the context of an overall crisis of its political legitimacy, in both economic and political terms. (shrink)

This research aims at establishing the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on e-commerce development of industrial enterprises by means of economic and mathematical modelling. The goal was achieved using the following methods: theoretical generalization, analysis and synthesis (to critically analyse the scientific approaches of scientists regarding the expediency of using mathematical models in the context of enterprises’ e-commerce development), target, comparison and grouping (to reveal innovative methodological approach to assessing ICT impact on e-commerce development of industrial enterprises), tabular, (...) analytical and integral method (for summarizing the analysis results of enterprises readiness to implement ICT, ICT use in the activities of industrial enterprises of Ukraine and the analysis of e-commerce development), mathematical modelling (to build a regression model determining impact of changes in ICT use on the market share occupied by industrial enterprises), generalization (to determine promising directions of e-commerce developing of industrial enterprises). The implementation of a comprehensive approach to understanding the importance of ICT influence on e-commerce development of industrial enterprises will ensure acceleration of the digitalization of business processes, will contribute to the speed increase of enterprises response to customer requests, and increase the market share occupied by enterprises. A new vision of directions for developing e-commerce of industrial enterprises is suggested, which are determined by the need for enterprise rebranding, the development of e-commerce tools and technologies, the importance of outsourcing service automation and promotion of subscription trade. ICT is considered as integration factor that determines prospects for e-commerce development of industrial enterprises and contributes to increasing efficiency of online business management. Research results demonstrate that the use of economic and mathematical modelling is an important tool for assessing ICT impact, and its absence can negatively affect the accuracy and validity of online business management. (shrink)

This article, the final part of the series, will focus on genocide. To understand the argument we need to start with some definitions. Rapheal Lemkin invented the term and promoted its adoption. As Samantha Power explains in her introduction to his primary work: “In Axis Rule he wrote that ‘genocide’ meant ‘a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the -/- aim of annihilating the groups themselves’. The perpetrators (...) of genocide would attempt to destroy the political and social institutions, the culture, language, national feelings, religion, and economic existence of national groups. They would hope to eradicate the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and lives of individual members of the targeted group. (shrink)

Coastal protection is crucial to human development since the ocean has many values associated with the economy, ecosystem, and culture. However, most ocean protecting efforts are currently ineffective due to the burdens of finance, lack of appropriate management, and international cooperation regimes. For aiding bottom-up initiatives for ocean protection support, this study employed the Mindsponge Theory to examine how the public’s perceived economic and cultural values influence their willingness to support actions to protect the ocean. Analyzing the European-Union-Horizon-2020-funded dataset of (...) 709 respondents from 42 countries, we discovered that perceived economic values have negative effects on the tendency of ocean protection supports (i.e., food, transportation, renewable energy, oil and gas, and recreation). In contrast, certain perceived cultural values can help increase the willingness to do so (i.e., mental well-being and sense of identity). However, the effects of perceived cultural values are only moderately reliable. These findings suggest that designing cultural information delivery campaigns can help promote coastal reserve supports, such as fundraisings and preserving the oceans from the community. (shrink)

Austrian economics starts out from the thesis that the objects of economic science differ from those of the natural sciences because of the centrality of the economic agent. This allows a certain a priori or essentialistic aspect to economic science of a sort which parallels the a priori dimension of psychology defended by Brentano and his student Edmund Husserl. We outline these parallels, and show how the theory of a priori dependence relations outlined in Husserl’s Logical Investigations can throw (...) light on the Austrian account of entrepreneurship. (shrink)

The economic crisis in Europe exposes the European Union’s political fragility. How a polity made of very different states can live up to the motto “Europe united in diversity” is difficult to envisage in practice. In this paper I attempt an “exegesis”—a critical explanation or interpretation of a series of published pieces (“the Series”) which explores, first, if European unity is desirable at all. Second, it presents a new methodology—analogical hermeneutics—used throughout the Series to approach the problem of unity. Third, (...) it conceptualises the source of unity as political identity. Fourth, it advances that the vehicle to share such identity is an analogical language: the political culture of human rights. Fifth, it submits the conditions under which such political culture could ground political identity through an open public sphere. Finally, it presents a way in which solidarity can grow as the increasingly diverse citizens of the European Union interact with each other. Even though the economic crisis can be solved by means of sound economic strategy (which is not the main object of my work), any successful economic strategy requires—as a precondition—a certain degree of political unity (the central concern of my research). (shrink)

Climate change policy decisions are inescapably intertwined with future generations. Even if all carbon dioxide emissions were to be stopped today, most aspects of climate change would persist for hundreds of years, thus inevitably raising questions of intergenerational justice and sustainability. -/- The chapter begins with a short overview of discount rate debate in climate economics, followed by the observation that discounting implicitly makes the assumption that natural capital is always substitutable with man-made capital. The chapter explains why non-substitutability (...) matters if we are to take intergenerational justice seriously and invest aptly in mitigation. Non-substitutability simply implies that there are some forms of capital that cannot be substituted by another, and so consumption of one cannot be compensated with additional stocks of the other. The non-substitutability of critical natural capital can be defended without empirical data about preferences or the need to view the environment as a superior good, and the argument is presented through the language of keeping options open. -/- Those alive today make decisions about what natural capital to use and what to save for future. These choices are often represented as different points in a continuum of sustainability: weak sustainability is associated with a high degree of substitutability and therefore a lot of flexibility over what capital to consume, whereas strong sustainability is more stringent on substitutability. While it may be that in economical understanding weak and strong sustainability collapse into one another, philosophically the emphasis is slightly different. The chapter discusses how normative sustainability can be supported without ignoring opportunity costs and trade-offs. (shrink)

Music and language are universal human abilities with many apparent similarities relating to their acoustics, structure, and frequent use in social situations. We might therefore expect them to be understood and processed similarly, and indeed an emerging body of research suggests that this is the case. But the focus has historically been on the individual, looking at the passive listener or the isolated speaker or performer, even though social interaction is the primary site of use for both domains. Nonetheless, (...) an important goal of emerging research is to compare music and language in terms of acoustics and structure, social interaction, and functional origins to develop parallel accounts across the two domains. Indeed, a central aim of both of evolutionary musicology and language evolution research is to understand the adaptive significance or functional origin of human music and language. An influential proposal to emerge in recent years has been referred to as the social bonding hypothesis. Here, within a comparative approach to animal communication systems, I review empirical studies in support of the social bonding hypothesis in humans, non-human primates, songbirds, and various other mammals. In support of this hypothesis, I review six research fields: (i) the functional origins of music; (ii) the functional origins of language; (iii) mechanisms of social synchrony for human social bonding; (iv) language and social bonding in humans; (v) music and social bonding in humans; and (vi) pitch, tone and emotional expression in human speech and music. I conclude that the comparative study of complex vocalizations and behaviors in various extant species can provide important insights into the adaptive function(s) of these traits in these species, as well as offer evidence-based speculations for the existence of “musilanguage” in our primate ancestors, and thus inform our understanding of the biology and evolution of human music and language. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the methodology of the Austrian school to two alternative methodologies from the economic mainstream: the ‘orthodox’ and revealed preference methodologies. I argue that Austrian school theorists should stop describing themselves as ‘extreme apriorists’ (or writing suggestively to that effect), and should start giving greater acknowledgement to the importance of empirical work within their research program. The motivation for this dialectical shift is threefold: the approach is more faithful to their actual practices, it better illustrates the (...) underlying similarities between the mainstream and Austrian research paradigms, and it provides a philosophical foundation that is much more plausible in itself. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2019). All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it (...) is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance. As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable. -/- The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups, I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. -/- It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior. I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior. This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. No neurophysiology, no metaphysics, no postmodernism, no theology. -/- It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- The next section describes the digital delusions, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System one, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). The ‘reductionist’ claim is that one can ‘explain’ behavior at a ‘lower’ level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a ‘stand in’ for it. Hence the title of Searle’s classic review of Dennett’s book (“Consciousness Explained”)— “Consciousness Explained Away”. In most contexts ‘reduction’ of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Even for ‘reduction’ of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty. Anything can be ‘represented’ by equations, but when they ‘represent’ higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the ‘results’ mean. Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor. -/- The last section describes The One Big Happy Family Delusion, i.e., that we are selected for cooperation with everyone, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces these delusions. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. The only major change in this edition is the addition in the last article of a short discussion of China, a threat to peace and freedom as great as overpopulation and climate change and one to which even most professional scholars and politicians are oblivious so I regarded it as sufficiently important to warrant a new edition. -/- I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically ‘friendly’ if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. Even Sapolsky’s otherwise excellent “Behave”(2017) embraces leftist politics and group selection and gives space to a discussion of whether humans are innately violent. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1. Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection, natural selection). -/- The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind. In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose, or at least became popular with leftists—that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. The idea of human rights is an evil fantasy created by leftists to draw attention away from the merciless destruction of the earth by unrestrained 3rd world motherhood. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive, and their descendants. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. In a horrifically overcrowded world with vanishing resources, there cannot be human rights without destroying the earth and our descendant’s futures. It could not be more obvious, but it is rarely mentioned in a clear and direct way, and one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. -/- The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. Even the attempt to do this is already bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. -/- America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century, and now all of it, due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests (which I suggest may be regarded as an unrecognized -- but the commonest and most serious-- psychological problem -- Inclusive Fitness Disorder). This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. -/- Those wishing to read my other writings may see Talking Monkeys 2nd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle 2nd ed (2019), Suicide by Democracy 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Stucture of Human Behavior (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)