The issue of whether biological and psychological properties associated with disability can be harmful, beneficial, or neutral brings up an important philosophical question about how we evaluate disability, and disability’s impact on well-being. The debate is usually characterized as between those who argue disability is intrinsically harmful, and disability rights advocates who argue that disability is just another way of being different, in part, because disability can also provide important benefits. I argue that this debate is a false one, as (...) neither view can capture the more complicated relationship between disability and well-being. I argue that many disabilities are best understood as a kind of pro-tanto extrinsic harm that is characterized in counterfactual terms. This means that our judgments concerning disability and harm must be context-sensitive. (shrink)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a commonly occurring neuropsychiatric condition characterized by bothersome intrusive thoughts and urges that frequently lead to repetitive dysfunctional behaviours such as excessive handwashing. There are well-documented alterations in cerebral function which appear to be closely related to the manifestation of these symptoms. Controlled studies of cognitive-behavioural therapy techniques utilizing the active refocusing of attention away from the intrusive phenomena of OCD and onto adaptive alternative activities have demonstrated both significant improvements in clinical symptoms and systematic changes in (...) the pathological brain circuitry associated with them. Careful investigation of the relationships between the experiential and putative neurophysiological processes involved in these changes can offer useful insights into volitional aspects of cerebral function. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

Understanding recreational experiences is a longstanding research tradition and key to effective management. Given the complexities of human experience, many approaches have been applied to study recreational experience. Two such approaches are the experiential approach (based in a positivistic paradigm) and emergent experience (based in an interpretive paradigm). While viewed as being complementary, researchers have not offered guidance for incorporating the approaches into a common model of recreational experience. This study utilized longitudinal, qualitative data to examine aspects of recreational experience (...) posited by these two approaches. Results provided a framework for synthesizing across the two approaches. Respondents had clear pre-activity expectations, and most respondents realized their expected outcomes. This supports the experiential approach. Of the 48 activity narratives, 27 experienced something unexpected, and 45 described process-oriented, intrinsic motivation, suggesting evidence of emergent and unique characteristics specific to an individual’s realization of recreational experience. This supports the application of the emergent experience approach to understand how individuals create meaning from recreational engagements. The paper proposes a model for integrating results of the two approaches. While not advocating for any specific approach, the findings can serve as an example of building a holistic model of the outdoor recreation experience. The purpose of the model is to allow for a more complete understanding of how individuals create recreation experiences, more complete documentation of the benefits of outdoor recreation for both researchers and managers, and better synthesis across studies. (shrink)

This article attempts to answer a question that many dancers and non-dancers may have. What is dance according to the media? Furthermore, how does the written word portray dance in the media? To answer these ques-tions, this research focuses on the role that the discourse of dance in media plays in the public sphere’s knowledge construction of dance. This is impor-tant to study because the public sphere’s meaning of dance will determine whether dance education is promoted or banned in schools (...) and in society. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the existing literature of dance in the media. One limitation of this contribution is that the research uses only newspaper articles as a source of analysis. Future research should include an analysis of visual and audio clips of dance as portrayed in the media. (shrink)

Rather than assume—based on the contents of the Nachlass—that the Eternal Recurrence, in its initial formulation, coheres with the later theoretico-metaphysical sense (i.e., sharing abstract space with the Will to Power) I propose the inverse (contrary to Heidegger, Deleuze, and Nehamas (whose Proustian exegesis (Nietzsche: Life as Literature) I’m obliged to radically extend)); namely, that the rotary cosmology of recurrence, as a literal proposition, is a consequence of the poetic sense of the earlier parable (GS)–which, I find, ultimately prefigures the (...) design of his own virulent relapse into theoria (WP). (shrink)

Studying the neural correlates of conscious awareness depends on a reliable comparison between activations associated with awareness and unawareness. One particularly difficult confound to remove is task performance capacity, i.e. the difference in performance between the conditions of interest. While ideally task performance capacity should be matched across different conditions, this is difficult to achieve experimentally. However, differences in performance could theoretically be corrected for mathematically. One such proposal is found in a recent paper by Lamy, Salti and Bar-Haim [Lamy (...) D, Salti M, Bar-Haim Y. Neural correlates of subjective awareness and unconscious processing: an ERP study. J Cognitive Neurosci 2009,21:1435-46], who put forward a corrective method for an electroencephalography experiment. We argue that their analysis is essentially grounded in a version of High Threshold Theory, which has been shown to be inferior in general to Signal Detection Theory. We show through a series of computer simulations that their correction method only partially removes the influence of perfor- mance capacity, which can yield misleading results. We present a mathematical correction method based on Signal Detection Theory that is theoretically capable of removing performance capacity confounds. We discuss the limitations of mathemati- cally correcting for performance capacity confounds in imaging studies and its impact for theories about consciousness. (shrink)

The standard view of "believes" and other propositional attitude verbs is that such verbs express relations between agents and propositions. A sentence of the form “S believes that p” is true just in case S stands in the belief-relation to the proposition that p; this proposition is the referent of the complement clause "that p." On this view, we would expect the clausal complements of propositional attitude verbs to be freely intersubstitutable with their corresponding proposition descriptions—e.g., "the proposition that p"—as (...) they are in the case of "believes." In many cases, however, intersubstitution of that-clauses and proposition descriptions fails to preserve truth value or even grammaticality. These substitution failures lead some philosophers to reject the standard view of propositional attitude reports. Others conclude that propositional attitude verbs are systematically ambiguous. I reject both these views. On my view, the that-clause complements of propositional attitude verbs denote propositions, but proposition descriptions do not. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the efficiency of the university education performance from the perspective of postgraduate and undergraduate students in international and Palestinian universities. The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose and the questionnaire was used as a main tool for data collection. The study community consists of: post graduate students, (23850) graduate students and (146355) undergraduate students. The sample of the study was 378 graduate students and 383 undergraduate students. The random stratified sample was used. The (...) Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) was also used for data analysis. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The level of efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities from the point of view of postgraduate and undergraduate students was high. And that there are significant differences between the average views of the sample of the study on the efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities attributed to the University and to the benefit of international universities. The study concluded many recommendations, the most important of which is the necessity of continuing to develop e-learning strategies that affect the efficiency of educational performance and research commensurate with the university's position in the local and international community, which puts it on the best classification between local and international universities through e-learning. (shrink)

This paper explores the idea of robust discursive equality on which respect-based conceptions of justificatory reciprocity often draw. I distinguish between formal and substantive discursive equality and argue that if justificatory reciprocity requires that people be accorded formally equal discursive standing, robust discursive equality should not be construed as requiring standing that is equal substantively, or in terms of its discursive purchase. Still, robust discursive equality is purchase sensitive: it does not obtain when discursive standing is impermissibly unequal in purchase. (...) I then showcase different candidate conceptions of purchase justice, and draw conclusions about the substantive commitments of justificatory reciprocity. (shrink)

It seems natural to ask why the universe exists at all. Modern physics suggests that the universe can exist all by itself as a self-contained system, without anything external to create or sustain it. But there might not be an absolute answer to why it exists. I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation.

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The main (...) claim is that economists who ignore or downplay catastrophic risks in their representations of uncertainty likely fall afoul of ethical constraints on scientists acting as policy advisors. Such scientists have duties to honestly articulate uncertainties and manage (some) inductive risks, or the risks of being wrong in different ways. (shrink)

Replicability and reproducibility of computational models has been somewhat understudied by “the replication movement.” In this paper, we draw on methodological studies into the replicability of psychological experiments and on the mechanistic account of explanation to analyze the functions of model replications and model reproductions in computational neuroscience. We contend that model replicability, or independent researchers' ability to obtain the same output using original code and data, and model reproducibility, or independent researchers' ability to recreate a model without original code, (...) serve different functions and fail for different reasons. This means that measures designed to improve model replicability may not enhance (and, in some cases, may actually damage) model reproducibility. We claim that although both are undesirable, low model reproducibility poses more of a threat to long-term scientific progress than low model replicability. In our opinion, low model reproducibility stems mostly from authors' omitting to provide crucial information in scientific papers and we stress that sharing all computer code and data is not a solution. Reports of computational studies should remain selective and include all and only relevant bits of code. (shrink)

We critique two popular philosophical definitions of intellectual humility: the “low concern for status” and the “limitations-owning.” accounts. Based upon our analysis, we offer an alternative working definition of intellectual humility: the virtue of accurately tracking what one could non-culpably take to be the positive epistemic status of one’s own beliefs. We regard this view of intellectual humility both as a virtuous mean between intellectual arrogance and diffidence and as having advantages over other recent conceptions of intellectual humility. After defending (...) this view, we sketch remaining questions and issues that may bear upon the psychological treatment of intellectual humility such as whether evidence will help determine how this construct relates to general social humility on the one hand, and intellectual traits such as open-mindedness, curiosity, and honesty on the other. (shrink)

3rd ed, 2021. A circumscription of the classical theory of computation building up from the Chomsky hierarchy. With the usual topics in formal language and automata theory.

[First paragraph]: This article is part of a larger project in which I suggest a historically informed philosophy of dance, called “figuration,” consisting of new interpretations of canonical philosophers. Figuration consists of two major parts, comprising (a) four basic concepts, or “moves”—namely, “positure,” “gesture,” “grace,” and “resilience”—and (b) seven types, or “families” of dance—namely, “concert,” “folk,” “societal,” “agonistic,” “animal,” “astronomical,” and “discursive.” This article is devoted to the first of these four moves, as illustrated by both its importance for Aristotle (...) and also its applicability to these seven families of dance. One goal of figuration as a whole, and the central goal of this excerpt from that larger project, is to model and justify a dancing aesthetic education pursuant to psychological and political flourishing. (shrink)

Dance is intimately connected to both Kierkegaard’s personal life and his life in writing, as exemplified in his famous nightly attendance at the dance-filled theater, and his invitation to the readers of “A First and Last Explanation” to “dance with” his pseudonyms. The present article’s acceptance of that dance invitation proceeds as follows: the first section surveys the limited secondary literature on dance in Kierkegaard, focusing on the work of M. Ferreira and Edward Mooney. The second section explores the hidden (...) dancing dimensions of Kierkegaard’s “leap” and “shadow-dance”. And the third section reinterprets the pseudonymous works richest in dance, Repetition and Postscript, concluding that the religious for him is the lighthearted dance of a comic actor through the everyday theater of the world. (shrink)

The study aimed at measuring the dominant pattern of leadership and its relation to the performance of the administrative staff in the Palestinian universities. The study community consists of all the administrative staff from Al-Azhar University and the Islamic University, and through the census of the study society it was found to consist of (655) administrative staff. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used the method of random sample in the study, and the study was (...) conducted on a sample of (221) administrative staff of the surveyed universities and the response rate was (82.35%). The study found that there is a high degree of satisfaction with the Dominant Pattern of Leadership in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip from the point of view of the administrative staff, which reached (71.67%). There is a high level of performance from the point of view of administrative staff, with a percentage of (82.53%). There is a direct correlation between the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff, the absence of differences between the sample according to the gender variable in their perception of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the age variable. There are differences of statistical significance according to the variable of scientific qualification in the Dominant Pattern of Leadership, while there were no differences in performance, the differences in the dominant pattern of leadership according to the scientific qualification were in favor of those who obtained the diploma degree compared to other practical qualifications, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the variable years of service, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the variable level of career (Director, Head of Department, and Administrative Officer). There were differences in the perception of workers to the dominant pattern of leadership depending on the variable of the workplace, where there were differences in favor of workers in deanships and colleges compared with the workers in the technical departments. While there were no differences in job performance according to the workplace variable, the existence of differences in the perception of workers to the dominant pattern of leadership depending on the university in which they work in favor of the Islamic University and the absence of differences in performance between the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University. The study reached a number of recommendations, the most important of which is that the interest of the managements of the Palestinian universities in improving the dominant pattern of leadership, to give universities the opportunity to participate in decision-making, the continued administration of universities interest and continuous improvement of the performance of its employees, enhance the periodic evaluation of job performance and to inform employees and express their opinion, solving workers' problems and giving them the opportunity to contribute to solving their own problems, the use of the staff rotation method periodically and strengthening the democratic the dominant pattern of leadership and empowering university staff. -/- . (shrink)

Despite the end of the Cold War and the ascendancy of liberal democracy celebrated by Francis Fukuyama as “the end of history”, a growing number of scholars and political activists point to its inherent shortcomings. However, they have tended to dismiss it on the basis of one or two of its salient weaknesses. While this is a justifiable way to proceed, it denies the searching reader an opportunity to see the broad basis for the growing rejection of liberal democracy among (...) African political theorists. Consequently, in this article, I argue that from an African perspective, the almost hegemonic status of liberal democracy can be challenged on at least five grounds, namely, logical inconsistency, impracticability due to the largely communalistic outlook of many africans, inconsistency between affirmation and action, violation of the right to ethnic identity, and the moral imperative to assert the right to cultural emancipation. -/- I conclude by calling upon African and Africanist political theorists to utilise indigenous African political thought, coupled with emancipatory aspects of political thought from other parts of the world, to design practicable models of democracy for contemporary African states. I further conclude that in order to promote genuine inter-cultural dialogue on democratisation, people from Western cultures ought to acknowledge the equality of all cultures, and to recognise that systems of governance are part and parcel of those cultures. (shrink)

In recent years, educational institutions have started using the tools of commercial data analytics in higher education. By gathering information about students as they navigate campus information systems, learning analytics “uses analytic techniques to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources” to examine student learning behaviors and change students’ learning environments. As a result, the information educators and educational institutions have at their disposal is no longer demarcated by course content and assessments, and old boundaries between information used for assessment (...) and information about how students live and work are blurring. Our goal in this paper is to provide a systematic discussion of the ways in which privacy and learning analytics conflict and to provide a framework for understanding those conflicts. -/- We argue that there are five crucial issues about student privacy that we must address in order to ensure that whatever the laudable goals and gains of learning analytics, they are commensurate with respecting students’ privacy and associated rights, including (but not limited to) autonomy interests. First, we argue that we must distinguish among different entities with respect to whom students have, or lack, privacy. Second, we argue that we need clear criteria for what information may justifiably be collected in the name of learning analytics. Third, we need to address whether purported consequences of learning analytics (e.g., better learning outcomes) are justified and what the distributions of those consequences are. Fourth, we argue that regardless of how robust the benefits of learning analytics turn out to be, students have important autonomy interests in how information about them is collected. Finally, we argue that it is an open question whether the goods that justify higher education are advanced by learning analytics, or whether collection of information actually runs counter to those goods. (shrink)

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms generally come on slowly over time. Early in the disease, the most obvious are shaking, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulty with walking. Doctors do not know what causes it and finds difficulty in early diagnosing the presence of Parkinson’s disease. An artificial neural network system with back propagation algorithm is presented in this paper for helping doctors in identifying (...) PD. Previous research with regards to predict the presence of the PD has shown accuracy rates up to 93% [1]; however, accuracy of prediction for small classes is reduced. The proposed design of the neural network system causes a significant increase of robustness. It is also has shown that networks recognition rates reached 100%. (shrink)

The emerging field of the philosophy of dance, as suggested by Aili Bresnahan, increasingly recognizes the problem that (especially pre‐modern) dance has historically focused on bodily perfection, which privileges abled bodies as those that can best make and perform dance as art. One might expect that the philosophy of dance, given the critical and analytical powers of philosophy, might be helpful in illuminating and suggesting ameliorations for this tendency in dance. But this is particularly a difficult task since the analytic (...) philosophy of dance is too young to have achieved a comprehensive treatment of dance per se, let alone to update such a treatment in line with the demands of social justice. As a step in that direction, the present article (a) summarizes dance theorists on disabled dance (as opposed to the dance of the temporarily able‐bodied, or TAB) and then applies (b) the philosophy of art and dance to disability, (c) the philosophy of disability to dance, (d) interdisciplinary disability theory to dance, and (e) my own Figuration philosophy of dance to disability, as inspired in part by John Dewey. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the research field of machine ethics and how it relates to a technological singularity—a hypothesized, futuristic event where artificial machines will have greater-than-human-level intelligence. One problem related to the singularity centers on the issue of whether human values and norms would survive such an event. To somehow ensure this, a number of artificial intelligence researchers have opted to focus on the development of artificial moral agents, which refers to machines capable of moral reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. (...) To date, different frameworks on how to arrive at these agents have been put forward. However, there seems to be no hard consensus as to which framework would likely yield a positive result. With the body of work that they have contributed in the study of moral agency, philosophers may contribute to the growing literature on artificial moral agency. While doing so, they could also think about how the said concept could affect other important philosophical concepts. (shrink)

Historically, the concept of androgyny has been as problematic as it has been appealing to Western progressives. The appeal clearly includes, inter alia, the opportunity to abandon or ameliorate certain identities. As for the problematic dimension, the central problem seems to be the reduction of otherness to the norms of straight white middle/upper-class Western cismen, particularly because of the consequent worsening of actual others’ marginalization and exclusion from social institutions. Despite these problems, I wish to suggest that androgyny—as evidenced by (...) the enthusiasm felt for it by many Westerners—bespeaks something larger and more important than the concept itself, and that modified conception of it might be helpful in pursuit of social justice. (shrink)

Background: The castor bean is a large grassy or semi-wooden shrub or small tree. Any part of the castor plant parts can suffering from a disease that weakens the ability to grow and eliminates its production. Therefore, in this paper will identify the pests and diseases present in castor culture and detect the symptoms in each disease. Also images is showing the symptom form in this disease. Objectives: The main objective of this expert system is to obtain appropriate diagnosis of (...) the disease. Methods: In this paper, the expert system is designed for the ability of agricultural engineers to detect and diagnose disease of castor like as: seeding blight, alternaria blight, cercospora leaf spot, powdery mildew and wilt. This system presents the disease symptoms, survival and spread, favorable conditions and image for each disease. Clips and Delphi expert system languages are used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The expert system in the diagnosis of castor diseases was assessed by farmers and agricultural engineers and they were satisfied and accepted with its quality of performance. Conclusions: The expert system is easy for farmers and people have experience in the plant of castor to detect and diagnosis the symptoms that may face this plant from several disease. (shrink)

Oliver's and Rodriguez-Pereyra's important interpretation of the problem of universals as one concerning truthmakers neglects something crucial: that there is a numerical identity between numerically distinct particulars. The problem of universals is rather how to resolve the apparent contradiction that the same things are both numerically distinct and numerically identical. Baxter's account of instantiation as partial identity resolves the apparent contradiction. A seeming objection to this account is that it appears to make instantiation symmetric, since partial identity is symmetric. Armstrong's (...) standard reply is that the difference between a particular and a universal is what makes instantiation asymmetric. Brown suggests, though, that the instantiation of a universal by a universal is sometimes symmetric. However, the examples on which he relies are not universals. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will explore the luck at issue in Gettier-styled counterexamples and the subsequent problem it poses to any viable reductive analysis of knowledge. In the 1st section, we will consider the specific species of luck that is at issue in Gettier counterexamples, then, in the next section, I will briefly sketch a diagnosis of the Gettier Problem and try to explain why the relevant species of luck has proven to be extremely difficult to avoid. And finally, I (...) will consider a prominent objection to the proposed diagnosis of the Problem. (shrink)

Despite extensive discussion of naïve realism in the wider philosophical literature, those influenced by the phenomenological movement who work in the philosophy of perception have hardly weighed in on the matter. It is thus interesting to discover that Edmund Husserl’s close philosophical interlocutor and friend, the early twentieth-century phenomenologist Johannes Daubert, held the naive realist view. This article presents Daubert’s views on the fundamental nature of perceptual experience and shows how they differ radically from those of Husserl’s. The author argues, (...) in conclusion, that Daubert’s views are superior to those of Husserl’s specifically in the way that they deal with the phenomenon of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

I defend the extremist position that the fundamental ontology of the world consists of a vector in Hilbert space evolving according to the Schrödinger equation. The laws of physics are determined solely by the energy eigenspectrum of the Hamiltonian. The structure of our observed world, including space and fields living within it, should arise as a higher-level emergent description. I sketch how this might come about, although much work remains to be done.

This paper is about the role of interpersonal comparisons in Harsanyi's aggregation theorem. Harsanyi interpreted his theorem to show that a broadly utilitarian theory of distribution must be true even if there are no interpersonal comparisons of well-being. How is this possible? The orthodox view is that it is not. Some argue that the interpersonal comparability of well-being is hidden in Harsanyi's premises. Others argue that it is a surprising conclusion of Harsanyi's theorem, which is not presupposed by any one (...) of the premises. I argue instead that Harsanyi was right: his theorem and its weighted-utilitarian conclusion do not require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. The key to making sense of this possibility is to treat Harsanyi's weights as dimensional constants rather than dimensionless numbers. (shrink)

This study presented the policy of functional integration of the product planning team as a strategy for the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Palestine. The study population consists of all the workers in companies operating in the field of medicine in Palestine, which are (5) companies producing in the West Bank only for pharmaceuticals used by these companies, which are (296) employees, and was used a simple random sample to choose the sample and size (87) employees of the study (...) population, and to achieve the objectives of the study (87) questionnaires were distributed. The descriptive analytical method was used, and SPSS was used to answer and discuss the study's questions. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the effectiveness of the policy of product development and the competitiveness of pharmaceutical companies in Palestine (West Bank), where the policy of product development efficiency accounts for 56.6% of the total change in the competitiveness of companies. The product quality component was most influential at all levels of product development effectiveness policy, followed by product identification, product cost reduction, packaging and product deletion. The weakest areas of strategic direction in pharmaceutical companies in Palestine (West Bank) are 67%. The weakest aspects of job integration are: non-regular meetings of representatives of different positions to participate in any project related to product development, to achieve spatial convergence of members of the product planning policy team in offices, laboratories and workplaces. (shrink)

Primitives are both important and unavoidable, and which set of primitives we endorse will greatly shape our theories and how those theories provide solutions to the problems that we take to be important. After introducing the notion of a primitive posit, I discuss the different kinds of primitives that we might posit. Following Cowling (2013), I distinguish between ontological and ideological primitives, and, following Benovsky (2013) between functional and content views of primitives. I then propose that these two distinctions cut (...) across each other leading to four types of primitive posits. I then argue that theoretical virtues should be taken to be meta-theoretical ideological primitives. I close with some reflections on the global nature of comparing sets of primitives. (shrink)

In spite of its everyday connotations, the term independence as republicans understand it is not a celebration of individualism or self-reliance but embodies an acknowledgement of the importance of personal and social relationships in people’s lives. It reflects our connectedness rather than separateness and is in this regard a relational ideal. Properly understood, independence is a useful concept in addressing a fundamental problem in social philosophy that has preoccupied theorists of relational autonomy, namely how to reconcile the idea of individual (...) human agency with the inevitable and necessary influence of other people, both directly and indirectly. I derive my account from the work of Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay, whose contributions have remained largely overlooked by current republican theorists. I have three purposes in this chapter. First, I set out the relational character of independence. Secondly, I outline a republican approach to the problem of structural social threats to agency. Finally, I hope to establish the basis for a fruitful dialogue between republicans and relational autonomy theorists on the requirements and dynamics of individual agency and freedom in oppressive social situations. I identify three distinctive features of the internal logic of freedom as independence that give it a relational character: it always locates the person within a community; there is a mediating role played by the notion of arbitrariness in connecting individual and collective perspectives; a causal relationship exists linking each person’s freedom as independence such that that the dependence of one class of persons jeopardizes the independence of the whole community. (shrink)

My first section considers Walter J. Ong’s influential analyses of the logical method of Peter Ramus, on whose system Milton based his Art of Logic. The upshot of Ong’s work is that philosophical logic has become a kind monarch over all other discourses, the allegedly timeless and universal method of mapping and diagramming all concepts. To show how Milton nevertheless resists this tyrannical result in his non-Logic writings, my second section offers new readings of Milton’s poems Il Penseroso and Sonnet (...) 16: “On His Blindness”, along with his prose epilogue to his elegies (and thereby the entire collection entitled Poems). These readings attempt to show (1) the original admixing of philosophy and poetry (under the heading of “thoughtfulness”), (2) the shadow-hidden superiority of poetry in connection to the effeminising disability of blindness, and (3) the potential irony of an apology that arguably suggests poetry’s superiority to philosophy. Finally, I rest my case for Milton’s rebellion by offering an interpretation of Paradise Lost which affirms the character of Satan qua dark, queer, poetic figure of classical republicanism. (shrink)

The study aimed to know the relationship between the nature of the work and the type of communication among the Employees in the Palestinian universities. A comparative study between Al-Azhar University and Al-Aqsa University. The researchers used the analytical descriptive method through a questionnaire that is randomly distributed among the employees of Al-Azhar and Al-Aqsa universities in Gaza Strip. The study was conducted on a sample of (176) administrative employees from the surveyed universities. The response rate was (85.79%). The study (...) reached a number of results, the most important of which is that there is a high degree of satisfaction with the nature of work prevailing in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip from the point of view of the administrative staff, where the percentage was (68.15%). There is an Mean level of communication from the point of view of administrative staff, with a percentage of (67.50%). There is a direct correlation between the nature of the work and the prevailing pattern of communication. There is an absence of differences between the sample according to the gender variable in their perception of the nature of work and the prevailing pattern of communication. There is an absence of differences in the perception of Employees nature of work and the pattern of communication prevailing depending on the variables (age, years of service, job level, and university). There are statistically significant differences between Al-Azhar University and Al-Aqsa University in favor of Al-Azhar University. The study reached a number of recommendations, the most important of which is that the interest of the management of the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip in general, and Al-Aqsa and Al-Azhar Universities in particular should be provided with a good nature of work and communication. There is a need for continuing the management of universities to pay attention and continuous improvement of the performance of employees. There is an importance of solving the problems of Employees and giving them the opportunity to contribute to solving their own problems. Staff rotation should be used periodically and the need to strengthen the democratic leadership style and empower university Employees. (shrink)

“Big Data” and data analytics affect all of us. Data collection, analysis, and use on a large scale is an important and growing part of commerce, governance, communication, law enforcement, security, finance, medicine, and research. And the theme of this symposium, “Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data,” is expansive; we could have long and fruitful discussions about practices, laws, and concerns in any of these domains. But a big part of the audience for this symposium is (...) students and faculty in higher education institutions (HEIs), and the subject of this paper is data analytics in our own backyards. Higher education learning analytics (LA) is something that most of us involved in this symposium are familiar with. Students have encountered LA in their courses, in their interactions with their law school or with their undergraduate institutions, instructors use systems that collect information about their students, and administrators use information to help understand and steer their institutions. More importantly, though, data analytics in higher education is something that those of us participating in the symposium can actually control. Students can put pressure on administrators, and faculty often participate in university governance. Moreover, the systems in place in HEIs are more easily comprehensible to many of us because we work with them on a day-to-day basis. Students use systems as part of their course work, in their residences, in their libraries, and elsewhere. Faculty deploy course management systems (CMS) such as Desire2Learn, Moodle, Blackboard, and Canvas to structure their courses, and administrators use information gleaned from analytics systems to make operational decisions. If we (the participants in the symposium) indeed care about Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data, the topic of this paper is a pretty good place to hone our thinking and put into practice our ideas. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new framework for thinking about hope, with certain unexpected consequences. Specifically, I argue that a shift in focus from locutions like “x hopes that” and “x is hoping that” to “x is hopeful that” and “x has hope that” can improve our understanding of hope. This approach, which emphasizes hopefulness as the central concept, turns out to be more revealing and fruitful in tackling some of the issues that philosophers have raised about hope, such as the (...) question of how hope can be distinguished from despair or how people can have differing strengths in hope. It also allows us to see that many current accounts of hope, far from being rivals, are actually compatible with one another. (shrink)

The ancient theory of substance and accident is supposed to make sense of complex unities in a way that respects both their unity and their complexity. On Hume’s view such complex unities are only fictitiously unities. This result follows from his thoroughgoing critique of the theory of substance. I will characterize the theory Hume is critiquing as it is presented in Locke, presupposing what Bennett calls the “Leibnizian interpretation.” Locke uses the word ‘substance’ in two senses. Call substance in the (...) first sense “individual substance” and in the second sense “pure substance.” I will discuss the seven main parts of Hume’s view: (I) that we have no idea of pure substance, (II) that there is no complex individual substance, except in a loose sense, (III) that the fiction of complex individual substance arises in a way parallel to that of the fiction of identity through time, and (IV) results in the fiction of pure substance, (V) that simple qualities and perceptions satisfy the definition of individual substance, (VI) that there is no such thing as inherence, and (VII) that there is no such thing as pure substance. Hume’s views on substance are often mentioned without being discussed in detail. Kemp Smith, Stroud, and Garrett, for example, mostly summarize various claims of Hume in the course of expounding on his theory of the idea of personal identity. In contrast, I will attempt to present a systematic treatment of Hume on substance as a refutation of Locke. (shrink)

In this paper, we contend that the “Smith case” in Gettier’s attempt to refute the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge does not work. This is because the said case fails to satisfy the truth condition, and thus is not a case of JTB at all. We demonstrate this claim using the framework of Donnellan’s distinction between the referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions. Accordingly, the truth value of Smith’s proposition “The man who will get the job has (...) ten coins in his pocket” partly depends on how Smith uses the definite description “the man who will get the job” when he utters the proposition. Since, upon uttering the proposition, Smith has in mind a particular individual, namely Jones, and not just whoever will fit the attribute specified in the definite description, Smith uses the definite description referentially. And so when it turns out that it is Smith who eventually gets the job, the definite description fails to refer to Jones as intended by Smith, thereby making Smith’s proposition false. To think that Smith’s proposition is still true, in this regard, is to use the definite description attributively—that it is about whoever will fit the definite description. Apparently, when Gettier claims that Smith’s proposition is still true, to demonstrate that it is a case of JTB, he, in effect, imposes his attributive understanding of Smith’s usage of the definite description on Smith’s own epistemic situation. (shrink)

Are animals moral agents? In this article, a theologian and an anthropologist unite to bring the resources of each field to bear on this question. Alas, not all interdisciplinary conversations end harmoniously, and after much discussion the two authors find themselves in substantial disagreement over the answer. The article is therefore presented in two halves, one for each side of the argument. As well as presenting two different positions, our hope is that this article clarifies the different understandings of morality (...) in our respective fields and will help to offset confusion in interdisciplinary dialogue. In what follows, we each present our case. In the first section, Adam Willows argues that moral activity necessarily involves the use of reason, symbolic thought, and language and is on that basis an exclusively human affair. In the second, Marcus Baynes-Rock discusses his experience of relationality with other creatures; a relationality which, he argues, creates a shared understanding of obligations which are characteristically moral. (shrink)

Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods? Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities, which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here (...) we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns—specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships. (shrink)

I offer two potential diagnoses of the behavioral norms governing post‐truth politics by comparing the view of language, communication, and truth‐telling put forward by David Lewis (extended by game theorists), and John Searle. My first goal is to specify the different ways in which Lewis, and game theorists more generally, in contrast to Searle (in the company of Paul Grice and Jurgen Habermas), go about explaining the normativity of truthfulness within a linguistic community. The main difference is that for Lewis (...) and game theorists, “truthful” signaling follows from an align- ment of interests, and deception follows from mixed motives leading to the calculation that sending false information is better for oneself. Following in the Enlightenment tradition, Searle argues that practical reasoning, which involves mastery of at least one language, requires that actors intend to communicate. This intention includes constraining the content of statements to uphold veracity conditions. After distinguishing between these two accounts, I will artic- ulate the implications for explaining, and even informing actions, constitutive of post‐truth politics. I argue that the strategic view of communication is suffi- cient neither to model everyday conversation nor to reflect a public sphere useful for democratic govern- ment. Both the pedagogy of strategic communication as cheap talk, and its concordance with new digital information technologies, challenge norms of truthful- ness that underlie modern institutions essential to an effective public sphere. (shrink)

We defend three controversial claims about preference, credence, and choice. First, all agents (not just rational ones) have complete preferences. Second, all agents (again, not just rational ones) have real-valued credences in every proposition in which they are confident to any degree. Third, there is almost always some unique thing we ought to do, want, or believe.

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is (...) right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis. (shrink)