A scientific community can be modeled as a collection of epistemic agents attempting to answer questions, in part by communicating about their hypotheses and results. We can treat the pathways of scientific communication as a network. When we do, it becomes clear that the interaction between the structure of the network and the nature of the question under investigation affects epistemic desiderata, including accuracy and speed to community consensus. Here we build on previous work, both our own and others’, in (...) order to get a firmer grasp on precisely which features of scientific communities interact with which features of scientific questions in order to influence epistemic outcomes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article distinguishes nine senses of polarization and provides formal measures for each one to refine the methodology used to describe polarization in distributions of attitudes. Each distinct concept is explained through a definition, formal measures, examples, and references. We then apply these measures to GSS data regarding political views, opinions on abortion, and religiosity—topics described as revealing social polarization. Previous breakdowns of polarization include domain-specific assumptions and focus on a subset of the distribution’s features. This has conflated multiple, (...) independent features of attitude distributions. The current work aims to extract the distinct senses of polarization and demonstrate that by becoming clearer on these distinctions we can better focus our efforts on substantive issues in social phenomena. (shrink)

A first take, matured in later work, in modeling belief polarization.

In order to understand the transmission of a disease across a population we will have to understand not only the dynamics of contact infection but the transfer of health-care beliefs and resulting health-care behaviors across that population. This paper is a first step in that direction, focusing on the contrasting role of linkage or isolation between sub-networks in (a) contact infection and (b) belief transfer. Using both analytical tools and agent-based simulations we show that it is the structure of a (...) network that is primary for predicting contact infection—whether the networks or sub-networks at issue are distributed ring networks or total networks (hubs, wheels, small world, random, or scale-free for example). Measured in terms of time to total infection, degree of linkage between sub-networks plays a minor role. The case of belief is importantly different. Using a simplified model of belief reinforcement, and measuring belief transfer in terms of time to community consensus, we show that degree of linkage between sub-networks plays a major role in social communication of beliefs. Here, in contrast to the case of contract infection, network type turns out to be of relatively minor importance. What you believe travels differently. In a final section we show that the pattern of belief transfer exhibits a classic power law regardless of the type of network involved. (shrink)

In this paper we make a simple theoretical point using a practical issue as an example. The simple theoretical point is that robustness is not 'all or nothing': in asking whether a system is robust one has to ask 'robust with respect to what property?' and 'robust over what set of changes in the system?' The practical issue used to illustrate the point is an examination of degrees of linkage between sub-networks and a pointed contrast in robustness and fragility between (...) the dynamics of (1) contact infection and (2) information transfer or belief change. Time to infection across linked sub-networks, it turns out, is fairly robust with regard to the degree of linkage between them. Time to infection is fragile and sensitive, however, with regard to the type of sub-network involved: total, ring, small world, random, or scale-free. Aspects of robustness and fragility are reversed where it is belief updating with reinforcement rather than infection that is at issue. In information dynamics, the pattern of time to consensus is robust across changes in network type but remarkably fragile with respect to degree of linkage between sub-networks. These results have important implications for public health interventions in realistic social networks, particularly with an eye to ethnic and socio-economic sub-communities, and in social networks with sub-communities changing in structure or linkage. (shrink)

Trope theory is a leading metaphysical theory in analytic ontology. One of its classic statements is found in the work of Donald C. Williams who argued that tropes qua abstract particulars are the very alphabet of being. The concept of an abstract particular has been repeatedly attacked in the literature. Opponents and proponents of trope theory alike have levelled their criticisms at the abstractness of tropes and the associated act of abstraction. In this paper I defend the concept of a (...) trope qua abstract particular by rejecting arguments that purport to show that tropes should not be understood as abstract and by arguing that the abstractness of tropes plays an indispensable role in one of our more promising trope-theoretic analyses of universals and of concrete objects. (shrink)

David Lewis is typically interpreted as a class nominalist. One consequence of class nominalism, which he embraced, is that the reduction of ordered pairs, triples, etc to unordered sets of sets is conventional. The reaction by his Australian counterparts D.M. Armstrong and Peter Forrest was that Lewis was not being ontologically serious. This chapter evaluates this debate over serious ontology. It is argued that in one sense Lewis is ontologically serious, but that his additional commitment to structuralism about classes should (...) push him to adopt a trope-theoretic account of naturalness, which opens up another way to respond to the charge of not doing serious ontology. This conclusion is supported by certain remarks he makes in his correspondence, thus revealing how his thinking about properties appears to have evolved from property-egalitarianism to a sparse theory of tropes. (shrink)

In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the best (...) version of Musical Aristotelianism identifies musical works with structural universals. I first motivate the view by outlining its explanatory benefits. I then argue that Musical Aristotelianism is preferable to Musical Platonism and present a novel account of musical works as structural universals by developing D. M. Armstrong’s theory of structural universals. I discuss the consequences of Musical Aristotelianism with respect to on-going issues in debates about musical works and defend the view against an influential objection, concluding that Musical Aristotelianism is a genuine competitor in debates about the nature of musical works. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, many philosophers in America thought that time should be taken seriously in one way or another. George P. Adams (1882-1961) argued that the past, present and future are all real but only the present is actual. I call this theory ‘actualist eternalism’. In this paper, I articulate his novel brand of eternalism as one piece of his metaphysical system and I explain how he argued for the view in light of the best explanations of temporal (...) experience and the present. I argue that his exploitation of analogies between time and modality offer some lessons for current debates about time such as the importance of providing a temporal epistemology. I also extract what I call the temporal boundary problem and argue that it gives rise to an unaddressed challenge for presentists and growing block theorists. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, according to Plato’s Statesman, true statesmen directly control, administer, or govern none of the affairs of the city. Rather, administration and governance belong entirely to the citizens. Instead of governing the city, the task of the statesman is to facilitate the citizens’ successful self-governance or self-rule. And true statesmen do this through legislation, by means of which they inculcate in the citizens true opinions about the just, the good, the fine, and the opposites of (...) these. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Grace A. de Laguna’s theory of universals in its historical context and in relation to contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics. I explain the central features of her theory, arguing that her theory should be classified as a form of immanent realism and as a powers ontology. I then show in what ways her theory affords a theory of modality in terms of potentialities and discuss some of its consequences along the way.

In Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, C.D. Broad advanced a distinctive ontology of things and processes. He argues that neither things nor processes are reduced to each other but instead are reduced to some further kind of entity: “absolute process.” This paper will present Broad's theory of absolute processes and argue that they are best understood as tropes by developing a version of Donald C. Williams's trope ontology. This process ontology of tropes is then defended against objections in the contemporary metaphysics (...) literature. (shrink)

This chapter by Fisher continues the theme of the relation between Armstrong and Lewis, only Fisher casts the net far wider. He begins by arguing that there were at least two different lines of influence from early twentieth-century behaviourism to the identity theory: one through logical positivism and the other through ordinary language philosophy, the latter involving Place and Smart, and Lewis and Armstrong. It was Armstrong and Lewis who were to have a profound influence on subsequent developments (...) in analytic philosophy, both methodologically and in metaphysics, and it is for this reason that Fisher devotes the rest of his chapter to tracing the origins of their theories of mind and the manner in which the emphases and methodologies deployed in developing their respective theories became the hallmarks of their wider impact on analytic philosophy. (shrink)

David Lewis is widely known for maintaining the bizarre thesis known as genuine modal realism (hereafter, modal realism). He argued for modal realism on grounds of serviceability in On the Plurality of Worlds. However, earlier in Counterfactuals, he proposed a different kind of argument: from talk of ways things might be to possible worlds. In this paper, I examine the evolution of the latter argument in Lewis’s thought and evaluate its place in his overall case for modal realism, especially in (...) light of the alternative theory of modality known as magical ersatzism. I argue that Lewis turns the argument on its head in his critique of magical ersatzism, but that his later commitment to Ramseyan humility subjects him to a similar criticism. Therefore, the argument is, ultimately, a poisoned pawn for Lewis. (shrink)

One of the more obscure arguments for Rawls’ difference principle dubbed ‘the Pareto argument for inequality’ has been criticised by G. A. Cohen (1995, 2008) as being inconsistent. In this paper, we examine and clarify the Pareto argument in detail and argue (1) that justification for the Pareto principles derives from rational selfinterest and thus the Pareto principles ought to be understood as conditions of individual rationality, (2) that the Pareto argument is not inconsistent, contra Cohen, and (3) that the (...) kind of bargaining model required to arrive at the particular unequal distribution that the difference principle picks out is a model that is not based on bargaining according to one’s threat advantage. (shrink)

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I explain (...) how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

The concept of instantiation is realized differently across a variety of metaphysical theories. A certain realization of the concept in a given theory depends on what roles are specified and associated with the concept and its corresponding term as well as what entities are suited to fill those roles. In this paper, the classic realization of the concept of instantiation in a one-category ontology of abstract particulars or tropes is articulated in a novel way and defended against unaddressed objections.

Truthmaker monism is the view that the one and only truthmaker is the world. Despite its unpopularity, this view has recently received an admirable defence by Schaffer :307–324, 2010b). Its main defect, I argue, is that it omits partial truthmakers. If we omit partial truthmakers, we lose the intimate connection between a truth and its truthmaker. I further argue that the notion of a minimal truthmaker should be the key notion that plays the role of constraining ontology and that truthmaker (...) monism is not necessary for an appropriate solution to the problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. I conclude that we should reject truthmaker monism once and for all. (shrink)

Structural universals are a kind of complex universal. They have been put to work in a variety of philosophical theories but are plagued with problems concerning their compositional nature. In this article, we will discuss the following questions. What are structural universals? Why believe in them? Can we give a consistent account of their compositional nature? What are the costs of doing so?

In this chapter, we introduce the perennial and sometimes sprawling topic of properties, with a brief historical sketch from Ancient to Modern philosophy throughout various cultures and traditions. We argue that the importance of properties can be shown by explaining what explanatory work they can do in philosophical theorising across many areas of philosophy. The chapters in this volume do just that in their specific ways. We also outline the structure of the volume and summarise each Part, first describing the (...) larger context of each Part and then the upshot of each chapter. (shrink)

In this paper I outline the main features of Karen Bennett’s (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 1–21, 2011) non-classical mereology, and identify its methodological costs. I argue that Bennett’s mereology cannot account for the composition of structural universals because it cannot explain the mereological difference between isomeric universals, such as being butane and being isobutane. I consider responses, which come at costs to the view.

David Lewis objected to theories that posit necessary connections between distinct entities and to theories that involve a magical grasping of their primitives. In On the Plurality of Worlds, Lewis objected to nondescript ersatzism on these grounds. The literature contains several reconstructions of Lewis’ critique of nondescript ersatzism but none of these interpretations adequately address his main argument because they fail to see that Lewis’ critique is based on broader methodological considerations. I argue that a closer look at his methodology (...) reveals the broader objection he presented against nondescript ersatzism. This objection, I further argue, remains a challenge for the ersatzer who posits structure-less entities as possible worlds. (shrink)

In the middle of last century metaphysics was widely criticized, ridiculed, and committed to the flames. During this period a handful of philosophers, against several anti-metaphysical trends, defended metaphysics and articulated novel metaphysical doctrines. Donald C. Williams was one of these philosophers. But while his contributions to metaphysics are well known his defence of metaphysics is not and yet it played a key part in the development and revival of metaphysics. In this paper I present his defence of metaphysics in (...) its historical context. I also show how his defence is relevant in response to recent attacks on metaphysics. (shrink)

I apply the notion of truthmaking to the topic of fundamentality by articulating a truthmaker theory of fundamentality according to which some truths are truth-grounded in certain entities while the ones that don't stand in a metaphysical-semantic relation to the truths that do. I motivate this view by critically discussing two problems with Ross Cameron's truthmaker theory of fundamentality. I then defend this view against Theodore Sider's objection that the truthmaking approach to fundamentality violates the purity constraint. Truthmaker theorists can (...) have a trouble-free theory of fundamentality. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was one of the first realists of the twentieth century to defend a theory of categories. He thought that the categories are genuinely real and grounded in the intrinsic nature of Space-Time. I present his reduction of the categories in terms of Space-Time, articulate his account of categorial structure and completeness, and offer an interpretation of what he thought the nature of the categories really were. I then argue that his theory of categories has some advantages over competing (...) theories of his day, and finally draw some important lessons that we can learn from his realist yet reductionist theory of categories. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was a central figure of the new wave of realism that swept across the English-speaking world in the early twentieth century. His Space, Time, and Deity (1920a, 1920b) was taken to be the official statement of realism as a metaphysical system. But many historians of philosophy are quick to point out the idealist streak in Alexander’s thought. After all, as a student he was trained at Oxford in the late 1870s and early 1880s as British Idealism was beginning (...) to flourish. This naturally had some effect on his philosophical outlook and it is said that his early work is overtly idealist. In this paper I examine his neglected and understudied reactions to British Idealism in the 1880s. I argue that Alexander was not an idealist during this period and should not be considered as part of the British Idealist tradition, philosophically speaking. (shrink)

Understanding the dynamics of information is crucial to many areas of research, both inside and outside of philosophy. Using computer simulations of three kinds of information, germs, genes, and memes, we show that the mechanism of information transfer often swamps network structure in terms of its effects on both the dynamics and the fitness of the information. This insight has both obvious and subtle implications for a number of questions in philosophy, including questions about the nature of information, whether there (...) is genetic information, and how to arrange scientific communities. (shrink)

The famous Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) espoused the occasionalist doctrine that ‘there is only one true cause because there is only one true God; that the nature or power of each thing is nothing but the will of God; that all natural causes are not true causes but only occasional causes’ (LO, 448, original italics). One of Malebranche’s well-known arguments for occasionalism, known as, the ‘no necessary connection’ argument (or, NNC ) stems from the principle that ‘a true cause… is (...) one such that the mind perceives a necessary connection between it and its effect’ (LO, 450). The outline of this paper is as follows. I explicitly layout NNC and articulate some of its prima facie strengths (§1). I then critically discuss, what I take to be, the two main arguments against NNC of the Lee-Pyle interpretation (§2). The main conclusion from (§2) is that Malebranche did not abandon NNC in his later works given textual evidence from the Dialogues, contrary to the Lee-Pyle interpretation. In (§3) I discuss in what ways Suárez, Leibniz, Régis and Spinoza all accepted the main premise of NNC. Then, I rebut Steven Nadler’s influential and unchallenged criticism that Malebranche conflated causal and logical necessity, and provide a more accurate interpretation of Malebranche that only commits him to a partial reduction of causal to logical necessity (§4). (shrink)

Trenton Merricks argues for and defends a novel version of primitivism about truth : being true is a primitive monadic but non-intrinsic property. This examination consists of the following triad: a critical discussion of Merricks’ argument for his view, a rejection of his objection against Paul Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth, and a direct objection against his view on the grounds that it entails being true is a mysterious and suspicious property. The conclusion is that Merricks’ primitivism should be rejected.

Beyond belief change and meme adoption, both genetics and infection have been spoken of in terms of information transfer. What we examine here, concentrating on the specific case of transfer between sub-networks, are the differences in network dynamics in these cases: the different network dynamics of germs, genes, and memes. Germs and memes, it turns out, exhibit a very different dynamics across networks. For infection, measured in terms of time to total infection, it is network type rather than degree of (...) linkage between sub-networks that is of primary importance. For belief transfer, measured in terms of time to consensus, it is degree of linkage rather than network type that is crucial. Genes model each of these other dynamics in part, but match neither in full. For genetics, like belief transfer and unlike infection, network type makes little difference. Like infection and unlike belief, on the other hand, the dynamics of genetic information transfer within single and between linked networks are much the same. In ways both surprising and intriguing, transfer of genetic information seems to be robust across network differences crucial for the other two. (shrink)

Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for each. In the second part of the article, we apply this analysis to evaluate (...) the types of polarization generated by the three major families of computational models proposing specific mechanisms of opinion polarization. (shrink)

Public health care interventions—regarding vaccination, obesity, and HIV, for example—standardly take the form of information dissemination across a community. But information networks can vary importantly between different ethnic communities, as can levels of trust in information from different sources. We use data from the Greater Pittsburgh Random Household Health Survey to construct models of information networks for White and Black communities--models which reflect the degree of information contact between individuals, with degrees of trust in information from various sources correlated with (...) positions in that social network. With simple assumptions regarding belief change and social reinforcement, we use those modeled networks to build dynamic agent-based models of how information can be expected to flow and how beliefs can be expected to change across each community. With contrasting information from governmental and religious sources, the results show importantly different dynamic patterns of belief polarization within the two communities. (shrink)

The current study is a pilot trial to examine the effects of a nonelective, classroom-based, teacher-implemented, mindfulness meditation intervention on standard clinical measures of mental health and affect in middle school children. A total of 101 healthy sixth-grade students (55 boys, 46 girls) were randomized to either an Asian history course with daily mindfulness meditation practice (intervention group) or an African history course with a matched experiential activity (active control group). Self-reported measures included the Youth Self Report (YSR), a modified (...) Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Measure –Revised. Both groups decreased significantly on clinical syndrome subscales and affect but did not differ in the extent of their improvements. Meditators were significantly less likely to develop suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm than controls. These results suggest that mindfulness training may yield both unique and non-specific benefits that are shared by other novel activities. (shrink)

Although epistasis is at the center of the Fisher-Wright debate, biologists not involved in the controversy are often unaware that there are actually two different formal definitions of epistasis. We compare concepts of genetic independence in the two theoretical traditions of evolutionary genetics, population genetics and quantitative genetics, and show how independence of gene action (represented by the multiplicative model of population genetics) can be different from the absence of gene interaction (represented by the linear additive model of quantitative (...) genetics). The two formulations converge with weak selection but not with strong selection or, for multiple loci, when the aggregated interaction terms are not negligible. As a result of the different formulations of gene interaction, the presence or absence of linkage disequilibrium,/D/, does not necessarily indicate the presence or absence of fitness epistasis. Indeed, linkage disequilibrium is generated in ‘additive’ models in quantitative genetics whenever two (or more) loci experience simultaneous selection. As a research strategy, it is often practical, for theoretical or experimental reasons, to minimize gene interaction by assuming independence of gene action in regard to fitness, or by assuming linear additive effects of multiple loci on a phenotype. However, minimizing the role of epistasis in theoretical investigations hinders our understanding of the origins of diversity and the evolution of complex phenotypes. (shrink)

Two controversies exist regarding the appropriate characterization of hierarchical and adaptive evolution in natural populations. In biology, there is the Wright-Fisher controversy over the relative roles of random genetic drift, natural selection, population structure, and interdemic selection in adaptive evolution begun by Sewall Wright and Ronald Aylmer Fisher. There is also the Units of Selection debate, spanning both the biological and the philosophical literature and including the impassioned group-selection debate. Why do these two discourses exist separately, and interact (...) relatively little? We postulate that the reason for this schism can be found in the differing focus of each controversy, a deep difference itself determined by distinct general styles of scientific research guiding each discourse. That is, the Wright-Fisher debate focuses on adaptive process, and tends to be instructed by the mathematical modeling style, while the focus of the Units of Selection controversy is adaptive product, and is typically guided by the function style. The differences between the two discourses can be usefully tracked by examining their interpretations of two contested strategies for theorizing hierarchical selection: horizontal and vertical averaging. (shrink)

The question of how people change artworks is important for the metaphysics of art. It’s relatively easy for anyone to change a painting or sculpture, but who may change a literary or musical work is restricted and varies with context. Authors of novels and composers of symphonies often have a special power to change their artworks. Mary Shelley revised Frankenstein, and Tchaikovsky revised his Second Symphony. I cannot change these artworks. In other cases, such as those involving jazz standards and (...) folk songs, performers and ordinary folks have more power to change artworks. My preferred explanation of these facts is the created-abstract-simples view, according to which literary and musical works, unlike paintings and sculptures, are created abstract objects that have no parts. On this view, the way to change a literary or musical work is for an individual, empowered by social practices, to change rules about how a literary work should be published or a musical work should be performed. A. R. J. Fisher and Caterina Moruzzi object that the created-abstract-simples view doesn’t allow for literary and musical works to genuinely change, and Nemesio Garcia-Carríl Puy objects that the view doesn’t allow for these artworks to be repeatable. This paper clarifies the created-abstract-simples view and defends the view against these objections. -/- . (shrink)

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full (...) set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) -/- Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement -/- Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) -/- Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) -/- Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) -/- Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) -/- Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild -/- Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) -/- Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) -/- Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) -/- Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) -/- Part III - Online Public Consultation -/- Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) -/- Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) -/- Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) -/- Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) -/- Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) -/- Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations -/- Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) -/- Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) -/- Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) -/- Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) -/- Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) -/- Part V - Online Facilitation -/- Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) -/- Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) -/- Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) -/- Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) -/- Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) -/- Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) -/- Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools -/- Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) -/- Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) -/- Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) -/- Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) -/- Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) -/- Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) -/- Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). -/- For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu. (shrink)

Trivalence is quite natural for deontic action logic, where actions are treated as good, neutral or bad.We present the ideas of trivalent deontic logic after J. Kalinowski and its realisation in a 3-valued logic of M. Fisher and two systems designed by the authors of the paper: a 4-valued logic inspired by N. Belnap’s logic of truth and information and a 3-valued logic based on nondeterministic matrices. Moreover, we combine Kalinowski’s idea of trivalence with deontic action logic based on (...) boolean algebra. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente trabalho mostra as atividades realizadas do período de 01 de julho a 01 de novembro na JRM Agropecuária. As atividades foram desenvolvidas na área de bovinocultura de leite, este trabalho foi desenvolvido sob orientação do professor mestre Rodrigo Dorneles Tortorella e supervisão do médico veterinário André Ricardo, em conjunto com o médico veterinário Breno. Durante o período de estágio foi acompanhado as atividades realizadas no setor de manejo, reprodução, bezerreiro e recria da fazenda, além de acompanhar as (...) consultorias quinzenais realizadas pelos médicos veterinários. Este trabalho é composto pela descrição de estágio, referencial bibliográfico e relato de caso. O manejo reprodutivo pode trazer muito impactos econômicos se não for realizado de forma adequado, para trazer melhores resultados biotécnicas da reprodução foram criadas, como por exemplo a inseminação artificial, juntamente com ela, protocolos de inseminação são usados, para isso é necessário conhecer a anatomia do animal e a fisiologia do ciclo estral, trazendo então melhores resultados adequando a necessidade da propriedade. O relato de caso consiste na avaliação da taxa de concepção ao primeiro serviço de vacas leiteiras primíparas e multíparas no pós-parto em anestro, submetidas a uma pré-sincronização anterior a um protocolo de IATF, o qual obteve resultado e a maioria dos animais responderam a pré-sincronização, e as taxas de concepção foram superiores comparadas apenas a utilização de IATF, obtendo 37% de animais gestantes ao primeiro serviço. Palavras-chave: Anestro; Bovinos; Concepção; Pré-Sincronização. -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS ALMEIDA, Í.C.; SOBREIRA, R.R.; OLIVEIRA, F.A.; GARCIA, Y.L.; MADUREIRA, A.P.; BARIONI, G.; SIQUEIRA, J.B. Protocolo de pré-sincronização hormonal em vacas mestiças no período pós-parto. Revista Brasileira de Medicina Veterinária, v.38 n.4, p. 353-357, 2016. AYRES, H; FERREIRA, R. M; CUNHA, A. P; ARAÚJO, R. R; WILTBANK, M. C. Double-Ovsynch in high-producing dairy cows: effects on progesterone concentrations and ovulation to GnRH treatments. Theriogenology. v. 79, n. 1, p. 159-164, 2013 AZEVEDO, C; CANADA, N; SIMÕES, J. O protocolo hormonal Ovsynch e suas modificações em vacas leiteiras de alta produção: uma revisão. Arquivos de zootecnia, v.63, n.244, p. 173-187, 2014. BERGAMASCHI, M.A.C.M; MACHADO, R; BARBOSA, R.T. Eficiência reprodutiva das vacas leiteiras. Circular Técnica- Embrapa. São Paulo, 2010. CAMPOS, C.C; RESENDE, E.V; CARNEIRO, L.C; MUNHOZ, A.K; SANTOS, R.M. Condição ovariana de vacas holandesas no início do programa reprodutivo. Vet. Not, v.18, n. 2, p. 145-147, 2012. CARVALHO, B.C; PIRES, M.F.A; ARBEX, W; SANTOS, G.B. Uso de Tecnologias de Precisão na Reprodução de Bovinos Leiteiros. Cadernos Técnicos de Veterinária e Zootecnia. n.79. 2015. CARVALHO, V.S. Avaliação morfológica do aparelho reprodutor de novilhas pertencentes a três grupos raciais. Universidade de Brasília - Faculdade de Agronomia e Medicina Veterinária. Brasília, 2017. CONSENTINI, C. E. C; WILTBANK, M.C; SARTORI, R. Fatores que otimizam a eficiência reprodutiva em rebanhos leiteiros com ênfase em programas de inseminação artificial cronometrada. Animais, 2021. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Anatomia e Fisiologia do Sistema Reprodutivo dos Animais Domésticos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2020. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Anestro em Vacas Leiteiras: Fisiologia e Manejo. 2021. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia Clínica do Ciclo Estral de Vacas Leiteiras: Desenvolvimento Folicular, Corpo Lúteo e Etapas do Estro. 2020. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia da Reprodução Animal: Ovulação, Controle e Sincronização do Cio. 2020. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia da Reprodução de Bovinos Leiteiros: Aspectos Básicos e Clínicos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2022. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia do ciclo estral dos animais domésticos. Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva, 2021. DA SILVA, Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro. Fisiologia do estro e do serviço na reprodução bovina. Belo Jardim: EICS, 2021. FAILS, A.D; MAGEE, C. Frandson- Anatomia e Fisiologia dos Animais de Produção. 8 ed. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara Koogan Ltda, 2019. FERREIRA, A.M. Reprodução da Fêmea Bovina: Fisiologia Aplicada e Problemas mais comuns (causas e tratamentos). Juiz de Fora, MG: Edição do Autor, 2010. FRANCO, V. M. Efeitos da pré-sincronização antes da primeira IATF pós-parto em vacas girolando. Uberlândia, MG, 2021. HERLIHY, M. M; GIORDANO, J. O; SOUZA, A. H; FERREIRA, R. M; KESTIN, A; NASCIMENTO, A. B; GUENTHER, J. N; GASKA, J. M; KACUBA, S. J; CROWE, M. A; MORDOMO, S. T; WILTBANK, M. C; Presynchronization with Double-Ovsynch improves fertility at first postpartum artificial insemination in lactating dairy cows. Journal of Dairy Science, v. 95, n. 12, p. 7003-7014, 2012. JÚNIOR, M.F.D; ZERVOUDAKIS, L.K.H; ZERVOUDAKIS, J.T; KOCHECK, J.F.W; FILHO, R.S.F; FREITAS, L.D. Aspectos relacionados à fisiologia do anestro pós-parto em bovinos. Colloquium Agrariae, v. 9, n.2. Mato Grosso, 2013. MABA, M.M. Revisão Bibliográfica: Bases Fisiológicas e Dados Sobre a Inseminação Artificial em Tempo Fixo (IATF). Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - Centro de Ciências Rurais. Curitibanos, 2018. MACEDO, G.G; OLIVEIRA, M; ROCHA, C.D; Sincronização da ovulação: como amenizar ainda mais a fisiologia da reprodução para obter melhores resultados?. Revista Brasileira de Reprodução Animal. Belo Horizonte, v.39, n.1, p. 41-46, 2015. OLIVEIRA, A.P., OLIVEIRA FILHO, J.P. e MEIRA, C. Dinâmica folicular ovariana comparativa entre as espécies bovina e equina. PUBVET, Londrina, V. 4, N. 8, Ed. 113, Art. 763, 2010. PANSANI, M.A; BELTRAN, M.P. Anatomia e Fisiologia do Aparelho Reprodutor de Fêmeas Bovinas. Revista Cientifica Eletrônica de Medicina Veterinária. São Paulo, n.12, 2009. PAZ, S. Taxa de prenhez e concepção: o que é e como medir na sua propriedade. Prodap, 2021. Disponível em:. REECE, W.O; ROWE, E.W. Anatomia Funcional e Fisiologia dos Animais Domésticos. 5 ed. Rio de Janeiro: Guanabara Koogan Ltda, 2020. ROCHE, J. R; FRIGGENS, N. C; KAY, J. K; FISHER, M. W; STAFFORD, K. J; BERRY, D. P. Invited review: Body condition score and its association with dairy cow productivity, health, and welfare. Journal of Dairy Science, v.92, p.5769-5801, 2009. SANTOS, J. P. C; LEAL, S. D. C. B. S; MADEIRA, E.M; SCHWEGLER, E; PINO, F.A.B.D; BIANCHI, I; CORRÊA, M.N. Balanço Energético Negativo no Período de Periparto em Vacas de Aptidão Leiteira. NUPEEC – Núcleo de Pesquisa, Ensino e Extensão em Pecuária. Pelotas, 2009. SENAR. Inseminação Artificial: Bovinos / Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Rural. 3 ed. Brasília, 2011. SILVA, L. A. C. Pré-sincronização com folículo persistente em protocolos de sincronização da ovulação a base de GnRH em vacas de leite em lactação. Dissertação (Mestrado) - Curso de Ciências Veterinárias, Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras, 2017. Disponível em:. Acesso em: 24 de outubro de 2022. SOARES, P.H.A. Métodos de sincronização de estro e ovulação em bovinos: revisão de literatura. Conexão Ci, v.14 n.2, p. 66-72, 2019. SOUZA, V.L. Avaliação da fertilidade do rebanho bovino de Rondônia e o uso de detecção de cio e do GnRH para aumentar a eficiência de programas de IATF. Fundação Universidade Federal de Rondônia. Porto Velho, 2019. Veja informações úteis sobre a taxa de prenhez. Ideagri, 2022. Disponível em:. (shrink)

Conceptualism is the view that at least some perceptual representation is conceptual. This paper considers a prominent recent argument against Conceptualism due to Ned Block. Block’s argument appeals to patterns of color representation in infants, alleging that infants exhibit categorical perception of color while failing to deploy concepts of color categories. Accordingly, the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy must be non-conceptual. This argument is distinctive insofar as it threatens not only the view that all perception is conceptual, but (...) also views that restrict the Conceptualist thesis to perceptual categorization. However, I contend that it fails at two stages. Block’s arguments for the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy, and against color concept deployment in infancy, are unpersuasive. Thus, Block has not vanquished Conceptualism. I draw out implications for debates about the perception-cognition border and for the question of whether explicit categorization occurs in perception. (shrink)

It is conventional wisdom that appreciating the role of luck in our moral lives should make us more sparing with blame. But views of moral responsibility that allow luck to augment a person’s blameworthiness are in tension with this wisdom. I resolve this tension: our common moral luck partially generates a duty to forgo retributively blaming the blameworthy person at least sometimes. So, although luck can amplify the blame that a person deserves, luck also partially generates a duty not to (...) give the blameworthy person the retributive blame that he deserves at least sometimes. (shrink)

The received view is that Kant denies all moral luck. But I show how Kant affirms constitutive moral luck in passages concerning radical evil from Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. First, I explicate Kant’s claims about radical evil. It is a morally evil disposition that all human beings have necessarily, at least for the first part of their lives, and for which they are blameworthy. Second, since these properties about radical evil appear to contradict Kant’s even more famous (...) claims about imputation, ‘ought implies can’, and free will, I unpack Henry Allison’s proof of radical evil and show how it is consistent with interpretations of Kant’s broader views about morality. Third, I define and illustrate the category of constitutive moral luck and argue that Kant embraces the existence of constitutive moral luck given Allison-style interpretations of radical evil. This provides a reason for philosophers to reject the received view, and it creates an occasion for Kantians and Kant scholars to check their reasons if they deny moral luck. (shrink)

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, such as semaglutide, and dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor agonists, such as tirzepatide, have been found to be effective for treating obesity and diabetes, significantly reducing weight and the risk or predicted risk of adverse cardiovascular events. There is a global shortage of these medications that could last several years and raises questions about how limited supplies should be allocated. We propose a fair-allocation framework that enables evaluation of the ethics of current (...) practices and could guide governments, professional societies, and physicians in allocation decisions. (shrink)

Mechanistic interpretability is the program of explaining what AI systems are doing in terms of their internal mechanisms. I analyze some aspects of the program, along with setting out some concrete challenges and assessing progress to date. I argue for the importance of propositional interpretability, which involves interpreting a system’s mechanisms and behav- ior in terms of propositional attitudes: attitudes (such as belief, desire, or subjective probabil- ity) to propositions (e.g. the proposition that it is hot outside). Propositional attitudes are (...) the central way that we interpret and explain human beings and they are likely to be central in AI too. A central challenge is what I call thought logging: creating systems that log all of the rel- evant propositional attitudes in an AI system over time. I examine currently popular methods of interpretability (such as probing, sparse auto-encoders, and chain of thought methods) as well as philosophical methods of interpretation (including those grounded in psychoseman- tics) to assess their strengths and weaknesses as methods of propositional interpretability. (shrink)

Do perceptual states necessarily constitute evidence epistemically supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs? Susanna Schellenberg thinks so. She argues that perceptual states, veridical or not, necessarily provide (or constitute) a kind of evidence (for the existence of the truth-maker) supporting corresponding perceptual beliefs. She uses “phenomenal evidence” as a label for this kind of evidence and calls her argument “The Phenomenal Evidence Argument.” Having introduced her project, we offer a reconstruction of Schellenberg’s argument (Sect. 2 ). A key premise has it that, (...) necessarily, for items with a function, fulfillment of the function (the good case) is explanatorily and metaphysically prior to function failure (the bad case). We suggest that the etiological theory of functions renders this key premise plausible (Sect. 3 ). However, Schellenberg rejects the etiological theory of functions (Sect. 4 ) and likewise the idea that the epistemic or warranting force of perceptual states is grounded in their being reliably linked to veridical perception (Sect. 5 ). But then what supports the key premise? Schellenberg argues that accurate perception is a part of the _nature_ of perceptual capacities because the nature of perceptual capacities is explained in terms of their function, and their function is to represent accurately (Sect. 6 ). We suggest that Schellenberg is committed to an understanding of priority which doesn’t require any _actual_ good cases—just possible ones (Sect. 7 ). This reading, we argue, is too weak to support the key premise (Sect. 8 ). Given Schellenberg’s commitments, it is not necessarily the case that perceptual states are evidence for a corresponding perceptual belief. Before concluding we discuss an overgeneralization objection to Schellenberg’s argument (Sect. 9 ). (shrink)

In their Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, Landgrebe and Smith (2023) argue that it is impossible for artificial general intelligence (AGI) to succeed, on the grounds that it is impossible to perfectly model or emulate the “complex” “human neurocognitive system”. However, they do not show that it is logically impossible; they only show that it is practically impossible using current mathematical techniques. Nor do they prove that there could not be any other kinds of theories than those in (...) current use. Even if perfect theories were impossible or unlikely, perfection may not be needed and may even be unhelpful. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that people naïvely represent time as dynamical (i.e. as containing robust temporal passage). Yet many contemporary B-theorists deny that it seems to us, in perceptual experience, as though time robustly passes. The question then arises as to why we represent time as dynamical if we do not have perceptual experiences which represent time as dynamical. We consider two hypotheses about why this might be: the temporally aperspectival replacement hypothesis and the moving open future hypothesis. We then empirically (...) test the moving open future hypothesis. According to that hypothesis, we represent the past as objectively fixed and the future open. And we represent that this objective openness moves as events that were open become fixed, such that in doing so, we represent a privileged moving present. We found no evidence for the moving open future hypothesis, which suggests that further investigation of the temporally aperspectival replacement hypothesis is called for. Our results also shed further light on our understanding of the respects in which we represent the future to be open, which, in turn, has implications for our theorising about the open future. (shrink)

Many philosophers have thought that our folk, or pre-reflective, view of persistence is one on which objects endure. This assumption not only plays a role in disputes about the nature of persistence itself, but is also put to use in several other areas of metaphysics, including debates about the nature of change and temporal passage. In this paper, we empirically test three broad claims. First, that most people (i.e. most non-philosophers) believe that, and it seems to them as though, objects (...) persist by enduring rather than perduring. Second, that most people have a view of change on which enduring but not perduring objects count as changing. Third, that one reason why the folk represent time as dynamical is because it seems to them, and they believe that, they endure through time. We found no evidence to support these claims. While there are certainly plenty of ‘folk’ endurantists in the population we tested, there are also plenty of ‘folk’ perdurantists. We did not find robust evidence that a majority of people believed that, or it seemed to them as though, objects endure rather than perdure. We conclude that many arguments in favour of endurantism that appeal to folk beliefs about, or experiences of, persisting objects and change rest on views about those beliefs and experiences that are empirically unsupported. There is no evidence to suggest that endurantism is the folk friendly view of persistence, and so we should stop treating it as such without argument. (shrink)