This paper explores two non-standard supermajority rules in the context of judgment aggregation over multiple logically connected issues. These rules set the supermajority threshold in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the input profile of opinions. To motivate the interest of these rules, I prove two results. First, I characterize each rule in terms of a condition I call ‘Block Preservation’. Block preservation says that if a majority of group members accept a judgment set, (...) then so should the group. Second, I show that one of these rules is, in a precise sense, a judgment aggregation analogue of a rule for connecting qualitative and quantitative belief that has been recently defended by Hannes Leitgeb. The structural analogy is due to the fact that Leitgeb sets thresholds for qualitative beliefs in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the given credence function. (shrink)

Pettit (2006) argues that deferring to majority testimony is not generally rational: it may lead to inconsistent beliefs. He suggests that “another ... approach will do better”: deferring to supermajority testimony. But this approach may also lead to inconsistencies. In this paper, I describe conditions under which deference to supermajority testimony ensures consistency, and conditions under which it does not. I also introduce the concept of “consistency of degree k”, which is weaker than full consistency by ruling out (...) only “blatant” inconsistencies in an agent’s beliefs while permitting less blatant ones, and show that, while super-majoritarian deference often fails to ensure full consistency, it is a route to consistency in this weaker sense. (shrink)

The widely discussed "discursive dilemma" shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential (...) quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path-dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path-independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy-proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision-making. (shrink)

Assuming that votes are independent, the epistemically optimal procedure in a binary collective choice problem is known to be a weighted supermajority rule with weights given by personal log-likelihood-ratios. It is shown here that an analogous result holds in a much more general model. Firstly, the result follows from a more basic principle than expected-utility maximisation, namely from an axiom (Epistemic Monotonicity) which requires neither utilities nor prior probabilities of the ‘correctness’ of alternatives. Secondly, a person’s input need (...) not be a vote for an alternative, it may be any type of input, for instance a subjective degree of belief or probability of the correctness of one of the alternatives. The case of a profile of subjective degrees of belief is particularly appealing, since here no parameters such as competence parameters need to be known. (shrink)

‘Rule-following’ is a name for a cluster of phenomena where we seem both guided and “normatively” constrained by something general in performing particular actions. Understanding the phenomenon is important because of its connection to meaning, representation, and content. This article gives an overview of the philosophical discussion of rule-following with emphasis on Kripke’s skeptical paradox and recent work on possible solutions. Part I of this two-part contribution was devoted to the basic issues from Wittgenstein to Kripke. Part II (...) is about recent answers to the skeptical paradox and Boghossian’s and Wright’s new puzzles. (shrink)

[EDIT: This book will be published open access. Check back around April 2024 to access the entire book.] One central aim of science is to provide explanations of natural phenomena. What role(s) does mathematics play in achieving this aim? How does mathematics contribute to the explanatory power of science? Rules to Infinity defends the thesis, common though perhaps inchoate among many members of the Vienna Circle, that mathematics contributes to the explanatory power of science by expressing conceptual rules, rules which (...) allow the transformation of empirical descriptions. Mathematics should not be thought of as describing, in any substantive sense, an abstract realm of eternal mathematical objects, as traditional platonists have thought. In Rules to Infinity, this view, which I call mathematical normativism, is updated with contemporary philosophical tools, and it is argued that normativism is compatible with mainstream semantic theory. This allows the normativist to accept that there are mathematical truths, while resisting the platonistic idea that there exist abstract mathematical objects that explain such truths. Furthermore, Rules to Infinity defends a particular account of the distinction between scientific explanations that are in some sense distinctively mathematical – those that explain natural phenomena in some uniquely mathematical way – and those that are only standardly mathematical, and it lays out desiderata for any account of this distinction. Normativism is compared with other prominent views in the philosophy of mathematics such as neo-Fregeanism, fictionalism, conventionalism, and structuralism. Rules to Infinity serves as an entry point into debates at the forefront of philosophy of science and mathematics, and it defends novel positions in these debates. (shrink)

I discuss a neglected solution to the skeptical problem introduced by Lewis Carroll’s “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” (1895) in terms of a self-citational inferential license. I then consider some responses to this solution. The most significant response on behalf of the skeptic utilizes the familiar distinction between two ways of accepting a rule: as action-guiding and as a mere truth. I argue that this is ultimately unsatisfactory and conclude by opting for an alternative conception of rules as (...) representations of behavior deployed for various purposes, some theoretical and others practical. This alternative conception does not allow the skeptical problem to get off the ground. (shrink)

Majority rule is often regarded as an important democratic principle. But modern democracies divide voters into districts. So if the majority should rule, which majority should rule? Should it be the popular majority, or an electoral majority (i.e., either the majority of voters in the majority of districts, or the majority of voters in districts that contain the majority of the population)? I argue that majority rule requires rule by the popular majority. This view is (...) not novel and may seem obvious. But it is rarely defended, and often rejected. I defend it by arguing that this view about which majority should rule is best supported by the arguments for why the majority should rule, and best avoids the arbitrary and perverse verdicts of rule by electoral majorities. I close by considering the significant practical implications of the view. The Electoral College is often criticized on the basis that the winner of the popular vote doesn’t always win the election. But all district-based democracies have this feature, so all district-based democracies must be reformed if they are to satisfy the principle of majority rule. (shrink)

‘Rule-following’ is a name for a cluster of phenomena where we seem both guided and “normatively” constrained by something general in performing particular actions. Understanding the phenomenon is important because of its connection to meaning, representation, and content. This article gives an overview of the philosophical discussion of rule-following with emphasis on Kripke’s skeptical paradox and recent work on possible solutions. Part I of this two-part contribution is devoted to the basic issues from Wittgenstein to Kripke. Part II (...) will be about recent answers to the skeptical paradox and Boghossian’s and Wright’s new puzzles. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that games like chess, languages like English, and speech acts like assertion are constituted by rules. Lots of others disagree. To argue over this productively, it would be first useful to know what it would be for these things to be rule-constituted. Searle famously claimed in Speech Acts that rules constitute things in the sense that they make possible the performance of actions related to those things (Searle 1969). On this view, rules constitute games, languages, and (...) speech acts in the sense that they make possible playing them, speaking them and performing them. This raises the question what it is to perform rule-constituted actions (e. g. play, speak, assert) and the question what makes constitutive rules distinctive such that only they make possible the performance of new actions (e. g. playing). In this paper I will criticize Searle’s answers to these questions. However, my main aim is to develop a better view, explain how it works in the case of each of games, language, and assertion and illustrate its appeal by showing how it enables rule-based views of these things to respond to various objections. (shrink)

In the middle of the 20th century, it was a common Wittgenstein-inspired idea in philosophy that for a linguistic expression to have a meaning is for it to be governed by a rule of use. In other words, it was widely believed that meanings are to be identified with use-conditions. However, as things stand, this idea is widely taken to be vague and mysterious, inconsistent with “truth-conditional semantics”, and subject to the Frege-Geach problem. In this paper I reinvigorate the (...) ideas that meaningfulness is a matter of being governed by rules of use and that meanings are best thought of in terms of use-conditions. I will do this by sketching the Rule-Governance view of the nature of linguistic meaningfulness, showing that the view isn’t by itself subject to the two problems, and explain why the idea has had a lasting appeal to philosophers from Strawson to Kaplan and why we should find it continually attractive. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge the commonly held view that Plato acknowledges and accepts the possibility of akrasia in the Laws. I offer a new interpretation of the image of the divine puppet in Book 1 - the passage often read as an account of akratic action -- and I show that it is not intended as an illustration of akrasia at all. Rather, it provides the moral psychological background for the text by illustrating a broader notion of self-rule (...) as a virtuous condition of the soul (and lack of self-rule as a vicious condition). I examine key discussions in the Laws in order to show how Plato makes use of this broader notion of self-rule throughout the dialogue, and I argue that nothing Plato says in the Laws commits him to the possibility of akrasia. One significant consequence of my interpretation of the puppet passage is that it avoids the need to posit developmentalism in Plato's late views about the embodied human soul, as some recent commentators have done: the moral psychology of the Laws, on my reading, is not incompatible with the Republic's tripartite theory of the soul. (shrink)

En este trabajo, que corresponde a un breve homenaje en honor a Juan Ruiz Manero, reconstruiré y analizaré críticamente algunos puntos que, a mi criterio, muestran cómo tener una teoría de la autoridad jurídica articulada y explícita (al menos, en algunos de sus elementos) podría sería necesaria para algunas de las tesis y fines que Ruiz Manero persigue. Estos puntos son: 1) La afirmación de Ruiz Manero de la existencia de una tensión irresoluble entre principios sustantivos y un principio institucional (...) como el de obediencia a las autoridades normativas (definitivas); 2) La respuesta dada por Ruiz Manero a qué hacer frente a esa supuesta tensión irresoluble; y 3) La delimitación entre arbitrariedad y discreción, así como el espacio para el error, que parece subyacer detrás de (1) y (2). Me ocuparé de ellos, en orden de aparición, en las secciones 2 a 4, para luego ofrecer algunas palabras conclusivas en la sección 5. (shrink)

This paper discusses the prospects of a dispositional solution to the Kripke–Wittgenstein rule-following puzzle. Recent attempts to employ dispositional approaches to this puzzle have appealed to the ideas of finks and antidotes—interfering dispositions and conditions—to explain why the rule-following disposition is not always manifested. We argue that this approach fails: agents cannot be supposed to have straightforward dispositions to follow a rule which are in some fashion masked by other, contrary dispositions of the agent, because in all (...) cases, at least some of the interfering dispositions are both relatively permanent and intrinsic to the agent. The presence of these intrinsic and relatively permanent states renders the ascription of a rule-following disposition to the agent false. (shrink)

I introduce an account of when a rule normatively sustains a practice. My basic proposal is that a rule normatively sustains a practice when the value achieved by following the rule explains why agents continue following that rule, thus establishing and sustaining a pattern of activity. I apply this model to practices of belief management and identifies a substantive normative connection between knowledge and belief. More specifically, I proposes one special way that knowledge might set the (...) normative standard for belief: knowing is essentially the unique way of normatively sustaining cognition and, thereby, inquiry. In this respect, my proposal can be seen as one way of elaborating a “knowledge-first” normative theory. (shrink)

Most plausible moral theories must address problems of partial acceptance or partial compliance. The aim of this paper is to examine some proposed ways of dealing with partial acceptance problems as well as to introduce a new Rule Utilitarian suggestion. Here I survey three forms of Rule Utilitarianism, each of which represents a distinct approach to solving partial acceptance issues. I examine Fixed Rate, Variable Rate, and Optimum Rate Rule Utilitarianism, and argue that a new approach, Maximizing (...) Expectation Rate Rule Utilitarianism, better solves partial acceptance problems. (shrink)

In her seminal article ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (1958) Elizabeth Anscombe argued that we need a new ethics, one that uses virtue terms to generate absolute prohibitions against certain act-types. Leading contemporary virtue ethicists have not taken up Anscombe's challenge in justifying absolute prohibitions and have generally downplayed the role of rule-following in their normative theories. That they have not done so is primarily because contemporary virtue ethicists have focused on what is sufficient for characterizing the deliberation and action of (...) the fully virtuous person, and rule-following is inadequate for this task. In this article, I take up Anscombe's challenge by showing that rule-following is necessary for virtuous agency, and that virtue ethics can justify absolute prohibitions. First, I offer a possibility proof by showing how virtue ethics can generate absolute prohibitions in three ways: by considering actions that directly manifest vice or that cannot be performed virtuously; actions that are prohibited by one's institutional roles and practical identities; and actions that are prohibited by the prescriptions of the wise. I then seek to show why virtue ethicists should incorporate rule-following and absolute prohibitions into their theories. I emphasize the central role that rules have in the development of virtue, then motivate the stronger view that fully virtuous agents follow moral rules by considering the importance of hope, uncertainty about consequences, and taking responsibility for what eventuates. Finally, I provide an account of what Anscombe called a ‘corrupt mind’, explaining how our understanding of virtue is corrupted if we think that virtue may require us to do vicious actions. (shrink)

What are rules? In this paper I develop a view of regulative rules which takes them to be a distinctive normative kind occupying a middle ground between orders and normative truths. The paradigmatic cases of regulative rules that I’m interested in are social rules like rules of etiquette and legal rules like traffic rules. On the view I’ll propose, a rule is a general normative content that is in force due to human activity: enactment by an authority or acceptance (...) by a community. Rules are unlike orders in being not necessarily communicative, not an expression’s of the giver’s will, not evaluable for sincerity, and in that they have propositional content. And they’re unlike normative truths in that they’re themselves not even truth-evaluable (though their contents are). This is because rules qua things that are in force are not like constatives which have a mind to world direction of fit, but more like performatives. Furthermore, they differ from normative truths in that their normativity is isolated from their background justification and is therefore not dependent on contributory notions like reasons coming together in a weighing explanation. As such, they occupy a middle ground between orders and normative truths, much like in H. L. A. Hart’s opinion law occupies a middle ground between “coercion” and “morality” (Hart 1961/1994). I also illustrate the virtues of this understanding of rules by showing how proper appreciation of how they differ from normative truths helps us defuse a common objection to Hart’s practice theory of rules. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends a novel and distinctively egalitarian conception of the rule of law. Official behavior is to be governed by preexisting, public rules that do not draw irrelevant distinctions between the subjects of law. If these demands are satisfied, a state achieves vertical equality between officials and ordinary people and horizontal legal equality among ordinary people.

Foundational theories of mental content seek to identify the conditions under which a mental representation expresses, in the mind of a particular thinker, a particular content. Normativists endorse the following general sort of foundational theory of mental content: A mental representation r expresses concept C for agent S just in case S ought to use r in conformity with some particular pattern of use associated with C. In response to Normativist theories of content, Kathrin Glüer-Pagin and Åsa Wikforss propose a (...) dilemma, alleging that Normativism either entails a vicious regress or falls prey to a charge of idleness. In this paper, I respond to this argument. I argue that Normativism can avoid the commitments that generate the regress and does not propose the sort of explanation required to charge that its explanation has been shown to be problematically idle. The regress-generating commitment to be avoided is, roughly, that tokened, contentful mental states are the product of rule-following. The explanatory task Normativists should disavow is that of explaining how it is that beliefs and other contentful mental states are produced. I argue that Normativism, properly understood as a theory of content, does not provide this kind of psychological explanation, and therefore does not entail that such explanations are to be given in terms of rule-following. If this is correct, Normativism is not the proper target of the dilemma offered by Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss. Understanding why one might construe Normativism in the way Glüer-Pagin and Wikforss must, and how, properly understood, it avoids their dilemma, can help us to appreciate the attractiveness of a genuinely normative theory of content and the importance of paying careful attention to the sort of normativity involved in norm-based theories of content. (shrink)

Brad Hooker; II*—Rule-Consequentialism, Incoherence, Fairness1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 19–36, https://d.

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite (...) regress. I argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks. (shrink)

Rule-Consequentialism faces “the problem of partial acceptance”: How should the ideal code be selected given the possibility that its rules may not be universally accepted? A new contender, “Calculated Rates” Rule-Consequentialism claims to solve this problem. However, I argue that Calculated Rates merely relocates the partial acceptance question. Nevertheless, there is a significant lesson from this failure of Calculated Rates. Rule-Consequentialism’s problem of partial acceptance is more helpfully understood as an instance of the broader problem of selecting (...) the ideal code given various assumptions—assumptions about who will accept and comply with the rules, but also about how the rules will be taught and enforced, and how similar the future will be. Previous rich discussions about partial acceptance provide a taxonomy and groundwork for formulating the best version of Rule-Consequentialism. (shrink)

In the theory of meaning, it is common to contrast truth-conditional theories of meaning with theories which identify the meaning of an expression with its use. One rather exact version of the somewhat vague use-theoretic picture is the view that the standard rules of inference determine the meanings of logical constants. Often this idea also functions as a paradigm for more general use-theoretic approaches to meaning. In particular, the idea plays a key role in the anti-realist program of Dummett and (...) his followers. In the theory of truth, a key distinction now is made between substantial theories and minimalist or deflationist views. According to the former, truth is a genuine substantial property of the truth-bearers, whereas according to the latter, truth does not have any deeper essence, but all that can be said about truth is contained in T-sentences (sentences having the form: ‘P’ is true if and only if P). There is no necessary analytic connection between the above theories of meaning and truth, but they have nevertheless some connections. Realists often favour some kind of truth-conditional theory of meaning and a substantial theory of truth (in particular, the correspondence theory). Minimalists and deflationists on truth characteristically advocate the use theory of meaning (e.g. Horwich). Semantical anti-realism (e.g. Dummett, Prawitz) forms an interesting middle case: its starting point is the use theory of meaning, but it usually accepts a substantial view on truth, namely that truth is to be equated with verifiability or warranted assertability. When truth is so understood, it is also possible to accept the idea that meaning is closely related to truth-conditions, and hence the conflict between use theories and truth-conditional theories in a sense disappears in this view. (shrink)

Proponents of the rule of law argue about whether that ideal should be conceived formalistically or in terms of substantive values. Formalistically, the rule of law is associated with principles like generality, clarity, prospectivity, consistency, etc. Substantively, it is associated with market values, with constitutional rights, and with freedom and human dignity. In this paper, I argue for a third layer of complexity: the procedural aspect of the rule of law; the aspects of rule-of-law requirements that (...) have to do with "natural Justice" or "procedural due process." These I believe have been neglected in the jurisprudential literature devoted specifically to the idea of the rule of law and they deserve much greater emphasis. Moreover procedural values go beyond elementary principles like the guarantee of an unbiased tribunal or the opportunity to present and confront evidence. They include the right to argue in a court about what the law is and what its bearing should be on one's situation. The provision that law makes for argument is necessarily unsettling, and so this emphasis on the procedural aspect highlights the point predictability should not be regarded as the be-all and end-all of the rule of law. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson famously argued that assertion is constituted either by the knowledge rule or some similar epistemic rule. If true, the proposal has important implications for criticism of assertions. If assertions are analogical to other rule-constituted kinds like games, we can criticize assertions either on external or internal grounds, depending on whether the criticism draws from the necessary norms of assertion or some contingent ones. More recently, authors like Goldberg and MacFarlane have argued against other theories of (...) assertion on the grounds that they cannot explain the possibility of internal criticism for assertions. This paper raises methodological problems with these arguments. The main idea is to show that alternative, non-normative accounts of assertion can also explain the apparent differences in grounds of criticism without assuming that assertion is necessarily governed by some epistemic norm. (shrink)

There is an increase in the use of in-door wireless networking solutions via Wi-Fi and this increase infiltrated and utilized Wi-Fi enable devices, as well as smart mobiles, games consoles, security systems, tablet PCs and smart TVs. Thus the demand on Wi-Fi connections increased rapidly. Rule Based System is an essential method in helping using the human expertise in many challenging fields. In this paper, a Rule Based System was designed and developed for diagnosing the wireless connection problems (...) and attain a precise decision about the cause of the problem. SL5 Object expert system language was used in developing the rule based system. An Evaluation of the rule based system was carried out to test its accuracy and the results were promising. (shrink)

This paper employs some outcomes (for the most part due to David Lewis) of the contemporary debate on the metaphysics of dispositions to evaluate those dispositional analyses of meaning that make use of the concept of a disposition in ideal conditions. The first section of the paper explains why one may find appealing the notion of an ideal-condition dispositional analysis of meaning and argues that Saul Kripke’s well-known argument against such analyses is wanting. The second section focuses on Lewis’ work (...) in the metaphysics of dispositions in order to call attention to some intuitions about the nature of dispositions that we all seem to share. In particular, I stress the role of what I call "Actuality Constraint". The third section of the paper maintains that the Actuality Constraint can be used to show that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist (in so doing, I develop a suggestion put forward by Paul Boghossian). This immediately implies that ideal-condition dispositional analyses of meaning cannot work. The last section discusses a possible objection to my argument. The point of the objection is that the argument depends on an illicit assumption. I show (1) that, in fact, the assumption in question is far from illicit and (2) that even without this assumption it is possible to argue that the dispositions with which ideal-condition dispositional analyses identify my meaning addition by "+" do not exist. (shrink)

This paper argues that the problematic of rule following in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Heidegger's analysis of anxiety in Being and Time have analogous structures. Working through these analogies helps our interpretation of both of these authors. Contrasting sceptical and anti-sceptical readings of Wittgenstein helps us to resolve an interpretive puzzle about what an authentic response to anxiety looks like for Heidegger. And considering the importance of anxiety to Heidegger's conception of authenticity allows us to locate in Wittgenstein's later (...) philosophy a covert appeal to something resembling Heideggerian authenticity. (shrink)

This paper presents a new reconstruction of Wittgenstein’s famous (and controversial) rule-following arguments. Two are the novel features offered by our reconstruction. In the first place, we propose a shift of the central focus of the discussion, from the general semantics and the philosophy of mind to the philosophy of mathematics and the rejection of the notion of a function. The second new feature is positive: we argue that Wittgenstein offers us a new alternative notion of a rule (...) (to replace the rejected functions), a notion reminiscent of Category Theory’s notion of a morphism. (shrink)

Over the last decade, philosophers of science have extensively criticized the epistemic superiority of randomized controlled trials for testing safety and effectiveness of new drugs, defending instead various forms of evidential pluralism. We argue that scientific methods in regulatory decision-making cannot be assessed in epistemic terms only: there are costs involved. Drawing on the legal distinction between rules and standards, we show that drug regulation based on evidential pluralism has much higher costs than our current RCT-based system. We analyze these (...) costs and advocate for evaluating any scheme for drug regulatory tests in terms of concrete empirical benchmarks, like the error rates of regulatory decisions. (shrink)

Mental content normativists hold that the mind’s conceptual contents are essentially normative. Many hold the view because they think that facts of the form “subject S possesses concept c” imply that S is enjoined by rules concerning the application of c in theoretical judgments. Some opponents independently raise an intuitive objection: even if there are such rules, S’s possession of the concept is not the source of the enjoinment. Hence, these rules do not support mental content normativism. Call this the (...) “Source Objection.” This paper refutes the Source Objection, outlining a key strand of the relationship between judgments and their contents in the process. Theoretical judgment and mental conceptual content are equally the source of enjoinment; norms for judging with contents do not derive from one at the expense of the other. (shrink)

According to Amie Thomasson's Modal Normativism (MN), knowledge of metaphysical modality is to be explained in terms of a speaker’s mastery of semantic rules, as opposed to one’s epistemic grasp of independent modal facts. In this chapter, I outline (MN)'s account of modal knowledge (§1) and argue that more than semantic mastery is needed for knowledge of metaphysical modality. Specifically (§2), in reasoning aimed at gaining such knowledge, a competent speaker needs to further deploy essentialist principles and information. In response, (...) normativists might contend that a competent speaker will only need to appeal to specific independence counterfactuals, on analogy with quasi-realism about morality. These conditionals fix the meaning of our terms at the actual world, independently of the particular context in which a statement is evaluated. However, I show that this strategy causes several problems for the account (§3). While those problems might perhaps be avoided by endorsing a certain picture of modal metaphysics (Modal Monism), such a picture involves notorious issues that normativists will have to address (§4). It is thus doubtful that (MN) can explain knowledge of metaphysical modality. Still, it may explain some modal knowledge without committing to Modal Monism. As I show (§5), semantic mastery may suffice for gaining knowledge of logical-conceptual modality or analyticity. (shrink)

1. Do models formulated in programming languages use explicit rules where connectionist models do not? 2. Are rules as found in programming languages hard, precise, and exceptionless, where connectionist rules are not? 3. Do connectionist models use rules operating on distributed representations where models formulated in programming languages do not? 4. Do connectionist models fail to use structure sensitive rules of the sort found in "classical" computer architectures? In this chapter we argue that the answer to each of these questions (...) is negative. (shrink)

We discuss a well-known puzzle about the lexicalization of logical operators in natural language, in particular connectives and quantifiers. Of the many logically possible operators, only few appear in the lexicon of natural languages: the connectives in English, for example, are conjunction _and_, disjunction _or_, and negated disjunction _nor_; the lexical quantifiers are _all, some_ and _no_. The logically possible nand (negated conjunction) and Nall (negated universal) are not expressed by lexical entries in English, nor in any natural language. Moreover, (...) the lexicalized operators are all upward or downward monotone, an observation known as the Monotonicity Universal. We propose a logical explanation of lexical gaps and of the Monotonicity Universal, based on the dynamic behaviour of connectives and quantifiers. We define update potentials for logical operators as procedures to modify the context, under the assumption that an update by \( \phi \) depends on the logical form of \( \phi \) and on the speech act performed: assertion or rejection. We conjecture that the adequacy of update potentials determines the limits of lexicalizability for logical operators in natural language. Finally, we show that on this framework the Monotonicity Universal follows from the logical properties of the updates that correspond to each operator. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a game-theoretic solution to the rule-following paradox in terms of what I will call basic constitutive practices. The structure of such a practice P constitutes what it is to take part in P by defining the correctness conditions of our most basic concepts as those actions that lie on the correlated equilibrium of P itself. Accordingly, an agent S meant addition by his use of the term ‘+’ because S is taking part in a (...) basic constitutive practice of adding where quus-like answers are ruled out by not lying on the equilibrium. The resulting picture of language will preserve the objectivity and correctness conditions of meaning, all the while providing room for the community as a whole to make a mistake. I also argue that by accepting the account presented, we have a strong reason to reject the idea that language is rule-governed. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that existing democracies might establish popular rule even if Joseph Schumpeter’s notoriously unflattering picture of ordinary citizens is accurate. Some degree of popular rule is in principle compatible with apathetic, ignorant and suggestible citizens, contrary to what Schumpeter and others have maintained. The people may have control over policy, and their control may constitute popular rule, even if citizens lack definite policy opinions and even if their opinions result in part from (...) elites’ efforts to manipulate these opinions. Thus, even a purely descriptive, ‘realist’ account of democracy of the kind that Schumpeter professed to offer may need to concede that there is no democracy without some degree of popular rule. (shrink)

The level of enjoyment in participating in sports activities is one component that causes young athletes to decide to stop or become more motivated to pursue sports activities. Practicing and participating in competitions are the main activities in sports coaching interactions towards optimal performance. This study aims to determine the effect of modifying the match rules implemented in youth soccer competitions on the level of enjoyment of players. Using an experimental method with 20 soccer schools participating in a competition with (...) modified game rules. Players registered by his team amounted to an average of 13.8 players aged 9-12 years. The number of players who are willing to fill out the pleasure level questionnaire is 238 players. Each player was asked to fill out a questionnaire before and after the competition, the questionnaire was analyzed using the mean and percentage test technique. The results of data analysis showed the average score before participating in the competition was 4.10 while after participating in the competition it was 4.47, which means an increase of 8.88%. The results showed that the level of enjoyment of the players increased after participating in the competition. Modification of the rule of the game in competition affects the level of enjoyment of players in the interaction of youth soccer coaching. Coaches, administrators, and match organizers are expected to have a positive paradigm of thinking and policy making towards the organization of competitions for young soccer players. (shrink)

How can people function appropriately and respond normatively in social contexts even if they are not aware of rules governing these contexts? John Searle has rightly criticized a popular way out of this problem by simply asserting that they follow them unconsciously. His alternative explanation is based on his notion of a preintentional, nonrepresentational background. In this paper I criticize this explanation and the underlying account of the background and suggest an alternative explanation of the normativity of elementary social practices (...) and of the background itself. I propose to think of the background as being intentional, but nonconceptual, and of the basic normativity or proto-normativity as being instituted through common sensory-motor-emotional schemata established in the joint interactions of groups. The paper concludes with some reflections on what role this level of collective intentionality and the notion of the background can play in a layered account of the social mind and the ontology of the social world. (shrink)

The going-on problem (GOP) is the central concern of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. It informs not only his epistemology and philosophy of mind, but also his views on mathematics, universals, and religion. In section I, I frame this issue as a matter of accounting for intentionality. Here I follow Saul Kripke's lead. My departure therefrom follows: first, a criticism of Wittgenstein's “straight” conventionalism and, secondly, a defense of a solution Kripke rejects. I proceed under the assumption, borne out in the end, (...) that statements of rule-following have truth-conditions and are not, as Kripke seems willing to concede, merely "assertible" in circumstances of a specified sort. Ultimately, my goal is to demonstrate that intending can be understood in terms of an individual's dispositions rather than those of the community to which she belongs. (shrink)

In “Rethinking Norm Psychology,” Cecilia Heyes offers an insightful critique of nativist approaches to the psychology of norms and then proposes a plausible alternative model grounded in the theory of cognitive gadgets. We are broadly sympathetic to both the critique and to the cognitive-gadgets model, though our own pluralistic approach to the psychology of norms (Westra & Andrews, 2022) leads us to think that the range of psychological and ecological processes that contributes to our norm psychology is even more diverse (...) than what Heyes proposes. Here, though, we focus on Heyes’s conceptual critique of the nativist model and its explanatory target—namely, a system for representing and processing rules. Heyes’s criticism of this representational rule-based conception of the psychology of norms is quite sound. However, we will argue that Heyes’s alternative behavioral explanandum for the psychology of norms also fails to escape the gravitational pull of a rule-based approach. (shrink)

I criticize Yamada's account of rule-following. Yamada's conditions are not necessary. And he misses the deepest level of the rule-following considerations: how meaning rules come about.

I address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term "naturalism" is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced (...) by Sellars and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one's own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account. (shrink)

Free trade agreements are about reducing tariffs, market access in services, protection of intellectual property rights, streamlining customs procedures, trade remedy measures, and dispute settlement mechanism. Equally important if not even more important than these provisions is the designation of rules of origin. Many benefits can be lost if restrictive rules of origin are incorporated. Rules of origin are supposed to be straightforward and easy-to-follow methods used to determine origin of imported goods. The policy question that arises is how to (...) improve trade integration among Arab countries through more effective rules of origin. (shrink)

I briefly consider why Descartes stopped work on the _Rules_ towards the end of my paper. My main concern is to accurately characterize the project represented in the _Rules_, especially in its relation to early-modern logic.

Background: A bean is the seed of one of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes throughout the world. Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. (...) In a form improved from naturally occurring types, Beans were an important source of protein throughout old and new world history, and still are today. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment. Methods: In this paper, the design of the proposed Expert System was produced to help farmers and those interested in agriculture in diagnosing many of the Bean diseases such as Fusarium wilt, Charcoal rot or ashy stem blight, Bacterial leaf spot and blight, Mung bean yellow mosaic virus, Cercospora leaf spot. The proposed expert system presents an overview of Bean diseases are given, the cause of diseases outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed Bean diseases diagnosis expert system was evaluated by Agricultural experts and some friends interested in agriculture and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The proposed expert system is very useful for Farmers and those interested in agriculture. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that permitting, say, voluntary euthanasia would erode the motivations and inhibitions supporting other, legitimate prohibitions on killing to the point where widespread disregard for the moral law would result. this paper discusses the relevance of such "slippery slope" arguments for the rule-utilitarian who claims that we can assess moral rules by asking whether their acceptance would maximize utility. first it is argued that any normative theory of this type cannot recognize slope arguments as legitimate considerations (...) in this assessment. second, it is suggested that a theory based on the very different notion of choosing a moral code can permit slope arguments to weigh as relevant considerations. (shrink)

The article discusses the limitations of psycho-physical parallellism and the implications of a pscycho-physical interaction paradigm considering the notion Downward Causation. The focus is on the notion of levels in nature and their interrelations, and it argues that the notion of rule-based systems should be considered a subcategory of rule-generating systems partly based on redundancy functions rather than rules.

In this paper I examine the sixth century ’Rule of St. Benedict’, and argue that the authority structure of Benedictine communities as described in that document satisfies well-known principles of authority defended by Joseph Raz. This should lead us to doubt the common assumption that premodern models of authority violate the modern ideal of the autonomy of the self. I suggest that what distinguishes modern liberal authority from Benedictine authority is not the principles that justify it, but rather the (...) first-order beliefs for the sake of which authority is sought by the individual, and the degree of trust between the authority and the subject. (shrink)