Inhalt: Vorbemerkung Kommentar Titel Vorrede Erster Teil Zweiter Teil Dritter Teil Benutzte Literatur a)Zeitgenossen und Vorläufer Fichtes b)Moderne Interpreten Sachregister zum Fichte-Text Verzeichnis der zitierten Arbeiten Fichtes.

The present "philological commentary" is directed at those who have decided to take time for reading the original text, at least in an English translation. The first volume "Textual Criticism" is intended to meet the difficulties caused by the fact that our text editions are based on manuscripts separated from the original by more than a millennium.

With the third volume, it is invited to enter the intellectual environment of Aristotle. The most relevant sources are given in full (with English translation), so that the commentary is also a reader documenting the disputationes metaphysicae of the 4th century BC. For the undeniable contradictions in the Metaphysics, a new genetic explanation is offered.

Though since Werner Jaeger's famous Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Metaphysik des Aristoteles of 1912 remarkable observations were made, the topic "Composition of the Metaphysics" almost disappeared from the agenda. As, however, neglect of this philological task results in either selective reading or anachronistic systematization, the author has resumed it, extending it to the internal structure of the singular books.

The question of the relationship between ontology and theology, the main problem of the interpretation in volume 3, is also the guiding question of our last volume. The history of metaphysics is a history of the efforts towards an outlook on the world and life, which are about the meaning and connection of fundamental concepts: being, life, intellect, unity, truth, goodness. From these, the concept of divinity is derived. As in the previous volumes, a rich material of original texts and (...) interpretations is spread out. (shrink)

Der vorliegende "philologische" Kommentar beansprucht Kants Critik der reinen Vernunft aus ihren historischen Voraussetzungen zu erklären. Zu diesen gehört an erster Stelle Kants Sprache; sie ist nicht mehr die unsere, was den unvorbereiteten Leser von heute schon an der Semantik und Syntax vieler Sätze scheitern lässt. Neben einer Fülle von sprachlichen Erläuterungen und textkritischen Untersuchungen bringt der Kommentar reichliche Zitate aus den von Kant benutzten Logik- und Metaphysik-Lehrbüchern, die seine Rezeption der "dogmatischen" Philosophie Christian Wolffs und seiner Nachfolger belegen; lateinische (...) Texte werden dabei sowohl im Original als auch in deutscher Übersetzung geboten. Einzelne Motive werden ideengeschichtlich bis in die Antike zurückverfolgt; hieraus eröffnen sich Perspektiven für eine "Metakritik" von einem "vorkritischen" Standpunkt aus, die im Rahmen eines philologischen Kommentars nur angedeutet werden können. (shrink)

The global water crisis is being exacerbated by climate change, even in the United States. Recycled water is a feasible alternative to alleviate the water shortage, but it is constrained by humans’ perceptions. The current study examines how residents’ water scarcity awareness and climate change belief influence their willingness to use recycled water directly and indirectly. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of 1831 residents in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an arid inland region in the US. We (...) discovered that residents’ willingness to use direct recycled potable water is positively affected by their awareness of water scarcity, but only if they believe in the impacts of climate change on the water cycle. Meanwhile, the willingness to use indirect recycled potable water is influenced by water scarcity awareness, and the belief in climate change further enhances this effect. These findings implicate that fighting climate change denialism and informing the public of the water scarcity situation in the region can contribute to the effectiveness and sustainability of long-term water conservation and climate change alleviation efforts. (shrink)

We survey recent developments in the theory of class forcing for- malized in the second-order set-theoretic setting.

I will discuss a variety of cases such that the subject's believing truly is somewhat of an accident, but less so than in a Gettier case. In each case, this is because her reasons are not ultimately undefeated full stop, but they are ultimately undefeated with certain qualifications. For example, the subject's reasons might be ultimately defeated considered in themselves but ultimately undefeated considered as a proper part of an inference to the best explanation that is undefeated without qualification. In (...) each section of the paper, I consider different qualifications and show how in each case we get an epistemic standing I call “coach-class knowledge”. First-class knowledge requires justifying reasons that are undefeated without qualification. Coach-class knowledge only requires qualified lack of defeat. I will use this distinction to bring debates over knowledge from falsehood and fake barns to an ecumenical resolution. In both cases, the subject enjoys coach-class rather than first-class knowledge. I will also show that the defeasible reasoning tradition can better account for graded accidental truth than safety theories. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to analyze, clarify, and reconstruct the concept of class consciousness by developing a dialectical account of political agency at work in the concept. I defend a dialectical account of agency, that includes both the way in which individuals come together to form groups, but also the capacity of a collective to transform social conditions. I argue that this account of political agency is necessary in order to understand the possibility of social transformation or change. I trace the (...) development of the relationship between consciousness and agency in the early tradition of Western Marxism, focusing primarily on the account of class consciousness given by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Against his account of the world historical agency of a unified proletariat, however, I defend Theodor Adorno’s insistence on nonidentity, and the importance of unreconciled groups in capitalist society. In order to understand these groups, such as the vanguard, party, or proletariat, we must understand the way in which individuals form groups, as well as their inherent collectivity. -/- My account of the political agency at work in the concept of class consciousness is broadly speaking pluralist. I argue that a multiplicity of methodologies is needed in order to arrive at a complete picture of the concept. I defend an account of class consciousness that is neither reductive nor deflationary with respect to other dimensions of social domination. This class forward approach seeks to build intersectional political coalitions in order to undertake revolutionary action. Successful revolutionary social transformation is never guaranteed in advance; however, the concept of class consciousness, reconstructed through the lens of political agency, offers conceptual resources to address the problems of today, for the sake of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

This article argues that Brentano’s classification of mental phenomena is best understood against the background of the theories of natural classification held by Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill. Section 1 offers a reconstruction of Brentano’s two-premise argument for his tripartite classification. Section 2 gives a brief overview of the reception and historical background of the classification project. Section 3 addresses the question as to why a classification of mental phenomena is needed at all and traces the answer back to (...) Mill’s view that psychological laws are class-specific. Section 4 and 5 connect the second premise of Brentano’s argument to Comte’s principle of comparative likeness and Mill’s insistance that class membership is determined by the possession of common characteristics. And section 6 briefly discusses the evidence Brentano provides for the first premise. (shrink)

Food prices are a daily concern in many households’ decision-making, especially when people want to have healthier diets. Employing Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 710 Indonesian citizens, we found that people from wealthier households are less likely to have concerns about food prices. However, the degree of health considerations in food consumption was found to moderate against the above association. In other words, people of higher income-based social classes may worry more about food prices if (...) they care more about the health impacts of their food choices. These findings provide more insights for policymakers on the psychological aspects of promoting the balance between finance and health in food consumption. (shrink)

The dispute about the role of class in understanding the life situations of people of color has tended to be overpolarized, between a class reductionism and an “it's only race” position. Class processes shape racial groups’ life situations. Race and class are also distinct axes of injustice; but class injustice informs racial injustice. Some aspects of racial injustice can be expressed only in concepts associated with class (e.g., material deprivation, inferior education). But other aspects of racial injustice or other harms, (...) such as racial discrimination or stigma, are not reducible to class concepts and cannot be fully addressed through class-focused policies. Overall, any attempt to fully secure racial justice for a racial group will require a combination of race-focused and class-focused policies. Anti-racist outlooks often neglect or downplay either the normative or the explanatory significance of class, or both—for example, by overlooking or downplaying the dignitary harms of class and the material harms of race; missing the historical dimension of class injustice; masking class by a narrowing of the complex normative structure of racial disparities; or not recognizing that a class-focused initiative (like raising the minimum wage) can address substantial racial justice concerns, even though not all of them. “Systemic racism” terminology recognizes class explanatorily but suppresses it normatively. Charles Mills's influential notion of “white supremacy,” while a powerful tool for conceptualizing and illuminating racial injustice, can also contribute to minimizing or masking the justice-related impact of class, as do some of Mills's specific discussions of class in various writings. (shrink)

The question of what truths are necessary in the broadest possible sense is a difficult one to answer, as is the question of what the limits are to what is possible. (Most people would see these two questions as different sides of the same coin, of course, since many think the question of what is possible is just the question of what is not necessarily ruled out). We have three general sorts of strategies for determining whether something is necessary (or (...) possible). We can identify it in a class that we were previously sure was a class of things that are necessary – we might show it is a theorem of a logical system that we have confidence in, or that the sentence appears to be true simply in virtue of the meanings of the words, or that it is a true statement involving names or about natural kinds of the “necessary a posteriori” sort discussed by Kripke and Putnam, and there are perhaps other classes of claims which we are prepared to accept are necessary if true.1 Likewise, we might establish the possibility of something occurring by reference to a class of well-established or uncontroversial possibilities: e.g. we are inclined to think that it is possible (in the broadest sense) for an event to occur in the future if one of the same kind has occurred in the past. (shrink)

I argue for the importance of class-based analysis for analyzing the justice of migration policies. I contend that the abstract, liberal discourse of much writing on justice and immigration distorts our moral judgments. In contrast, I provide a class-based critique of the role of human capital in managed migration, drawing evidence from Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker and Live-in Caregiver Programs. This reveals the domination and exploitation inherent in these migration policies and allows us to situate immigration in a broader framework (...) of global justice. (shrink)

The research study aimed at assessing the various difficulties that speech teachers had in delivering lessons during the distance learning era. The various phenomena and themes that emerged from the survey were determined using a descriptive research design. The survey was conducted to collect information about the various characteristics and behavior of speech teachers. It also explored the factors that influenced their decisions and actions when it came to addressing the pandemic. The repeated themes that emerged, include low motivation, altered (...) activities, unstable internet connection, comprehension, questionable output integrity, delayed submissions, in-person monitoring, and the system of communicating with inactive students in online mode. (shrink)

We explain and explore class-theoretic potentialism—the view that one can always individuate more classes over a set-theoretic universe. We examine some motivations for class-theoretic potentialism, before proving some results concerning the relevant potentialist systems (in particular exhibiting failures of the $\mathsf {.2}$ and $\mathsf {.3}$ axioms). We then discuss the significance of these results for the different kinds of class-theoretic potentialists.

Given a class of linear order types C, we identify and study several different classes of trees, naturally associated with C in terms of how the paths in those trees are related to the order types belonging to C. We investigate and completely determine the set-theoretic relationships between these classes of trees and between their corresponding first-order theories. We then obtain some general results about the axiomatization of the first-order theories of some of these classes of trees (...) in terms of the first-order theory of the generating class C, and indicate the problems obstructing such general results for the other classes. These problems arise from the possible existence of nondefinable paths in trees, that need not satisfy the first-order theory of C, so we have started analysing first order definable and undefinable paths in trees. (shrink)

After the 2016 election of Donald Trump, many commentators latched on to the accusations Rorty levels at the American Left in Achieving Our Country. Rorty foresaw, they claimed, that the Left's preoccupation with cultural politics and neglect of class politics would lead to the election of a "strongman" who would take advantage of and exploit a rise in populist sentiment. -/- In this paper, I generally agree with these readings of Rorty; he does think that the American Left has made (...) the mistake of putting class on the political backburner. However, I suggest that this position follows from his view that economic security is vital for solidarity. Because economic security is under increasing threat in contemporary America, so too is solidarity. If greater solidarity is a goal of liberal democracy, then class politics, aimed at ending selfishness, ought to be as much a priority for the American Left as is cultural politics, aimed at ending sadism. (shrink)

The news media is a critical source of information for the public. However, it neglects the interests of the poor. In this paper, we explore why this happens, why it matters, and what might be done about it. As to why this happens, we identify two main reasons: because of the way that media is funded and because of the composition of its journalists and its sources. As to why this matters, we argue that this neglect is problematic for three (...) main reasons: it deprives the poor of vital information; it contributes to public support for or acceptance of policies that harm the interests of the poor; and it undermines political equality. And as to what might be done about it, we suggest two proposals: proposals that change the composition of who makes the news and proposals that change how the media is funded. (shrink)

Charles Mills' philosophical position has undergone a number of subtle shifts over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, there has been a relative consistency in his thought over the past two decades, at least since The Racial Contract of 1997. That consistency consists in his turn towards social contract theory and its liberal values and away from Marxism with its focus on class and political economy. Mills notes that this turn does not constitute a “a complete repudiation of Marxism, since I (...) do think that a modified historical materialism might be able to carry out an adequate conceptualization of the significance of race.” Some of the claims Mills makes about Marx and Engels, however, should be challenged; they (or their views) are not as “white” as Mills attests. Indeed, Marx and Engels made a considerable start at theorizing white supremacy as an outgrowth of modern capitalism. (shrink)

Marlene van Niekerk's 1994 Triomf is a plaasroman, or farm novel, without the farm; it formally resembles a nostalgic pastoral genre initiated by the collapse of Southern African agricultural economy around the time of the Great Depression, but removes even the symbol of the farm as aesthetic compensation for material loss. In the process, van Niekerk composes a post-apartheid tragicomedy of a lumpenproletariat white supremacist family coming into long-belated class consciousness, an epiphany which, surprisingly, survives the novel's translations from Afrikaans (...) to South African English to 'international' English. Crucially, this understanding is mediated by a critical tendency to appraise Triomf in the context of Faulkner and the Southern Gothic, a generic comparison which gets a lot wrong but is ultimately very revealing, less about Triomf than about the imperial world-system through which it circulates and is consecrated. Consequently, the novel stages globally what seems at first to be a parochial question: how is one supposed to imagine democratic reconciliation and integration after apartheid, when one of the classes to be reconciled lacks historical self-consciousness and has no obvious place in either the apartheid regime or the post-apartheid dispensation? By analyzing van Niekerk's novel and the institutions which consecrate it, the paper fleshes out critiques of world-literary hermeneutics, specifically for its naive handling of genre and context, and of post-apartheid 'reconciliation' under capital. (shrink)

This chapter brings together important contributions from geographers, historians, sociologists and media theorists, and looks at these through the lens of social philosophy on the nature of resistance and oppression, to articulate and understand both the positive and negative ways in which industrial nostalgia shapes present-day working-class identities. Celebrations of abandoned industrial sites have been criticised by some as inflicting a form of violence on working-class people (High and Lewis 2007), transforming sites of working-class loss into objects of nostalgic appreciation (...) in ways which marginalise those who worked there, and which close the past off from the working-class present (Lasch 1991). More positive views about industrial nostalgia argue that it provides a way to assert working-class pride in hostile environments, serving as a basis for present-day solidarity (Loveday 2014; Gibbs 2021). By examining this existing literature on deindustrialisation through a social philosophical perspective, our aim here is to shed some light on this phenomenon, in which industrial nostalgia can function both as a tool of oppression but also as a form of resistance against oppression. (shrink)

Do university ethics classes influence students’ real-world moral choices? We aimed to conduct the first controlled study of the effects of ordinary philosophical ethics classes on real-world moral choices, using non-self-report, non-laboratory behavior as the dependent measure. We assigned 1332 students in four large philosophy classes to either an experimental group on the ethics of eating meat or a control group on the ethics of charitable giving. Students in each group read a philosophy article on their assigned (...) topic and optionally viewed a related video, then met with teaching assistants for 50-minute group discussion sections. They expressed their opinions about meat ethics and charitable giving in a follow-up questionnaire (1032 respondents after exclusions). We obtained 13,642 food purchase receipts from campus restaurants for 495 of the students, before and after the intervention. Purchase of meat products declined in the experimental group (52% of purchases of at least $4.99 contained meat before the intervention, compared to 45% after) but remained the same in the control group (52% both before and after). Ethical opinion also differed, with 43% of students in the experimental group agreeing that eating the meat of factory farmed animals is unethical compared to 29% in the control group. We also attempted to measure food choice using vouchers, but voucher redemption rates were low and no effect was statistically detectable. It remains unclear what aspect of instruction influenced behavior. (shrink)

This study analyzed the behavioral characteristics of ICT users among postgraduate students leveraging the Latent Class Analysis (LCA). The study, anchored on the Planned Behavior Theory, followed the exploratory research design. It adopted the cluster random sampling technique in selecting 1,023 respondents from a population of 2,923 postgraduate students in four federal universities in South-South Nigeria. “Behavioural Characteristics and Job Creation Questionnaire (BCJCQ),” developed by the researchers, was used for data collection. Upon data collection and LCA analysis, the five-class solution (...) was accepted as the best-fitting model, based on statistical fit indicators (such as AIC, BIC, entropy, Gsq, and Chsq) and theoretical grounds. Consequently, five classes of behavioral ICT users were identified and named based on their item–response probability, conditional on class. The five classes were named Trendy, Outmoded, Pragmatic, Disciplined, and Social users of ICT, with their unique characteristics discussed. The study tested for job creation differences among the classes using a one-way ANOVA and found a significant difference. On average, pragmatic users of ICT created more jobs than social, disciplined, and outmoded users. Trendy users were, on average, the minor job-creating class of ICT users. The study compared the bivariate differences in job creation among the classes using the Tukey HSD test of multiple pairwise comparisons. Based on the results obtained, discussions were made with implications for further research in the evolving area of LCA. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the analysis of natural properties as convex subsets of a metric space in which the distances are degrees of dissimilarity is incompatible with both the definition of degree of dissimilarity as number of natural properties not in common and the definition of degree of dissimilarity as proportion of natural properties not in common, since in combination with either of these definitions it entails that every property is a natural property, which is absurd. I suggest (...) it follows that we should think of the convex class analysis of natural properties as a variety of resemblance nominalism. (shrink)

The CMI Millennium “P vs NP Problem” can be resolved e.g. if one shows at least one counterexample to the "P = NP" conjecture. A certain class of problems being such counterexamples will be formulated. This implies the rejection of the hypothesis that "P = NP" for any conditions satisfying the formulation of the problem. Thus, the solution "P is different from NP" of the problem in general is proved. The class of counterexamples can be interpreted as any quantum superposition (...) of any finite set of quantum states. The Kochen-Specker theorem is involved. Any fundamentally random choice among a finite set of alternatives belong to "NP" but not to "P". The conjecture that the set complement of "P" to "NP" can be described by that kind of choice exhaustively is formulated. (shrink)

In his paper "Why a Class Can't Change Its Members," Richard Sharvy appears to establish the impossibility of the existence of a variable class—that is, a class that at one time has a member that is not a member of it at another time. I first indicate the importance of Sharvy's argument for our understanding of the concept of identity in the contexts of time and modality, and I summarize his argument. Sharvy says that a class C that has one (...) (non-variable) group of members at t2 and another (nonvariable) group of members at t2 would be identical with both the class C1 that always has the first group as members and the class C2 that always has the second group as members. This is an impossibility, since in general, one thing cannot be identical with two.I then criticize Sharvy's argument by pointing out a weakness in the defense of the claim that C = C1 and C = C2. This weakness is due to an ambiguity in Sharvy's Principle of Extensionality. (shrink)

Progressive stacking is a strategy for prioritizing in-class contributions that allows marginalized students to speak before non-marginalized students. I argue that this strategy is both pedagogically and ethically defensible. Pedagogically, it provides benefits to all students (e.g., expanded in-class discourse) while providing special benefits (e.g., increased self-efficacy) to marginalized students, helping to address historic educational inequalities. Ethically, I argue that neither marginalized nor non-marginalized students are wronged by such a policy. First, I present a strategy for self-disclosure that reduces the (...) risk of inadvertent, unwanted disclosure while respecting marginalized student autonomy in a manner analogous to accommodations provided under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Second, I argue that non-marginalized students are not wronged because such students are not silenced during discussion and because non-marginalized students benefit from the prioritization of marginalized voices. (shrink)

The present book, “Rights of Depressed Classes: A Constitutional Approach “is the fourth e-book of the Centre which includes the essence of the occasional papers presented in several seminars. Human Rights is one of the majors subjects for discussion in academics as well as in social sector and has an international approach to social issues and problems. The struggle to promote, protect and preserve human rights changes and holds continuity in every generation in our society. The concept and practice (...) of human rights is the hallmark of any modern society. Marginalized Groups of India includes SCs/STs, Women and Children etc. The Constitution of India provides equal rights to all its citizens’ right to live with equality, honour and dignity. But the caste system and untouchability somehow and others are still playing negative roles from different parts of the society. Talhan, Meham, Dulina, Gohana, Saalwan, Chakwada, Khairlanji, Khandamal and Mirchpur are some of the recent instances of atrocities against Dalits in India. Atrocities against Dalits thus continue to exist even today, despite constitutional safeguards, and various legislative measures. Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desires actions and outcomes. (shrink)

Appearing for the first time in English, Art and the Working Class is the work of Alexander Bogdanov, a revolutionary polymath and co-founder, with Vladimir Lenin, of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Bogdanov was a strong proponent of the arts, co-founding the Proletarian Culture (Proletkult) organization to provide political and artistic education to workers. In this book, Bogdanov discusses the origins of art, its class characteristics, and how it might be created within a revolutionary socialist (...) context. (shrink)

In the summer of 2016, the University of Dallas and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México organized a conference to discuss the topic of the middle class and its continued decline—recognizing that, despite some historical, political and cultural differences, healthy democracies throughout the hemisphere depend upon a strong and prosperous middle class. This volume brings together contributions by nine scholars from both institutions. The chapters reflect diverse disciplinary perspectives that are historical, political, economic, anthropological, and philosophical. Despite this diversity, the (...) volume possesses a conceptual unity that stems from its foundation in Aristotle’s approach to the middle class. On this basis, the topic is given a rigorous study that is both theoretical and data-driven. The chapters include treatments of Aristotle, Montesquieu, Adam Smith and Sir James Steuart, Catholic social teaching, the problem of inequality in the US, the definition and measurement of the middle class in Mexico, as well as its values and political attitudes, the rise of middle-class politics in early-twentieth-century Latin America, and a comparative analysis of healthcare for the middle class in North America. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that more is true in a work of fiction than explicitly said. In addition to directly stipulated fictional content (explicit truth), inference and background assumptions give us implicit truths. However, this taxonomy of fictional truths overlooks an important class of fictional truth: those generated by literary formal features. Fictional works generate fictional content by both semantic and formal means, and content arising from formal features such as italics or font size are neither explicit nor implicit: not (...) explicit since formal features don’t say anything; and not implicit since content generated from formal features doesn’t rely on other truths or background assumptions. In addition to showing that our current classification is incomplete, the new class of fictional truths provides four further upshots for definitions of fictional truth, story and work identity conditions, and the relationship between literary interpretation and fictional truth. (shrink)

The post-Marxist stance against class politics unearths significant political demands often neglected by Marxism. However, in Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s approach, this step forward is followed by two steps back. They deny that class struggle against capitalist exploitation has any political significance for the masses or any essential link with the socialist-democratic project. But they do so at the cost of misrepresenting Marxian theory and underestimating the global phenomenon of labour exploitation. This faux pas is due to two misconceptions (...) at the core of the Laclau-Mouffean critique: an ambiguity in the use they make of the economic concept of surplus, and an incorrect identification of working-class and productive workers. With Laclau and Mouffe, I share the firm conviction in the necessity of a post-Marxian theory. Nevertheless, post-Marxism will be just as robust as our Marxist bedrocks. (shrink)

This essay is a critical notice of David Dyzenhaus's book, The Long Arc of Legality. I argue that Dyzenhaus’s criterion for distinguishing legal pathologies that undermine law's contractarian claim to legitimacy and political pathologies that do not is unsustainable. It relies on a categorical distinction between the threat to law's legitimacy posed by treating some subjects as de jure second-class citizens, whose formal legal status is compromised, and other threats to political legitimacy grounded in the treatment of some subjects as (...) de facto second-class citizens, who retain full formal legal equality but suffer from thoroughgoing substantive subordination. But some forms of de facto second-class citizenship are a greater threat to contractarian legitimacy than some forms of full formal equality. So formal equality for subjects and legal legitimacy come apart. I consider and respond to several responses on Dyzenhaus's behalf, and conclude by proposing a version of his jurisprudential theory that relaxes this distinction. (shrink)

In the human sciences, experimental research is used to establish causal relationships. However, the extrapolation of these results to the target population can be problematic. To facilitate extrapolation, we propose to use the statistical technique Latent Class Regression Analysis in combination with the analogical reasoning theory for extrapolation. This statistical technique can identify latent classes that differ in the effect of X on Y. In order to extrapolate by means of analogical reasoning, one can characterize the latent classes (...) by a combination of features, and then compare these features to features of the target. (shrink)

The naive theory of properties states that for every condition there is a property instantiated by exactly the things which satisfy that condition. The naive theory of properties is inconsistent in classical logic, but there are many ways to obtain consistent naive theories of properties in nonclassical logics. The naive theory of classes adds to the naive theory of properties an extensionality rule or axiom, which states roughly that if two classes have exactly the same members, they are (...) identical. In this paper we examine the prospects for obtaining a satisfactory naive theory of classes. We start from a result by Ross Brady, which demonstrates the consistency of something resembling a naive theory of classes. We generalize Brady’s result somewhat and extend it to a recent system developed by Andrew Bacon. All of the theories we prove consistent contain an extensionality rule or axiom. But we argue that given the background logics, the relevant extensionality principles are too weak. For example, in some of these theories, there are universal classes which are not declared coextensive. We elucidate some very modest demands on extensionality, designed to rule out this kind of pathology. But we close by proving that even these modest demands cannot be jointly satisfied. In light of this new impossibility result, the prospects for a naive theory of classes are bleak. (shrink)

Glassen distinguishes various categories of moral terms that are nowadays often confused, conflated, or neglected.

In attempting to form rational personal probabilities by direct inference, it is usually assumed that one should prefer frequency information concerning more specific reference classes. While the preceding assumption is intuitively plausible, little energy has been expended in explaining why it should be accepted. In the present article, I address this omission by showing that, among the principled policies that may be used in setting one’s personal probabilities, the policy of making direct inferences with a preference for frequency information (...) for more specific reference classes yields personal probabilities whose accuracy is optimal, according to all proper scoring rules, in situations where all of the relevant frequency information is point-valued. Assuming that frequency information for narrower reference classes is preferred, when the relevant frequency statements are point-valued, a dilemma arises when choosing whether to make a direct inference based upon relatively precise-valued frequency information for a broad reference class, R, or upon relatively imprecise-valued frequency information for a more specific reference class, R*. I address such cases, by showing that it is often possible to make a precise-valued frequency judgment regarding R* based on precise-valued frequency information for R, using standard principles of direct inference. Having made such a frequency judgment, the dilemma of choosing between and is removed, and one may proceed by using the precise-valued frequency estimate for the more specific reference class as a premise for direct inference. (shrink)

(NOTE: This is a transcript of the class. FOR THE FULL PAPER please click on "Maxson J McDowell" above.) An edited transcript of an experiment performed within a class on dream interpretation. Knowing only the dreamer’s age and gender, we interpreted his dream from its text. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer's psychological issues, and about his defenses. It also identified a series of jokes within the dream which would tend to penetrate the dreamer's defenses. When we had finished (...) our 'blind' interpretation, the bringer of the dream gave us more information about the dreamer against which we tested the accuracy of our predictions. A paper on this experiment has been submitted for publication. (shrink)

This essay aims at clarifying the concept of «multitude» through a comparison between Negri’s work and some of the critiques addressed to his thought. In the first part of the paper, I will consider the relationship between multitude and the individual, in order to confute those who think that the category of «multitude» is a liberal one. Then, I will analyze the connection between the multitude and class-working class, so as to highlight that in Negri’s theory there is not an (...) opposition between those categories. Finally, the last paragraph will examine the forms of the «multitudinarian class struggle» and the hiatus existing between will and potentiality of the multitude related to the issue, still not resolved, of its organization. That is, the long-standing issue of the relationship between theory and «practice» of the multitude. (shrink)

(NOTE: This is a transcript of the class. FOR THE FULL PAPER, please click on "Maxson J. McDowell".) A complete transcript of an experiment performed within a class on dream interpretation. Knowing only the dreamers age and gender, we interpreted his dream from its text. Our interpretation included predictions about the dreamer's psychological issues, and about his defenses. It also identified a series of jokes within the dream which would tend to penetrate the dreamer's defenses. When we had finished our (...) 'blind' interpretation, the bringer of the dream gave us more information about the dreamer against which we tested the accuracy of our predictions. A paper on this experiment has been submitted for publication. A link to an AUDIO-RECORDING of this class is given on the first page of this transcript. (shrink)

Anarchist philosophy has often played and continues to play a crucial role in interventions in working-class and labor movements. Anarchist philosophy influenced real-world struggles and touched the lives of real, flesh-and-blood workers, especially those belonging to the industrial, immigrant working classes of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. Too often the writings, which were disseminated to, and hungrily consumed by, these workers are dismissed as “propaganda.” However, insofar as they articulate and define political, economic, and social concepts; subject political, (...) economic, and social institutions to trenchant critique against clear and well-defined normative standards; offer logical justifications of their own positions; and advance positive alternative proposals, why should these writings not be regarded as philosophical texts and analyzed accordingly? Obviously they should, and the fact that they have been so long ignored by political philosophers, historians, and other scholars reflects academic prejudice rather than the intellectual and philosophical merit of the writings. This article is a preliminary step toward giving anarchist philosophy the hearing it so richly deserves. (shrink)

Reaction-diffusion systems which have reaction term satisfying f(-q) = -f(q) tend strongly to form striped patterns. Haken’s slaving principle is used to derive differential equations for unstable mode amplitudes close to the Turing instability. This connects a dynamical symmetry to pattern selection, with possible relevance to biological and chemical pattern-forming phenomena.

The author reviews the planned withdrawal of healthcare from the primary public hospital, Grady Memorial Hospital, of Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, at least half of the patients had no public or private health insurance and their care was financially supported by State and County funding as well as supplementation from Emory University. New administration in the elected positions of the State and County and at the University reached agreement to decrease care. The (...) University President stated that the Hippocratic Oath was no longer valid for salaried physicians who must follow the direction of their business manager. The author, a tenured Professor, was forcibly transferred to the Veterans Hospital, which also was withholding standard medical care, including life-saving medications. Organizing multiple concerned organizations including members of the King Center, the Carter Center, the Open Door Community Center, Gay Rights, etc., (Grady Coalition) multiple public protests were successful in raising the necessary funds to continue adequate care at Grady and begin an investigation of the Veterans Affairs Hospital. (shrink)

The family poses problems for liberal understandings of social justice, because of the ways in which it bestows unearned privileges. This is particularly stark when we consider inter-generational inequality, or ‘class fate’ – the ways in which inequality is transmitted from one generation to the next, with the family unit ostensibly a key conduit. There is a recognized tension between the assumption that families should as far as possible be autonomous spheres of decision-making, and the assumption that we should as (...) far as possible equalize the life chances of all children, regardless of background. In this article I address this tension by way of recent liberal egalitarian literature, and consideration of the different dimensions of class fate. I argue, firstly, that the tension may not be of the a priori nature which liberals have tended to identify – and secondly, that as well as distributive and recognition-based aspects, the notion of contributive justice provides a particularly illuminating way of analyzing what is wrong about class fate, and the role of the family in promoting it. (shrink)

Certain commentators on Russell's “no class” theory, in which apparent reference to classes or sets is eliminated using higher-order quantification, including W. V. Quine and (recently) Scott Soames, have doubted its success, noting the obscurity of Russell’s understanding of so-called “propositional functions”. These critics allege that realist readings of propositional functions fail to avoid commitment to classes or sets (or something equally problematic), and that nominalist readings fail to meet the demands placed on classes by mathematics. I (...) show that Russell did thoroughly explore these issues, and had good reasons for rejecting accounts of propositional functions as extra-linguistic entities. I argue in favor of a reading taking propositional functions to be nothing over and above open formulas which addresses many such worries, and in particular, does not interpret Russell as reducing classes to language. (shrink)

Teachers in managing their class has always something to recount about their positive and negative experiences that usually occurred in the classroom. These positive and negative experiences affected the holistic disposition of teachers thus, in every small group discussion – both formal and informal, their predicaments regarding their experiences on class management were the primary topic. For the teacher's experiences to be explored and understood this study focused primarily on their experiences in managing class. For this reason, this hermeneutic phenomenological (...) qualitative study focuses on the experiences of the teachers and reflects upon the lived experiences of teachers in class management. This study utilized criterion sampling where ten participants were selected from the teachers of Grade 7 to Grade 10. Data were collected by means of Structured Interviews, and Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis was used to analyze the data. The results of the study show that teachers have been subjected to a number of problems, which result in them losing their patience, especially with students' behavior However, teachers recognized their role in the classroom and provided insightful strategies for combatting the problematic behavior of the students. Considering the management strategy and the personality of the teacher, they were able to realize that even if teaching is a tedious and arduous profession, teachers were still grateful because of the inspiration imparted, happy memories collected, and self-development gained from a fruitful experience in class management. Therefore, teachers whose roles and responsibilities are not limited only to the four walls of the classrooms but it goes beyond their jurisdiction must be given appropriate recognition and compensation. (shrink)