As a response to the opioid epidemic in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in 2016. This document served as a means to reduce risks and address harms of opioid use by recommending that clinicians conduct periodic urine drug testing for patients on chronic opioid therapy. As an unintended result of this recommendation, providers began using unexpected urine drug test results as a reason (...) to dismiss patients from practice, both out of concern for their patients’ wellbeing as well as their own legal risks. Using Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology, we argue that this science-based, black-and-white practice does not heed the patient as a whole person. Instead, we recommend a more contextual, patient-centered approach that can help us to better understand and manage patient needs in such contexts. (shrink)

SSC Result 2017 is the most awaiting result for Bangladeshi high school students. All education Board together publish thiere result.

I reconstruct Adam Smith’s theory of irony and its application. I illustrate how he defines it as a combination of something “grand” with something “mean” and how this is consistent with his anti-Cartesian and post-skeptic epistemology. I suggest that, for Smith, “systems” of any kind, from Cartesian physics to philosophical monotheism, Stoic ethics, and the “mercantile system” draw their apparent plausibility from some disease of human imagination. I argue that in every field, including political economy, in his view, the philosopher’s (...) task is partially sceptical and partially ironical. That is, it is the task to fight erroneous systems by showing how these arise from unwarranted associations of ideas between apparently “grand” ideas —say, the public interest— with “mean” ones, say, the merchants’ self-interest. In this light, the phrase “invisible hand” turns out to be both an ironic joke and one more application of Smith’s post-skeptical theory of knowledge whose target is dismantling all kind of “invisible” entities that human imagination tends to create. (shrink)

Introduction. The book is a study in Adam Smith's system of ideas; its aim is to reconstruct the peculiar framework that Adam Smith’s work provided for the shaping of a semi-autonomous new discipline, political economy; the approach adopted lies somewhere in-between the history of ideas and the history of economic analysis. My two claims are: i) The Wealth of Nations has a twofold structure, including a `natural history' of opulence and an `imaginary machine' of wealth. The imaginary machine is a (...) kind of Newtonian theory, whose connecting links are principles; provided either by `partial' characteristics of human nature or by analoga of physical mechanisms transferred to the social world; ii) a domain of the economic, understood as a self-standing social sub-system, was discovered first by Adam Smith. His `discovery' of the new continent of the economic was an `unintended result' of a deviation in his voyage to the never-found archipelago of natural jurisprudence. -/- 1. Imaginary machines and invisible chains: natural philosophy and method. The first chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in natural philosophy, presented primarily in the History of Astronomy (HA). The peculiar kind of semi-sceptical Newtonianism which permeates the essay is highlighted. Its reconstruction of the history of one natural science is shown to be based on the assumptions of Hume’s epistemology, and to lead to a self-aware deadlock. Smith's dilemma is between an essentialist realism and sceptical instrumentalism; the Cartesian presuppositions he shares with Hume and with the 18th century as a whole make it impossible for him to overcome his dilemma. The following chapters will show how, on the one hand, Smith's skeptical methodology encourages him in the enterprise to `carve off' a new self-contained discipline and how, on the other hand, his epistemological dilemma is reflected in the inner tensions of his moral and political theory as well as in a number of basic oscillations concerning the status of the new discipline. -/- 2. Chessboards and clocks: moral philosophy and method. -/- The second chapter reconstructs Smith's views on the method in the parallel field of moral philosophy, including the theory of moral sentiments and natural jurisprudence. I argue that The Theory of Moral Sentiments, when considered together with with the Lectures on Jurisprudence, where Smith's peculiar version of a `weaker' form of natural law is presented, wins special interest, not only for the history of ethics but even more for the history of political theory and the social sciences. The two most striking features of Smith's work in this area are highlighted. First, his effort at reformulating the `practical science' is a methodologically self-aware attempt at applying the Newtonian method to moral subjects. Secondly, this attempt ends in a stalemate as two distinguished kinds of normative order are introduced: one ultimate order of Reason, ultimately justifiable but inaccessible, and one weaker order of our `natural sentiments', to which we have empirical access, but which is so variable as to lack any ultimate value as a basis for grounding our normative claims. These two parallel conundrums may arguably account for the author's inability to publish during his lifetime both The History of Astronomy and the projected history and theory of law and government. -/- 3. Wheels, dams, and gravitation: the structure of scientific argument in The Wealth of Nations. -/- The third chapter provides the core of the book, dealing with the structure of the argument in WN. I argue that the main presupposition that makes the shift possible from a `natural history' to a `system' approach is the Newtonian contrast of `mathematical' with `physical' explanation; that is, Smith drops any discussion of the "original qualities" of human nature that could account for economic behaviour, while introducing, as `principles' for the system, a set of `hypothetical' statements of `observed' regularities in human behaviour and of `observed' super-individual self-regulating mechanisms. In bringing this presupposition to light, the coexistence of a teleological with a mechanistic approach is clarified; fresh light is shed on the notion of the invisible hand by a comparison of its occurrence in Smith with the occurrence of the same expression (until now overlooked) in the correspondence between Newton and Cotes. Finally, the peculiar semi-prescriptive and semi-descriptive character of political economy are highlighted, and the consistency of Smith's `impure' semi-prescriptive social science, when understood in his own terms, is defended against familiar charges with inconsistency and against even more familiar strained modernizations. -/- 4. Apples, deer, and frivolous trinkets: the construction of the economic. -/- The fourth chapter draws consequences from the third, examining how Smith's achievement in political economy, marking its transition to scientific status, carried a re-description of the phenomena, creating the comparatively independent and unified field of the economic. Smith's achievement is interpreted not as the `discovery' of an autonomous character already possessed by the economy out there, so much as a Gestalt-switch by which our perception of social phenomena is modified making us `see' the partial order of the economy as an isolated system. To sum up, the autonomy of the economic in social reality and the autonomy of the economic in social consciousness are shown to be two sides of one process. -/- 5. Concluding considerations: Political economy and the Enlightenment halved. -/- A few suggestions on the status of economic theory two centuries after The Wealth of Nations in its relationship to ‘practical philosophy’ are illustrated. (shrink)

We examine the most famous controversy between economists as a means of shedding fresh light on the current debate about economic methodology. By focusing on the controversy as the primary unit of analysis, we show how methodological considerations are but one of a whole set of stratagems strategically employed by each opponent. We argue that each opponent's preference for a particular kind of stratagems expresses his own specific scientific style (within the general scientific and cultural style of an age). We (...) also describe a dynamic dimension of the controversy, independent of the participants' intentions. Such a dimension is analysed in a "cycle" of the controversy, which begins with a well-defined issue and expands to additional topics, without reaching a "solution" to the initial issue. The definition and re-definition of the issue(s) at stake and of the difference between both participants is an essential and recurrent feature of such cycles; the conclusion of a cycle does not imply a real "closure" of the controversy, but only that each opponent has reached a satisfying degree of self-clarification. The controversy, thus, does not yield persuasion -- its ostensible aim. Rather, its "benefit" seems to lie in an unintended result -- clarification and deepening of contrasting approaches to the discipline -- due to its peculiar dynamics. In so far as the history of a discipline requires a reconstruction of such contrasts, it is indispensable for it to take into account the controversies where they emerge, and to view both the positive doctrines and the methodological posture of the contenders as parts of a wider framework, that is a scientific style. (shrink)

The chapter reconstructs the developments of a basic idea, namely the physical-moral analogy, in the works of the Scottish Enlighteners. The opposition of a 'Newtonian' to a 'Cartesian' approach yields the program of an 'experimental' moral science. This program, in turn, was never implemented but yielded nonetheless an unintended result the shaping of political economy as an empirical science, distinguished to a point from moral philosophy and theology.

Upon Brexit & Trade War, the research took a supply-side analysis in macroeconomic paradigm for the purpose and cause of the actions. In the geopolitical competitions on crude oil resources between the allied powers & the Russian hegemony, the latter of which has effective control over P. R. China’s multilateral behaviors, the external research induced that trade war, either by complete information in intelligence or an unintended result, was a supply chain attack in prohibiting the antisatellite weapon supplies in (...) the Northern regions of mainland China in relation to Russia. Although no substantive change to international relations, the Trade War’s prohibitive effect on the high frequency trading in the monetary domain of CNY was observed, which had been the source of economic bubbles in the import-export control regime with centralized banking. The paper argues that by realism in economy & military strategy, trade war was ineffective in deterring the covert operations of the People’s Liberation Army by their territorial strategies and raises questions in humanitarianism in conflict situations. Moreover, with gross privacy breaches by mass surveillance in domain politics, totalitarianism with coercions, and counterfeit of drone strikes, traditional methods of threat elimination are rendered less pragmatic apart from the adversaries’ cyber security breaches. With the scientific approach, I offer an ecological paradigm with historic analysis of the Chinese military’s conducts in terms economics. The territorial methods of the PLA are contextualized into the ecological paradigm in regionalism & public administration. Electronic combats of the Chinese regime with the Great Firewall and Denial-of-Service attacks not only contribute to the diminishing natural freedoms of the population, but also transgress the fundamental right to health along with non-traditional nuclear threats to P.R.C. itself. (shrink)

The original scheme for compensating victims of crime was introduced as an entitlement, and later codified into law so as to establish a legal right. The result has been the opposite: qualification for compensation has been made so conditional, that a right enjoyed by victims has been made into a narrowly drawn entitlement. The following describes the prior scheme, the current statutory scheme, surveys unintended and quantitative effects the change have caused, and discusses how changes to the scheme have, (...) in effect, changed a right into an entitlement. (shrink)

Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of social practices that create obstacles for social change. This social practice view of oppression enables two insights: First, that there is an unproblematic sense in which (...) groups can bear irreducible collective responsibility for oppression. Second, that there are derived forms of individual responsibility for members of dominant groups. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue that it is a moral obligation for companies, firstly, to accept their moral responsibility with respect to non-discrimination, and secondly, to address the issue with a full-fledged programme, including but not limited to the countering of microsocial discrimination processes through specific policies. On the basis of a broad sketch of how some discrimination mechanisms are actually influencing decisions, that is, causing intended as well as unintended bias in Human Resources Management, I will argue (...) that the well known tools of legislation and ethical codes are necessary although insufficient to cope with the problem. However, based on empirical evidence, we know which set of measures is likely to diminish discrimination. Taking non-discrimination seriously implies complex and longitudinal policies which include assigning responsibility for a non-discrimination policy within the firm, making managers conscious of implicit stereotypes and helping them to cope with prejudices that no one can totally overcome. Insofar as corporate responsibility with respect to non-discrimination is accepted and strategies that are not prohibitively expensive are known, companies are bound to implement them. Not implementing the best set of measures may be considered at least as a moral shortcoming or, depending on the size of the company, mere lip service to the non-discrimination principle. Although the paper refers to empirical material of diverse backgrounds, its intent is clearly normative. It wishes to spell out what companies ought to do if they are committed to responsible behaviour. The discussion of effective remedies against discrimination is based on a case study of a French company. The retailer Auchan was recently surprised to learn that it was discriminating against ethnic minorities despite strong ethical standards, an ethics committee and ethical leadership. The company dropped its naïve beliefs and set up an ambitious policy cope with the issue. The case illustrates what recent empirical research has revealed about the effectiveness of diversity policies: establishing responsibility for diversity results, firm ethical commitment and support from top management make diversity programs effective. (shrink)

Thirty years after the rise of the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement, formal training in philosophy remains poorly represented among medical students and their educators. In this paper, I argue that EBM’s reception in this context has resulted in a privileging of empiricism over rationalism in clinical reasoning with unintended consequences for medical practice. After a limited review of the history of medical epistemology, I argue that a solution to this problem can be found in the method of the 2nd-century (...) Roman physician Galen, who brought empiricism and rationalism together in a synthesis anticipating the scientific method. Next, I review several of the problems that have been identified as resulting from a staunch commitment to empiricism in medical practice. Finally, I conclude that greater epistemological awareness in the medical community would precipitate a Galenic shift toward a more epistemically balanced, scientific approach to clinical research. (shrink)

Does it matter that almost all juries in England and Wales are all-White? Does it matter even if this result is the unintended and undesired result of otherwise acceptable ways of choosing juries? Finally, does it matter that almost all juries are all-White if this has no adverse effect on the treatment of non-White defendants and victims of crime? According to Cheryl Thomas, there is no injustice in a system of jury selection which predictably results in juries with (...) no minority members so long as this result is not deliberate, and does not adversely affect the treatment of minority defendants and victims of crime. My view is different. In and of itself, I believe, something is wrong with a system of jury selection that predictably results in all-White juries in a diverse society, such as our own. Absent reason to believe that we lack a better alternative to current modes of jury selection, a commitment to democratic government and to the equality of citizens – or so I will argue – condemns existing arrangements as unjust, whether or not they have adverse effects on jury decisions, or on the ways in which our society approaches issues of race and crime. (shrink)

In this article, responding to assertions that the principle of double effect has no place in legal analysis, I explore the overlap between double effect and negligence analysis. In both, questions of culpability arise in situations where a person acts with no intent to cause harm but where reasonable foreseeability of unintended harm exists. Under both analyses, the determination of whether such conduct is permissible involves a reasonability test that balances that foreseeable harm against the good intended by the (...) actor's conduct. In both, absent a finding that the foreseeable harm is unreasonable in light of that intended good, no liability will be imposed upon the actor. Even conceding, however, such general similarity between double effect and negligence analysis - disagreement over the proper interpretation of the reasonability criterion at play in negligence poses an additional challenge for the attempt to correlate negligence with double effect. Economic efficiency interpretations of negligence, for example, purportedly based on the Learned Hand Formula and the RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF THE LAW OF TORTS, propose that culpability depends upon a utilitarian balancing of good effects of conduct (utility) versus its harmful foreseeable consequences (magnitude of risk of injury). Based on such an interpretation of negligence, however, contrasts between actors' states of mind, and normative differences between kinds of goods and harms, ultimately fade into the background and become irrelevant as essential conditions for properly assessing liability. This article elaborates and defends the view that double effect analysis lies at the heart of negligence theory. Part I elucidates in more detail the principle of double effect and describes its prima facie operation in negligence analysis. Part II considers and rejects the economic efficiency interpretation that has been offered as a theory of negligence, overcoming the challenge that such an interpretation presents for the effort to locate double effect analysis in the law. Part III illustrates and confirms the overlap between double effect and negligence by consideration of a series of case applications. The Article proposes that the weighing of conflicting values in double effect analysis and negligence is not achieved - as proposed by law and economics theory with respect to negligence - by imposing a consequentialist-utilitarian reduction of all value to a single concept of good and eliminating the relevance of traditional state of mind distinctions between intention and foreseeability. Instead, each mode of analysis recognizes that distinct culpability determinations flow naturally and plausibly from an appreciation of the traditional legal distinctions made between various types of goods and harms, and upon whether such goods and harms come about as result of an actor's intention or mere foreseeability. Keywords: Double effect, negligence, intention, foreseeability, choice, law and economics, utilitarianism, consequentialism, weighing of values. (shrink)

● Sergio Cremaschi, The non-existing Island. I discuss the way in which the cleavage between the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophies originated, the (self-)images of both philosophical worlds, the converging rediscoveries from the Seventies, as well as recent ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. I argue that pragmatism provides an important counter-instance to both the familiar self-images and to the fashionable ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. My conclusions are: (i) the only place where Continental philosophy exists (as Euro-Communism one decade ago) is America; (...) (ii) less obviously, also analytic philosophy does not exist, or does no more exist as a current or a paradigm; what does exist is, on the one hand, philosophy of language and, on the other, philosophy of mind, that is, two disciplines; (iii) the dissolution of analytic philosophy as a school has been extremely fruitful, precisely in so far as it has left room for disciplines and research programmes; (iv) what is left, of the Anglo-American/Continental cleavage is primarily differences in styles, depending partly on intellectual traditions, partly owing to sociology, history, institutional frameworks; these differences should not be blurred by rash ecumenism; besides, theoretical differences are alive as ever, but within both camps; finally, there is indeed a lag (not a difference) in the appropriation of intellectual techniques by most schools of 'Continental' philosophy, and this should be overcome through appropriation of what the best 'analytic' philosophers have produced. ● Michael Strauss, Language and sense-perception: an aspect of analytic philosophy. To test an assertion about one fact by comparing it with perceived reality seems quite unproblematic. But the very possibility of such a procedure is incompatible with the intellectualistic basis of logical positivism and atomism (as it is for example to be found in Russell's Analysis of Mind). According to the intellectualistic approach pure sensation is meaningless. Sensation receives its meaning and order from the intellect through interpretation, which is performed with the help of linguistic tools, i.e. words and sentences. Before being interpreted, sensation is not a picture or a representation, it is neither true nor false, neither an illusion nor knowledge; it does not tell us anything; it is a lifeless and order-less matter. But how can a thought (or a proposition) be compared with such a lifeless matter? This difficulty confronts the intellectualist, if on the one hand he admits the necessity of comparing thought with sense-perception, and on the other hand presupposes that we possess only intellectual and no immediate perceptual understanding of what we see and hear. In this paper I give a critical exposition of three attempts, made by Russell, Neurath and Wittgenstein, to solve this problem. The first attempt adheres to strict conventionalism, the second tends to naturalism and the third leads to an amended, very moderate version of conventionalism. This amended conventionalism looks at sense impressions as being a peculiar language, which includes primary symbols, i.e. symbols not founded on convention and not being in need of interpretation. ● Ernst Tugendhat, Phenomenology and language analysis. The paper, first published in German in 1970, by which Tugendhat gave a start to the German rediscovery of analytic philosophy. The author stages a confrontation between phenomenology and language analysis. He argues that language analysis does not differ from phenomenology as far as the topics dealt with are concerned; instead, both currents are quite different in method. The author argues that language-analytic philosophy does not simply lay out of the mainstream of transcendental philosophy, but that instead it challenges this tradition on the very level of foundations. The author criticizes the linguistic-analytic approach centred on the subject as well as any object-centred approach, while proposing inter-subjective understanding through language as the new universal framework. This is, when construed in so general terms, the same program of hermeneutics, though in a more basic version. ● Jürgen Habermas, Language game, intention and meaning. On a few suggestions by Sellars and Wittgenstein. The paper, first published in German in 1975, in which Habermas announces his own linguistic turn through a discovery of speech acts. In this essay the author wants to work out a categorical framework for a communicative theory of society; he takes Wittgenstein's concept of language game as a Leitfade and, besides, he takes advantage also of Wilfried Sellars's quasi-transcendental account of the genesis of intentionality. His goal is to single out the problems connected with a theory of consciousness oriented in a logical-linguistic sense. ● Zvie Bar-On, Isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. This essay presents the problem of the formal relationship between speech acts and intentional states as an essential part of the perennial philosophical question of the relation between language and thought. I attempt to show how this problem had been dealt with by two prominent philosophers of different camps in our century, Edmund Husserl and John Searle. Both of them wrote extensively about the theory of intentionality. I point out an interesting, as it were unintended, continuity of their work on that theory. Searle started where Husserl left off 80 years earlier. Their meeting point could be used as the first clue in our search. They both adopted in effect the same distinction between two basic aspects of the intentional experience: its content or matter, and its quality or mode. Husserl did not yet have the concept of a speech act as contradistinguished from an intentional state. The working hypothesis, however, which he suggested, could be used as a second clue for the further elaboration of the theory. The relationship of the two levels, the mental and the linguistic, which remained for Husserl in the background only, became the cornerstone of Searle' s inquiry. He employed the speech act as the model and analysed the intentional experience by means of the conceptual apparatus of his own theory of speech acts. This procedure enabled him to mark out a number of parallelisms and correlations between the two levels. This procedure explains the phenomenon of the partial isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. ● Roberta de Monticelli, Ontology. A dialogue among the linguistic philosopher, the naturalist, and the phenomenological philosopher. This paper proposes a comparison between two main ways of conceiving the role and scope of that fundamental part of philosophy (or of "first" philosophy) which is traditionally called "ontology". One way, originated within the analytic tradition, consists of two main streams, namely philosophy of language and (contemporary) philosophy of mind, the former yielding "reduced ontology" and the latter "neo-Aristotelian ontology". The other way of conceiving ontology is exemplified by "phenomenological ontology" (more precisely, the Husserlian, not the Heideggerian version). Ontology as a theory of reference ("reduced" ontology, or ontology as depending on semantics) is presented and justified on the basis of some classical thesis of traditional philosophy of language (from Frege to Quine). "Reduced ontology" is shown to be identifiable with one level of a traditional, Aristotelian ontology, namely the one which corresponds to one of the four "senses of being" listed in Aristotle's Metaphysics: "being" as "being true". This identification is justified on the basis of Franz Brentano's "rules for translation" of the Aristotelian table of judgements in terms of (positive and negative) existential judgments such as are easily translatable into sentences of first order predicate logic. The second part of the paper is concerned with "neo-Aristotelian ontology", i.e. with naturalism and physicalism as the main ontological options underlying most of contemporary discussion in the philosophy of mind. The qualification of such options as "neo-Aristotelian" is justified; the relationships between "neo-Aristotelian ontology" and "reduced ontology" are discussed. In the third part the fundamental tenet of "phenomenological ontology" is identified by the thesis that a logical theory of existence and being does capture a sense of "existing" and "being" which, even though not the basic one, is grounded in the basic one. An attempt is done of further clarifying this "more basic" sense of "being". An argument making use of this supposedly "more basic" sense is advanced in favour of a "phenomenological ontology". ● Kuno Lorenz, Analytic Roots in Dialogic Constructivism. Both in the Vienna Circle ad in Russell's early philosophy the division of knowledge into two kinds (or two levels), perceptual and conceptual, plays a vital role. Constructivism in philosophy, in trying to provide a pragmatic foundation - a knowing-how - to perceptual as well as conceptual competences, discovered that this is dependent on semiotic tools. Therefore, the "principle of method" had to be amended by the "principle of dialogue". Analytic philosophy being an heir of classical empiricism, conceptually grasping the "given", and constructive philosophy being an heir of classical rationalism, perceptually providing the "constructed", merge into dialogical constructivism, a contemporary development of ideas derived especially from the works of Charles S. Peirce (his pragmatic maxim as a means of giving meaning to signs) and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (his language games as tools of comparison for understanding ways of life). 7. Albrecht Wellmer, "Autonomy of meaning" and "principle of charity" from the viewpoint of the pragmatics of language. In this essay I present an interpretation of the principle of the autonomy of meaning and of the principle of charity, the two main principles of Davidson's semantic view of truth, showing how both principles may fit in a perspective dictated by the pragmatics of language. I argue that (I) the principle of the autonomy of meaning may be thoroughly reformulated in terms of the pragmatics of language, (ii) the principle of charity needs a supplement in terms of pragmatics of language in order to become really enlightening as a principle of interpretation. Besides, I argue that: (i) on the one hand, the fundamental thesis of Habermas on the pragmatic theory of meaning ("we understand a speech act when we know what makes it admissible") is correlated with the seemingly intentionalist thesis according to which we understand a speech act when we know what a speaker means; (ii) on the other hand, to say that the meaning competence of a competent speaker is basically a competence about a potential of reasons (or also of possible justifications) which is inherently connected with the meaning of statements, or with their use in utterances. ● Rüdiger Bubner, The convergence of analytic and hermeneutic philosophy This paper argues that the analytic philosophy does not exist, at least as understood by its original programs. Differences in the analytic camp have always been bigger than they were believed to be. Now these differences are coming to the fore thanks to a process of dissolution of dogmatism. Philosophical analysis is led by its own inner logic towards questions that may be fairly qualified as hermeneutic. Recent developments in analytic philosophy, e.g. Davidson, seem to indicate a growing convergence of themes between philosophical analysis and hermeneutics; thus, the familiar opposition of Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy might soon belong to history. The fact of an ongoing appropriation of analytical techniques by present-day German philosophers may provide a basis for a powerful argument for the unity of philosophizing, beyond its strained images privileging one technique of thinking and rejecting the remainder. Actual philosophical practice should take the dialogue between the two camps more seriously; in fact, the processes described so far are no danger to philosophical work. They may be a danger for parochial approaches to philosophizing; indeed, contrary to what happens in the natural sciences, Thomas Kuhn's "normal science" developing within the framework of one fixed paradigm is not typical for philosophical thinking. And in philosophy innovating revolutions are symptoms more of vitality than of crisis. ● Karl-Otto Apel, The impact of analytic philosophy on my intellectual biography. In my paper I try to reconstruct the history of my Auseinandersetzung mit - as I called it - "language-analytical" philosophy (including even Peircean semiotics) since the late Fifties. The heuristics of my study was predetermined by two main motives of my beginnings: the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology and the transformation of "transcendental philosophy" in the light of the "language a priori". Thus, I took issue with the early and the later Wittgenstein, logical positivism, and post-Wittgensteinian and post-empiricist philosophy of science (i.e. G.H. von Wright and the renewal of the "explanation vs understanding controversy" as well as the debate between Th. Kuhn and Popper/Lakatos); besides, with speech act theory and the debate about "transcendental arguments" since Strawson. The "pragmatic turn", started already by C.L. Morris and the later Carnap, led me to study also the relationship between Wittgensteinian "use" theory of meaning and of truth. This resulted on my side in something like a program of "transcendental semiotics", i.e. "transcendental pragmatics" and "transcendental hermeneutics". ● Ben-Ami Scharfstein, A doubt on both their houses: the blindness to non-western philosophies. The burden of my criticism is that contemporary European philosophers of all kinds have continued to think as if there were no true philosophy but that of the West. For the most part, the existentialists have been oblivious of their Eastern congeners; the hermeneuticians have yet to stretch their horizons beyond the most familiar ones; and the analysts remain unaware of the analyses and linguistic sensitivities of the ancient non-European philosophers. Briefly, ignorance still blinds almost all contemporary Western philosophers to the rich, variegated philosophical traditions outside of their familiar orbit. Both Continental and Anglo-Americans have lost the breadth of view that once characterized such thinkers as Herder and the Humboldts. The blindness that has resulted is not simply that of individual Western philosophers but of our whole, still parochial philosophical culture. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defence of agent-regret and an exploration of its role in our lives. I argue that agent-regret shows that an agent takes seriously her status as an agent who impacts the world, but who only has fallible control over it. To accept responsibility for any outcomes, she must accept responsibility for unintended outcomes, too: agent-regret is part of being a human agent. In doing this, I try to defend and develop Williams’s own conception of agent-regret. -/- (...) In the first part, I explore the nature of agent-regret. Agent-regret is distinct from guilt because we can feel agent-regret without being at fault. I argue that several challenges that seek to reduce agent-regret to a form of guilt fail. I further argue that agent-regret takes as its object not only something one has done, but the fact that one did it; I discuss this in terms of what Bernard Williams called taking an “external” view on one’s own action. -/- I suggest that we can best understand the object of agent-regret as one’s responsibility for an outcome. I argue that this form of “responsibility” is conceptually separate from liability or answerability; it concerns whether the outcome can be ascribed to an agent. This is a restricted form of causal responsibility but retains its agential character. I suggest that we can be responsible for outcomes even when we did not intend to bring them about. -/- In the second part, I vindicate the propriety of agent-regret against the ideas that we are not responsible for unintended outcomes or that such responsibility is not important. I set out several challenges to this effect. I argue that we are responsible for unintended outcomes because in order to be responsible as agents at all, we must use fallible abilities. When we exercise these abilities but fail, we are responsible as agents for those unintended outcomes that arise. I then consider the importance of being responsible for particular unintended outcomes and analyse the idea that this affects our identities. I argue that responsibility for an outcome affects a form of identity, but that it does not involve essential features of a person. Instead, our responsibility for outcomes is a contingent feature that nonetheless plays an important role in our interpersonal interactions and self-conceptions. I argue that these reactions are appropriate, because our responsibility for particular outcomes is independently significant—but these reactions also lend this responsibility added significance as part of inescapable human practices. -/- Thus our responsibility for outcomes is important. Its importance means that it can serve as an appropriate object of agent-regret that vindicates the propriety of agent-regret. I end by considering several interesting features of agent-regret, including its expression and “pure” cases, which are cases where an agent feels agent-regret despite not regretting the result of her action. (shrink)

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) have been used, researched, and debated for many decades. It is a common practice in higher education institutions, with the supposed purpose of improving course quality and effectiveness, but with unintended consequences of encouraging and motivating poor teaching and causing grade inflation. There is strong evidence that SET “effectiveness” does not measure teaching effectiveness. This paper reviews empirical research examining common concerns about the usefulness (positive and negative) and accuracy of SETs. The findings reveal (...) that student satisfaction relates to their anticipated/expected grades in their courses; hence, they want to get good grades and their instructors want to get a good rating of SET, and this results in grade inflation. The key points are that SETs (1) allow students to speak their “mind”, (2) have no compelling correlation between quality of teaching and learning effectiveness, (3) reward easy, less demanding, and lazy teachers with a positive rating, (4) are biased against gender, attractiveness, ethnicity, race, etc., (5) are weaponized against “some” faculty members, and (6) are like asking convicts awaiting sentencing to evaluate the judge or jurors who convicted them. (shrink)

In this article I analyse one of the most important claims of the neoliberal policy prescriptions for Central and East European states in the early 1990s, that 'communist' property should be privatised. My claim is that this neoliberal policy prescription was based on a number of false assumptions about what it was 'communist' property, and a number of false assumptions about communist law. As a result of these assumptions, the post-communist process of privatisation was plagued by a host of (...) class='Hi'>unintended and negative consequences. Nevertheless, based on these false assumptions, the neoliberal ideology was capable to portray the privatisation as 'rights based' and essentially a democratic process. I debunk these pretenses by showing that the reality of 'communist property' was totally different than that assumed by neoliberal policies. The distinctiveness of communist arrangements of property resided not in absence of private property, which was tolerated under communism, but in the organisation of property as an administrative matter, based on unwritten operational rules. Moreover, the communist corporate law was more or less the similar with the 'western corporate' law, so a simple change of formal law would not lead to the transformation of communist property into private property. If a transformation was desired, what needed to be changed was the operational rules accordingly to which the communist property operated. However, this was a level of 'reform' totally ignored by the neoliberal policies, with the result that post privatisation these operational rules continued to apply. The result was the great enrichment of the former communist managers who were able to benefit 'privatisation' at the expense of the public, in a process which was not 'right based' or 'democratic.'. (shrink)

This study proposes a framework by which grammatically and syntactically sound sentences are classified through the perceptual measurement in noise of multilinguals and monolinguals, using an objective measure called SPERI and an interpretivist measure called SPIn, with results evaluated using Shortlist models and the BLINCS model. Hereby filling a knowledge gap on the perception of sentences that combine in varying levels of contextual meaning, linguistic load and cognitive load, this study used sentence clustering methods to find limitations of the (...) proposed framework in determining an absolute and accurate prediction of performance between sentences in the proposed different categories, with factors such as sentence predictability and word frequency taking precedence. There were unintended findings including a relationship between the number of languages spoken and performance, proficiency in other languages decreasing performance despite being an English Native, and how mistakes by multilinguals were more semantically and phonetically influenced than monolinguals. (shrink)

This special issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy focuses on unintended intrauterine death (UID) and preterm delivery (both phenomena that are commonly—and unhelpfully—referred to as “miscarriage,” “spontaneous abortion,” and “early pregnancy loss”). In this essay, I do two things. First, I outline contributors’ arguments. Most contributors directly respond to “inconsistency arguments,” which purport to show that abortion opponents are unjustified in their comparative treatment of abortion and UID. Contributors to this issue show that such arguments often rely (...) on a grossly oversimplified picture of abortion opponents’ views. Furthermore, contributions in this issue weigh in on issues regarding UID with theoretical import and therapeutic implication beyond the inconsistency argument debate. These papers can be mined for principles that better inform us about anembryonic pregnancies (i.e., nonviable pregnancies in which a gestational sac exists but no embryonic pole can be seen via transvaginal ultrasound), UID-prevention research, the law concerning UID (especially post-Dobbs), policies for handling embryonic remains, and moral psychology as it relates to UID, emotion, and empathy. In each case, conceptual philosophical analysis might bring about therapeutic benefits for those affected by UID. Philosophers, therefore, are in position not only to provide clarity—careful analysis and discussion of UID and related phenomena—but are also in position to genuinely help people affected by UID. (shrink)

Catholic sexual ethics proposes a number of exceptionless moral norms. This distinguishes it from theories which deny the possibility of any exceptionless moral norms (e.g. the proportionalist approach proposed in the aftermath of "Humanae Vitae" and condemned in "Veritatis Splendor"). I argue that Catholic teaching on sexual ethics refers to chosen physical structures in such a way as to make ‘new natural law’ theory inherently unstable. I outline a theory of “the moral act” (Veritatis Splendor 78) which emphasises the place (...) which chosen physical features – in particular, chosen sexual structures – play in specifying human actions. I conclude that this account, involving what I term UMDAs, is needed to make sense of the Church’s teaching in these areas. (shrink)

In this case discussion, Barnhill and Devine collect and present a significant amount of recent research on the various reasons why people struggle to succeed in weight loss programmes. Specifically, the authors focus on what they call ‘behavioural weight loss interventions’, which are ‘research, clinical or public health efforts to promote individual healthy eating and physical activity behaviours’. As defined, this is a very broad category of interventions and presumably includes all kinds of dieting and weight loss programmes or promotion (...) efforts short of private or independently chosen programmes. The authors argue, in a nutshell, that these clinical, research, and public health interventions have low efficacy, and while they may have some health or other benefits, the balance of evidence presented shows that they harm people in multiple ways. (shrink)

An old and well-known objection to non-classical logics is that they are too weak; in particular, they cannot prove a number of important mathematical results. A promising strategy to deal with this objection consists in proving so-called recapture results. Roughly, these results show that classical logic can be used in mathematics and other unproblematic contexts. However, the strategy faces some potential problems. First, typical recapture results are formulated in a purely logical language, and do not generalize (...) nicely to languages containing the kind of vocabulary that usually motivates non-classical theories—for example, a language containing a naïve truth predicate. Second, proofs of recapture results typically employ classical principles that are not valid in the targeted non-classical system; hence, non-classical theorists do not seem entitled to those results. In this paper, we analyze these problems and provide solutions on behalf of non-classical theorists. To address the first problem, we provide a novel kind of recapture result, which generalizes nicely to a truth-theoretic language. As for the second problem, we argue that it relies on an ambiguity and that, once the ambiguity is removed, there are no reasons to think that non-classical logicians are not entitled to their recapture results. (shrink)

Some people feel threatened by the thought that life might have arisen by chance. What is it about “chance” that some people find so threatening? If life originated by chance, this suggests that life was unintended and that it was not inevitable. It is ironic that people care about whether life in general was intended, but may not have ever wondered whether their own existence was intended by their parents. If it does not matter to us whether one's own (...) existence was intended, as will be hypothesized, then why should it matter whether there was some remote intent behind the creation of the first unicellular organism(s) billions of years ago? I will discuss three possible scenarios by which life might have originated. I will then argue that, in regard to whether one’s individual life can be meaningful, it does not matter whether life was intended or arose by chance. If complex life was unintended and is rare in this universe, this is not a reason to disparage life, but a reason to appreciate and value our existence. -/- . (shrink)

It is almost unanimously accepted that Kant denies resultant moral luck—that is, he denies that the lucky consequence of a person’s action can affect how much praise or blame she deserves. Philosophers often point to the famous good will passage at the beginning of the Groundwork to justify this claim. I argue, however, that this passage does not support Kant’s denial of resultant moral luck. Subsequently, I argue that Kant allows agents to be morally responsible for certain kinds of lucky (...) consequences. Even so, I argue that it is unclear whether Kant ultimately endorses resultant moral luck. The reason is that Kant does not write enough on moral responsibility for consequences to determine definitively whether he thinks that the lucky consequence for which an agent is morally responsible can add to her degree of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness. The clear upshot, however, is that Kant does not deny resultant moral luck. (shrink)

Advance directives typically have two defects. First, most advance directives fail to enable people to effectively avoid unwanted medical intervention. Second, most of them have the potential of ending your life in ways you never intended, years before you had to die.

Inquiry into the meaning of logical terms in natural language (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’, ‘if’) has generally proceeded along two dimensions. On the one hand, semantic theories aim to predict native speaker intuitions about the natural language sentences involving those logical terms. On the other hand, logical theories explore the formal properties of the translations of those terms into formal languages. Sometimes, these two lines of inquiry appear to be in tension: for instance, our best logical investigation into conditional connectives may (...) show that there is no conditional operator that has all the properties native speaker intuitions suggest if has. Indicative conditionals have famously been the source of one such tension, ever since the triviality proofs of both Lewis (1976) and Gibbard (1981) established conclusions which are in prima facie tension with ordinary judgments about natural language indicative conditionals. In a recent series of papers, Branden Fitelson has strengthened both triviality results (Fitelson 2013, 2015, 2016), revealing a common culprit: a logical schema known as IMPORT-EXPORT. Fitelson’s results focus the tension between the logical results and ordinary judgments, since IMPORT-EXPORT seems to be supported by intuitions about natural language. In this paper, we argue that the intuitions which have been taken to support IMPORT-EXPORT are really evidence for a closely related, but subtly different, principle. We show that the two principles are independent by showing how, given a standard assumption about the conditional operator in the formal language in which IMPORT-EXPORT is stated, many existing theories of indicative conditionals validate one, but not the other. Moreover, we argue that once we clearly distinguish these principles, we can use propositional anaphora to show that IMPORT-EXPORT is in fact not valid for natural language indicative conditionals (given this assumption about the formal conditional operator). This gives us a principled and independently motivated way of rejecting a crucial premise in many triviality results, while still making sense of the speaker intuitions which appeared to motivate that premise. We suggest that this strategy has broad application and an important lesson: in theorizing about the logic of natural language, we must pay careful attention to the translation between the formal languages in which logical results are typically proved, and natural languages which are the subject matter of semantic theory. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of theorists have claimed that beliefs about probability are transparent. To believe probably p is simply to have a high credence that p. In this paper, I prove a variety of triviality results for theses like the above. I show that such claims are inconsistent with the thesis that probabilistic modal sentences have propositions or sets of worlds as their meaning. Then I consider the extent to which a dynamic semantics for probabilistic modals can (...) capture theses connecting belief, certainty, credence, and probability. I show that although a dynamic semantics for probabilistic modals does allow one to validate such theses, it can only do so at a cost. I prove that such theses can only be valid if probabilistic modals do not satisfy the axioms of the probability calculus. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate whether we can use a world-involving framework to model the epistemic states of non-ideal agents. The standard possible-world framework falters in this respect because of a commitment to logical omniscience. A familiar attempt to overcome this problem centers around the use of impossible worlds where the truths of logic can be false. As we shall see, if we admit impossible worlds where “anything goes” in modal space, it is easy to model extremely non-ideal agents that (...) are incapable of performing even the most elementary logical deductions. A much harder, and considerably less investigated challenge is to ensure that the resulting modal space can also be used to model moderately ideal agents that are not logically omniscient but nevertheless logically competent. Intuitively, while such agents may fail to rule out subtly impossible worlds that verify complex logical falsehoods, they are nevertheless able to rule out blatantly impossible worlds that verify obvious logical falsehoods. To model moderately ideal agents, I argue, the job is to construct a modal space that contains only possible and non-trivially impossible worlds where it is not the case that “anything goes”. But I prove that it is impossible to develop an impossible-world framework that can do this job and that satisfies certain standard conditions. Effectively, I show that attempts to model moderately ideal agents in a world-involving framework collapse to modeling either logical omniscient agents, or extremely non-ideal agents. (shrink)

Conditional probability is often used to represent the probability of the conditional. However, triviality results suggest that the thesis that the probability of the conditional always equals conditional probability leads to untenable conclusions. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of this thesis in a possible worlds framework, arguing that the triviality results make assumptions at odds with the use of conditional probability. I argue that these assumptions come from a theory called the operator theory and that the (...) rival restrictor theory can avoid these problematic assumptions. In doing so, I argue that recent extensions of the triviality arguments to restrictor conditionals fail, making assumptions which are only justified on the operator theory. (shrink)

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A fundamental question asked in modal logic is whether a given theory is consistent. But consistent with what? A typical way to address this question identifies a choice of background knowledge axioms (say, S4, D, etc.) and then shows the assumptions codified by the theory in question to be consistent with those background axioms. But determining the specific choice and division of background axioms is, at least sometimes, little more than tradition. This paper introduces generic theories for propositional modal logic (...) to address consistency results in a more robust way. As building blocks for background knowledge, generic theories provide a standard for categorical determinations of consistency. We argue that the results and methods of this paper help to elucidate problems in epistemology and enjoy sufficient scope and power to have purchase on problems bearing on modalities in judgement, inference, and decision making. (shrink)

The origin and development of consciousness is poorly understood. Although it is clearly a naturalistic phenomenon evolved through Darwinian evolution, explaining it in terms of physicochemical, neural, or symbolic mechanisms remains elusive. Here I propose that two steps had to be taken in its evolution. First, living systems evolved an intrinsic goal-directedness by internalizing Darwinian fitness as a self-estimated fitness. The self-estimated fitness participates in a feedback loop that effectively produces intrinsic meaning in the organism. Second, animals with advanced nervous (...) systems evolved a special form of communication that modifies the way each partner estimates fitness. The resulting change in intrinsic meaning is experienced subjectively as a primary form of consciousness. This primary form is subsequently used to generate, partly through internalized dialogue, more complex forms of consciousness, such as consciousness of the natural and social worlds, consciousness of the self, and language-dependent forms of consciousness. An updated version of the theory in this paper can be found as Chapter 12 ('Consciousness') in my book 'The estimator theory of life and mind: how agency and consciousness can emerge', see VANTET-8 at philpapers . (shrink)

Characterizations of an (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal are considered. Any ideal in a BCK/BCI-algebra will be realized as level neutrosophic ideals of some (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal. The relation between (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal and (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic subalgebra in a BCK-algebra is discussed. Conditions for an (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic subalgebra to be a (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal are provided. Using a collection of ideals in a BCK/BCI-algebra, an (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideal is established. Equivalence relations on the family of all (∈, ∈)-neutrosophic ideals are introduced, and (...) related properties are investigated. (shrink)

The question “What is the meaning of life?” is longstanding and important, but has been shunned by philosophers for decades. Instead, contemporary philosophers have focused on other questions, such as “What gives meaning to the life of a person?” According to James Tartaglia, this research on “meaning in life” is shallow and pointless. He urges philosophers to redirect their attention back to the fundamental question about “meaning of life.” Tartaglia argues that humanity was not created for a purpose and, therefore, (...) is meaningless. He assumes that humanity could not be meaningful unless we were created for a purpose. I will outline a different way that humanity could become meaningful. In addition, I will explain how the research on “meaning in life” is important for understanding how humanity could become meaningful. (shrink)

Despite distinguishing two very different notions of what time may be, the A and B theories of time inherently share an assumption in definition which has excluded a third field of possible explanation from being recognised and explored. In order to prove this rather grandiose proposition I will introduce a distinction between theories of resulting time and theories of non-resulting time. The clear articulation of why of this distinction is valid will be established by the method of reduction with regards (...) to the construction and evolution of the definition of time in the physics of Aristotle and Einstein. This method reveals precisely the assumption in definition that has been made and carried forth in the defining of time in B theory, and also what has been forgone, being non-resulting theories of time. After such analysis and illustration of the proposed distinction with regards to B theory, it will be obvious that A theories of time dually share the assumption in definition. Thus having established that this distinction is very much real and that nearly all work in the philosophy and physics of time has thus far fallen into theories of resulting time, I will then demonstrate why new theories of non-resulting time could at the very least ‘quasi-solve’ some of the irreconcilable conflictions that have arisen within opposing theories of resulting time, using as example the A theorists/Presentist’s conflict with Special Relativity. (shrink)

A topos version of Cantor’s back and forth theorem is established and used to prove that the ordered structure of the rational numbers (Q, <) is homogeneous in any topos with natural numbers object. The notion of effective homogeneity is introduced, and it is shown that (Q, <) is a minimal effectively homogeneous structure, that is, it can be embedded in every other effectively homogeneous ordered structure.

Reflection on the possibility of cases in which experience is cognitively penetrated has suggested to many that an experience's etiology can reduce its capacity to provide prima facie justification for believing its content below a baseline. This is epistemic downgrade due to etiology, and its possibility is incompatible with phenomenal conservatism. I develop a view that explains the epistemic deficiency in certain possible cases of cognitive penetration but on which there is no epistemic downgrading below a baseline and on which (...) etiology plays no explanatory role. This view is not phenomenal conservatism exactly, but it does capture what’s right about phenomenal conservatism. (shrink)

I take the debate between the particularists and the principlists to be centered on the issue of whether there are true moral principles. One argument the principlists often appeal to in support of their claim that there are true moral principles is the argument from supervenience. Roughly, the argument is made up of the following three statements: (P1) If the thesis of moral supervenience holds, then there are true moral principles. (P2) The thesis of moral supervenience holds. (C) There are (...) true moral principles, and hence particularism is false. In this paper, I argue that the above argument is not sound by attacking (P1). I hold that no general supervenient/resultance base has a robust enough configuration of contextual features as to ground the existence of true moral principles. If I am right about this, I think it would be indicative of a reason to be less confident about the truth of principlism and more confident about the truth of particularism. (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)

This paper aims to construct a new formula that generates a generalized version of congruent numbers based on a generalized version of Pythagorean triples. Here, an elliptic curve equation is constructed from the derived generalized version of Pythagorean triples and congruent numbers and gives some new results.

The addition of "actually" operators to modal languages allows us to capture important inferential behaviours which cannot be adequately captured in logics formulated in simpler languages. Previous work on modal logics containing "actually" operators has concentrated entirely upon extensions of KT5 and has employed a particular modeltheoretic treatment of them. This paper proves completeness and decidability results for a range of normal and nonnormal but quasi-normal propositional modal logics containing "actually" operators, the weakest of which are conservative extensions of (...) K, using a novel generalisation of the standard semantics. (shrink)

Augment the propositional language with two modal operators: □ and ■. Define ⧫ to be the dual of ■, i.e. ⧫=¬■¬. Whenever (X) is of the form φ → ψ, let (X⧫) be φ→⧫ψ . (X⧫) can be thought of as the modally qualified counterpart of (X)—for instance, under the metaphysical interpretation of ⧫, where (X) says φ implies ψ, (X⧫) says φ implies possibly ψ. This paper shows that for various interesting instances of (X), fairly weak assumptions suffice for (...) (X⧫) to imply (X)—so, the modally qualified principle is as strong as its unqualified counterpart. These results have surprising and interesting implications for issues spanning many areas of philosophy. (shrink)

Although quantum mechanics can accurately predict the probability distribution of outcomes in an ensemble of identical systems, it cannot predict the result of an individual system. All the local and global hidden variable theories attempting to explain individual behavior have been proved invalid by experiments (violation of Bell’s inequality) and theory. As an alternative, Schrodinger and others have hypothesized existence of free will in every particle which causes randomness in individual results. However, these free will theories have failed to (...) quantitatively explain the quantum mechanical results. In this paper, we take the clue from quantum biology to get the explanation of quantum mechanical distribution. Recently it was reported that mutations (which are quantum processes) in DNA of E. coli bacteria instead of being random were biased in a direction such that the chance of survival of the bacteria is increased. Extrapolating it, we assume that all the particles including inanimate fundamental particles have a will and that is biased to satisfy the collective goals of the ensemble. Using this postulate, we mathematically derive the correct spin probability distribution without using quantum mechanical formalism (operators and Born’s rule) and exactly reproduce the quantum mechanical spin correlation in entangled pairs. Using our concept, we also mathematically derive the form of quantum mechanical wave function of free particle which is conventionally a postulate of quantum mechanics. Thus, we prove that the origin of quantum mechanical results lies in the will (or consciousness) of the objects biased by the collective goal of ensemble or universe. This biasing by the group on individuals can be called as “coherence” which directly represents the extent of life present in the ensemble. So, we can say that life originates out of establishment of coherence in a group of inanimate particles. (shrink)

Fictionalists maintain that possible worlds, numbers or composite objects exist only according to theories which are useful but false. Hale, Divers and Woodward have provided arguments which threaten to show that fictionalists must be prepared to regard the theories in question as contingently, rather than necessarily, false. If warranted, this conclusion would significantly limit the appeal of the fictionalist strategy rendering it unavailable to anyone antecedently convinced that mathematics and metaphysics concern non-contingent matters. I try to show that their arguments (...) can be resisted by developing and defending a strategy suggested by Rosen, Nolan and Dorr, according to which the fiction-operator is to be analysed in terms of a counterfactual that admits of non-trival truth-values even when the antecedent is impossible. (shrink)

In this paper, I tested a KNN algorithm that could recognise a paraphrased version of a statement entered in the Essay Helper GitHub Repository, which recognises reused statements while questioning the user to write a humanities-style essay.

Background: In prevalence studies of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), investigators often provide syndromic management for symptomatic participants, but may not provide specific treatment for asymptomatic individuals with positive laboratory test results due to the delays between sample collection and availability of results as well as logistical constraints in recontacting study participants. Methods: To characterize the extent of this issue, 80 prevalence studies from the World Health Organization’s Report on global sexually transmitted infection surveillance, 2018, were reviewed. Studies were (...) classified as to whether clinically relevant positive results were returned or if this was not specified. Results: More than half (56%) of the cited studies did not specify if participants were notified of clinically relevant positive STI test results. The percentages were similar for low- and middle-income country populations (57%) and high-income country populations (53%). Conclusions: The absence of documentation of the provision of test results raises the possibility that in some instances, results may not have been communicated, with potential negative effects for participants, their sexual partners, and newborns. From an ethical perspective, clinically relevant results should be returned to study participants and treating clinicians in a timely fashion to ensure appropriate management of identified infections. Study authors should document if they returned test results to study participants and report on numbers lost to follow-up. (shrink)

The economist David K. Levine claims that if a government of a country makes torture legal, the inevitable result will be torture that is out of control. I point out an inconsistency in his approach to torture. I then argue that we should be open to rare counterexamples to his claim and describe a kind of counterexample.

In their paper titled “Gender and philosophical intuition,” Buckwalter and Stich argue that the intuitions of women and men differ significantly on various types of philosophical questions. Furthermore, men's intuitions, so the authors claim, are more in line with traditionally accepted solutions of classical problems. This inherent bias, so the argument goes, is one of the factors that leads more men than women to pursue degrees and careers in philosophy. These findings have received a considerable amount of attention and the (...) paper is to appear in the second edition of Experimental Philosophy edited by Knobe and Nichols , which itself is an influential outlet. Given the exposure of these results, we attempted to replicate three of the classes of questions that Buckwalter and Stich review in their paper and for which they report significant differences. We failed to replicate the results using several different sources for data collection (one being identical to the original procedures.. (shrink)