Contemporary Action Theory, Volume I is concerned with topics in philosophical action theory such as reasons and causes of action, intentions, freedom of will and of action, omissions and norms in legal and ethical contexts, as well as activity, passivity and competence from medical points of view. Cognitive trying, freedom of the will and agent causation are challenges in the discussion on computers in action. The Volume consists of contributions by leading experts in the field written specifically for this volume. (...) No comparable volume currently exists. (shrink)

Stig Kanger (1924--1988) made important contributions to logic and formal philosophy. Kanger's most original achievements were in the areas of general proof theory, the semantics of modal and deontic logic, and the logical analysis of the concept of rights. But he contributed significantly to action theory, preference logic and the theory of measurement as well. The first volume is a complete collection of Kanger's philosophical papers. The second volume contains critical essays on the various aspects of Kanger's work as well (...) as some biographical sketches. (shrink)

... to discuss the state of epistemology, inspired by new perspectives and possibilities opened by Hintikka's recent papers on the study of epistemic logic, information, rationality, and inquiry as questioning."--Page 4 of cover.

The large extent to which aesthetic terms pervade Adam Smith’s discussion of ethics would seem to suggest, in the least, that the spheres of aesthetics and ethics are interwoven in a way hardly possible to conceive in the wake of Kant. Despite this recognized closeness between the two areas, one account in the literature has claimed that Smith’s understanding of beauty anticipates Kant’s modern notion of disinterested pleasure. It is claimed that according to Smith, disinterested pleasure is aroused by the (...) harmony of our moral sentiments as well as by the beauty of “productions of art.” By analyzing the relation of beauty to utility in Smith’s aesthetics and ethics, I will be arguing against the attribution to Smith of a specifically disinterested pleasure in our judgments of the beauty of the productions of art, as well as in the beauty of moral objects, such as virtuous character and conduct. (shrink)

Aims: Attentional bias, alcohol craving, and anxiety have important implications in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorder. The current study aims to test the effectiveness of a Virtual Reality Cue-Exposure Therapy to reduce levels of alcohol craving and anxiety and prompt changes in AB toward alcohol content.Method: A 49-year-old male participated in this study, diagnosed with severe AUD, who also used tobacco and illicit substances on an occasional basis and who made several failed attempts to cease substance misuse. (...) The protocol consisted of six VR-CET booster sessions and two assessment sessions over the course of 5 weeks. The VR-CET program consisted of booster therapy sessions based on virtual reality exposure to preferred alcohol-related cues and contexts. The initial and final assessment sessions were focused on exploring AB, alcohol craving, and anxiety using paper-and-pencil instruments and the eye-tracking and VR technologies at different time points.Results: Pre and post assessment sessions indicated falls on the scores of all instruments assessing alcohol craving, anxiety, and AB.Conclusions: This case report, part of a larger project, demonstrates the effectiveness of the VR-CET booster sessions in AUD. In the post-treatment measurements, a variety of instruments showed a change in the AB pattern and an improvement in craving and anxiety responses. As a result of the systematic desensitization, virtual exposure gradually reduced the responses to significant alcohol-related cues and contexts. The implications for AB, anxiety and craving are discussed. (shrink)

Joseph Addison’s Spectator papers on the imagination have been read as a landmark in the development of aesthetic disinterestedness. But this is problematic in light of Addison’s theological concerns, particularly as they bear on the final causes of aesthetic pleasures. This teleology of the aesthetic is far from a Kantian understanding, but rather part of a larger discourse of physico-theology. By drawing on the work of Zeitz and Mayhew, among others, this paper shows how Addison’s theological underpinnings of the aesthetic (...) raise the broader question of the role theology played in the emergence and evolution of philosophical aesthetics. In eighteenth-century Britain, the aesthetic belonged to a disciplinary matrix comprising a set of confluent discourses, one of which was theology. Drawing on and expanding M.H. Abrams’s scheme, which explores how concepts such as ‘contemplation’ and ‘disinterestedness’ migrated from theology to aesthetic theory, this paper suggests that the concept of ‘aesthetic pleasure’ underwent a similar transformation. With Addison, the pleasures afforded by the imagination acquire a new dominant position which allows one to speak of a text in modern aesthetics instead of a manual of Christian apologetics. (shrink)

Les articles présentés et traduits dans le présent ouvrage, réunis sous un titre qu'approuva l’auteur lors de sa première publication, portent sur la période qui s’ouvre peu d’années après la publication de Knowledge and Belief et qui s’étend jusqu’aux prémices des découvertes qui ont relancé une recherche particulièrement féconde — la sémantique des jeux, parfois plus connue sous l’acronyme de GTS, et la Logique IF, ou Independance Friendly Logic, développée avec Gabriel Sandu. L’Intentionnalité et les mondes possibles montre jusqu’où la (...) sémantique des mondes possibles permet de rendre compte de l’intentionnalité et d’en explorer les multiples dimensions : les six articles dégagent les méthodes et les directions de recherche ainsi ouvertes. Une postface de la traductrice les met en perspective relativement aux aboutissements actuels des travaux de Hintikka, en explorant sommairement certaines des méthodes et des recherches des deux premières décennies du vingt et unième siècle — occasion de s’apercevoir que l’épistémologie générale et spéciale, l’informatique théorique contemporaine aussi bien que l’exploration de la nature de la métaphore trouvent à se nourrir de la relance permanente du questionnement assurée par l’enquête-Hintikka, et ce, parfois, de manière très surprenante. (shrink)

The basic ideas of game-theoretical semantics are implicit in logicians' and mathematicians' folklore but used only sporadically (e.g., game quantifiers, back-and-forth methods, partly ordered quantifiers). the general suggestions of this approach for natural languages are emphasized: the univocity of "is," the failure of compositionality, a reconstruction of aristotelian categories, limitations of generative grammars, unity of sentence and discourse semantics, a new treatment of tenses and other temporal notions, etc.

The following analysis shows how developments in epistemic logic can play a nontrivial role in cognitive neuroscience. We argue that the striking correspondence between two modes of identification, as distinguished in the epistemic context, and two cognitive systems distinguished by neuroscientific investigation of the visual system (the "where" and "what" systems) is not coincidental, and that it can play a clarificatory role at the most fundamental levels of neuroscientific theory.

The paper presents an application of game-theoretical ideas to the semantics of natural language, especially the analysis of quantifiers and anaphora. The paper also introduces the idea of games of imperfect information and connects to partial logics.

It is far from clear what is meant by logic or what should be meant by it. It is nevertheless reasonable to identify logic as the study of inferences and inferential relations. The obvious practical use of logic is in any case to help us to reason well, to draw good inferences. And the typical form the theory of any part of logic seems to be a set of rules of inference. This answer already introduces some structure into a discussion (...) of the nature of logic, for in an inference we can distinguish the input called a premise or premises from the output known as the conclusion. The transition from a premise or a number of premises to the conclusion is governed by a rule of inference. If the inference is in accordance with the appropriate rule, it is called valid. Rules of inference are often thought of as the alpha and omega of logic. Conceiving of logic as the study of inference is nevertheless only the first approximation to the title question, in that it prompts more questions than it answers. It is not clear what counts as an inference or what a theory of such inferences might look like. What are the rules of inference based on? Where do we find them? The ultimate end. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a tremendous growth in international scholarly communication, especially perhaps in Europe. On the one hand, the technical means of communication have undergone a major revolution. Scholars and scientists can communicate almost instantly via phone, fax and especially by e-mail, and post their results on their websites instead of having to wait for months and sometimes years to have them published. On the other hand, various institutional frameworks have been created for the purpose of fostering international scientific (...) communication and cooperation. These institutional arrangements have typically been supported by responsible governments. One unspoken or spoken motive (among others) in encouraging international exchanges - especially in the humanities and social sciences - is the expectation that the new technical and institutional improvements in communication not only facilitate research and scholarship but directly or indirectly contribute to the discussion of important cultural, educational and social issues in the different participating countries, and perhaps even help people and peoples to cope with them. (shrink)