In certain contexts reasoners reject instances of the valid Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens inference form in conditional arguments. Byrne (1989) observed this suppression effect when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an additional requirement. In an earlier study, Rumain, Connell, and Braine (1983) observed suppression of the invalid inferences "the denial of the antecedent" and "the affirmation of the consequent" when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an alternative requirement. Here we present three (...) experiments showing that the results of Byrne (1989) and Rumain et al. (1983) are influenced by the answer procedure. When reasoners have to evaluate answer alternatives that only deal with the inferences that can be made with respect to the first conditional, then suppression is observed (Experiment 1). However, when reasoners are also given answer alternatives about the second conditional (Experiment 2) no suppression is observed. Moreover, contrary to the hypothesis of Byrne (1989), at least some of the reasoners do not combine the information of the two conditionals and do not give a conclusion based on the combined premise. Instead, we hypothesise that some of the reasoners have reasoned in two stages. In the first stage, they form a putative conclusion on the basis of the first conditional and the categorical premise, and in the second stage, they amend the putative conclusion in the light of the information in the second premise. This hypothesis was confirmed in Experiment 3. Finally, the results are discussed with respect to the mental model theory and reasoning research in general. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: "MP", Affirmation of the Consequent "AC") and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent "DA", and Modus Tollens "MT"). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: “MP”, Affirmation of the Consequent “AC”) and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent “DA”, and Modus Tollens “MT”). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

Algorithmic-level specifications carry part of the explanatory burden in most psychological theories. It is, thus, inappropriate to limit a comparison and evaluation of theories to the computational level. A rational analysis considers people's goal-directed and environmentally adaptive rationality; it is not normative. Adaptive rationality is by definition non-absolute; hence, neither deductive logic nor Bayesian probability theory has absolute normative status.

We report two studies on the effect of implicitly versus explicitly conveying affirmation and denial problems about conditionals. Recently Evans and Handley (1999) and Schroyens et al. (1999b, 2000b) showed that implicit referencing elicits matching bias: Fewer determinate inferences are made, when the categorical premise (e.g., B) mismatches the conditional's referred clause (e.g., A). Also, the effect of implicit affirmation (B affirms not-A) is larger than the effect of implicit denial (B denies A). Schroyens et al. hypothesised that (...) this interaction is due to uncertainty in the case-wise affirmation of the contrast class of negated elements involved in implicit affirmations. In Experiment 1 we tested this hypothesis by manipulating the set size of the conditional clauses. The results confirm that binary sets, where the contrast class is a singleton, eliminate the differential effect of implicit affirmation and denial. With non-binary sets the interaction is not modulated by the scope of the contrast class (3, 5, 9 elements). Experiment 2 further investigated the role of contrast classes by using class inclusion to construct implicit affirmations (Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey) and implicit denial (No-Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey), in addition to the standard implicit problems mediated by contrast-class inclusion [(No-)Mammal/No-Mammal; Reptile; Snake). Findings indicate that class inclusion (Mammal/Monkey; Reptile/ Snake) only marginally affects performance, and is independent of the type of problem. This would suggest that the implicitness problem-type interaction is dependent on constructing contrast classes. However, the experiment failed to replicate the interaction, even on the subset of problems repeating the abstract letter/number format of Experiment 1. Moreover, with the natural binary set-sizes (vowels/consonants) the implicitness effect was eliminated entirely. (shrink)

Two types of truth table tasks are used investigating mental representations of conditionals: a possibilities-based and a truth-based one. In possibilities tasks, participants indicate whether a situation is possible or impossible according to the conditional rule. In truth tasks participants evaluate whether a situation makes the rule true or false, or is irrelevant with respect to the truth of the rule. Comparing the two-option version of the possibilities task with the truth task in Experiment 1, the possibilities task yields logical (...) answer patterns whereas the truth task yields defective patterns. Adding the irrelevant option to the possibilities task in Experiment 2 leads to a considerable amount of defective patterns in the possibilities task, but still to more logical patterns in the possibilities task than in the truth task. Experiment 3 shows that directionality matters since rule-to-situation tasks yield more logical answer patterns than do situation-to-rule tasks. We conclude that both task types are not comparable as such since wording, number of options and directionality influence the results. (shrink)

There is ample evidence that in classical truth table task experiments false antecedents are judged as ?irrelevant?. Instead of interpreting this in support of a suppositional representation of conditionals, Schroyens (2010a, 2010b) attributes it to the induction problem: the impossibility of establishing the truth of a universal claim on the basis of a single case. In the first experiment a truth table task with four options is administered and the correlation with intelligence is inspected. It is observed that ?undetermined? (...) is chosen in one third of the judgements and ?irrelevant? in another third. A positive correlation is revealed between intelligence and the number of ?irrelevant? and ?undetermined? judgements. The data do not exclude that a part of the ?irrelevant? judgements in classical truth table task experiments might be caused by the induction problem. In the second experiment participants are presented with a simplified four-option truth table task and asked for a justification of their judgements. These justifications show the induction problem is not the reason for choosing the ?irrelevant? or ?undetermined? option, which is supportive for a suppositional representation of conditionals. (shrink)

The mental model theory predicts variations in the percentage of errors in meta-propositional reasoning tasks but does not specify the nature of these errors. In the present study, we drew predictions concerning the nature of errors in a meta-propositional reasoning task by importing and elaborating the distinction between implicit and explicit models previously applied by the mental model theory to the domain of propositional reasoning. An experiment was conducted in which participants were asked to solve problems concerning the truth or (...) falsity of propositional assertions. The task was to determine the truth-status of two persons making a propositional assertion about their own truth-status and/or the truth-status of the other person. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that people may reason in ways that differ in the extent to which initially implicit models are made explicit. As such, the results corroborate a basic principle of the mental model theory: the errors that reasoners make are consistent with at least one of the mental models they construct during the process of reasoning. (shrink)

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Introduction: the advance of governmentality -- Foucault, power, and governmentality: introduction; what is governmentality?; beyond the microphysics of power?; from theory of the state to genealogy of the state; history of the art of government; pastoral power; raison d'état; liberal governmentality; five propositions on foucault and governmentality -- Governmentality 3.4.7.: introduction; governmentality after Foucault; governmentality and the political sciences; some problems in governmentality -- Foucault effect redux? some notes on international governmentality studies: constellation; a few preliminary observations; problems and debates (...) in international governmentality studies -- Reconnecting governmentality and genealogy: introduction; genealogy and governmentality; pluralizing genealogy; practicing genealogy; lines of descent: the family tree of power?; counter-memory and re-serialization; the retrieval of forgotten struggles and subjugated knowledges -- Conclusion: encountering governmentality: governmentality as a new cartography of power; from mapping to encountering; governmentality and politics. (shrink)

This paper constitutes a radical departure from the existing philosophical literature on models, modeling-practices, and model-based science. I argue that the various entities and practices called 'models' and 'modeling-practices' are too diverse, too context-sensitive, and serve too many scientific purposes and roles, as to allow for a general philosophical analysis. From this recognition an alternative view emerges that I shall dub model anarchism.

This paper presents the outlines of a phenomenological theory of foundational or non-inferential knowledge according to which the facts or states of affairs towards which our beliefs are intentionally directed can sometimes serve as reasons or evidence for what we believe. This occurs in acts of fulfillment, in which an object or state of affairs is given as it is thought to be. Hopp further argues that the sorts of empirical facts that can serve as reasons for noninferentially justified beliefs (...) are not confined to facts about one’s own occurrent mental states, but include facts about the physical world as well. In the course of defending the view against objections, Hopp argues that we should be internalists about the reasons in virtue of which what we believe is justified but externalists about the factors in virtue of which our states of believing have the status of being justified. He also argues against the claim that mental states, such as perceptual experiences, constitute our evidence for empirical beliefs. (shrink)

On a currently popular reading of Locke, an idea represents its cause, or what God intended to be its cause. Against Martha Bolton and my former self (among others), I argue that Locke cannot hold such a view, since it sins against his epistemology and theory of abstraction. I argue that Locke is committed to a resemblance theory of representation, with the result that ideas of secondary qualities are not representations.

The debate over Hypothetical Syllogism is locked in stalemate. Although putative natural language counterexamples to Hypothetical Syllogism abound, many philosophers defend Hypothetical Syllogism, arguing that the alleged counterexamples involve an illicit shift in context. The proper lesson to draw from the putative counterexamples, they argue, is that natural language conditionals are context-sensitive conditionals which obey Hypothetical Syllogism. In order to make progress on the issue, I consider and improve upon Morreau’s proof of the invalidity of Hypothetical Syllogism. The improved proof (...) relies upon the semantic claim that conditionals with antecedents irrelevant to the obtaining of an already true consequent are themselves true. Moreover, this semantic insight allows us to provide compelling counterexamples to Hypothetical Syllogism that are resistant to the usual contextualist response. (shrink)

Are demands for equality motivated by envy? Nietzsche, Freud, Hayek, and Nozick all thought so. Call this the Envy Objection. For egalitarians, the Envy Objection is meant to sting. Many egalitarians have tried to evade the Envy Objection.. But should egalitarians be worried about envy? In this paper, I argue that egalitarians should stop worrying and learn to love envy. I argue that the persistent unwillingness to embrace the Envy Objection is rooted in a common misunderstanding of the nature of (...) the charge, what it reveals, and what can be said in response to it. I develop what Bernard Williams might call a vindicatory genealogy of envy, thereby allowing us to see that envy, rather than undermining egalitarian intuitions, can in fact play a distinct justificatory role (when it is fitting), which undermines the Envy Objection. (shrink)

Called “the most important critic of his time” by Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin has only become more influential over the years, as his work has assumed a crucial place in current debates over the interactions of art, culture, and meaning. A “natural and extraordinary talent for letter writing was one of the most captivating facets of his nature,” writes Gershom Scholem in his Foreword to this volume; and Benjamin's correspondence reveals the evolution of some of his most powerful ideas, (...) while also offering an intimate picture of Benjamin himself and the times in which he lived. Writing at length to Scholem and Theodor Adorno, and exchanging letters with Rainer Maria Rilke, Hannah Arendt, Max Brod, and Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin elaborates on his ideas about metaphor and language. He reflects on literary figures from Kafka to Karl Kraus, and expounds his personal attitudes toward such subjects as Marxism and French national character. Providing an indispensable tool for any scholar wrestling with Benjamin’s work, The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910–1940 is a revelatory look at the man behind much of the twentieth century’s most significant criticism. (shrink)

This is the fullest existing collection of the texts, for the moment only in Italian translation, with an introduction, notes, general presentation of the texts, various indexes (part of this material is to be found in an attached CD).

Views from one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin.

This book is the first in the field of paraconsistency to offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, including connections to other logics and applications in information processing, linguistics, reasoning and argumentation, and philosophy of science. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in the question of reasoning and argumentation in the presence of contradictions, in semantics, in the paradoxes of set theory and in the puzzling properties of negation in logic programming. Paraconsistent logic comprises a major logical theory and (...) offers the broadest possible perspective on the debate of negation in logic and philosophy. It is a powerful tool for reasoning under contradictoriness as it investigates logic systems in which contradictory information does not lead to arbitrary conclusions. Reasoning under contradictions constitutes one of most important and creative achievements in contemporary logic, with deep roots in philosophical questions involving negation and consistency This book offers an invaluable introduction to a topic of central importance in logic and philosophy. It discusses the history of paraconsistent logic; language, negation, contradiction, consistency and inconsistency; logics of formal inconsistency and the main paraconsistent propositional systems; many-valued companions, possible-translations semantics and non-deterministic semantics; paraconsistent modal logics; first-order paraconsistent logics; applications to information processing, databases and quantum computation; and applications to deontic paradoxes, connections to Eastern thought and to dialogical reasoning. (shrink)

Are living organisms--as Descartes argued--just machines? Or is the nature of life such that it can never be fully explained by mechanistic models? In this thought-provoking and controversial book, eminent geophysicist Walter M. Elsasser argues that the behavior of living organisms cannot be reduced to physico-chemical causality. Suggesting that molecular biology today is at the same point as Newtonian physics on the eve of the quantum revolution, Elsasser lays the foundation for a theoretical biology that points the way toward (...) a natural philosophy of organic life. Explicitly repudiating "vitalism" (the notion that the laws of nature need to be modified when applied to living organisms), Elsasser argues instead that the structural complexity of even a single living cell is "transcomputational"--that is, beyond the power of any imaginable system to compute. Beginning from this insight, Elsasser leads the reader through a step-by-step process that ultimately arrives at the conclusion that living and non-living matter are separated by "a no-man's land of irrationality." Trained in Germany as a physicist, Elsasser first pondered the implications of quantum mechanics for biology as early as 1951. The more closely he studied the inherent complexity of life, the more skeptical he became of the reductionist view of organisms as tiny machines. "An organism," he concluded, "is a source of causal chains which cannot be traced beyond a terminal point because they are lost in the unfathomable complexity of the organism." Like the physicist who works within the bounds of an unfathomable universe, Elsasser argues, the biologist must seek answers within a system that is no less unfathomable. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a paraconsistent formal system and a corresponding intended interpretation according to which true contradictions are not tolerated. Contradictions are, instead, epistemically understood as conflicting evidence, where evidence for a proposition A is understood as reasons for believing that A is true. The paper defines a paraconsistent and paracomplete natural deduction system, called the Basic Logic of Evidence, and extends it to the Logic of Evidence and Truth. The latter is a logic of (...) formal inconsistency and undeterminedness that is able to express not only preservation of evidence but also preservation of truth. LETj is anti-dialetheist in the sense that, according to the intuitive interpretation proposed here, its consequence relation is trivial in the presence of any true contradiction. Adequate semantics and a decision method are presented for both BLE and LETj, as well as some technical results that fit the intended interpretation. (shrink)

Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin's first full, historically oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English know it as "The Origin of German Tragic Drama," but in fact the subject is something else--the play of mourning. Howard Eiland's completely new English translation, the first since 1977, is closer to the German text and more consistent with Benjamin's philosophical idiom. Focusing on the extravagant seventeenth-century theatrical genre of the trauerspiel, precursor of the opera, Benjamin identifies allegory as the (...) constitutive trope of the Baroque and of modernity itself. Allegorical perception bespeaks a world of mutability and equivocation, a melancholy sense of eternal transience without access to the transcendentals of the medieval mystery plays--though no less haunted and bedeviled. History as trauerspiel is the condition as well as subject of modern allegory in its inscription of the abyssal. Benjamin's investigation of the trauerspiel includes German texts and late Renaissance European drama such as Hamlet and Calderón's Life Is a Dream. The prologue is one of his most important and difficult pieces of writing. It lays out his method of indirection and his idea of the "constellation" as a key means of grasping the world, making dynamic unities out of the myriad bits of daily life. Thoroughly annotated with a philological and historical introduction and other explanatory and supplementary material, this rigorous and elegant new translation brings fresh understanding to a cardinal work by one of the twentieth century's greatest literary critics.--. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to explore the significance of Montague’s paradox—that is, any arithmetical theory $T\supseteq Q$ over a language containing a predicate $P$ satisfying $P\rightarrow \varphi $ and $T\vdash \varphi \,\therefore\,T\vdash P$ is inconsistent—as a limitative result pertaining to the notions of formal, informal, and constructive provability, in their respective historical contexts. To this end, the paradox is reconstructed in a quantified extension $\mathcal {QLP}$ of Artemov’s logic of proofs. $\mathcal {QLP}$ contains both explicit modalities $t:\varphi $ (...) and also proof quantifiers $x:\varphi $. In this system, the basis for the rule NEC is decomposed into a number of distinct principles governing how various modes of reasoning about proofs and provability can be internalized within the system itself. A conceptually motivated resolution to the paradox is proposed in the form of an argument for rejecting the unrestricted rule NEC on the basis of its subsumption of an intuitively invalid principle pertaining to the interaction of proof quantifiers and the proof-theorem relation expressed by explicit modalities. (shrink)

A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. He moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most (...) versatile writers of the twentieth century. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. (shrink)

Proof-theoretic reflection principles are schemas which attempt to express the soundness of arithmetical theories within their own language, e.g., ${\mathtt{{Prov}_{\mathsf {PA}} \rightarrow \varphi }}$ can be understood to assert that any statement provable in Peano arithmetic is true. It has been repeatedly suggested that justification for such principles follows directly from acceptance of an arithmetical theory $\mathsf {T}$ or indirectly in virtue of their derivability in certain truth-theoretic extensions thereof. This paper challenges this consensus by exploring relationships between reflection principles (...) and principles of mathematical and transfinite induction as well as the status of the latter with respect to various foundational characterizations of number theory. (shrink)

This book distills six decades of diary entries on science, religion, truth, ethics, success, and society by Walter Kistler, scientist, industrialist, and philanthropist. The book explores these subjects through the lenses of analysis and implication, and presents the compelling findings of an extraordinary, lifelong, intellectual odyssey.

The Dialectical Forge identifies dialectical disputation as a primary formative dynamic in the evolution of pre-modern Islamic legal systems, promoting dialectic from relative obscurity to a more appropriate position at the forefront of Islamic legal studies. The author introduces and develops a dialectics-based analytical method for the study of pre-modern Islamic legal argumentation, examines parallels and divergences between Aristotelian dialectic and early juridical jadal-theory, and proposes a multi-component paradigm—the Dialectical Forge Model—to account for the power of jadal in shaping Islamic (...) law and legal theory.In addition to overviews of current evolutionary narratives for Islamic legal theory and dialectic, and expositions on key texts, this work shines an analytical light upon the considerably sophisticated “proto-system” of juridical dialectical teaching and practice evident in Islam’s second century, several generations before the first “full-system” treatises of legal and dialectical theory were composed. This proto-system is revealed from analyses of dialectical sequences in the 2nd/8th century Kitāb Ikhtilāf al-ʿIrāqiyyīn / ʿIrāqiyyayn through a lens molded from 5th/11th century jadal-theory treatises. Specific features thus uncovered inform the elaboration of a Dialectical Forge Model, whose more general components and functions are explored in closing chapters. (shrink)