The need for quantitative measurement represents a unifying bond that links all the physical, biological, and social sciences. Measurements of such disparate phenomena as subatomic masses, uncertainty, information, and human values share common features whose explication is central to the achievement of foundational work in any particular mathematical science as well as for the development of a coherent philosophy of science. This book presents a theory of measurement, one that is "abstract" in that it is concerned with highly general axiomatizations (...) of empirical and qualitative settings and how these can be represented quantitatively. It was inspired by, and represents a generalization and extension of, the last major research work in this field, Foundations of Measurement Vol. I, by Krantz, Luce, Suppes, and Tversky published in 1971. (shrink)

Utilitarianism is one of the most famous ethical doctrines, based on the ideal of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. But Utilitarians and their opponents lack a clear scientific and philosophical understanding of its foundations, the measurement and aggregation of utility. This is what The Pursuit of Happiness now offers.

Axiomatizations of measurement systems usually require an axiom--called an Archimedean axiom--that allows quantities to be compared. This type of axiom has a different form from the other measurement axioms, and cannot--except in the most trivial cases--be empirically verified. In this paper, representation theorems for extensive measurement structures without Archimedean axioms are given. Such structures are represented in measurement spaces that are generalizations of the real number system. Furthermore, a precise description of "Archimedean axioms" is given and it is shown that (...) in all interesting cases "Archimedean axioms" are independent of other measurement axioms. (shrink)

Various proposals for generalizing event spaces for probability functions have been put forth in the mathematical, scientific, and philosophic literatures. In cognitive psychology such generalizations are used for explaining puzzling results in decision theory and for modeling the influence of context effects. This commentary discusses proposals for generalizing probability theory to event spaces that are not necessarily boolean algebras. Two prominent examples are quantum probability theory, which is based on the set of closed subspaces of a Hilbert space, and topological (...) probability theory, which is based on the set of open sets of a topology. Both have been applied to a variety of cognitive situations. This commentary focuses on how event space properties can influence probability concepts and impact cognitive modeling. (shrink)

In the literature, there are many axiomatizations of qualitative probability. They all suffer certain defects: either they are too nonspecific and allow nonunique quantitative interpretations or are overspecific and rule out cases with unique quantitative interpretations. In this paper, it is shown that the class of qualitative probability structures with nonunique quantitative interpretations is not first order axiomatizable and that the class of qualitative probability structures with a unique quantitative interpretation is not a finite, first order extension of the theory (...) of qualitative probability. The idea behind the method of proof is quite general and can be used in other measurement situations. (shrink)

We revisit classical Utilitarianism by connecting and generalizing two ideas. The first is that there is a representation theorem possible for hedonic value similar to, but also importantly different from, the one provided by von Neumann and Morgenstern to measure decision utility. The idea is to use objective time, in place of objective chance, to measure hedonic value. This representation for hedonic value delivers a stronger kind of scale than von Neumann–Morgenstern utility, a ratio scale rather than merely an interval (...) scale. The second idea is that measurement on a ratio scale allows the meaningful aggregation of utilities over a group. This is aggregation by product rather than sum. Aggregation by product is known to have interesting Prioritarian consequences. Aggregation becomes complicated when the two approaches are mixed, when hedonic value is mixed with uncertainly. It becomes problematic when pain as well as pleasure is taken into account. (shrink)

In interactive situations, agents can “learn” something that is not a preexisting truth. They can converge to an arbitrary convention, or tacit agreement. Once established they may even view it as an objective truth. Here we investigate accommodation dynamics for interpersonal comparisons of utility intervals. We show, for a large class of dynamics, convergence to a convention.

A probability function on an algebra of events is assumed. Some of the events are scientific refutations in the sense that the assumption of their occurrence leads to a contradiction. It is shown that the scientific refutations form a a boolean sublattice in terms of the subset ordering. In general, the restriction of to the sublattice is not a probability function on the sublattice. It does, however, have many interesting properties. In particular, (i) it captures probabilistic ideas inherent in some (...) legal procedures; and (ii) it is used to argue against the commonly held view that behavioral violations of certain basic conditions for qualitative probability are indicative of irrationality. Also discussed are (iii) the relationship between the formal development of scientific refutations presented here and intuitionistic logic, and (iv) an interpretation of a belief function used in the behavioral sciences to explain empirical results about subjective, probabilistic estimation, including the Ellsberg paradox. (shrink)

This paper takes a critical look at theory-free, statistical methodologies for processing and interpreting data taken from respondents answering a set of dichotomous (yes-no) questions. The basic issue concerns to what extent theoretical conclusions based on such analyses are invariant under a class of "informationally equivalent" question transformations. First the notion of Boolean equivalence of two question sets is discussed. Then Lazarsfeld's latent structure analysis is considered in detail. It is discovered that the best fitting latent model depends on which (...) one of the many informationally equivalent question sets is used. This fact raises a number of methodological problems and pitfalls with latent structure analysis. Related problems with other methodologies are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The evolution of color categorization systems is investigated by simulating categorization games played by a population of artificial agents. The constraints placed on individual agent’s perception and cognition are minimal and involve limited color discriminability and learning through reinforcement. The main dynamic mechanism for population evolution is pragmatic in nature: There is a pragmatic need for communication between agents, and if the results of such communications have positive consequences in their shared world then the agents involved are positively rewarded, whereas (...) if the results have negative consequences, then involved agents are punished. A mechanism for changing the composition of the population due to agents’ birth and death is also investigated. This birth-death mechanism is found to effectively move an established population color naming system toward a theoretically more optimal one. The simulation results of this article provide insights regarding mechanisms that may constrain universal tendencies in human color categorization systems observed in the linguistic and anthropological literatures. (shrink)

Philosophers have typically shown high confidence in their evaluations of Utilitarianism, whether as an endorsement or a disparagement. Rarely, however, has much effort been spent on investigating...

Madness and Modernism provides a phenomenological study of schizophrenic disorders, criticizing some standard conceptions of these disorders. Sass argues that many aspects of this group of disorders can actually involve more sophisticated (albeit dysfunctional) forms of mind and experience.

The distinguished philosopher Louis Loeb examines the epistemological framework of Scottish philosopher David Hume, as employed in his celebrated work A Treatise of Human Nature. Loeb's project is to advance an integrated interpretation of Hume's accounts of belief and justification. His thesis is that Hume, in his Treatise, has a "stability-based" theory of justification which posits that his belief is justified if it is the result of a belief producing mechanism that engenders stable beliefs. But Loeb argues that the (...) striking corollary to this theory is that no belief generating mechanism is fully stable - or fully justified - for a fully reflective person. This carefully argued and original interpretation of Hume makes sense of seemingly contradictory ideas and will provoke serious discussion among Hume scholars. (shrink)

John Rawls famously holds that the basic structure is the 'primary subject of justice.'1 By this, he means that his two principles of justice apply only to a society's major political and social institutions, including chiefly the constitution, the economic and legal systems, and (more contentiously) the family structure.2 This thesis — call it the basic structure restriction — entails that the celebrated difference principle has a narrower scope than one might have expected. It doesn't apply directly to choices that (...) individuals make within the basic structure. Individuals can live up to the demands of justice simply by obeying whatever rules are set by, and by doing what is necessary to sustain, the basic .. (shrink)

La logique de Leibniz: d'apres des documents inedits / par Louis Couturat,...Date de l'edition originale: 1901Sujet de l'ouvrage: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)Logique moderneCollection: Collection historique des grands philosophesCe livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la (...) BnF.Les oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp: //gallica.bnf.fr/ark: /12148/bpt6k110843d. (shrink)

This volume will thus appeal to advanced students and scholars not just in the history of early modern philosophy but in epistemology and other core areas of ...

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

/Analyticity theorists/, as I will call them, endorse the /doctrine of analyticity in ontology/: if some truth P analytically entails the existence of certain things, then a theory that contains P but does not claim that those things exist is no more ontologically parsimonious than a theory that also claims that they exist. Suppose, for instance, that the existence of a table in a certain location is analytically entailed by the existence and features of certain particles in that location. The (...) doctrine implies that the table's existence requires nothing more of the world than that those particles exist and bear the features in question. Analyticity theorists have alleged that this idea may be used to defend controversial existence claims against a battery of objections. I argue that this style of defense fails, because the doctrine faces counter-examples. An existence claim may be analytically entailed by some truth and still report a substantial further fact. (shrink)

In 1980, at the end of the most intensely political period of his work and life, Louis Althusser penned Philosophy for Non-philosophers. Available here for the first time in English, Philosophy for Non-philosophers constitutes a rigorous and engaged attempt to address a wide reading public unfamiliar with Althusser's project. As such, the work is a concentration of the most fundamental theses of Althusser's own ideas, and presents a synthesis of his sprawling and disparate philosophical and political writings. Nowhere else (...) does Althusser push the distinction between philosophy and other disciplines as far, or develop in such detail the concept of 'practice'. Rather than a work of 'popular philosophy', Philosophy for Non-philosophers is a continuation and conglomeration of Althusser's thought; a thought whose radicality is still perceptible in those that have followed since. Philosophy for Non-philosophers thus provides a vivid encapsulation of Althusser's seminal influence on the leading thinkers of today, including Ranciere, Badiou, Balibar, and Žižek. (shrink)

Growing up in Ionia -- Travels far and wide -- Settling in Croton -- Pythagorean beliefs -- A lasting legacy.

The authors offer a "first" summary of Teilhard's thoughts on love, a central element in his evolutionary spirituality, presented in accessible language for the ordinary reader. They explore the implications of Teilhard's evolutionary perspective on love as it affects friendships, marriages, parent-child relationships, and teams (larger groups).

Hume's claim that a state is a belief is often intertwined—though without his remarking on this fact—with epistemic approval of the state. This requires explanation. Beliefs, in Hume's view, are steady dispositions (not lively ideas), nature's provision for a steady influence on the will and action. Hume's epistemic distinctions call attention to circumstances in which the presence of conflicting beliefs undermine a belief's influence and thereby its natural function. On one version of this interpretation, to say that a belief is (...) justified, ceteris paribus, is to say that for all that has been shown the belief would be steady in its influence under suitable reflection. On a second version, it is to say that prima facie justification is an intrinsic property of the state, in virtue of its steadiness. These versions generate different understandings of the relationship between Parts iii and iv of Book I of the Treatise. (shrink)

There is a curious bifurcation in the literature on ground and its logic. On the one hand, there has been a great deal of work that presumes that logical complexity invariably yields grounding. So, for instance, it is widely presumed that any fact stated by a true conjunction is grounded in those stated by its conjuncts, that any fact stated by a true disjunction is grounded in that stated by any of its true disjuncts, and that any fact stated by (...) a true double negation is grounded in that stated by the doubly-negated formula. This commitment is encapsulated in the system GG axiomatized and semantically characterized by [deRosset and Fine, 2023] (following [Fine, 2012]). On the other hand, there has been a great deal of important formal work on “flatter” theories of ground, yielding logics very different from GG [Correia, 2010] [Fine, 2016, 2017b]. For instance, these theories identify the fact stated by a self-conjunction $$(\phi \wedge \phi )$$ with that stated by its conjunct $$\phi $$. Since, in these systems, no fact grounds itself, the “flatter” theories are inconsistent with the principles of GG. This bifurcation raises the question of whether there is a single notion of ground suited to fulfill the philosophical ambitions of grounding enthusiasts. There is, at present, no unified semantic framework employing a single conception of ground for simultaneously characterizing both GG and the “flatter” approaches. This paper fills this gap by specifying such a framework and demonstrating its adequacy. (shrink)

Did modernity begin with the Renaissance and end with post-modernism? Dupre challenges both these assumptions, discussing the roots, development and impact of modern thought and tracing the principles of modernity to the late 14th century.

L'ouvrage retrace la genèse des études sur les systèmes dynamiques auto-organisateurs (Ashby, Von Foerster, Prigogine, von Bertalanffy) et leurs applications en neurosciences et sciences cognitives. Réalisées aux Etats-Unis en particulier, ces dernières s'inscrivent dans ce que l'on appelle, depuis les années 1980, l'Hypothèse Dynamique. Dès les années 1970, de nouvelles recherches sur le cerveau (neurodynamique) voient le jour. Des neurophysiologistes et biologistes tels Freeman, Katchalsky, Yates et Basar l'envisagent comme dynamique, non-linéaire, fait de combinaisons chaotiques, d'états de métastabilité, d'instabilité s'équilibrant (...) vers un état d'autoorganisation globale. Ces conclusions sont ensuite illustrées dans les neurosciences comportementales (dynamique de coordination sensorimotrice) et aussi par des interrogations sur le rôle des oscillations et synchronisations neuronales dans la perception et la mémoire, avec notamment le binding problem, problème du liage ou de la liaison des données sensorielles dans le cerveau. Sans oublier la découverte de neurones miroirs amenant à l'idée d'une "simulation" à la fois corporelle et psychique de ce qui est perçu par un individu. Ce concept, entre autres, et aussi les principes de codage/décodage et de prédiction de l'information issus de travaux de physiciens et mathématiciens russes et américains, anciens et récents, permettent à l'auteur de proposer un modèle précis de ce que pourrait être une nouvelle théorie esthétique. (shrink)

In a 2018 referendum, the Irish electorate voted in favour of repealing Ireland's quasi-total legal ban on abortion. The referendum campaign saw important public discussions regarding gender roles in twenty-first century Ireland. While the constitutional ban on abortion was condemned by abortion rights advocates for marginalising women's agency, the legislation which replaced it has not escaped criticism either. Therefore, questions surrounding the conceptualisation of women's agency in the 2018 referendum are still relevant today. Adopting a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach, (...) this paper analyses signage from the weeks before the vote to examine the discursive construction of women's agency in the linguistic landscape of the referendum campaign. I argue that many mainstream campaign organisations – including those arguing for liberalisation of abortion laws – were complicit in the discursive diminishment of women's agency, suggesting that the campaign did not necessarily challenge prevailing ideologies of gender and agency. (shrink)

The history and philosophy of affective terms and concepts contains important challenges for contemporary scientific accounts of emotion regulation. First, there is the problem of moral undertow. This arises because stipulating the ends of emotion regulation requires normative assumptions that ultimately derive from values and morals. Some historical precedents are considered to help explain and address this problem. Second, there is the problem of organization. This arises because multiple emotions are often organized and oriented in very particular ways over the (...) life of the individual in a manner that cannot be adequately explained using the concept of “emotion.” A modern variant of the traditional concept of passion is invoked to help address this problem. (shrink)

This article aims to shed light on both the foundations and the consistency of the position regarding akrasia Xenophon attributes to Socrates in the Memorabilia. As does Plato's Socrates, Xenophon's Socrates maintains that akrasia is impossible in the presence of knowledge. On the other hand, he differs from the platonic Socrates by granting to enkrateia, instead of knowledge, the role of foundation for virtue. If enkrateia is the very condition for acquiring knowledge and virtue, consequently the responsibility for countering akrasia (...) falls to enkrateia. (shrink)

In How to Be a Marxist in Philosophy one of the most famous Marxist philosophers of the 20th century shares his concept of what it means to function fruitfully as a political thinker within the discipline and environs of philosophy. This is the first English translation to Althusser's provocative and, often, controversial guide to being a true Marxist philosopher. Althusser argues that philosophy needs Marxism. It can't exist fully without it. Similarly, Marxism requires the rigour and structures of philosophy to (...) give it form and focus. He calls all thinking people to, 'Remember: a philosopher is a man who fights in theory, and when he understands the reasons for this fight, he joined the ranks of the struggle of workers and popular classes.' In short, this book comprises Althusser's elucidation of what praxis means and why it continues to matter. With a superb introduction from translator and Althusser archivist G.M. Goshgarian, this is a book that will re-inspire contemporary Marxist thought and reinvigorate our notions of what political activism can be. (shrink)

Le grand oeuvre de Louis Lavelle, La dialectique de l'eternel present, devait se conclure par un volume sur la sagesse. Si sa disparition en 1951 ne lui a pas permis d'ecrire ce volume, on trouve dans les livres qu'il a publies des textes sur la sagesse et il a laisse par ailleurs des notes inedites consacrees a ce theme. En regroupant ces differents fragments, on voit se dessiner les contours essentiels que revetait aux yeux de Lavelle la notion de (...) sagesse. Un tel ensemble permet d'identifier les lignes de force du volume De la sagesse qui n'a pu voir le jour, et ce tant sur le plan metaphysique que sur le plan ethique. Selon le philosophe, la vraie sagesse ne se limite ni a l'ideal grec de mesure, ni a l'ideal cartesien de rationalite, mais s'ouvre a l'experience spirituelle interiorisee. A une epoque ou la recherche de la serenite, trop souvent oubliee par la philosophie, revet une importance cruciale, vitale, les textes de Chemins de sagesse ont l'insigne merite de poser les jalons d'une vie en harmonie avec le monde, autrui et l'absolu. (shrink)