O presente artigo pretende mostrar que o conceito de segunda natureza ocupa um lugar central no pensamento de Blaise Pascal, sendo o fundamento das suas reflexões políticas, dentre as quais emergem aquelas em torno do conceito de justiça. Para tanto, mostra como o conceito de segunda natureza, embora tenha sua origem em categorias teológicas, situa-se já no plano metafísico, de onde se impõe como fundamento da existência histórico-temporal do homem. Deste modo, o conceito de segunda natureza possibilita a Pascal pensar (...) um conceito de justiça que, afastando-se do Direito Natural moderno, se apóia em bases históricas. No pensamento político pascaliano emergem, em primeiro plano, as concupiscências, a partir das quais se constituem a força, a imaginaçáo, os costumes e as leis, e, com elas, a distinçáo entre as grandezas de estabelecimento e as grandezas naturais. Com estas últimas categorias, Pascal transita de uma reflexáo genealógica da política, à qual se liga um conceito negativo de justiça, a uma reflexáo doutrinal, que possibilita um conceito positivo de justiça. (shrink)
Resenha do livro de MONTEIRO, Joáo Paulo. Hume e a Epistemologia ; revisáo de Frederico Diehl [1ª. ed. brasileira]. – Sáo Paulo: Editora UNESP; Discurso Editorial, 2009. (232 p).
Nietzsche’s critique of the will to truth, and, more specifically, the metaphysical tradition, is inextricable from both his philosophy of language and his turn to physiology. Though the way in which Nietzsche conceived of the intertwinement of language, reason, and the body developed through the course of his philosophical maturation, it is nonetheless a recurrent motif spanning the breadth of his oeuvre. As the editors state in their introduction to Nietzsche on Instinct and Language (NIL), the volume aims at being (...) a “fresh look” at Nietzsche’s repeated attempts to bridge these domains (xv). Beyond this singular and broad explicit aim, however, the volume intimates a number of other more specific aspirations. .. (shrink)
O decorrer século XIV, o conflito entre o papa e o imperador se esvaiu. Entrementes, os novos estados criavam corpo e os antigos problemas adquiriam nova roupagem. Esse foi o ambiente em que viveu Wyclif. Seu pensamento político possui uma matriz religiosa e sua intenção maior foi a de compreender a Igreja como comunidade de redimidos. Nessa condição ela só é conhecida por Deus e só no juízo final os homens saberão quem pertenceu à verdadeira Igreja. Baseado em Egídio Romano, (...) mas lendo-o em outra clave, justifica a propriedade e o poder através do estado de graça. Em suas críticas à Igreja foi um dos antecessores da Reforma. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Novos estados. Igreja dos redimidos. Propriedade. Poder. Reforma. ABSTRACT During the XIV century, the conflict between the pope and the emperor lost force. In the meanwhile, the new states took body and the ancient problems took on new clothes. That was the environment in which Wyclif lived. His political thought owns a religious source, and his major intention was to understand the Church as a community of the redeemed. In such a condition the Church is only known by God, and only in the final judgment men will know who belonged to the true Church. Based on Giles of Rom, but reading him from a different point of view, he justifies property and power through the state of grace. In his critics to the Church he was one of the antecessors of the Reform. KEY WORDS – New states. Church of the redeemed. Property. Power. Reform. (shrink)
Neste estudo, investiga-se a possibilidade de uma análise, por parte de Duns Scotus, do clássico problema de filosofia moral localizado na fraqueza da vontade. Argumentando de modo crítico para a identificação do tema na ética scotista, o autor acaba por expor, com isso, as premissas centrais de toda a metafísica da vontade e a ética da liberdade de Duns Scotus. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Fraqueza da vontade. Vontade. Liberdade. Voluntarismo. Teoria da ação scotista. ABSTRACT In this study the hypothesis of finding in (...) Duns Scotus’s works a real analysis of the classical problem of moral philosophy located in the weakness of the will is deeply investigated. Arguing critically for the identification of that theme in the ethics of Scotus, the author outlines at the same time the central premises for Duns Scotus’s metaphysics of the will and ethics of freedom. KEY WORDS – Weakness of will. Will. Freedom. Voluntarism. Scotus’s theory of action. (shrink)
Logic and Knowledge -/- Editor: Carlo Cellucci, Emily Grosholz and Emiliano Ippoliti Date Of Publication: Aug 2011 Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3008-9 Isbn: 1-4438-3008-9 -/- The problematic relation between logic and knowledge has given rise to some of the most important works in the history of philosophy, from Books VI–VII of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics, to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Mill’s A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. It provides the title of an important collection of (...) papers by Bertrand Russell (Logic and Knowledge. Essays, 1901–1950). However, it has remained an underdeveloped theme in the last century, because logic has been treated as separate from knowledge. -/- This book does not hope to make up for a century-long absence of discussion. Rather, its ambition is to call attention to the theme and stimulating renewed reflection upon it. The book collects essays of leading figures in the field and it addresses the theme as a topic of current debate, or as a historical case study, or when appropriate as both. Each essay is followed by the comments of a younger discussant, in an attempt to transform what might otherwise appear as a monologue into an ongoing dialogue; each section begins with an historical essay and ends with an essay by one of the editors. -/- Carlo Cellucci is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza,’ Italy. He is currently completing a book entitled, Remaking Logic: What is Logic Really? -/- Emily Grosholz is Professor of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. She is the author of Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences (Oxford University Press, 2007). -/- Emiliano Ippoliti is a Research Fellow at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza,’ Italy. His main interests are heuristics, the logic of discovery, and problem-solving. He is currently working on a book, Ampliating Knowledge: Data, Hypotheses and Novelty. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- Foreword .................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xxv -/- Section I: Logic and Knowledge -/- Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 The Cognitive Importance of Sight and Hearing in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Logic (Mirella Capozzi) Discussion .............................................................................................. 26 (Chiara Fabbrizi) Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 33 Nominalistic Content (Jody Azzouni) Discussion ............................................................................................... 52 (Silvia De Bianchi) Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 57 A Garden of Grounding Trees (Göran Sundholm) Discussion.......................................................................................... .. 75 (Luca Incurvati) Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 81 Logics and Metalogics (Timothy Williamson) Discussion.......................................................................................... 101 (Cesare Cozzo) Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 109 Is Knowledge the Most General Factive Stative Attitude? (Cesare Cozzo) Discussion.......................................................................................... 117 (Timothy Williamson) Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 123 Classifying and Justifying Inference Rules (Carlo Cellucci) Discussion.......................................................................................... 143 (Norma B. Goethe) -/- Section II: Logic and Science -/- Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 151 The Universal Generalization Problem and the Epistemic Status of Ancient Medicine: Aristotle and Galen (Riccardo Chiaradonna) Discussion.......................................................................................... 168 (Diana Quarantotto) Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 175 The Empiricist View of Logic (Donald Gillies) Discussion.......................................................................................... 191 (Paolo Pecere) Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 197 Artificial Intelligence and Evolutionary Theory: Herbert Simon’s Unifying Framework (Roberto Cordeschi) Discussion.......................................................................................... 216 (Francesca Ervas) Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 221 Evolutionary Psychology and Morality: The Renaissance of Emotivism? (Mario De Caro) Discussion.......................................................................................... 232 (Annalisa Paese) Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 237 Between Data and Hypotheses (Emiliano Ippoliti) Discussion.......................................................................................... 262 (Fabio Sterpetti) -/- Section III: Logic and Mathematics -/- Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 273 Dedekind Against Intuition: Rigor, Scope and the Motives of his Logicism (Michael Detlefsen) Discussion.......................................................................................... 290 (Marianna Antonutti) Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 297 Mathematical Intuition: Poincaré, Polya, Dewey (Reuben Hersh) Discussion.......................................................................................... 324 (Claudio Bernardi) Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 329 On the Finite: Kant and the Paradoxes of Knowledge (Carl Posy) Discussion.......................................................................................... 358 (Silvia Di Paolo) Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 363 Assimilation: Not Only Indiscernibles are Identified (Robert Thomas) Discussion.......................................................................................... 380 (Diego De Simone) Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 385 Proofs and Perfect Syllogisms (Dag Prawitz) Discussion.......................................................................................... 403 (Julien Murzi) Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 411 Logic, Mathematics, Heterogeneity (Emily Grosholz) Discussion.......................................................................................... 427 (Valeria Giardino) -/- Contributors........................................................................................ ..... 433 Index............................................................................................... ......... 437 -/- Price Uk Gbp: 49.99 Price Us Usd: 74.99 -/- Website: http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Logic-and-Knowledge1-4438-3008-9.htm. 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The platonic ideas attribution into God’s mind creates a problem, namely: how to speak about “divine attributes” without put multiplicity into the divine simple substance? From this problem, this paper aims to show how Luis de Léon is between Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus.
What is the fundamental insight behind truth-functionality ? When is a logic interpretable by way of a truth-functional semantics? To address such questions in a satisfactory way, a formal definition of truth-functionality from the point of view of abstract logics is clearly called for. As a matter of fact, such a definition has been available at least since the 70s, though to this day it still remains not very widely well-known. A clear distinction can be drawn between logics characterizable through: (...) (1) genuinely finite-valued truth-tabular semantics; (2) no finite-valued but only an infinite-valued truthtabular semantics; (3) no truth-tabular semantics at all. Any of those logics, however, can in principle be characterized through non-truth-functional valuation semantics, at least as soon as their associated consequence relations respect the usual tarskian postulates. So, paradoxical as that might seem at first, it turns out that truth-functional logics may be adequately characterized by non-truth-functional semantics . Now, what feature of a given logic would guarantee it to dwell in class (1) or in class (2), irrespective of its circumstantial semantic characterization? (shrink)
The aim of the paper is to sketch a principle of individuation that is intended to serve the Fregean notion of a proposition, a notion I take for granted. A salient feature of Fregean propositions, i.e. complexes of modes of presentation of objects (individuals, properties), is that they are fine-grained items, so fine-grained that even synonymous sentences might express different Fregean propositions. My starting point is the principle labelled by Gareth Evans the Intuitive Criterion of Difference for Thoughts, which states (...) that it is impossible coherently to take different mental attitudes to the same proposition. As a logical truth (a consequence of Leibnizs Law), this is a synchronic principle, the application of which is restricted to attitudes held at a single time. I argue that such a restriction might be reasonably lifted and, on the basis of an adequate notion of attitude-retention, I propose an admissible diachronic extension of the principle. (shrink)
The aim of this paper, is to provide a logical framework for reasoning about actions, agency, and powers of agents and coalitions in game-like multi-agent systems. First we define our basic Dynamic Logic of Agency ( ). Differently from other logics of individual and coalitional capability such as Alternating-time Temporal Logic (ATL) and Coalition Logic, in cooperation modalities for expressing powers of agents and coalitions are not primitive, but are defined from more basic dynamic logic operators of action and (historic) (...) necessity. We show that STIT logic can be reconstructed in . We then extend with epistemic operators, which allows us to distinguish capability and power. We finally characterize the conditions under which agents are aware of their capabilities and powers. (shrink)
The property of being the implementation of a computational structure has been argued to be vacuously instantiated. This claim provides the basis for most antirealist arguments in the field of the philosophy of computation. Standard manoeuvres for combating these antirealist arguments treat the problem as endogenous to computational theories. The contrastive analysis of computational and other mathematical representations put forward here reveals that the problem should instead be treated within the more general framework of the Newman problem in structuralist accounts (...) of mathematical representation. It is argued that purely structuralist and purely functionalist accounts of implementation are inadequate to tackle the problem. An extensive evaluation of semantic accounts is provided, arguing that semantic properties are, unlike structural and functional ones, suitable to restrict the intended domain of implementation of computational properties in such a way as to block the Newman problem. The semantic hypothesis is defended from a number of recent objections. (shrink)
Given the controversial nature of most issues in the foundations of cognitive science, it could hardly be expected from a description of the territory that ...
The aim of this paper is to make the case for the obstinacy thesis. This is the thesis that proper names like ‘Hitler’, demonstratives like ‘this’, pure indexicals like ‘I’, and natural kind terms like ‘water’ and ‘gold’, are obstinately rigid terms. An obstinately rigid term is one that refers to the object that is its actual referent with respect to every possible world (hence, a fortiori, even with respect to worlds where that object does not exist). This form of (...) rigidity is stronger than the usual Kripkean one and has been notoriously explored by David Kaplan (Kaplan 1989a: 492-3; Kaplan 1989b: 569-71). Yet, the obstinacy thesis seems implausible to many philosophers and is worth substantive argument. For convenience, we focus our attention on proper names; but most of our remarks could be easily generalized to other unstructured singular terms. We shall take for granted Saul Kripke’s semantical doctrine that proper names are rigid in the general sense of the term and argue that their rigidity should take the specific form of obstinacy rather than persistence. (shrink)
We present a modal logic called (logic of intention and attempt) in which we can reason about intention dynamics and intentional action execution. By exploiting the expressive power of , we provide a formal analysis of the relation between intention and action and highlight the pivotal role of attempt in action execution. Besides, we deal with the problems of instrumental reasoning and intention persistence.
In a review of Frege's Puzzle1, Graeme Forbes makes the claim that Salmon's account of belief might be seen, under certain conditions, as a mere notational variant of a neo-Fregean theory; and thus that such an account might be reduced to a neo-Fregean one simply by rewriting it in terms of Fregean terminology. With a view to supporting his claim, Forbes offers an outline of an account of belief which, according to him, would satisfy the following conditions: (i) it could (...) be directly obtained from Salmon's own analysis by means of a certain set of substitutions, which presumably would not affect the essential features of Salmon's view; (ii) it could naturally be described as Fregean, in the sense that it would preserve, (at least) the spirit of Frege's doctrines, especially his fundamental intuitions about belief. Of course, the upshot of Forbes's argument is that Salmon's theory would not, at bottom, constitute a genuine alternative to a Fregean semantics for belief ascriptions. In this paper I argue to the effect that Forbes's claim is not in general sound. It seems to me that the sort of indirect argument used by Forbes - that of trying to undermine Salmon's theory by showing that it is just a version of a neo-Fregean account - does not provide someone working within a Fregean framework with an adequate strategy to counter Salmon's neo-Russellian views. It would perhaps be better to concentrate a Fregean attack on certain apparently dubious and highly controversial theses and results which are constitutive of Salmon's view, e.g. the counterintuitive character of a substantial set of consequences which follow from his theory of belief, as well as the associated revisionist stand he is forced to take towards our current patterns of speaking about belief. (shrink)
We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model (...) of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models. (shrink)
Any description of the emergence and evolution of different types of meaning processes (semiosis, sensu C.S.Peirce) in living systems must be supported by a theoretical framework which makes it possible to understand the nature and dynamics of such processes. Here we propose that the emergence of semiosis of different kinds can be understood as resulting from fundamental interactions in a triadically-organized hierarchical process. To grasp these interactions, we develop a model grounded on Stanley Salthe's hierarchical structuralism. This model can be (...) applied to establish, in a general sense, a set of theoretical constraints for explaining the instantiation of different kinds of meaning processes (iconic, indexical, symbolic) in semiotic systems. We use it to model a semiotic process in the immune system, namely, B-cell activation, in order to offer insights into the heuristic role it can play in the development of explanations for specific semiotic processes. (shrink)
This paper is devoted to an examination of some aspects of the central issue of Cognitive Dynamics, the issue about the conditions under which intentional mental states may persist over time. I discuss two main sorts of approach to the topic: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in David Kaplan?s views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evans?s views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, I (...) argue that both Kaplan?s account and Evans?s account are on the whole defective (for different sorts of reason, of course); even though there are features of each of those views which seem to me to be along the right lines. On the other, and in spite of that, I claim that a broadly Fregean theory is still to be preferred since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal adequately with some important phenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based demonstrative mode of presentation of an object (a spatio-temporal particular, a region in space, a period of time, etc.) turns out to be indispensable for the purpose of accounting for the persistence of an important range of mental states with propositional content over time. (shrink)
The importance of an author can be evaluated by the extent to which his theoretical contribution transforms a certain area of knowledge: major researchers create new vistas. This certainly applies to Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), one of the most brilliant authors of contemporary psychology. His work, owing to its originality, is of epistemological interest to several areas of knowledge. In fact, Vygotsky was at the center of a historical time of change in twentieth-century Russia, in which Mikhail Bakhtin, Roman Jakobson, Serguei (...) Eisenstein, Alexander Luria, and Yuri Lotman took part. Their theoretical proposals had repercussions in several areas of knowledge: in literature, semiotics, film, and .. (shrink)
We continue the work initiated in Herzig and Lorini (J Logic Lang Inform, in press) whose aim is to provide a minimalistic logical framework combining the expressiveness of dynamic logic in which actions are first-class citizens in the object language, with the expressiveness of logics of agency such as STIT and logics of group capabilities such as CL and ATL. We present a logic called ( Deterministic Dynamic logic of Agency ) which supports reasoning about actions and joint actions of (...) agents and coalitions, and agentive and coalitional capabilities. In it is supposed that, once all agents have selected a joint action, the effect of this joint action is deterministic. In order to assess we prove that it embeds Coalition Logic. We then extend with modal operators for agents’ preferences, and show that the resulting logic is sufficiently expressive to capture the game-theoretic concepts of best response and Nash equilibrium. (shrink)
O presente artigo tem como objectivo fundamental propor uma interpretação do poema de T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922), no qual a experiência do mal constitui ponto de referência central. Esta experiência, traduzida metaforicamente por "terra desolada", pode ser perspectivada tanto em termos pessoais como civilizacionais. O poema, depois de realizar o diagnóstico de uma situação de crise profunda, realiza o que poderíamos designar como um ritual catártico que permite a purificação das dimensões negativas, sedimentadas em nós, constrangedoras da nossa (...) liberdade. /// This paper proposes an interpretation of T. S. Elliot's poem The Waste Land (1922) whose core is the experience of evil. Such experience, expressed by the metaphor of the "waste land", can be viewed either in personal or in civilizational terms. After diagnosing a profound crisis, the poem goes on to what could be called a cathartic ritual, which enables the purification of negative elements of life that constrain our freedom. (shrink)
: In this paper, we intend to discuss if and in what sense semiosis (meaning process, cf. C. S. Peirce) can be regarded as an "emergent" process in semiotic systems. It is not our problem here to answer when or how semiosis emerged in nature. As a prerequisite for the very formulation of these problems, we are rather interested in discussing the conditions which should be fulfilled for semiosis to be characterized as an emergent process. The first step in this (...) work is to summarize a systematic analysis of the variety of emergence theories and concepts, elaborated by Achim Stephan. Along the summary of this analysis, we pose fundamental questions that have to be answered in order to ascribe a precise meaning to the term "emergence" in the context of an understanding of semiosis. After discussing a model for explaining emergence based on Salthe's hierarchical structuralism, which considers three levels at a time in a semiotic system, we present some tentative answers to those questions. (shrink)
How to model meaning processes (semiosis) in artificial semiotic systems? Once all computer simulation becomes tantamount to theoretical simulation, involving epistemological metaphors of world versions, the selection and choice of models will dramatically compromise the nature of all work involving simulation. According to the pragmatic Peircean based approach, semiosis is an interpreter-dependent process that cannot be dissociated from the notion of a situated (and actively distributed) communicational agent. Our approach centers on the consideration of relevant properties and aspects of Peirce’s (...) pragmatic concept of semiotics. Upon developing this approach, we have no pretensions of our being able to present an exhaustive analysis of the differences between Peirce and other theoretical positions. Nevertheless, our contribution will serve to demonstrate how theorists contribute toward revealing certain fundamental ‘semiotic constraints’ that will be of interest and importance. (shrink)
O texto pretende discutir a maneira como Foucault trabalha o problema da constituição do sujeito do cuidado de si – tema que tomou conta de seus últimos livros, cursos, entrevistas e conferências. A problematização deste sujeito e das “técnicas de si” que o constitui surgem na obra do autor a partir do momento em que Foucault reorienta as suas pesquisas sobre as relações de poder ao final dos anos 70, dando início às investigações sobre as formas de governar (governo dos (...) outros). Procura-se mostrar que o deslocamento operado pelo autor passa necessariamente por uma problematização das condições de possibilidade a partir das quais as relações de poder, em sua modalidade de “ações sobre ações”, tornam-se possíveis. A liberdade como condição de possibilidade das relações de poder surge na obra de Foucault ao mesmo tempo em que a investigação sobre as “técnicas de si” descortinam a formação de sujeitos éticos. (shrink)
This paper discusses how to define logics as deductive limits of sequences of other logics. The case of da Costa's hierarchy of increasingly weaker paraconsistent calculi, known as $ \mathcal {C}$n, 1 $ \leq$ n $ \leq$ $ \omega$, is carefully studied. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, in particular, constitutes no more than a lower deductive bound to this hierarchy and differs considerably from its companions. A long standing problem in the literature (open for more than 35 years) is (...) to define the deductive limit to this hierarchy, that is, its greatest lower deductive bound. The calculus $ \mathcal {C}$min, stronger than $ \mathcal {C}$$\scriptstyle \omega$, is first presented as a step toward this limit. As an alternative to the bivaluation semantics of $ \mathcal {C}$min presented thereupon, possible-translations semantics are then introduced and suggested as the standard technique both to give this calculus a more reasonable semantics and to derive some interesting properties about it. Possible-translations semantics are then used to provide both a semantics and a decision procedure for $ \mathcal {C}$Lim, the real deductive limit of da Costa's hierarchy. Possible-translations semantics also make it possible to characterize a precise sense of duality: as an example, $ \mathcal {D}$min is proposed as the dual to $ \mathcal {C}$min. (shrink)
Over recent years, various semantics have been proposed for dealing with updates in the setting of logic programs. The availability of different semantics naturally raises the question of which are most adequate to model updates. A systematic approach to face this question is to identify general principles against which such semantics could be evaluated. In this paper we motivate and introduce a new such principle the refined extension principle. Such principle is complied with by the stable model semantics for (single) (...) logic programs. It turns out that none of the existing semantics for logic program updates, even though generalisations of the stable model semantics, comply with this principle. For this reason, we define a refinement of the dynamic stable model semantics for Dynamic Logic Programs that complies with the principle. (shrink)
In this paper, I will argue that the current discussions about regulating certain activities concerning the pharmaceutical industry do miss a crucial point. The Pharmaceutical Industry is a story of success, providing a wealth of new discoveries and applied technologies, which have greatly enhanced our lives. The current call for strict regulation of the Pharmaceutical Industry makes the unwarranted assumption that such regulation will not disturb the mechanisms of the Industry’s success. I will claim that a centralised regulation profoundly transforms (...) the direction of travel. I will also claim that the role of the executive in bypassing regulations creates a parallel industry of subsidiary regulations to counter such bypassing. The predictable consequence is the increasing role of central regulatory control and the progressive slowing down of the success of the Pharmaceutical Industry leading towards an undesirable mediocrity. The conclusion I wish to advance is that our choices are not limited to ‘a wild open market’ and ‘a regulated open market’ scenarios, and the strategy to avoid a robustly regulated but mediocre Pharmaceutical Industry may involve ‘non-open market scenarios’ which have so far been absent from the alternatives discussed. (shrink)
In this paper we investigate a logic for modelling individual and collective acceptances that is called acceptance logic. The logic has formulae of the form reading ‘if the agents in the set of agents G identify themselves with institution x then they together accept that ’. We extend acceptance logic by two kinds of dynamic modal operators. The first kind are public announcements of the form , meaning that the agents learn that is the case in context x . Formulae (...) of the form mean that is the case after every possible occurrence of the event x ! ψ . Semantically, public announcements diminish the space of possible worlds accepted by agents and sets of agents. The announcement of ψ in context x makes all -worlds inaccessible to the agents in such context. In this logic, if the set of accessible worlds of G in context x is empty, then the agents in G are not functioning as members of x , they do not identify themselves with x . In such a situation the agents in G may have the possibility to join x . To model this we introduce here a second kind of dynamic modal operator of acceptance shifting of the form . The latter means that the agents in G shift (change) their acceptances in order to accept ψ in context x . Semantically, they make ψ-worlds accessible to G in the context x , which means that, after such operation, G is functioning as member of x (unless there are no ψ -worlds). We show that the resulting logic has a complete axiomatization in terms of reduction axioms for both dynamic operators. In the paper we also show how the logic of acceptance and its dynamic extension can be used to model some interesting aspects of judgement aggregation. In particular, we apply our logic of acceptance to a classical scenario in judgment aggregation, the so-called ‘doctrinal paradox’ or ‘discursive dilemma’ (Pettit, Philosophical Issues 11:268–299, 2001; Kornhauser and Sager, Yale Law Journal 96:82–117, 1986). (shrink)
We present here a digital scenario to simulate the emergence of self-organized symbol-based communication among artificial creatures inhabiting a virtual world of predatory events. In order to design the environment and creatures, we seek theoretical and empirical constraints from C.S.Peirce Semiotics and an ethological case study of communication among animals. Our results show that the creatures, assuming the role of sign users and learners, behave collectively as a complex system, where self-organization of communicative interactions plays a major role in the (...) emergence of symbol-based communication. We also strive for a careful use of the theoretical concepts involved, including the concepts of symbol, communication, and emergence, and we use a multi-level model as a basis for the interpretation of inter-level relationships in the semiotic processes we are studying. (shrink)
The Valdez Principles have been formulated to guide and evaluate corporate conduct towards the environment. While at first glance the code appears to impose enormous new responsibilities on firms, a closer analysis indicates that existing regulations and business practices already require businesses to meet many of the environmental goals sought by its proponents. Likely corporate response to the code is examined against this background and with reference to the experience with other voluntary codes of conduct. It would appear that compliance (...) with the code will yield minimal benefits and non-compliance will impose minimum costs for the environmentally-responsible firm. (shrink)
This is a copy of the Proceedings version of a paper presented at the Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Semiotics, organized by João Queiroz and Ricardo Gudwin, held at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil, on 8-9 October, 2002. (This version contains material not actually delivered at the conference.) Queiroz and Gudwin will be releasing the Proceedings volume on a..
Medical practitioners owe much of the significant progress made in the diagnosis and treatment of disease to industrial research. Hence, co-operation between providers of medical services, most notably medical practitioners, and the pharmaceutical industry is in the best interest of patients. Yet, empirical evidence shows how well-directed influence exerted by the pharmaceutical industry impacts physicians’ decision-making. Profit-motivated inducement by the pharmaceutical industry may expose patients to considerable risks. Against what many think to be based on overwhelming evidence, Joao Calinas-Correia takes (...) the view that the criticism levelled at the pharmaceutical industry as well as the call for transparency in the relationships between physicians and the industry are exaggerated. In his polemic he praises “Big Pharma” as a success and espouses the view that the undesired consequences of its activities are allegedly inherent in the underlying market environment shaped by politics. Moreover, he believes that the proposals made to control and eliminate such undesired effects will lead to mediocrity. Astonishingly, his polemic reaches out to contest the appropriateness of setting rules at all—even if being set by a democratic process. Calinas-Correia’s assertions are based on the wrong premises. They fail to recognize that today individual civil rights and liberties often enough do not have to be defended against encroachments by governmental authorities. Rather, it is incumbent on the state to create rules designed to defend the individual against infringements by overly powerful non-governmental institutions, in our case the medical-industrial complex. Given the power exercised by physicians and the special nature of their role in public health, clear-cut rules have to be enacted and implemented with respect to their relationship to Big Pharma. (shrink)
Fibring is recognized as one of the main mechanisms in combining logics, with great signicance in the theory and applications of mathematical logic. However, an open challenge to bring is posed by the collapsing problem: even when no symbols are shared, certain combinations of logics simply collapse to one of them, indicating that bring imposes unwanted interconnections between the given logics. Modulated bring allows a ner control of the combination, solving the collapsing problem both at the semantic and deductive levels. (...) Main properties like soundness and completeness are shown to be preserved, comparison with bring is discussed, and some important classes of examples are analyzed with respect to the collapsing problem. (shrink)
The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of the relations existing between, on the one hand, some specific types of built-spaces and, on the other, the manner in which man belonging to a given culture defines a particular way of conceiving andinhabiting the world. The interdependence between the forms of the construction of the human environment and the intellectual and practical articulation of social life has been the object of numerous researches. The focus of this analysis (...) will be, more specifically, on built-spaces that play a decisive role in the shaping of both the forms or orientation of collective life and the underlying worldviews, built-spaces that, in virtue of this two-fold function, deserve to be called world-making. The approach will be diachronical and comparative. I will first reconstruct, on the basis of phenomenology-inspired reading of Mircea Eliade’s works, the representative as well as orientative function of sacred built-space within certain religious traditions and its relations with a specific conception of theworld in general and of the earth-sky relation in particular. Subsequently, I will show that the overthrow of these cosmological and metaphysical beliefs during the scientific revolution, has deprived sacred space of its original meaning, while rendering at once possible and necessary a completely new type of built-space, the laboratory, which exerts, in an utterly different way, a world-making function. In this way, this article develops yet another comparison between the religious conception of the relation between man and the world, and the conception issued by the modern scientific and technological development. (shrink)
In this work, we propose a computational approach to the triadic model of Peircean semiosis (meaning processes). We investigate theoretical constraints about the feasibility of simulated semiosis. These constraints, which are basic requirements for the simulation of semiosis, refer to the synthesis of irreducible triadic relations (SignâObjectâInterpretant). We examine the internal organization of the triad SâOâI, that is, the relative position of its elements and how they relate to each other. We also suggest a multi-level approach based on self-organization principles. (...) In this context, semiosis is described as an emergent process. Nevertheless, the term âemergenceâ is often used in a very informal way in the so called âemergentâ computation, without clear explanations and/or definitions. In this paper, we discuss in some detail the meaning of the theoretical terms âemergenceâ and âemergentâ, showing how such an analysis can lead to improvements of the algorithm proposed. (shrink)
: American Trypanosomiasis, known as Chagas disease, was discovered in 1909 under peculiar circumstances: its discoverer, Carlos Chagas, was sent to a small village of Central Brazil to carry out an anti-malaria campaign when he came across a blood sucking insect--the vector for the parasite infection. He had been alerted to the coincidence of peculiar symptoms and the presence of this insect in the wood and earth dwellings of the region. He was deeply involved in theoretical controversies in international protozoology; (...) he was engaged in the consolidation of a scientific role and corresponding institutional conditions in Brazil, and equally immersed in the nationalist sanitary struggles of his days. In these contexts, Chagas assembled a remarkable discovery discourse, regarding the biology of the parasite, its life cycle and mode of transmission. Furthermore, he provided the clinical description of a new disease. Despite immediate international recognition, however, the unstable institutional arrangements surrounding his work damaged its local legitimacy for decades. His authority was widely recognized abroad, but rejected at home. (shrink)
This paper aims to define what competitive perception is. Using Dufrenne's phenomenological analysis of the art spectator's experience, namely the concept of aesthetic perception, I will claim that it is useful to apply this phenomenological approach to the experience of watching sport events. I will argue that the concepts of uncertainty and auto teleology, being two main features in sport competition, are helpful to define competitive perception.
Radical skepticism, irrationalism, psychologism, and epistemological despair are popular interpretations of Hume. The theory of causal inference has been supposed to stand at the very heart of Humean skepticism, mainly because of its ‘associationism’. However, the myth of a skeptical Hume—more radical than he really is in his own admitted ‘mitigated skepticism’—has been discredited in recent years. Hume certainly was an associationist about the passions, and moral sentiments, and the rules of justice in society, and many other aspects of human (...) life, as different as literary taste and superstition. There is plenty of evidence of this in Books II and III of the Treatise, in the second Enquiry, in the Dissertation on the Passions and in the Essays. But my main point here is that association of ideas has no cognitive role in his philosophy, beyond serving as “the cement of complex ideas.” Custom or habit do have such a cognitive role, as is well known, and shall be discussed below. (shrink)
The subject of this paper is the new theory of political liberalism, developed by people like jJohn Rawls and Charles Larmore. This is a quite specific subject and it should not be confused with another and more usual meaning attached to the same expression. This more conventional meaning of political liberalism is primarily a form of liberalism which stresses the political sphere - the state - as opposed to the economic sphere - the marketplace. However, the new theory of political (...) liberalism is not in opposition to economic liberalism in this way. Instead, the adjective political refers to the fact that this recent defence of liberalism avoids reliance on comprehensive and controversial religious, metaphysical, epistemological, and moral views. In this sense, political liberalism is a theory of argumentative restraint regarding the defence of liberal justice. (shrink)
Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)
A Teoria Crítica propõe, com Theodor Adorno, uma íntima relação entre filosofia e desenvolvimento de experiências formativas, constituindo um referencial teórico indispensável para o entendimento acerca do que é pensar filosoficamente em uma perspectiva denominada negativa. Nessa relação, a experiência e racionalidade estética demarcam uma nova forma de conceber a razão e seu momento na relação com a objetividade. Esse momento da razão não indica apropriação, mas remete para uma aproximação e, a partir dessa, a construção de sentido. A problemática (...) que orienta este texto indaga sobre como os conceitos de concreto, aproximação e construção se articulam no desenvolvimento das chamadas experiências formativas. Defendemos a hipótese de que a partir da articulação desses conceitos a riqueza constitutiva da realidade passa a ser manifestada e apreendida, possibilitando, mediante a ampliação das experiências, a manifestação do novo e a construção de sentido. Essa constelação conceitual indica o desafio de considerar a objetividade para além do imediatamente dado; indica, também, o sentido que deve assumir a tensão dialética geradora da aproximação e, por último, um caminho que nos auxilia na tarefa de compreensão do pensamento crítico de Theodor Adorno. (shrink)
The research team measured the enterprise web accessibility levels of the Forbes 250 largest enterprises using the fully automatic accessibility evaluation tool Sortsite, and presented the compliance of the evaluated websites to WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 accessibility levels. Given the recent attention to organizational leaders having ethical duties towards their dedicated employees, we propose that ‘societal citizenship behaviour’ concerns ethical duties of organizational leaders towards society in general and in particular to those who have less means to (...) assert their needs. In effect, we found enterprise website accessibility levels to be in need of significant improvement. An interpretation of a positive path forward to better enterprise website accessibility levels is put forth based on a focus-group interaction and using BNML—a novel Business Narrative Modelling Language. (shrink)
In this paper, we investigate the rules that should underlie a computer program that is capable of revising its beliefs or opinions. Such a program maintains a model of its environment, which is updated to reflect perceived changes in the environment. This model is stored in a knowledge base, and the program draws logical inferences from the information in the knowledge base. All the inferences drawn are added to the knowledge base. Among the propositions in the knowledge base, there are (...) some in which the program believes, and there may be others in which the program does not believe. Inputs from the outside world or reasoning carried out by the program may lead to the detection of contradictions, in which case the program has to revise its beliefs in order to get rid of the contradiction and to accommodate the new information. (shrink)
El presente artículo aborda las connotaciones y los fundamentos de la paráfrasis cum canere vellem en Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. El análisis del sentido del verbo volo en este contexto y la confrontación del pasaje con Serv. Ecl. 6. 5 revelan que Servio interpreta la frase cum canerem reges et proelia como referencia a un temprano empeño de Virgilio en componer poesía épica, del que pronto desistió. Esta interpretación está condicionada por la idea de que la secuencia cronológica Églogas - (...) Geórgicas - Eneida tiene un correlato jerárquico, idea que se funda en noticias biográficas y en la teoría de la tripertita varietas. This paper focuses on the connotations and grounds of the paraphrase cum canere vellem in Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. The analysis of the sense of verb volo within this context, as well as the confrontation between that passage and Serv. Ecl. 6. 5, show that Servius interprets the clause cum canerem reges et proelia as a reference to Virgil's early endeavor to compose an epic poem, from which he shortly desisted. This interpretation is conditioned by the idea that the chronological sequence Eclogues - Georgics - Aeneid has a hierarchical correlate, an idea which is founded on biographical information and the theory of tripertita varietas. (shrink)
Modern semiotics is a branch of logics that formally defines symbol-based communication. In recent years, the semiotic classification of signs has been invoked to support the notion that symbols are uniquely human. Here we show that alarm-calls such as those used by African vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops), logically satisfy the semiotic definition of symbol. We also show that the acquisition of vocal symbols in vervet monkeys can be successfully simulated by a computer program based on minimal semiotic and neurobiological constraints. (...) The simulations indicate that learning depends on the tutor-predator ratio, and that apprentice-generated auditory mistakes in vocal symbol interpretation have little effect on the learning rates of apprentices (up to 80% of mistakes are tolerated). In contrast, just 10% of apprentice-generated visual mistakes in predator identification will prevent any vocal symbol to be correctly associated with a predator call in a stable manner. Tutor unreliability was also deleterious to vocal symbol learning: a mere 5% of “lying” tutors were able to completely disrupt symbol learning, invariably leading to the acquisition of incorrect associations by apprentices. Our investigation corroborates the existence of vocal symbols in a non-human species, and indicates that symbolic competence emerges spontaneously from classical associative learning mechanisms when the conditioned stimuli are self-generated, arbitrary and socially efficacious. We propose that more exclusive properties of human language, such as syntax, may derive from the evolution of higher-order domains for neural association, more removed from both the sensory input and the motor output, able to support the gradual complexification of grammatical categories into syntax. (shrink)
This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the concept of social ties that we consider, we introduce an original model of social ties. The impact of such ties on social preferences is studied in a coordination game with outside option. We provide a detailed game theoretical analysis of this game while considering various types of players, i.e., self-interest maximizing, inequity averse, and fair agents. In addition to these approaches that require strategic reasoning in (...) order to reach some equilibrium, we also present an alternative hypothesis that relies on the concept of team reasoning. After having discussed the differences between the latter and our model of social ties, we show how an experiment can be designed so as to discriminate among the models presented in the paper. (shrink)
Resenha do livro de Sandra S. F. Erickson. A melancolia da criatividade na poesia de Augusto dos Anjos . Joáo Pessoa: Editora Universitária, UFPB, 2003, 243 páginas.
During the last few decades we have witnessed a proliferation of exercises dealing with the public participation of citizens in various different dimensions of their societies, including issues of science and technology. On the one hand, these mechanisms provide more robust forms of public engagement with matters that were traditionally dealt with by experts; on the other hand, they raise concerns relating to their design, efficiency or potential for the empowerment of citizens. As part of the EC-funded project DEEPEN (Deepening (...) Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies) a research team in Coimbra, Portugal, was put in charge of identifying the ethical and social “impacts” of emerging nanotechnologies, transforming the traditional focus groups through the incorporation of two methodological innovations: the Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Oppressed. This article reflects on the outcomes and complexities of the introduction of these two methodologies. Since the participants had little or no information on nanotechnologies, we reflect on the politics of these focus groups by exploring how issues of intervention, subjectivity, representation and agency were interconnected during this exercise of public participation in Science and Technology, analyzing the role of social sciences in developing nanoethics. (shrink)
Francisco Valles, also known as ‘The Divine Valles’, was most probably the greatest Spanish physician of the Renaissance and succeeded Andreas Vesalius, whom he knew well, as the personal doctor of Philip II of Spain. Valles studied in Alcalá and wrote several works, among which the influential Controversiarum medicarum et philosophicarum. The importance of Valles’s contribution to the debate concerning the number, the specific tasks, and the localization of the internal senses in Aristotle and in Galen is attested by Pedro (...) da Fonseca’s appreciation of his contribution and by the relevance of Valles’s works to the study of the history of philosophy and of anatomy, in antiquity, in the Renaissance and in scholasticism. (shrink)
In classical logic, a contradiction allows one to derive every other sentence of the underlying language; paraconsistent logics came relatively recently to subvert this explosive principle, by allowing for the subsistence of contradictory yet non-trivial theories. Therefore our surprise to find Wittgenstein, already at the 1930s, in comments and lectures delivered on the foundations of mathematics, as well as in other writings, counseling a certain tolerance on what concerns the presence of contradictions in a mathematical system. ‘Contradiction. Why just this (...) spectre? This is really very suspicious.’ ( Philosophical Remarks III–56) In the last decades, several authors (e.g. Arrington, Hintikka, Van Heijenoort, Wright, Wrigley) have been digging into Wittgenstein’s rather non-standard standpoint on what concerns the interpretation and import of contradiction in logic and mathematics, and many other authors (e.g. da Costa, Goldstein, Granger, Marconi) have been investigating the possibility of taking Wittgenstein seriously as one of the early forerunners of paraconsistency. While many advances have been made on the first front, the second set of investigations has led almost exclusively to negative results: no, no operational proposal about the construction of a logic in which (some) contradictions are made inoffensive can be read from Wittgenstein’s philosophical work; in fact, it appears that the most one can find there is the exhortation for mathematicians to alter their attitude with respect to contradictions and to consistency proofs. The play is done, and one looks for a resume of the opera. This paper fills that blank, as a thorough investigation of the possible relations between Wittgenstein and paraconsistency. DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n1p135. (shrink)
In this paper I submit that, if one takes seriously the distinction between citizenship rights and human rights, the list of the latter must be minimized. Many of the rights that we are used to call human rights are, in fact, citizenship rights and they belong to a history of citizenship in some specific states around the world. Thelist of human rights must be much shorter than the list of citizenship rights, whatever that list may be in accordance with the (...) grounds attributed to human rights by different philosophical approaches. My plea for a qualification of which rights should count as human rights and the idea of a short list challenges the consensus among international lawyers. Nevertheless, it does not aim at a critique of human rights as such. On the contrary, the general intention of the very idea of a short list is to strengthen the moral force of human rights in order to make them meaningful in different political contexts. (shrink)
The aim of this article is to situate positively Husserl’s philosophy with respect to current discussions concerning the mind–body problem and, more specifically,the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness. It will be first argued that the view according to which phenomenology can contribute to the solution of the hard problem by being naturalized and incorporated into cognitive sciences is based on a misunderstanding of the nature and aim of Husserl’s philosophy.Subsequently, it will be shown that phenomenology deals with the issue of (...) the relation between mind and body in the framework of the transcendental foundationof the ontology of animal nature, and provides thereby a non-reductionist solution to the hard problem. This discussion will at the same time stress the sharp differences existing between phenomenology and philosophy of mind, and highlight the relation between phenomenology and ontology. (shrink)
