This paper presents a formalism that combines useful properties of both logic and probabilities. Like logic, the formalism admits qualitative sentences and provides symbolic machinery for deriving deductively closed beliefs and, like probability, it permits us to express if-then rules with different levels of firmness and to retract beliefs in response to changing observations. Rules are interpreted as order-of-magnitude approximations of conditional probabilities which impose constraints over the rankings of worlds. Inferences are supported by a unique priority ordering on rules (...) which is syntactically derived from the knowledge base. This ordering accounts for rule interactions, respects specificity considerations and facilitates the construction of coherent states of beliefs. Practical algorithms are developed and analyzed for testing consistency, computing rule ordering, and answering queries. Imprecise observations are incorporated using qualitative versions of Jeffrey's rule and Bayesian updating, with the result that coherent belief revision is embodied naturally and tractably. Finally, causal rules are interpreted as imposing Markovian conditions that further constrain world rankings to reflect the modularity of causal organizations. These constraints are shown to facilitate reasoning about causal projections, explanations, actions and change. (shrink)
An assertion of high conditional probability or, more briefly, an HCP assertion is a statement of the type: The conditional probability of B given A is close to one. The goal of this paper is to construct logics of HCP assertions whose conclusions are highly likely to be correct rather than certain to be correct. Such logics would allow useful conclusions to be drawn when the premises are not strong enough to allow conclusions to be reached with certainty. This goal (...) is achieved by taking Adams" (1966) logic, changing its intended application from conditionals to HCP assertions, and then weakening its criterion for entailment. According to the weakened entailment criterion, called the Criterion of Near Surety and which may be loosely interpreted as a Bayesian criterion, a conclusion is entailed if and only if nearly every model of the premises is a model of the conclusion. The resulting logic, called NSL, is nonmonotonic. Entailment in this logic, although not as strict as entailment in Adams" logic, is more strict than entailment in the propositional logic of material conditionals. Next, NSL was modified by requiring that each HCP assertion be scaled; this means that to each HCP assertion was associated a bound on the deviation from 1 of the conditional probability that is the subject of the assertion. Scaling of HCP assertions is useful for breaking entailment deadlocks. For example, it it is known that the conditional probabilities of C given A and of ¬ C given B are both close to one but the bound on the former"s deviation from 1 is much smaller than the latter"s, then it may be concluded that in all likelihood the conditional probability of C given A B is close to one. The resulting logic, called NSL-S, is also nonmonotonic. Despite great differences in their definitions of entailment, entailment in NSL is equivalent to Lehmann and Magidor"s rational closure and, disregarding minor differences concerning which premise sets are considered consistent, entailment in NSL-S is equivalent to entailment in Goldszmidt and Pearl"s System-Z +. Bacchus, Grove, Halpern, and Koller proposed two methods of developing a predicate calculus based on the Criterion of Near Surety. In their random-structures method, which assumed a prior distribution similar to that of NSL, it appears possible to define an entailment relation equivalent to that of NSL. In their random-worlds method, which assumed a prior distribution dramatically different from that of NSL, it is known that the entailment relation is different from that of NSL. (shrink)
Thomas Aquinas' treatment of Moses Maimonides' via negativa has been frequently called into question. In particular, some contemporary Maimonideans have argued that Aquinas grossly misunderstands Maimonides. Other scholars argue that Maimonides' defense of his own position provides insuperable challenges to alternative ways of naming God, despite the problems Aquinas raised with the via negativa. In this article, the author attends to Aquinas' two objections to Maimonides in Summa theologiae I.13.2 in order to see if these objections are valid and further, (...) to see if Aquinas mischaracterizes Maimonides in this passage, as some have alleged. Before addressing the question of whether or not Aquinas understood Maimonides, the author offers also a brief introduction to the historical debate over religious language in the Middle Ages. /// O tratamento da via negativa de Moisés Maimónides por S. Tomás de Aquino tem sido frequentemente posta em questão. De um modo particular, os seguidores contemporâneos de Maimónides têm argumentado que S. Tomás compreendeu mal o pensador Judeu. Outros especialistas argumentam que a defesa de Maimónides da sua própria posição fornece desafios insuperáveis às maneiras alternativas de nomear Deus apesar das dificuldades identificadas por S. Tomás com a via negativa. Neste artigo, a autora ocupa-se sobretudo de duas objecções de S. Tomás de Aquino a Maimónides na Summa theologiae Ia.13.2, a fim de verificar a validade destas objecções e também para ver se S. Tomás não terá compreendido mal Maimónides nesta passagem, tal como alguns têm alegado. Antes de tratar a questão de saber se sim ou não S. Tomás compreendeu correctamente a Maimónides, a autora oferece uma breve introdução ao debate histórico sobre a linguagem religiosa na Idade Média. (shrink)
Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Vontade Geral é um conceito fundamental da teoria política de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. A intençáo deste artigo é mostrar alguns atributos dessa vontade; apontar sua importância nas idéias rousseaunianas de Soberania e Lei; apresentar como ela é identificada e promovida e como ela se impõe na sociedade pós-pacto garantindo a (...) igualdade e a liberdade do homem social. (shrink)
Los cuatro pertenecían a una generación que mantuvo contacto directo con Wittgenstein, Carnap o Russell. La potencia conceptual de la filosofía analítica sobrevuela, por fortuna, a sus protagonistas y no se extingue con ellos.
The fictional beings are another story ourselves, and tell us another way to recover what we, wanting to be what we want; Stories in which they live, not knowing that his life is a story, a story that does not live as if it were, as if they lived their lives. The fictions of the world show us, not necessarily, as others do not, who am not! But who still am not, because I have not discovered completely all myself, and (...) sometimes I am without be them in this otherness for myself it is mine, but not mine yet, I am part of stories that are not my history, the world of text, stories where I am another, even myself, intratextual entity and not intraworld, reowned those others who just the text opens so imaginary and that the actual closure and silent, to the point where it is discovered that about me are the many stories that tell me I have the me or other me, where the mirror the other gives me an identity different readings, Be-who-I-am-and-who-else-to be-said-that-I, because I have built my own history identity, but the pair, others tell my story as the story of another, stories over and over that overlap but without being the same but the same, the stories of others that I am for others, who suspect without built my otherness, my other identities. (shrink)
In industrial societies workplace is the only battlefield where people can kill another without running the risk of facing the courts (Leynman, 1996). This picture of dehumanization work reveals that organizations stand as the scene of the permissibility and the justification of harassment at the workplace (mobbing), whichincreased gradually and adverse effects are alarming at the moment, without considering the quality of working life because so far few companies have woken to the fact that it can no longer continue explaining (...) the bankruptcy and instability of these causes as shrinking market, loss of investors, misguided government policies, strategies ineffective advertising and sale but the time has come to recognize that the conspiracies, sabotage, in a word, the struggle for power within each organization is a kind of silent and asymptomatic disease that eventually will kill to make their recovery process irreversible and even less hope of success, although some leaders unconscious be limited to talk about this as mere gossip, but envy is more professional than a potential threat is a lethal weapon that destroys companies from their foundations and from emerging as such. "Everyone against one !...¡ That is the question!". (shrink)
The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the relevance and significance of the concept of common good in contemporary society. First, I make a brief historical remark about the philosophical concept of common good. I will argue that the concept is rooted in the ancient Greek philosophical understanding of society, namely as polis, whereby human being is thought to have an end that is not merely individual but also collective. I then discuss how societies have significantly changed over (...) the years and how the current global order resembles the situation during the time of Alexander the Great, whose vision it was to establish a cosmopolis, literally a global city. In the end, I consider whether the notion of common good in itself has lost its relevance in the face of the manifold social changes. I bring my discussion to a close with a note on the universality and naturality of the common good of humankind. (shrink)
Pleasure has always been an important issue in morality. And although ethical systems tend to focus the discussion on human action, this agreeable sentiment has remained a recurrent question in moral philosophy. In this paper, I go back to Aristotle’s treatment of pleasure in his writings, particularly in the Nicomachean Ethics. I will argue that the distinction he draws between bodily pleasures and those of the mind represents an important point not only in understanding eudaimonia but also in situating the (...) very nature of ethical debates today. I will try to show how Aristotle’s distinction among pleasure matches up with his differentiation between energeia and kinésis as well as with the distinction between praxis and poiésis, and how these differentiations have enabled Aristotle toevade the pitfall of hedonism. (shrink)
uando Augusto consolidaba el Imperio romano, en su centro cultural, Alejandría, nace Filón. Filósofo, exégeta y maestro en su comunidad judía, Filón es testigo de la convivencia del judaísmo de lengua griega con una sociedad helenizada que en Egipto parecía acercarse al ideal de la pax romana. Pero también es el principal informante sobre el primer pogrom contra su comunidad en el año 38. Sus escritos constituyen la más importante expresión del judaísmo de lengua griega que encontró su ocaso en (...) la época de la destrucción del Templo de Jerusalén. Este volumen primero de las Obras completas de Filón de Alejandría se abre con una introducción general a la edición y traduce dos de los tratados más significativos de la obra filoniana: De opificio mundi y Legum allegoriae 1-3. La creación del mundo es el tratado fundamental de Filón, donde interpreta la doble narración de la producción del mundo según el Génesis, desde perspectivas eclécticas basadas en el Timeo y en tradiciones pitagóricas, aristotélicas y estoicas. Moisés se convierte en el verdadero filósofo para todos los hombres inteligentes de la ecúmene alejandrina, el que enseña la creación y la discriminación de un mundo inteligible y otro sensible. Alegorías de las Leyes es el inicio del Comentario Alegórico, donde los elementos narrativos de la producción artesanal de Adán y de la derivada producción de Eva por la costilla, considerados de forma mítica, dan paso a una interpretación —digna de Dios— de la producción del Intelecto y de la Sensibilidad, primero arquetípicos, después histórico-mundanos. (shrink)
