A well-known ``overdetermination''argument aims to show that the possibility of mental causes of physical events in a causally closed physical world and the possibility of causally relevant mental properties are both problematic. In the first part of this paper, I extend an identity reply that has been given to the first problem to a property-instance account of causal relata. In the second, I argue that mental types are composed of physical types and, as a consequence, both mental and physical (...) types may be causally relevant with respect to the same physical effect, contrary to the overdetermination argument. In further sections, I argue that mental types have causal powers, consider some objections and reject an alternative version of part-whole physicalism. Throughout I assume that causal relata are tropes and property types are classes of tropes. (shrink)
This paper develops the notion of a situated part structure and applies it to the semantics of the modifiers 'whole' and 'individual'. It argues that the ambiguity of 'whole' should be traced to two different conceptions of part structures of objects being at play: one according to which the parts of an objects are just the material parts and another, Aristotelian conception according to which the parts of an object include properties of form.
Accurately predicting other people's actions may involve two processes: internal real-time simulation (dynamic updating) and matching recently perceived action images (static matching). Using a priming of body parts, this study aimed to differentiate the two processes. Specifically, participants played a motion-controlled video game with either their arms or legs. They then observed arm movements of a point-light actor, which were briefly occluded from view, followed by a static test pose. Participants judged whether this test pose depicted a coherent continuation of (...) the previously seen action (i.e., “action prediction task”). Evidence of dynamic updating was obtained after compatible effector priming (i.e., arms), whereas incompatible effector priming (i.e., legs) indicated static matching. Together, the results support action prediction as engaging two distinct processes, dynamic simulation and static matching, and indicate that their relative contributions depend on contextual factors like compatibility of body parts involved in performed and observed action. (shrink)
Since the 1930s, scientists studying the neurological disease scrapie had assumed that the infectious agent was a virus. By the mid 1960s, however, several unconventional properties had arisen that were difficult to reconcile with the standard viral model. Evidence for nucleic acid within the pathogen was lacking, and some researchers considered the possibility that the infectious agent consisted solely of protein. In 1982, Stanley Prusiner coined the term `prion' to emphasize the agent's proteinaceous nature. This infectious protein hypothesis was denounced (...) by many scientists as `heretical'.This essay asks why the concept of an infectious protein was considered controversial. Some biologists justified their evaluation of this hypothesis on the grounds that an infectious protein contradicted the `central dogma of molecular biology'. Others referred to vague theoretical constraints such as molecular biology's `theoretical structure' or `framework'. Examination of the objections raised by researchers reveals exactly what generalizations were being challenged by a protein model of infection.This two-part survey of scrapie and prion research reaches several conclusions: (1) A theoretical framework is present in molecular biology, exerting its influence in hypothesis formation and evaluation; (2) This framework consists of several related, yet separable, generalizations or `elements', including Francis Crick's Central Dogma and Sequence Hypothesis, plus notions concerning infection, replication, protein synthesis, and protein folding; (3) The term `central dogma' has stretched beyond Crick's original 1958 definition to encompass at least two other `framework elements': replication and protein synthesis; and (4) From the study of scrapie and related diseases, biological information has been delineated into at least two classes: sequential and what I call `conformational'.In Part I of this essay, a brief review of the central dogma, as outlined by both Francis Crick and James Watson, will be given. The developments in scrapie research from 1965 to 1972 will then be traced. This section will summarize many of the puzzling, non-viral-like properties of the scrapie agent. Alternative hypotheses to the viral explanation will also be presented, including early versions of a protein-only hypothesis. Part II of this essay will follow the developments in scrapie and prion research from the mid 1970s through 1991. The growing prominence of a protein-only model of infection will be balanced by continued objections from many researchers to a pathogen devoid of nucleic acid. These objections will help illuminate those generalizations in molecular biology that were indeed challenged by a protein-only model of infection. (shrink)
In this first part of a two-part paper, we describe efforts in the early decades of this century to restrict the extent of violations of the Second Law of thermodynamics that were brought to light by the rise of the kinetic theory and the identification of fluctuation phenomena. We show how these efforts mutated into Szilard's (1929) proposal that Maxwell's Demon is exorcised by proper attention to the entropy costs associated with the Demon's memory and information acquisition. In (...) the second part we will argue that the information theoretic exorcisms of the Demon provide largely illusory benefits. According to the case, they either return a presupposition that can be had without information theoretic consideration or they postulate a broader connection between information and entropy than can be sustained. (shrink)
In this second part of our two-part paper we review and analyse attempts since 1950 to use information theoretic notions to exorcise Maxwell's Demon. We argue through a simple dilemma that these attempted exorcisms are ineffective, whether they follow Szilard in seeking a compensating entropy cost in information acquisition or Landauer in seeking that cost in memory erasure. In so far as the Demon is a thermodynamic system already governed by the Second Law, no further supposition about information (...) and entropy is needed to save the Second Law. In so far as the Demon fails to be such a system, no supposition about the entropy cost of information acquisition and processing can save the Second Law from the Demon. (shrink)
In this second part of our two-part paper we review and analyse attempts since 1950 to use information theoretic notions to exorcise Maxwell’s Demon. We argue through a simple dilemma that these attempted exorcisms are ineffective, whether they follow Szilard in seeking a compensating entropy cost in information acquisition or Landauer in seeking that cost in memory erasure. In so far as the Demon is a thermodynamic system already governed by the Second Law, no further supposition about information (...) and entropy is needed to save the Second Law. In so far as the Demon fails to be such a system, no supposition about the entropy cost of information acquisition and processing can save the Second Law from the Demon. (shrink)
In Part I we saw that the works of Helmholtz, Holder, Campbell and Stevens contain the main ingredients for the analysis of the conditions which make (fundamental) measurement possible, but, so to speak, that what is lacking in the work of the first three is to be found in the work of the last, and vice versa. The first tradition focuses on the conditions that an empirical qualitative system must satisfy in order to be numerically representable, but pays (...) no attention to the relation between possible different representations. The second tradition focuses on the study of scale types and the mathematical properties of the transformations that characterize the scales, but says nothing about the empirical facts these scales represent and the nature of such representation. Then, these two lines of research need to be appropriately integrated. In this Part II, we shall see how this integration is brought about in the foundational work of Suppes, the extensions and modifications which are generated around this work and the mature theory which results from all of this. (shrink)
The long history of ergodic and quasi-ergodic hypotheses provides the best example of the attempt to supply non-probabilistic justifications for the use of statistical mechanics in describing mechanical systems. In this paper we reverse the terms of the problem. We aim to show that accepting a probabilistic foundation of elementary particle statistics dispenses with the need to resort to ambiguous non-probabilistic notions like that of (in)distinguishability. In the quantum case, starting from suitable probability conditions, it is possible to deduce elementary (...) particle statistics in a unified way. Following our approach Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics can also be deduced, and this deduction clarifies its status.Thus our primary aim in this paper is to give a mathematically rigorous deduction of the probability of a state with given energy for a perfect gas in statistical equilibrium; that is, a deduction of the equilibrium distribution for a perfect gas. A crucial step in this deduction is the statement of a unified statistical theory based on clearly formulated probability conditions from which the particle statistics follows. We believe that such a deduction represents an important improvement in elementary particle statistics, and a step towards a probabilistic foundation of statistical mechanics.In this Part I we first present some history: we recall some results of Boltzmann and Brillouin that go in the direction we will follow. Then we present a number of probability results we shall use in Part II. Finally, we state a notion of entropy referring to probability distributions, and give a natural solution to Gibbs' paradox. (shrink)
In the first part of this article I investigated the Popperian roots of Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations, which was an attempt to apply, and thereby to test, Popper's theory of knowledge in a field-mathematics-to which it had not primarily been intended to apply. While Popper's theory of knowledge stood up gloriously to this test, the new application gave rise to new insights into the heuristic of mathematical development, which necessitated further clarification and improvement of some Popperian methodological maxims. In (...) the present part I analyze this second phase in the development of Lakatos's Popperian programme in mathematics, and its connection to the methodology of scientific research programmes. (shrink)
The long history of ergodic and quasi-ergodic hypotheses provides the best example of the attempt to supply non-probabilistic justifications for the use of statistical mechanics in describing mechanical systems. In this paper we reverse the terms of the problem. We aim to show that accepting a probabilistic foundation of elementary particle statistics dispenses with the need to resort to ambiguous non-probabilistic notions like that of (in)distinguishability. In the quantum case, starting from suitable probability conditions, it is possible to deduce elementary (...) particle statistics in a unified way. Following our approach Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics can also be deduced, and this deduction clarifies its status.Thus our primary aim in this paper is to give a mathematically rigorous deduction of the probability of a state with given energy for a perfect gas in statistical equilibrium; that is, a deduction of the equilibrium distributions for a perfect gas. A crucial step in this deduction is the statement of a unified statistical theory based on clearly formulated probability conditions from which the particle statistics follows. We believe that such a deduction represents an important improvement in elementary particle statistics, and a step towards a probabilistic foundation of statistical mechanics.The present Part II is devoted to this deduction. Part I presented the necessary tools. After the deduction of the probability of a state with given energy for a system in statistical equilibrium, we will propose in the last section a simple model giving an ergodic interpretation of the equilibrium distributions. (shrink)
The notions of part and whole play an important role for ontology and in many areas of the semantics of natural language. Both in philosophy and linguistic semantics, usually a particular notion of part structure is used, that of extensional mereology. This paper argues that such a notion is insufficient for ontology and, especially, for the semantic analysis of the relevant constructionsof natural language. What is needed for the notion of part structure,in addition to an ordering among (...) parts, is the notion of integrated whole. (shrink)
In this article (Part I), I first engage in some conceptual clarification of what the words "imagine," "imagining," and "imagination" can mean. Each has (i) a constructive sense, (ii) an attitudinal sense, and (iii) an imagistic sense. Keeping the senses straight in the course of cognitive theorizing is important for both psychology and philosophy. I then discuss the roles that perceptual memories, beliefs, and genre truth attitudes play in constructive imagination, or the capacity to generate novel representations that go (...) well beyond what's prompted by one's immediate environment. (shrink)
In the present volume Proclus describes the 'creation' of the soul that animates the entire universe. This is not a literal creation, for Proclus argues that Plato means only to convey the eternal dependence of the World Soul upon higher causes. In his exegesis of Plato's text, Proclus addresses a range of issues in Pythagorean harmonic theory, as well as questions about the way in which the World Soul knows both forms and the visible reality that comprises its body. This (...)part of Proclus' Commentary is particularly responsive to the interpretive tradition that precedes it. As a result, this volume is especially significant for the study of the Platonic tradition from the earliest commentators onwards. (shrink)
God, free will, and time: the free will offense part II Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 1-10 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9328-z Authors J. L. Schellenberg, Mount Saint Vincent University, 166 Bedford Highway, Halifax, NS B3M2J6, Canada Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.
This two-part article offers a defense of a libertarian doctrine that centers on two propositions. The first is the self-ownership thesis according to which each individual possesses original moral rights over her own body, faculties, talents, and energies. The second is the anti-egalitarian conclusion that, through the exercise of these rights of self-ownership, individuals may readily become entitled to substantially unequal extra-personal holdings. The self-ownership thesis remains in the background during Part I of this essay, while the anti-egalitarian (...) conclusion is supported in two ways. First, I offer a reconstruction of Robert Nozick's well-known `How Liberty Upsets Patterns' argument against all end-state and pattern theories of distributive justice; and I defend this reconstructed stance against what might (otherwise) seem to be telling criticisms. Second, I defend the two key principles of Nozickian historical entitlement theory (the principle of just transfer and the principle of just initial acquisition) against criticisms offered by G.A. Cohen. Part II will center on Cohen's contention that the crucial basis for the anti-egalitarian conclusion is the self-ownership thesis. There I argue that Cohen is correct to hold that he must reject the self-ownership thesis if he is to avoid the anti-egalitarian conclusion; but he is wrong to think that he has an adequate basis for rejecting this thesis. Thus, both elements in the libertarianism under consideration are vindicated. And, the self-ownership thesis plays a surprisingly direct role in vindicating the anti-egalitarian conclusion. Key Words: egalitarianism • historical entitlement • moral rights • self-ownership. (shrink)
Part I of this essay supports the anti-egalitarian conclusion that individuals may readily become entitled to substantially unequal extra-personal holdings by criticizing end-state and pattern theories of distributive justice and defending the historical entitlement doctrine of justice in holdings. Part II of this essay focuses on a second route to the anti-egalitarian conclusion. This route combines the self-ownership thesis with a contention that is especially advanced by G.A. Cohen. This is the contention that the anti-egalitarian conclusion can be (...) inferred from the self-ownership thesis without the aid of additional controversial premises. Cohen advances this contention, not because he wants to support the anti-egalitarian conclusion, but rather because he wants to emphasize the need for one to reject the self-ownership thesis if one is to reject the anti-egalitarian conclusion. In Part II of this essay, I support this second route to the anti-egalitarian conclusion by reinforcing Cohen's special contention while rejecting his challenges to the self-ownership thesis. Cohen's special contention is reinforced by way of an explanation of why the redistributive state must trench upon some people's self-ownership rights. One important challenge to the self-ownership thesis is answered through the articulation of a new and improved Lockean proviso. Another challenge offered by Cohen is answered by arguing that the philosophical costs of denying the self-ownership thesis are as great as the self-ownership libertarian maintains. Thus, I defend both of the key elements of self-ownership libertarianism, the self-ownership thesis and the anti-egalitarian conclusion. Key Words: autonomy • distributive justice • egalitarianism • exploitation • Lockean proviso • self-ownership • slavery. (shrink)
I argue that it is intuitive and useful to think about composition in the light of the familiar functionalist distinction between role and occupant. This involves factoring the standard notion of parthood into two related notions: being a parthood slot and occupying a parthood slot. One thing is part of another just in case it fills one of that thing's parthood slots. This move opens room to rethink mereology in various ways, and, in particular, to see the mereological structure (...) of a composite as potentially outreaching the individual entities that are its parts. I sketch one formal system that allows things to have individual entities as parts multiple times over. This is particularly useful to David Armstrong, given Lewis's charge that his structural universals must do exactly that. I close by reflecting upon the nature and point of formal mereology. (shrink)
In this three-part paper, my concern is to expound and defend a conception of science, close to Einstein's, which I call aim-oriented empiricism. I argue that aim-oriented empiricsim has the following virtues. (i) It solve the problem of induction; (ii) it provides decisive reasons for rejecting van Fraassen's brilliantly defended but intuitively implausible constructive empiricism; (iii) it solves the problem of verisimilitude, the problem of explicating what it can mean to speak of scientific progress given that science advances from (...) one false theory to another; (iv) it enables us to hold that appropriate scientific theories, even though false, can nevertheless legitimately be interpreted realistically, as providing us with genuine , even if only approximate, knowledge of unobservable physical entities; (v) it provies science with a rational, even though fallible and non-mechanical, method for the discovery of fundamental new theories in physics. In the third part of the paper I show that Einstein made essential use of aim-oriented empiricism in scientific practice in developing special and general relativity. I conclude by considering to what extent Einstein came explicitly to advocate aim-oriented empiricism in his later years. (shrink)
Part One of this essay considered familiar ways of characterizing deontology, which focus on the notions of the good and the right. Here we will take up alternative approaches, which stress the type of reasons for actions that are generated by deontological theories. Although some of these alternative conceptualizations of deontology also employ a distinction between the good and the right, all mark the basic contrast between deontology and teleology in terms of reasons to act.
In this paper I discuss the proposal that the law of torts exists to do justice, more specifically corrective justice, between the parties to a tort case. My aims include clarifying the proposal and defending it against some objections (as well as saving it from some defences that it could do without). Gradually the paper turns to a discussion of the rationale for doing corrective justice. I defend what I call the ‘continuity thesis’ according to which at least part (...) of the rationale for doing corrective justice is to mitigate one’s wrongs, including one’s torts. I try to show how much of the law of torts this thesis helps to explain, but also what it leaves unexplained. In the process I show (what I will discuss in a later companion paper) that ‘corrective justice’ cannot be a complete answer to the question of what tort law is for. (shrink)
A scientific explanatory project, part-whole explanation, and a kind of science, part-whole science are premised on identifying, investigating, and using parts and wholes. In the biological sciences, mechanistic, structuralist, and historical explanations are part-whole explanations. Each expresses different norms, explananda, and aims. Each is associated with a distinct partitioning frame for abstracting kinds of parts. These three explanatory projects can be complemented in order to provide an integrative vision of the whole system, as is shown for a (...) detailed case study: the tetrapod limb. My diagnosis of part-whole explanation in the biological sciences as well as in other domains exploring evolved, complex, and integrated systems (e.g., psychology and cognitive science) cross-cuts standard philosophical categories of explanation: causal explanation and explanation as unification. Part-whole explanation is itself one essential aspect of part-whole science. (shrink)
Value-pluralism is commonly held to support liberal political morality. This is argued by John Rawls and his school and, more instructively, by Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz. Against this common view it is argued that a strong version of value-pluralism and liberalism are incompatible doctrines. Some varieties of ethical pluralism are distinguished, and the claim of value-incommensurability made by strong pluralism is elucidated. The argument that liberal political morality consists of principles of right that are unaffected by the truth of (...) strong pluralism is examined and rejected. Strong pluralism is understood as the view that some goods and bads are rationally incommensurable. It is argued that if strong value-pluralism is true, then liberal political morality cannot be defended. Neither negative liberty nor individual autonomy can have general priority if it is true that the central goods specified by liberal political morality are incommensurables. This difficulty is not avoided by liberal theories that do not demand the maximization of a single value such as liberty. If strong pluralism is true, then liberal institutions are not a standard of legitimacy by reference to which all regimes are to be assessed. They are merely one variety of modus vivendi . Liberal institutions have no universal legitimacy. Yet liberal cultures are partly constituted by a belief in the universal authority of the principles which inform their practices and institutions. This belief strong pluralism subverts. Value-pluralism and liberalism are rival doctrines. The political implication of strong pluralism is not liberalism but modus vivendi . Sometimes modus vivendi is best fostered by liberal institutions. Sometimes it is best fostered by non-liberal institutions. Where the latter is true, liberals and pluralists part company. (shrink)
This is the first part of a two-part article in which we defend the thesis of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature (HS). According to this thesis, two possible worlds cannot differ on what is a law of nature unless they also differ on the Humean base. The Humean base is easy to characterize intuitively, but there is no consensus on how, precisely, it should be defined. Here in Part I, we present and motivate a characterization of (...) the Humean base that, we argue, enables HS to capture what is really stake in the debate, without taking on extraneous commitments. (shrink)
Many biologists and philosophers have worried that importing models of reasoning from the physical sciences obscures our understanding of reasoning in the life sciences. In this paper we discuss one example that partially validates this concern: part-whole reductive explanations. Biology and physics tend to incorporate different models of temporality in part-whole reductive explanations. This results from differential emphases on compositional and causal facets of reductive explanations, which have not been distinguished reliably in prior philosophical analyses. Keeping these two (...) facets distinct facilitates the identifi cation of two further aspects of reductive explanation: intrinsicality and fundamentality. Our account provides resources for discriminating between different types of reductive explanation and suggests a new approach to comprehending similarities and differences in the explanatory reasoning found in biology and physics. (shrink)
Recent work has defended “Euclidean” theories of set size, in which Cantor’s Principle (two sets have equally many elements if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between them) is abandoned in favor of the Part-Whole Principle (if A is a proper subset of B then A is smaller than B). It has also been suggested that Gödel’s argument for the unique correctness of Cantor’s Principle is inadequate. Here we see from simple examples, not that Euclidean theories of (...) set size are wrong, but that they must be either very weak and narrow or largely arbitrary and misleading. (shrink)
In this paper I argue that aim-oriented empiricism provides decisive grounds for accepting scientific realism and rejecting instrumentalism. But it goes further than this. Aim-oriented empiricism implies that physicalism is a central part of current (conjectural) scientific knowledge. Furthermore, we can and need, I argue, to interpret fundamental physical theories as attributing necessitating physical properties to fundamental physical entities.
In these articles, I describe Cantor’s power-class theorem, as well as a number of logical and philosophical paradoxes that stem from it, many of which were discovered or considered (implicitly or explicitly) in Bertrand Russell’s work. These include Russell’s paradox of the class of all classes not members of themselves, as well as others involving properties, propositions, descriptive senses, class-intensions, and equivalence classes of coextensional properties. Part I focuses on Cantor’s theorem, its proof, how it can be used to (...) manufacture paradoxes, Frege’s diagnosis of the core difficulty, and several broad categories of strategies for offering solutions to these paradoxes. (shrink)
Abstract: The spirited part, thumos, plays a complex and often disputed role in Plato's account of the soul. The doctrine of the soul as specifically tri-partitioned seems to depend on a substantial conception of thumos as fundamental and non-reducible. Building on John Cooper's contribution in the discussion of the topic, this article aims to show that the role of thumos is characterised by an indispensable, deep-rooted urge for dignified self-preservation. The view is supported by Plato's own examples, and discussed (...) with regards to Myles Burnyeat's account of thumos as an essentially social phenomenon. The main claim is that in order to preserve the Platonist idea of thumos as fundamental one should discard Burnyeat's characterisation of thumos as unequivocally social, and instead advocate a view of thumos as concerned with a particular form of self-preservation, which Cooper's account suggests, but does not fully elaborate. (shrink)
Part II. Section 4. Autonomy Competency: Meyers takes John Rawls to task for giving a superficial account of autonomy. Endorsing deliberative rationality, he furnishes no account of how to achieve it. Meyers argues that her conception of autonomy competency fills the gap in Rawls's theory. Moreover, it is compatible with the emotional bonds of a relational self, and, acknowledging human fallibility, it provides an account of how autonomous people can recognize and correct their missteps. In the context of a (...) critique of Michael Sandel's distinction between the cognitive self and the voluntarist self, Meyers shows that autonomy competency allows for individual control and innovation without denying the social situatedness of the autonomous subject. (shrink)
Not long ago, I received an email from a man who had been trying to get his seven-year-old son interested in science, and teach him a little bit about the workings of the brain. He had been showing his son one of those diagrams of a brain with various regions labeled as "speech center," vision center," and the like (something similar to this, I suppose), when the little boy suddenly asked, "Daddy, which part of the brain does imagination come (...) from?". It was not on the diagram, and the father, although he studied human biology at college, realized he did not know the answer. As we do these days, he got on the internet to try to find out. It was not as easy as he might have expected. "Imagination" is certainly a word that is found on a lot of web pages, and there are plenty that seem to be devoted to celebrating or promoting it, but very few of them seem to have anything at all to say about what it is, how it works, or where in the brain it might be implemented. Eventually, he found his way to this site. Even here, however, he could find no straightforward answer to his son's apparently straightforward question. (The truth is, the question is not nearly as straightforward as it appears.) He thought I might be a good a person to ask, however, and sent me an email. What follows is a lightly revised version of the reply I sent. It is not written in terms that a seven-year-old could understand (I am not clever enough to do that), but neither is it pitched at the professional, academic level of most of the material on this site. I would like to think that it answers the question (inasmuch as it can be answered in the current state of scientific knowledge) in a way that a layperson should be able to understand, and that they might then be able to explain to a curious and intelligent child. If you want to know the detailed reasons, and see the citations to the scientific literature, that justify the claims made here, you can find them in the other articles on this site.. (shrink)
In Part I, we presented and motivated a new formulation of Humean Supervenience about Laws of Nature (HS). Here in Part II, we present an epistemological argument in defense of HS, thus formulated. Our contention is that one can combine a modest realism about laws of nature with a proper recognition of the importance of empirical testability in the epistemology of science only if one accepts HS.
Part IV. Section 2. Self-Respect and Autonomy: Meyers's discussion of self-respect takes into account work by Stephen Darwall, Thomas Hill, Jr., and Stephen Massey and proposes a unified triadic account that undermines the distinction between self-respect and self-esteem. After distinguishing compromised respect from unqualified respect, she shows why self-respect is both required for and a product of exercising autonomy competency.
This paper is the first in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic (...) semantics so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)
Sequel to Part I. In these articles, I describe Cantor’s power-class theorem, as well as a number of logical and philosophical paradoxes that stem from it, many of which were discovered or considered (implicitly or explicitly) in Bertrand Russell’s work. These include Russell’s paradox of the class of all classes not members of themselves, as well as others involving properties, propositions, descriptive senses, class-intensions and equivalence classes of coextensional properties. Part II addresses Russell’s own various attempts to solve (...) these paradoxes, including strategies that he considered and rejected (limitation of size, the zigzag theory, etc.), as well as his own final views whereupon many purported entities that, if reified, lead to these contradictions, must not be genuine entities, but ‘logical fictions’ or ‘logical constructions’ instead. (shrink)
According to Tarski's Convention T, the adequacy of a truth definition is (implicitly) defined relatively to a translation mapping from the object language to the metalanguage; the translation mapping itself is left unspecified. This paper restates Convention T in a form in which the relativity to translation is made explicit. The notion of an interpreted language is introduced, and a corresponding notion of a translation between interpreted languages is defined. The latter definition is stated both in an algebraic version, and (...) in an equivalent possible worlds version. It is a consequence of our definition that translation is indeterminate in certain cases. Finally, we give an application of our revised version of Convention T and show that interpreted languages exist, which allow for vicious self-reference but which nevertheless contain their own truth predicate. This is possible if only truth is based on a nonstandard translation mapping by which, e.g., the Liar sentence is translated to its own negation. In this part of the paper this existence result is proved only for languages without quantifiers; in Part B the result will be extended to first-order languages. (shrink)
Berkeley subscribed to the principle of heterogeneity, that what we see is qualitatively and numerically different from what we touch. He says of this principle that it is “the main part and pillar of [his] theory.” The argument I present here is that the theory to which Berkeley refers is not just his theory of vision, but what that theory was the preparation for, which is nothing less than his idealism. The argument turns on the passivity of perception, which (...) is what is at stake in the principle of heterogeneity. The author targeted by Berkeley's theory is Descartes, who explicitly denies heterogeneity. (shrink)
Part II. Section 1. Recent Accounts of Autonomy: Emphasizing the problematic relationship between autonomy and socialization, Meyers explores prominent views of autonomy, including Robert Young's, Stanley Benn's, Harry Frankfurt's, Gerald Dworkin's, and Gary Watson's. Having identified three main models for "rescuing autonomy from socialization," she identifies a single defect underlying all of them - namely, their assumption that personal autonomy requires transcending socialization through free will.
This paper is a follow-up of the first part of the persons reply to the Chinese Room Argument. The first part claims that the mental properties of the person appearing in that argument are what matter to whether computational cognitive science is true. This paper tries to discern what those mental properties are by applying a series of hypothetical psychological and strengthened Turing tests to the person, and argues that the results support the thesis that the Man performing (...) the computations characteristic of understanding Chinese actually understands Chinese. The supposition that the Man does not understand Chinese has gone virtually unquestioned in this foundational debate. The persons reply acknowledges the intuitive power behind that supposition, but knows that brute intuitions are not epistemically sacrosanct. Like many intuitions humans have had, and later deposed, this intuition does not withstand experimental scrutiny. The second part of the persons reply consequently holds that computational cognitive science is confirmed by the Chinese Room thought experiment. (shrink)
The orientation of this paper is that there is no special science of "business ethics" any more than there is one of "medical ethics" or "legal ethics". While there may be issues that arise in medicine or law that require special treatment, the ways of relating to such issues are derived from a basic ethical stance. Once one has evolved such an ethical stance and thus has incorporated a fundamental mode of relating to her or his fellow human beings, the (...) "how" to deal with various ethical "issues" will follow as a natural consequence of one's ethical stance or modality. It is not necessary, in the formation of one's fundamental ethical stance to know if one is a utilitarian or a deontologist. It is doubtful whether Buddha knew what kind of ethics he was practising. If one conceives of ethics as something extrinsic to various disciplines and attempts to first practise a discipline and then to apply ethics to modify the results of that discipline it is entirely possible that conflicts will result between what is perceived of as the proper pursuit of that discipline and the ethical considerations. The argument of this paper is that it is more efficacious (in addition to being more true) to take ethical considerations into account in the construction of the definition of the discipline. This paper is devoted to showing that business and ethics are not two different and competing fields of interest (thus requiring a discipline of business ethics to be grafted onto the study of business enterprise), but that ethical concerns are part and parcel of the very concept of a business enterprise and the internal operation of a business organization. (shrink)
In this sequel to “The logic and meaning of plurals. Part I”, I continue to present an account of logic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions of natural languages and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To this end, I present a non-reductive account of plural constructions that results from the conception of plurals as devices for talking about the many. In this paper, I give an informal semantics of plurals, formulate a formal characterization of truth for (...) the regimented languages that results from augmenting elementary languages with refinements of basic plural constructions of natural languages, and account for the logic of plural constructions by characterizing the logic of those regimented languages. (shrink)
In this essay, I start from Foucault's last text, his "Life: Experience and Science." Speaking of Canguilhem, Foucault makes a distinction between "le vécu" (lived-experience) and "le vivant" (the living). I then examine this difference between "le vécu" (lived-experience) and "le vivant" (the living); that is, I examine the different logics, we might say, of immanence that each concept implies. To do this, I reconstruct the "critique" that Foucault presents of the concept of vécu in the ninth chapter of The (...) Order of Things (Les Mots et les choses): "Man and His Doubles." I try to show how this critique applies to the early Merleau-Ponty, the Merleau-Ponty of the Phenomenology of Perception. Then, I construct the positive logic of Foucault's relation of immanence by means of another text, which is contemporaneous with Les Mots et les choses: This is not a Pipe. The critique of the concept of vécu is based on the fact that the relationship in vécu is a mixture (un mélange) that closes "un écart infime." Conversely, Foucault's conception of the relationship in "le vivant" is one that dissociates and keeps "l'écart infime" open. At the end, I suggest, through three "landmarks," how Foucault's critique might be applied to the later Merleau-Ponty. This essay is Part I of a trilogy on Merleau-Ponty and Foucault. Part II concerns Merleau-Ponty's "mixturism," while Part III concerns "the blind spot" in Foucault. These three texts complete the work necessary to open the problem of memory and life. (shrink)
The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...) view, science is rational precisely because science does not make a priori metaphysical presuppositions about the world forever preserved from possible empirical refutation. It is of course accepted that an individual scientist, developing a new theory, may well be influenced by his own metaphysical presuppositions. In addition, it is acknowledged that a successful scientific theory, within the context of a particular research program, may be protected for a while from refutation, thus acquiring a kind of temporary metaphysical status, as long as the program continues to be empirically progressive. All such views unite, however, in maintaining that science cannot make permanent metaphysical presuppositions, held permanently immune from objective empirical evaluation. According to this standard view, the rationality of science arises, not from the way in which new theories are discovered, but rather from the way in which already formulated theories are appraised in the light of empirical considerations. And the fundamental problem of the rationality of science—the Humean problem of induction— concerns precisely the crucial issue of the rationality of accepting theories in the light of evidence. In this essay I argue that this widely accepted standard conception of science must be completely rejected if we are to see science as a rational enterprise. In order to assess the rationality of accepting a theory in the light of evidence it is essential to consider the ultimate aims of science. This is because adopting different aims for science will lead us, quite rationally, to accept different theories in the light of evidence. I argue that a basic aim of science is to explain. At the outset science simply presupposes, in a completely a priori fashion, that explanations can be found, that the world is ultimately intelligible or simple. In other words, science simply presupposes in an a priori way the metaphysical thesis that the world is intelligible, and then seeks to convert this presupposed metaphysical theory into a testable scientific theory. Scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to help us realize this fundamental aim. At once a crucial problem arises. If scientific theories are only accepted insofar as they promise to lead us towards articulating a presupposed metaphysical theory, it is clearly essential that we can choose rationally, in an a priori way, between all the very different possible metaphysical theories that can be thought up, all the very different ways in which the universe might ultimately be intelligible. For holding different aims, accepting different metaphysical theories conceived of as blueprints for future scientific theories will, quite rationally, lead us to accept different scientific theories. Thus it is only if we can choose rationally between conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories that we will be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of our present day scientific theories. We thus face the crucial problem: How can we choose rationally between conflicting possible aims for science, conflicting metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories ? It is only if we can solve this fundamental problem concerning the aims of science that we can be in a position to appraise rationally the acceptability of existing scientific theories. There is a further point here. If we could choose rationally between rival aims, rival metaphysical blueprints for future scientific theories, then we would in effect have a rational method for the discovery of new scientific theories! Thus we reach the result: there is only a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories if there is a rational method of discovery. I shall argue that the aim-oriented theory of scientific inquiry to be advocated here succeeds in exhibiting science as a rational enterprise in that it succeeds in providing a rational procedure for choosing between rival metaphysical blueprints: it thus provides a rational, if fallible, method of discovery, and a rational method for the appraisal of existing scientific theories—thus resolving the Humean problem. In Part I of the essay I argue that the orthodox conception of science fails to exhibit science as a rational enterprise because it fails to solve the Humean problem of induction. The presuppositional view advocated here does however succeed in resolving the Humean problem. In Part II of the essay I spell out the new aim-oriented theory of scientific method that becomes inevitable once we accept the basic presuppositional viewpoint. I argue that this new aim oriented conception of scientific method is essentially a rational method of scientific discovery, and that the theory has important implications for scientific practice. (shrink)
The theoretical approach described in a series of articles (Jarvilehto, 1998a,b,c, 1999, 2000) is developed further in relation to the problems of emotion, consciousness, and brain activity. The approach starts with the claim that many conceptual confusions in psychology are due to the postulate that the organism and the environment are two interacting systems (”Two systems theory”). The gist of the approach is the idea that the organism and environment form a unitary system which is the basis of subjective experience. (...) This starting point leads to the conception of emotions as reorganization of the organism-environment system, and entails that emotion and knowledge are only different aspects of the same process. In the first part of the article the general outline of the approach is sketched, and in a subsequent second part (Jarvilehto, 2001) the relations between emotions, consciousness, and brain activity will be discussed in detail. (shrink)
In the latter part of this two-article sequence, the concept of emotion as reorganization of the organism-environment system is developed further in relation to consciousness, subjective experience and brain activity. It is argued that conscious emotions have their origin in reorganizational changes in primitive co-operative organizations, in which they get a more local character with the advent of personal consciousness and individuality, being expressed in conscious emotions. However, the conscious emotion is not confined to the individual only, but it (...) gets its content and the emotional quale in the social context, and in relation to the norms of the given culture. Emotion is fundamentally the process of ascription of meaning to the parts of the world which are relevant in the achievement of results of behavior. Although emotions may be studied as reorganizational processes in the organism-environment system with the help of physiological recordings and behavioral observations, it is argued — in contrast to the mainstream cognitive science — that emotions cannot be localized in the brain, although the brain is important in their generation as a part of the organism-environment system. It is suggested that the parts of the brain most closely related to emotional expression contain neurons subserving functional systems which are formed in early development, and which are therefore most intimately related to reorganizational processes in the organism-environment system. (shrink)
Part III. Section 3. Autonomy and Feminine Socialization: Having agreed with Beauvoir that narcissism and altruism contribute to women's lack of autonomy, Meyers examines Beauvoir's account of autonomy in light of her own conception of autonomy competency and argues that Beauvoir's conception of autonomy is too stringent. Autonomy competency, in contrast, allows for degrees of autonomy and variations in degree as viewed over a life-time, as well as for a distinction between programmatic and episodic autonomy. Meyers concludes by characterizing (...) minimal, medial, and full autonomy. (shrink)
X is “part of the very concept” of Y. This formulation recurs throughout Raimond Gaita's philosophy and informs Christopher Cordner's. I elucidate the formulation's meaning and the nature of the necessity posited, then conclude with a criticism. One cannot love evil. One cannot love cow dung. For Gaita, these claims differ in type. The first testifies to a conceptual relation, but the second to a “mere fact.” I see no clear basis for assigning to claims one type over another, (...) which challenges the footing of Wittgensteinian moral philosophy. Why do no moral“mere facts” partly define our form of life? (shrink)
Written by leading philosophers and lawyers from the United States and the United Kingdom, this collection of original essays offers new insights into the doctrines that make up the general part of the criminal law. It sheds theoretical light on the diversity and unity of the general part and advances our understanding of such key issues as criminalisation, omissions, voluntary actions, knowledge, belief, reckelssness, duress, self-defence, entrapment and officially-induced mistake of law.
In this paper, possible objections to the propensity microrealistic version of quantum mechanics proposed in Part I are answered. This version of quantum mechanics is compared with the statistical, particle microrealistic viewpoint, and a crucial experiment is proposed designed to distinguish between these to microrealistic versions of quantum mechanics.
In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM – whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)
So why must a scientist proceed in accordance with methodological naturalism? Michael Ruse suggests that methodological naturalism or at any rate part of it is true by definition: Furthermore, even if Scientific Creationism were totally successful in making its case as science, it would not yield a scientific explanation of origins. Rather, at most, it could prove that science shows that there can be no scientific explanation of origins. The Creationists believe that the world started miraculously. But miracles lie (...) outside of science, which by definition deals only with the natural, the repeatable, that which is governed by law.37 By definition of the term 'science' one supposes; Ruse apparently holds there is a correct definition of 'science', such that from the definition it follows that science deals only with what is natural, repeatable, and governed by law. (Note that this claim doesn't bear on the suggestions that a Christian scientist can propose hypotheses involving such 'religious' doctrines as, say, original sin, and can evaluate the epistemic probability of a scientific hypothesis relative to background belief.. (shrink)
Discussions of the interpretation of quantum theory are at present obstructed by (1) the increasing axiomania in physics and philosophy which replaces fundamental problems by problems of formulation within a certain preconceived calculus, and (2) the decreasing (since 1927) philosophical interest and sophistication both of professional physicists and of professional philosophers which results in the replacement of subtle positions by crude ones and of dialectical arguments by dogmatic ones. More especially, such discussions are obstructed by the ignorance of both opponents, (...) and also defenders of the Copenhagen point of view, as regards the arguments which once were used in its defence. The publication of Bunge's Quantum Theory and Reality and especially of Popper's contribution to it are taken as an occasion for the restatement of Bohr's position and for the refutation of some quite popular, but surprisingly naive and uninformed objections against it. Bohr's position is distinguished both from the position of Heisenberg and from the vulgarized versions which have become part of the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" and whose inarticulateness has been a boon for all those critics who prefer easy victories to a rational debate. Einstein's main counterargument is discussed, and Bohr's refutation restated. The philosophical background and earlier forms of Bohr's views are stated also. Considering that these views are more detailed, better adapted to the facts of the microdomain than any existing alternative it follows that fundamental discussion must first return to them. Their uniqueness is not asserted, however. Here the author still maintains that a hundred shabby flowers are preferable to a single blossom, however exquisite. But a hundred shabby flowers plus an exquisite blossom are more desirable still. (shrink)
Part IV. Section 1. The Personal and the Political Value of Autonomy: Disparities in autonomy competency number among the many ways in which women and men in western societies are unequal. Meyers holds that although personal autonomy is not the sole or paramount value, medial autonomy is not only a personal good, but is also a political good.
One approach to legal theory is to provide some sort of rational reconstruction of all or of a large body of the common law. For philosophers of law this has usually meant trying to rationalize a body of law under one or another principle of justice. This paper explores the efforts of the leading tort theorists to provide a moral basis — for the law of torts. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part I consider (...) and reject the view that tort law is best understood as falling either within the ambit of the principle of retributive justice, a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility, or an ideal of fairness inherent in the idea that one should impose on others only those risks others impose on one. The second part of the paper distinguishes among various conceptions of corrective or compensatory justice and considers arguments — including previous arguments by the author himself — to the effect that tort law is best understood as rooted in principles of corrective justice. This paper argues that although the use of principles of justice may render defensible many (but by no means all) of the claims to repair and to liability recognized in torts, it cannot explain why we have adopted a tort system as the approach to vindicating those claims. Some other principle — probably not one of justice — is needed to explain why it is that the victims claims to repair is satisfied by having his losses shifted to his injurer — rather than through some other means of doing so. The paper concludes that the law of torts cannot be understood — in the sense of being given a rational reconstruction — under any one principle of morality. (shrink)
Spinoza insists that we can during the course of our lives increase that part of the mind that is constituted by knowledge, but he also calls that part of the mind its eternal part. How can what is eternal increase? I defend an interpretation on which there is a sense in which the eternal part of the mind can become greater without changing intrinsically at all.
The essay, divided in two parts, examines the event of the running of the bulls (encierro in Spanish). The phenomenon of the encierro, a complex cultural activity of deep historical roots, demands to be understood: What drives people to risk injury or death at the horns of untamed bulls? How should we make sense of this, subjective and objectively? To answer these questions, I use a framework that relies on explanation and assessment of popular views on the way to arguing (...) for a philosophical alternative. This arrangement is readily adaptable to many other sporting (and non-sporting) activities where risk and/or mass participation are key factors. Its unorthodox format ? organised around an opening narrative of a paradigmatic, skilled and lucky run with the bulls, as well as hors texte (direct appeals to the reader) ? brings the reader straight into the fray, philosophical and otherwise. Part I begins by presenting the history of the encierro. It also explains the dynamics of the event, often via images with pedagogical and critical side-commentaries. It proceeds to introduce and critically engage with prevalent explanations, most with ethnological tendencies, that conceive the running as tradition, rite, ritual and sport. This part ends with a dilemma whereby we either try to explain matters by resorting to particular and partial interpretations, or a ?democratic? conglomerate of superficial and confusing boundaries, or in the end we simply concede our inability to understand the phenomenon of the running of the bulls in toto. This philosophical impasse will be evaded in part 2 (Sport, Ethics and Philosophy 2, 1) via existentialist and phenomenological analysis. (shrink)
In Part I (Philosophy of Science, Vol. 41 No.2, June, 1974) it was argued that in order to rebut Humean sceptical arguments, and thus show that it is possible for pure science to be rational, we need to reject standard empiricism and adopt in its stead aim oriented empiricism. Part II seeks to articulate in more detail a theory of rational scientific discovery within the general framework of aim oriented empiricism. It is argued that this theory (a) exhibits (...) pure science as a rational enterprise (b) enables us to resolve problems associated with the key notions of simplicity and intelligibility (c) has important implications both for philosophy of science and for scientific practice itself. (shrink)
This paper is the first in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic (...) semantics so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)
Noam Chomsky, the founding father of generative grammar and the instigator of some of its core research programs, claims that linguistics is a part of psychology, concerned with a class of cognitive structures employed in speaking and understanding. In a recent book, Ignorance of Language, Michael Devitt has challenged certain core aspects of linguistics, as prominent practitioners of the science conceive of it. Among Devitt’s major conclusions is that linguistics is not a part of psychology. In this thesis (...) I defend Chomsky’s psychological conception of grammatical theory. My case for the psychological conception involves defending a set of psychological goals for generative grammars, centring on conditions of descriptive and explanatory adequacy. I argue that generative grammar makes an explanatory commitment to a distinction between a psychological system of grammatical competence and the performance systems engaged in putting that competence to use. I then defend the view that this distinction can be investigated by probing speakers’ linguistic intuitions. Building on the psychological goals of generative grammar and its explanatory commitment to a psychological theory of grammatical competence, I argue that generative grammar neither targets nor presupposes non-psychological grammatical properties. The latter nonpsychological properties are dispensable to grammarians’ explanations because their explanatory goals can be met by the theory of grammatical competence to which they are committed. So generative grammars have psychological properties as their subject matter and linguistics is a part of psychology. (shrink)
Many types of part-whole relations have been proposed in the literature to aid the conceptual modeller to choose the most appropriate type, but many of those relations lack a formal specification to give clear and unambiguous semantics to them. To remedy this, a formal taxonomy of types of mereological and meronymic part-whole relations is presented that distinguishes between transitive and intransitive relations and the kind of entity types that are related. The demand to use it effectively brings afore (...) new requirements for automated reasoning over a hierarchy of relations. To ensure logically and ontologically correct inferencing over both the class and role hierarchy, the new reasoning service RBox compatibility for Description Logics reasoners is introduced. The proposed combination of formal semantics and the new reasoning service will improve the representation of the application domain when using part-whole relations in conceptual models and ontologies. (shrink)
This paper is the second in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic (...) semantics so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)
I examine what would be necessary to move part-of-speech tagging performance from its current level of about 97.3% token accuracy (56% sentence accuracy) to close to 100% accuracy. I suggest that it must still be possible to greatly increase tagging performance and examine some useful improvements that have recently been made to the Stanford Part-of-Speech Tagger. However, an error analysis of some of the remaining errors suggests that there is limited further mileage to be had either from better (...) machine learning or better features in a discriminative sequence classifier. The prospects for further gains from semisupervised learning also seem quite limited. Rather, I suggest and begin to demonstrate that the largest opportunity for further progress comes from improving the taxonomic basis of the linguistic resources from which taggers are trained. That is, from improved descriptive linguistics. However, I conclude by suggesting that there are also limits to this process. The status of some words may not be able to be adequately captured by assigning them to one of a small number of categories. While conventions can be used in such cases to improve tagging consistency, they lack a strong linguistic basis. (shrink)
Part III. Section 1. Theories of Socialization. Autonomy as autonomy competency acknowledges the necessity of socialization for autonomy. Preliminary to considering this claim in relation to gender, Meyers sketches three social scientific models of socialization - psychoanalysis, social learning, and cognitive development.
To foster an adequate understanding of relational sociology, it is necessary to consider the theoretical grounds upon which it is based. The first aspect to highlight is the realist assumption of social relations as the causal force from which society originates. It is upon this decisive dimension that the difference between non-contingent and contingent aspects of the social is founded. Overlooking this difference issues in an inadequate understanding both of the autonomy of, and of the interaction between, actors and social (...) structures. Moving from these considerations, in the second part of this essay I will consider a third foundational aspect of social relations: social relations as ‘determination’ of reciprocity, and conclude my investigation by tackling the crucial theme of the social time of change and its connection to social relations. (shrink)
In Part I, the author argued for nonreductive individualism (NRI), an account of the individual-collective relation that is ontologically individualist yet rejects methodological individualism. However, because NRI is ontologically individualist, social entities and properties would seem to be only analytic constructs, and if so, they would seem to be epiphenomenal, since only real things can have causal power. In general, a nonreductionist account is a relatively weak defense of sociological explanation if it cannot provide an account of how social (...) properties can participate in causal relations. In this article, the author extends NRI to address this weakness and provides an account of social causation that he refers to as supervenient causation. Key Words: individualism • collectivism • social realism • social causation. (shrink)
This paper is the second in a two-part series in which we discuss several notions of completeness for systems of mathematical axioms, with special focus on their interrelations and historical origins in the development of the axiomatic method. We argue that, both from historical and logical points of view, higher-order logic is an appropriate framework for considering such notions, and we consider some open questions in higher-order axiomatics. In addition, we indicate how one can fruitfully extend the usual set-theoretic (...) semantics so as to shed new light on the relevant strengths and limits of higher-order logic. (shrink)
The centrality of the whole/part relation in mathematics is demonstrated through the presentation and analysis of examples from algebra, geometry, functional analysis,logic, topology and category theory.
One approach to legal theory is to provide some sort of rational reconstruction of all or of a large body of the common law. For philosophers of law this has usually meant trying to rationalize a body of law under one or another principle of justice. This paper explores the efforts of the leading tort theorists to provide a moral basis - in the sense of rational reconstruction based on alleged moral principles - for the law of torts. The paper (...) is divided into two parts. In the first part I consider and reject the view that tort law is best understood as falling either within the ambit of the principle of retributive justice, a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility, or an ideal of fairness inherent in the idea that one should impose on others only those risks others impose on one. The second part of the paper distinguishes among various conceptions of corrective or compensatory justice and considers arguments — including previous ones by the author himself — to the effect that tort law is best understood as rooted in principles of corrective justice. This paper argues that although the principles of justice may render defensible many (but by no means all) of the claims to repair and to liability recognized in torts, it cannot explain why we have adopted a tort system as the approach to vindicating those claims. Some other principle — probably not one of justice — is needed to explain why it is that the victim's claim to repair is satisfied by having his losses shifted to his injurer — rather than through some other means of doing so. The paper concludes that the law of torts cannot be understood — in the sense of being given a rational reconstruction — under any one principle of morality. (shrink)
It is often held that according to Aristotle the city is a natural organism. One major reason for this organic interpretation is no doubt that Aristotle describes the relationship between the individual and the city as a part-whole relationship, seemingly the same relationship that holds between the parts of a natural organism and the organism itself. Moreover, some scholars (most notably Jonathan Barnes) believe this view of the city led Aristotle to accept an implicit totalitarianism. I argue, however, that (...) an investigation of the various ways Aristotle describes parts and wholes reveals that for Aristotle the city has a unity (and thus a nature) quite different from that of a natural organism. (shrink)
Part III. Section 2. Feminine and Masculine Socialization: Two main problems are explored: 1) How are girls and boys socialized in contemporary western societies? and 2) What are adult women and men like? Meyers appropriates the main outlines of Simone de Beauvoir's account of feminine socialization in The Second Sex, but she also discusses more recent research.
Bruno Latour, as part of his advocacy of science studies urges us to move beyond what he calls ‘the Modernist Settlement’ that, among other things, separated science from politics and subject from object. As part of this project he has frequently called for the abolition of epistemology, including quite specifically the historical epistemology/epistemological history of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. Pierre Bourdieu, on the other hand, deploys the resources of historical epistemology, to dismiss Latour’s science studies. After examining (...) the charges against historical epistemology and their rebuttal, I rule in favor of the defense. However, I also suggest that Latour raises genuine concerns about how to equip ourselves to tackle problems such as those associated with climate change; these are problems that require engagement with the politics of nature, with the politics of the sciences of nature and with the epistemological challenges associated with the need to deploy multiple disciplines in the service of complex, practical, policy-relevant problem solving. (shrink)
The problem of pursuing and achieving justice in a free society involves three different areas of analysis. First, the types of acts that are to be proscribed must be specified. Part of this analysis is methodological, requiring us to settle on the way in which such questions are to be decided. Second, once an offense has been defined, the remedy for its commission must be determined in a manner that is consistent with the theory of justice that defined the (...) criminal act. Finally, the structure of the legal order that will efficiently enforce these principles and at the same time not violate them must be explored. (shrink)
This second part of the essay deals with the horns of the dilemma at the conceptual level and ?on the street?. The first part ended with that quandary where a deep understanding was precluded no matter which way one turned, whether an inadequate comprehension based on individual and partial notions, a perplexing pluralist path or a relinquishment of the hermeneutic enterprise altogether. The philosophical solution of existential overtones presently put forward deftly avoids the sharp ends of the predicament (...) by means of a three-tiered phenomenological analysis of the event. First, death is considered via Heidegger's and Sartre's existential examination; next, risk and related concepts, such as fear, are scrutinised; and third, Nietzsche's and Ortega y Gasset's life-affirming views lead us to the liberating conclusion: facing danger and death are means to an enhanced and joyful experience of life. As in the first part, this one also presents several photographs that complement the text at different levels. Once several objections are disposed of, readers are left with a philosophical elucidation of a sense of joy predicated on the ability to face daring challenges willingly undertaken for the fun of it. (shrink)
ABSTRACT: A detailed presentation of Stoic logic, part one, including their theories of propositions (or assertibles, Greek: axiomata), demonstratives, temporal truth, simple propositions, non-simple propositions(conjunction, disjunction, conditional), quantified propositions, logical truths, modal logic, and general theory of arguments (including definition, validity, soundness, classification of invalid arguments).
Part II. Section 5. Interests, Self-Interest and Autonomy: Two questions drive this chapter: 1) What kinds of things can be objects of autonomous choices? and 2) How are these related to an individual's authentic self? If self-interest is construed as securing a set of basic goods for oneself, personal autonomy and self-interest can collide. Still, Meyers holds that autonomy based on exercising autonomy competency is compatible with the dominance principle, which counsels opting for a course of action that satisfies (...) at least one more authentic desire than other available possibilities. (shrink)
On January 1, 2006, Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage was initiated. Concern was immediately voiced by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and Families USA that, in response to this program, the pharmaceutical industry may raise prices for drugs most often used by the elderly. This article examines the ethical implications of a revenue-maximizing pricing strategy in an industry in which third party financing mitigates an end product's true cost to the user. The perspectives of three stakeholder (...) groups are examined: the elderly, as consumers of prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry, as product manufacturer and beneficiary of derived profits, and the total U. S. population, as the ultimate payer for the program via tax revenues. Key questions explored include the relationships among price strategy and access to drugs at both the micro (Medicare cohort) and macro (total population) levels, and on drug development or enhancement. The role of profit in a capitalism-based health care system is also examined. Hospital industry impact on these same stakeholder groups in response to the original 1965 Medicare law is used to compare and contrast possible outcomes of the new drug program. It is predicted that pharmaceutical firms will mimic the hospital industry, adopting a price maximizing strategy for drugs covered by the program. In the process, a utilitarian effect occurs: the benefits of increased access and diffusion of drugs counterbalance inequities in financing Medicare Part D. (shrink)
This paper addresses the current trend of hiring part-time employees for United States businesses. This common practice is one that does not consider the best interests of the employee. I argue that, at the present time, many people, especially those who are poor, have no other choice than to accept these part-time positions. As a result, the quality of life of these workers and their family members suffers. Companies typically employ part-time workers in an effort to increase (...) profits. I argue that this practice will only increase short-term profits, and hiring a large staff of part-time workers will actually decrease long-term profitability. Consequently, this unethical practice is also an unprofitable one. (shrink)
Although there is a complete consensus among working physicists with respect to the practical and operational meanings of quantum states, and also a rather loosely formulated general philosophic view called the Copenhagen interpretation, a great deal of confusion and divergence of opinions exist as to the details of the measurement process and its effects upon quantum states. This paper reviews the current expositions of the measurement problem, limiting itself for lack of space primarily to the writings of physicists; it calls (...) attention to inconsistencies and proposes resolutions. Except for a summary of the properties of statistical matrices which are needed in Part II, the first part is non-mathematical and deals largely with two kinds of probability, reducible and irreducible probabilities, which need to be distinguished for a proper understanding of the measurement act. (shrink)
Part III. Section 4. Full Autonomy - An Attainable Ideal: Maximal or full autonomy is an unrealistic goal for all people. Contrary to a common assumption, however, masculine socialization does not generally result in full autonomy, but rather in medial autonomy. Conformism is as much of an obstacle to the full autonomy of men as it is for women. Still, men in western cultures are more likely to be more autonomous than women, and this discrepancy calls for change.
Argues that classical arithmetic can be viewed as a proper part of intuitionistic arithmetic. Suggests that this largely neutralizes Dummett's argument for intuitionism in the case of arithmetic.
The author draws on arguments from contemporary philosophy of mind to provide an argument for sociological collectivism. This argument for nonreductive individualism accepts that only individuals exist but rejects methodological individualism. In Part I, the author presents the argument for nonreductive individualism by working through the implications of supervenience, multiple realizability, and wild disjunction in some detail. In Part II, he extends the argument to provide a defense for social causal laws, and this account of social causation does (...) not require any commitment to intentionality or agency on the part of individuals. (shrink)
This article is the first in a two-part review of policy design for human embryo research in Canada. In this article we explain how this area of research is circumscribed by law promulgated by the federal Parliament (the Assisted Human Reproduction Act ) and by guidelines issued by the Tri-Agencies (the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans and Updated Guidelines for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Research ). In so doing, we provide the first comprehensive account of (...) the rules currently governing human embryo research in Canada. In this article we also provide a chronological description of relevant policy initiatives and outcomes related to these policy instruments over the past 20 years, with particular attention to public involvement in policy design. This sets the stage for the second article (scheduled to appear in vol. 6 issue 3) in which we critically analyse the history of policy design for human embryo research in Canada, applying a typology of modes of public consultation developed by Eric Montpetit. Our goal is to carefully explain the various episodes of policy development and their corresponding outcomes, in order to more effectively address emerging questions about the legitimacy of future policy initiatives for human embryo research in Canada. (shrink)
This paper addresses a phenomenon in which certain word-parts can be omitted. The evidence shows that the full range of data cannot be captured by a sublexical analysis, since the phenomena can be observed both in phrasal and in lexical environments. It is argued that a form of deletion is involved, and that the phenomena—lexical or otherwise—are subject to the same phonological, semantic, and syntactic constraints. In the formalization that is proposed, all of the above constraints are cast in a (...) parallel and declarative fashion, in the framework of Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag Head-driven phrase structure grammar, 1994), since the various levels of linguistic description are locally and simultaneously available. Building on recent accounts of ellipsis, this paper proposes a unified and general account of word-part ellipsis and phrasal ellipsis. (shrink)
Critical legal scholarship has so far been concerned primarily with trashing or deconstructing the belief clusters of "liberalism". Negative posturing of this kind is not the only feature of the movement, though. Roberto Unger has dreamt up a sociopolitical vision that presents an "empowered democracy". An important element of his "empowered democracy" is a new system of rights. Part 1 of my essay contains an analysis of the notion of a subjective right. I argue that both Hohfeld's fundamental legal (...) conceptions and Unger's various rights can be described by a simple deontic relation that I define as RIGHT. I then discuss a set of normative criteria that can help us evaluate systems of rights. Part 2 [to appear in the following issue -- ed.] contains a detailed critique of Unger's system of rights based on these normative criteria. The tenet of this part is that Unger's system of rights is contradictory, opaque, impracticable, costly, and not fully backed by what Unger offers as a background justification for it. (shrink)
In the companion paper (Towards a “sophisticated” model of belief dynamics. Part I), a general framework for realistic modelling of instantaneous states of belief and of the operations involving them was presented and motivated. In this paper, the framework is applied to the case of belief revision. A model of belief revision shall be obtained which, firstly, recovers the Gärdenfors postulates in a well-specified, natural yet simple class of particular circumstances; secondly, can accommodate iterated revisions, recovering several proposed revision (...) operators for iterated revision as special cases; and finally, offers an analysis of Rott’s recent counterexample to several Gärdenfors postulates [32], elucidating in what sense it fails to be one of the special cases to which these postulates apply. (shrink)
Part III. Section 5. Autonomy-Enhancing Socialization: Meyers seeks a remedy for gendered inequality with respect to autonomy in processes of socialization. After critically examining proposals offered by Beauvoir, Chodorow, and Radcliffe Richards, Meyers describes a pedagogical model that fosters assertiveness and intimacy while avoiding the inculcation of aggression and that actively nurtures the development of autonomy skills.
This paper argues against Jon Elster's contention that there is a fundamentalincompatibility between, on one hand, autonomy and rationality and, on theother hand, adaptation to conditions of one's existence in the sense that one'sdesires or preferences are adjusted to what it is possible to achieve. While thefirst part of the paper more narrowly concentrated on Elster's discussion ofthese ideas, this second part goes on to a more general discussion of the conceptof rationality. On the basis of this discussion, (...) it is claimed that Elster's conclusionsconcerning autonomy and adaptation are premised on a defective conceptionof human experience and rationality. Moreover, the claim is made that thesedefects are also characteristic of "rational choice theory" more generally. (shrink)
In this essay, Enrique Dussel provides a textual “rereading” of Karl Marx’s theory of fetishism according to his scattered but significant comments on religion as they extend throughout the whole of his work. In Part I, “The Place of the Subject of Religion in the Whole Work of Marx,” Dussel demonstrates Marx’s differentiation between a critique of the essence of religion and its manifestations, arguing that there is a space in Marx for a anti-fetishized liberatory religion. In Part (...) II, “Toward a Theory of Fetishism in General,” he provides a methodological account of such a religion, as well as a panorama of the content of this essence of religion. These accounts provide the basis for more clearly identifying both religious fetishism and the fetishist character of capital. (shrink)
Part I of this essay described "Ought" and "Value" as forms of moral requiredness. Now in Part II, a description of the ideal conditions for veridical perceptions of moral requiredness are specified. This is done in the form of an ideal observer type of analysis. This analysis is defended against those who oppose naturalism by assuming a bifurcation between 'ought' and 'is' and those who accuse naturalism of a "naturalistic fallacy." It is argued that theistic versions of the (...) ideal observer form of analysis exist in the Christian tradition in logically acceptable and plausible formulations. Specific illustrations are provided. (shrink)
This paper represents an attempt to articulate the basic principles of a hermeneutic philosophy of science. Throughout, the author is at pains to show that both (i) overcoming epistemological foundationalism and (ii) insisting on the multiplicity, patchiness, and heterogeneity of the discursive practices of scientific research do not imply a farewell to an analysis of the constitution of science's autonomous cognitive structure. Such an analysis operates in two directions: “continuous weakening” of epistemological foundationalism and “hermeneutic grounding” of a cognitive structure. (...) Carrying out the analysis in both directions leads to a (post) foundational picture of science. The main thrust of the first part of the paper is to outline the tenets of a constitutional analysis of scientific research. This part focuses especially on the notion of “unified narrativestructures” which refers to the “effective histories” of the main epistemic types of science. (shrink)
Fundamental aspects of modern life owe their existence to the achievements of scientific reason. In other words, science is an integral element of the modern world and simultaneously the epitome of the rational nature of a technical culture that makes up the essence of the modern world. Without science, the modern world would lose its very nature and modern society its future. Right from the start, physics forms the core of European scientific development. It is the original paradigm of science, (...) the foundation of technology and a constitutive part of a rational culture. It will remain a model methodological discipline in the future and its strengths will be used fruitfully in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)
This is the second, mathematically more detailed part of a paper consisting of two articles, the first having appeared in the immediately preceding issue of this Journal. It shows that a measurement converts a pure case into a mixture with reducible probabilities. The measurement as such permits no inference whatever as to the state of the physical system subjected to measurement after the measurement has been performed. But because the probabilities after the act are classical and therefore reducible, it (...) is often possible to adjust them so that Von Neumann's projection postulate is true. Among the more specific features dealt with in Part II is the occurrence of negative joint probabilities for the measurement of non-commuting operators in certain (not all!) quantum states. The general conclusions reached are stated at the end of the article. (shrink)
In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article took up the first two questions. Part II will take up the second two questions. Question 3 deals with the question as to whether DSM-V should assume a conservative or assertive posture in making changes from DSM-IV. That question in turn breaks down into discussion of diagnoses that depend on, and aim toward, empirical, scientific validation, and diagnoses that are more value-laden and less amenable to scientific validation. Question 4 takes up the role of pragmatic consideration in a psychiatric nosology, whether the purely empirical considerations need to be tempered by considerations of practical consequence. As in Part 1 of this article, the general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)
