This research tests a model of employee helping behavior (a component of Organizational Citizenship Behavior, OCB) that involves a direct path (Intrinsic Motives → Helping Behavior, the Good Samaritan Effect) and an indirect path (the Love of Money → Extrinsic Motives → Helping Behavior). Results for the full sample supported the Good Samaritan Effect. Further, the love of money was positively related to extrinsic motives that were negatively related with helping behavior. We tested the model across four cultures (the USA., (...) Taiwan, Poland, and Egypt). The Good Samaritan Effect was significant for all four countries. For the indirect path, the first part was significant for all countries, except Egypt, whereas the second part was significant for Poland only. For Poland, the indirect path was significant and positive. The love of money may cause one to help in one culture (Poland) but not to help in others. Results were discussed in the light of ethical decision making. (shrink)
An allocation problem is a type of aggregation problem in which the values of individuals' opinions on some set of variables (canonically a set of mutually exclusive and exhaustive possibilities) sum to a constant. This paper shows that for realistic allocation problems, namely ones in which the set of possible opinion values is finite, the only universal aggregation methods that satisfy two commonly invoked conditions are the dictatorial ones. The two conditions are, first, that the aggregate opinion on any variable (...) depends only on the individuals' opinions on that variable and not on their opinions on any other variable and, secondly, that the aggregate opinion minimally preserves unanimous individual opinion. Connections between this result and similar ones in the literature on judgment aggregation are explored and their significance assessed. (shrink)
Abstract. Suppose that several individuals who have separately assessed prior probability distributions over a set of possible states of the world wish to pool their individual distributions into a single group distribution, while taking into account jointly perceived new evidence. They have the option of (i) first updating their individual priors and then pooling the resulting posteriors or (ii) first pooling their priors and then updating the resulting group prior. If the pooling method that they employ is such that they (...) arrive at the same final distribution in both cases, the method is said to be externally Bayesian, a property first studied by Madansky (1964). We show that a pooling method for discrete distributions is externally Bayesian if and only if it commutes with Jeffrey conditioning, parameterized in terms of certain ratios of new to old odds, as in Wagner (2002), rather than in terms of the posterior probabilities of members of the disjoint family of events on which such conditioning originates. (shrink)
Meike Wagner and Wolf-Dieter Ernst Performing the Matrix. Mediating Cultural Performances Neo: The matrix? Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? ...
A decision problem in which the values of the decision variables must sum to a fixed positive real number s is called an "allocation problem," and the problem of aggregating the allocations of n experts the "allocation aggregation problem." Under two simple axiomatic restrictions on aggregation, the only acceptable allocation aggregation method is based on weighted arithmetic averaging (Lehrer and Wagner, Rational Consensus in Science and Society, 1981). In this note it is demonstrated that when the values assigned to (...) the variables are restricted to a finite set (as is always the case in practice), the aforementioned axioms allow only dictatorial aggregation. (shrink)
Garber (1983) and Jeffrey (1991, 1995) have both proposed solutions to the old evidence problem. Jeffrey's solution, based on a new probability revision method called reparation, has been generalized to the case of uncertain old evidence and probabilistic new explanation in Wagner 1997, 1999. The present paper reformulates some of the latter work, highlighting the central role of Bayes factors and their associated uniformity principle, and extending the analysis to the case in which an hypothesis bears on a countable (...) family of evidentiary propositions. This extension shows that no Garber-type approach is capable of reproducing the results of generalized reparation. (shrink)
Cornelius Castoriadis is one of the very few social and political philosophers - modern and ancient - for whom a concept of imagination is truly central. In his work, however, the role of imagination is so overarching that it becomes difficult to grasp its workings and consequences in detail, in particular in its relation to democracy as the political form in which autonomy is the core imaginary signification. This article will proceed by first suggesting some clarifications about Castoriadis's employment of (...) the concept. This preparatory exploration will allow us in a second step to discuss why the idea of democracy is closely linked to tragedy, and why this linkage in turn is dependent on the centrality of imagination for human action. In a third conceptual step, finally, we suggest that any concept of imagination will need to take into account the plurality and diversity of the outcomes of the power of imagination. Thus, the question of the nature of the novelty that imagination creates needs to be addressed as well as the one of the agon in the face of different imagined innovations in a given democratic political setting. As a consequence of this shift in emphasis, to be elaborated further, one will be able to say more about one question of which Castoriadis was well aware, which he never addressed himself in detail, though: the decline and end of polities and political forms, the question of political mortality. Content Type Journal Article Pages 12-28 Authors Nathalie Karagiannis, University of Barcelona Peter Wagner, University of Barcelona Journal Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory Online ISSN 1568-5160 Print ISSN 1440-9917 Journal Volume Volume 13 Journal Issue Volume 13, Number 1 / 2012. (shrink)
By advocating an enlightened method of theorizing committed to thinking in terms of a system of differences, Luhmann has contributed to the development of sociology in a manner that cannot be praised enough. Nonetheless, he does not succeed in giving an account of his own position that satisfies the very logical preconditions that he himself has formulated for it. Instead, his systems theory paradigm of sociology is based on metaphysical premises characteristic of the identity-logical thought of "Old Europe." In fact, (...) the only way to make Luh mann's approach truly comprehensible is to reconstruct it as a new version of Hegel's dialectic. (shrink)
Taking his critique of totalitarianizing conceptions of community as a starting point, this text examines Jean-Luc Nancy's work of an "ontology of plural singular being" for its political implications. It argues that while at first this ontology seems to advocate a negative or an anti-politics only, it can also be read as a "theory of communicative praxis" that suggests a certain ethos - in the form of a certain use of symbols (which is expressed only inaptly by the word "style") (...) that would render the ontological plurality of singulars perceptible and practically effective. Finally, some recent texts by Nancy even sidestep the ontology of being-with and face the question of what politics, faced with demands of justice, could be and what a democratic politics could provide. Both of these aspects in Nancy's work, however, still remain to be spelled out more politically. (shrink)
Harman and Lewis credit Kripke with having formulated a puzzle that seems to show that knowledge entails dogmatism. The puzzle is widely regarded as having been solved. In this paper we argue that this standard solution, in its various versions, addresses only a limited aspect of the puzzle and holds no promise of fully resolving it. Analyzing this failure and the proper rendering of the puzzle, it is suggested that it poses a significant challenge for the defense of epistemic closure.
Timothy Williamson has famously argued that the (KK) principle (roughly, that if one knows that p, then one knows that one knows that p) should be rejected. We analyze Williamson’s argument and show that its key premise is ambiguous, and that when it is properly stated this premise no longer supports the argument against (KK). After canvassing possible objections to our argument, we reflect upon some conclusions that suggest significant epistemological ramifications pertaining to the acquisition of knowledge from prior knowledge (...) by deduction. (shrink)
Part I: Dimensions of time's enigma -- Is time real? -- Eleaticism, temporality, and time -- The makings of a temporal universe -- Pastness and futurity -- Synchronicity and synchronicity -- Temporal pace and measurement -- Presentness or the present -- Aristotle's real account of time -- Parmenidean time and the impossible now -- Cosmic motion and the speed of time -- Time as the motion of the cosmos -- Time as the cosmos itself -- Time as motion and all (...) change -- Temporal cognition and the return of the now -- Real temporality in an Aristotelian world -- Does Aristotle refute eleaticism? -- Bisection argument I -- Bisection argument II -- Bisection argument III -- Plotinus' vitalistic platonism and the real origins of time -- Temporality, eternality, and Plotinus' new metaphysic -- Plotinus' critique of Aristotelian motion -- Indefinite temporality and the measure of motion -- Plotinus' neoplatonic account of time. (shrink)
This paper argues in defense of theanti-reductionist consensus in the philosophy ofbiology. More specifically, it takes issues with AlexRosenberg's recent challenge of this position. Weargue that the results of modern developmentalgenetics rather than eliminating the need forfunctional kinds in explanations of developmentactually reinforce their importance.
Systems involving many interacting variables are at the heart of the natural and social sciences. Causal language is pervasive in the analysis of such systems, especially when insight into their behavior is translated into policy decisions. This is exemplified by economics, but to an increasing extent also by biology, due to the advent of sophisticated tools to identify the genetic basis of many diseases. It is argued here that a regularity notion of causality can only be meaningfully defined for systems (...) with linear interactions among their variables. For the vastly more important class of nonlinear systems, no such notion is likely to exist. This thesis is developed with examples of dynamical systems taken mostly from mathematical biology. It is discussed with particular reference to the problem of causal inference in complex genetic systems, systems for which often only statistical characterizations exist. (shrink)
Individuals are faced with the many opportunities to pirate. The decision to pirate or not may be related to an individual''s attitudes toward other ethical issues. A person''s ethical and moral predispositions and the judgments that they use to make decisions may be consistent across various ethical dilemmas and may indicate their likelihood to pirate software. This paper investigates the relationship between religion and a theoretical ethical decision making process that an individual uses when evaluating ethical or unethical situations. An (...) ethical decision making model was studied for general unethical scenarios and for the unethical behavior of software piracy. The research model was tested via path analysis using structural equation modeling and was found to be appropriate for the sample data. The results suggest that there is a relationship between religion and the stages of an ethical decision making process regarding general ethical situations and software piracy. (shrink)
In this paper we argue that an operational organism concept can help to overcome the structural deficiency of mathematical models in biology. In our opinion, the structural deficiency of mathematical models lies mainly in our inability to identify functionally relevant biological characters in biological systems, and not so much in a lack of adequate mathematical representations of biological processes. We argue that the problem of character identification in biological systems is linked to the question of a properly formulated organism concept. (...) Lastly, we demonstrate how a decomposition of an organism into independent characters in the context of a specific biological process--such as adaptation by means of natural selection--depends on the dynamical properties and invariance conditions of the equations that describe this process. (shrink)
It has often been recommended that the differing probability distributions of a group of experts should be reconciled in such a way as to preserve each instance of independence common to all of their distributions. When probability pooling is subject to a universal domain condition, along with state-wise aggregation, there are severe limitations on implementing this recommendation. In particular, when the individuals are epistemic peers whose probability assessments are to be accorded equal weight, universal preservation of independence is, with a (...) few exceptions, impossible. Under more reasonable restrictions on pooling, however, there is a natural method of preserving the independence of any fixed finite family of countable partitions, and hence of any fixed finite family of discrete random variables. (shrink)
Although we are sympathetic to his central thesis about the illusion of will, having previously advanced a similar proposal, Wegner's account of hypnosis is flawed. Hypnotic behavior derives from specific suggestions that are given, rather than from the induction, of trance, and it can be observed in 90% of the population. Thus, it is very pertinent to the illusion of will. However, Wegner exaggerates the loss of subjective will in hypnosis.
We establish a probabilized version of modus tollens, deriving from p(E|H)=a and p()=b the best possible bounds on p(). In particular, we show that p() 1 as a, b 1, and also as a, b 0. Introduction Probabilities of conditionals Conditional probabilities 3.1 Adams' thesis 3.2 Modus ponens for conditional probabilities 3.3 Modus tollens for conditional probabilities.
This research tests a model of employee helping behavior (a component of Organizational Citizenship Behavior, OCB) that involves a direct path (Intrinsic Motives → Helping Behavior, the Good Samaritan Effect) and an indirect path (the Love of Money → Extrinsic Motives → Helping Behavior). Results for the full sample supported the Good Samaritan Effect. Further, the love of money was positively related to extrinsic motives that were negatively related with helping behavior. We tested the model across four cultures (the USA., (...) Taiwan, Poland, and Egypt). The Good Samaritan Effect was significant for all four countries. For the indirect path, the first part was significant for all countries, except Egypt, whereas the second part was significant for Poland only. For Poland, the indirect path was significant and positive. The love of money may cause one to help in one culture (Poland) but not to help in others. Results were discussed in the light of ethical decision making. (shrink)
Jeffrey has devised a probability revision method that increases the probability of hypothesis H when it is discovered that H implies previously known evidence E. A natural extension of Jeffrey's method likewise increases the probability of H when E has been established with sufficiently high probability and it is then discovered, quite apart from this, that H confers sufficiently higher probability on E than does its logical negation H̄.
The right interpretation of subjective probability is implicit in the theories of upper and lower odds, and upper and lower previsions, developed, respectively, by Cedric Smith (1961) and Peter Walley (1991). On this interpretation you are free to assign contingent events the probability 1 (and thus to employ conditionalization as a method of probability revision) without becoming vulnerable to a weak Dutch book.
The so-called "non-commutativity" of probability kinematics has caused much unjustified concern. When identical learning is properly represented, namely, by identical Bayes factors rather than identical posterior probabilities, then sequential probability-kinematical revisions behave just as they should. Our analysis is based on a variant of Field's reformulation of probability kinematics, divested of its (inessential) physicalist gloss.
This article analyses the link between innovation with high social benefits and corporate social performance (CSP) and the role that family firms play in this. This theme is particularly relevant given the large number of firms that are family-owned. Also the implicit potential of innovation to reconcile corporate sustainability aspects with profitability justifies an extended analysis of this link. Governments often support socially beneficial innovation with various policy instruments, with the intention of increasing international competitiveness and simultaneously supporting sustainable development. (...) In parallel, firms pursue corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental management activities partly in the hope that this will foster such innovation in their organisation (alongside their main aim of improving CSP). Hence, the main research question of this article is about the association of CSP with innovation with high social benefits and the determinants of the potential moderation of this association. Based on panel data, the article analyses the link between CSP and innovation, and the effect of being a family firm using panel estimation techniques. The results point to a moderating role of family firms on the link between innovation with high social benefits and CSP. The article concludes by assessing the policy implications of this insight. (shrink)
The out?dated intentionalistic assumptions manifest in Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action undermine a solution to the problem of order in action theory beyond utilitarianism. An analysis of his intersubjectivistic conception, which is based on the theory of the speech?act, shows that the incompleteness of Habermas's linguistic turn is due to his attempt to revive the older Critical Theory's concept of critique. The claims for a scientifically well?founded revival of a universal concept of reason ? which are asserted in this concept (...) ? invalidate the intersubjectivistic paradigm in action theory and therefore obstruct the way to a de?individualized formulation of the theory of social contract that avoids the paradox of utilitarian models. (shrink)
Divided into two parts this book examines the train of social theory from the 19th century, through to the `organization of modernity', in relation to ideas of social planning, and as contributors to the `rationalistic revolution' of the `golden age' of capitalism in the 1950s and 60s. Part two examines key concepts in the social sciences. It begins with some of the broadest concepts used by social scientists: choice, decision, action and institution and moves on to examine the `collectivist alternative': (...) the concepts of society, culture and polity, which are often dismissed as untenable by postmodernists today. This is a major contribution to contemporary social theory and provides a host of essential insights into the task of social science today. (shrink)
We define an R-group to be a stable group with the property that a generic element (for any definable transitive group action) can only be algebraic over a generic. We then derive some corollaries for R-groups and fields, and prove a decomposition theorem and a field theorem. As a nonsuperstable example, we prove that small stable groups are R-groups.
This study used a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives to test the impact of three personal factors (moral reasoning, value orientation and risk preference), and three situational factors (the presence/absence of audits, tax inequity, and peer reporting behavior), while controlling for the impact of other demographic characteristics, on tax compliance. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) reveals that all the main effects analyzed are statistically significant and robustly influence tax compliance behavior. These results highlight the importance of obtaining a proper understanding of (...) these factors for developing effective policies for increasing the level of compliance, and indicate that standard enforcement polices based on punishment alone should be supplemented by an information system that would acquaint tax payers with the compliance level of other tax payers; reinforce the concept of fairness of the tax system among tax payers; and develop programs that enhance and appeal to a taxpayer''s moral conscience and reinforce social cohesion. (shrink)
In the traditional fix-it model of medical decision making, the identified problem is typically characterized by a diagnosis that indicates a deviation from normalcy. When a medical problem is multifaceted and the available interventions are only partially effective, a broader vision of the health care endeavor is needed. What matters to the patient, and what should matter to the practitioner, is the patient's future possibilities. More specifically, what is important is the character of the alternative futures that the patient could (...) have and choosing among them so as to achieve the best future possible, with the ranking of outcomes determined by the patient's preferences. This paper describes the fix-it model, presents and defends the outcomes-based model, and demonstrates that the latter is useful in developing normative conceptions of informed consent and decision making and in establishing a basis for societal involvement in the decision making process. Finally, several shortcomings of the model will be acknowledged. (shrink)
Henrich et al. propose that humans are genetically equipped with learning mechanisms that enable them to acquire the preferences and beliefs related to economic prosocial behaviors. In addition to their cross-cultural data, they cite developmental evidence in support of this theory. We challenge Henrich et al.'s interpretation of the developmental data in a discussion of recent work which suggests that preferences for altruism and fairness may have an innate basis.
Geography is experiencing a 'moral turn' in its research interests and practices. There is also a flourishing interest in animal geographies that intersects this turn, and is concurrent with wider scholarly efforts to reincorporate animals and nature” into our ethical and social theories. This article intervenes in a dispute between Michael Dear and Richard Symanski. The dispute is over the culling of wild horses in Australia, and I intervene to explore how geography deepens our moral understanding of the animallhuman dialectic. (...) I begin by situating the inquiry into ethics and animals in geography. Next, I provide a synopsis of Dear and Symanski's comments on 'animal rights', followed in 'turn by discussions of moral value and value paradigms. I then introduce a value paradigm termed geocentrism as a geographical account of our moral relations to animals. Finally, I discuss the wider significance of this debate for geographical ethics, moral philosophy and social theory. (shrink)
This paper explores the semiotic status of algebraic variables. To do that we build on a structuralist and post-structuralist train of thought going from Mauss and L vi-Strauss to Baudrillard and Derrida. We import these authors' semiotic thinking from the register of indigenous concepts (such as mana), and apply it to the register of algebra via a concrete case study of generating functions. The purpose of this experiment is to provide a philosophical language that can explore the openness of mathematical (...) signs to reinterpretation, and bridge some barriers between philosophy of mathematics and critical approaches to knowledge. (shrink)
Matthew Walker's model overcomes the unrefined classical concept of consolidation as a unitary process. Presently still confined in its scope to selective data mainly referring to procedural motor learning, the model nonetheless provides a valuable starting point for further refinements, which would be required for a more comprehensive account of different types and aspects of human memory consolidation.
The properties of the phosphate uptake system of the cyanobacterium Anacystis nidulans have been studied during the transition from a phosphate-deficient non-growing state to a non-deficient growing state. In the phosphate-deficient state the high affinity phosphate transport system in the cell membrane is extremely adaptive. As a result of these adaptive features the phosphate transport system cannot be described by determinate, fixed parameters, because the transport system is influenced by the measurement of the uptake process itself. When the growing state (...) has been initiated by a persisting phosphate pulse, the transport system rapidly loses its adaptive features and can then be characterized by determinate parameters that remain unchanged for a long period of time, even if no uptake occurs in that time. Depending on the amount of phosphate stored during a pulse the cell makes a choice between slow or fast growth. In the latter case the light harvesting and energy converting machinery is completely reorganized before growth commences. Thereby the components of this machinery conform to each other and to the stable properties of the phosphate transport system. It is suggested that the mutual adjustment of these adaptive energy converting subunits is guided by attractors that function as the final cause for the development of the whole system.An application of this model to an analysis of the selforganization of aquatic ecosystems is discussed. (shrink)
We analyzed a sample of 356 forms containing information that Colorado law legally requires both licensed and unlicensed therapists to disclose to clients. The majority of forms contained the legally mandated information; fewer forms contained ethically desirable information. The average readability grade level was 15.74, corresponding to upper-level college, and 63.9% of the forms reached the highest (most difficult) readability grade of 17 +. Therapists are obeying the law, but do not appear to be taking advantage of the opportunity to (...) provide their clients useful information in an accessible way. (shrink)
We show that if p is a real type which is almost internal in a formula φ in a simple theory, then there is a type p' interalgebraic with a finite tuple of realizations of p, which is generated over φ. Moreover, the group of elementary permutations of p' over all realizations of φ is type-definable.
Philosophers and social scientists have recently turned to Lewis sender–receiver games to provide an account of how lexical terms can acquire meaning through an evolutionary process. However, the evolution of meaning is contingent on both the particular sender–receiver game played and the choice of evolutionary dynamic. In this paper I explore some differences between models that presume an infinitely large and randomly mixed population and models in which a finite number of agents communicate with their neighbors in a social network. (...) My results show that communication with neighbors is more conducive to the evolution of meaning than communication with strangers. Additionally, I show that the behavior of the system is highly dependent on the topological structure of the social network. I argue that a specific class of networks—small world graphs—is especially conducive to the evolution of meaning. This is because small world graphs have a short characteristic path length while still maintaining a high degree of correlation between neighbors. Since many actual social networks, such as friendship networks and nervous systems, are conjectured to be small world structures, these results indicate that these networks are quite hospitable to the efficient evolution of meaning. (shrink)
A simple rule of probability revision ensures that the final result ofa sequence of probability revisions is undisturbed by an alterationin the temporal order of the learning prompting those revisions.This Uniformity Rule dictates that identical learning be reflectedin identical ratios of certain new-to-old odds, and is grounded in the oldBayesian idea that such ratios represent what is learned from new experiencealone, with prior probabilities factored out. The main theorem of this paperincludes as special cases (i) Field's theorem on commuting probability-kinematical (...) revisions and (ii) the equivalence of two strategiesfor generalizing Jeffrey's solution to the old evidence problem tothe case of uncertain old evidence and probabilistic new explanation. (shrink)
Additional results are reported on the author's earlier generalization of Richard Jeffrey's solution to the problem of old evidence and new explanation.
This paper will apply post-structural semiotic theories to study the texts of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. I will study the texts’ own articulations of concepts of ‘meaning’, analyze the mechanisms they use to sustain their senses of validity, and point out how the texts depend (without losing their mathematical rigor) on sustaining some shifts of meaning. I will demonstrate that the texts manifest semiotic effects, which we usually associate with poetry and everyday speech. I will conclude with an analysis of (...) how the picture I paint relates to an ethics of mathematical production. (shrink)
A structure (M, $ ,...) is called quasi-o-minimal if in any structure elementarily equivalent to it the definable subsets are exactly the Boolean combinations of 0-definable subsets and intervals. We give a series of natural examples of quasi-o-minimal structures which are not o-minimal; one of them is the ordered group of integers. We develop a technique to investigate quasi-o-minimality and use it to study quasi-o-minimal ordered groups (possibly with extra structure). Main results: any quasi-o-minimal ordered group is abelian; any quasi-o-minimal (...) ordered ring is a real closed field, or has zero multiplication; every quasi-o-minimal divisible ordered group is o-minimal; every quasi-o-minimal archimedian densely ordered group is divisible. We show that a counterpart of quasi-o-minimality in stability theory is the notion of theory of U-rank 1. (shrink)
Contemporary fiscal theorizing largely assimilates the activities of government to that of some choosing agent. This paper explores an alternative approach where government is assimilated to an emergent process of complex interaction, as a form of complex adaptive system. Within this alternative vision, governments are treated not as objects of intervention into a market economy but as arenas of organized participation within it. While recent developments in computational modeling are starting to provide tools for probing such a vision, the roots (...) of that vision can be traced back to the spontaneous order theorists of the 18th century. After sketching some contours of this alternative vision, the remainder of the paper explores some possible implications of this change in vision for mapping the relationship among taxation, prosperity, and justice. (shrink)
The problem of modifier evolution was examined with regard to the idea that modifier evolution can be considered as a result of selection for adaptation speed in populations far from equilibrium. This kind of selection was called feedback selection in order to emphasize the difference to theories which consider modifier evolution near the equilibrium. The basic principles of this kind of selection are derived for asexual populations and the problem of dominance is discussed in the light of this concept. In (...) general the results support the view, that the genetic properties of a character are selected along with the character itself. (shrink)
In recent work, the authors have established the group configuration theorem for simple theories, as well as some of its main applications from geometric stability theory, such as the binding group theorem, or in the ω-categorical case, the characterization of the forking geometry of a finitely based non-trivial locally modular regular type as projective geometry over a finite field and the equivalence of pseudolinearity and local modularity. The proof necessitated an extension of the model-theoretic framework to include almost hyperimaginaries, and (...) the study of polygroups. (shrink)
We define a notion of genericity for genericity subgroups of groups interpretable in a simple theory. and show that a type generic for such a group is generic for the minimal hyperdefinable supergroup (the definable hull). In particular, at least one generic type of the definable hull is finitely satisfiable in the original subgroup. If the subgroup is a subfield, then the additive and the multiplicative definable hull both have bounded index in the smallest hyperdefinable superfield.
