Most recently, two distinctions—echoing the cross-disciplinary critique of the teleological and “quantitative” approach of human arts and sciences at the expanse of the “qualitative”—have been foregrounded by Amzallag (Philosophy and Technology 34, 785–809, 2021) and Crease (2011), respectively, between the modern understanding of “technology” (as technopraxis) and the “forgotten dimension/phase of technology” (called technopoiesis) and between the ontic and ontological measurement. Pace gently the denotation of technopoiesis as a juvenile phase of technological development and the “ontological measurements” as logical and (...) practical impossibility in the modern, mathematized metroscape, the paper reexamines the relevancy of the distinctions (ontic/ontological and po[i]etic/practical, both recalling Heidegger’s “hermeneutical” critique of Husserl’s phenomenology) in non-Platonic/Aristotelian contexts and, in the process, seeks to refine the vital notion of technopoiesis by looking at the intersection of these fuzzy domains. In particular, the ancient Chinese measurements and their understudied onto-poietic dimension in the shifting econ-political contexts may offer an alternative approach to the otherwise elusive presence of technopoiesis and its ontological roots. Arguing that the techno-onto-poiesis does not necessarily belong to the foregone Arcadian past, the paper proposes refined “signals” for recognizing the technopoietic as well as new “forms” of its presence—“interactive emergence” (the cross-stimulating agonistic interactions between techniques of different “stages”) and “poietic clusters” (poietic ideas and/or implements that survive as “cluster” into the future), calling for future investigation of technical inventiveness (even in modern times) that reveal the process of how technopoietic elements enter the lives of technology through least expected embodiment. (shrink)

Historians have thoroughly documented the development of mercury-based silver refining in Spanish America in the late sixteenth century, and its use for over 300 years on an industrial scale unknown in Europe. However, we currently lack any consensus about the significance of this technology in the global history of knowledge. This article critically reassesses the invention and improvement of this refining method with the aim of addressing two interrelated issues. Firstly, how experiential knowledge and practical skills in silver refining were (...) deliberately harnessed to solve a specific technical problem. Secondly, how economic incentives and patronage set the stage for empirical practices and a collaborative culture that facilitated the widespread use of this novel technique. In so doing, this article places silver refining within the theoretical constructs and historiography of useful knowledge, and bridges narratives that have remained largely isolated. (shrink)

The objective of the paper is to implement and validate diagnosis in the medical field via refined neutrosophic fuzzy logic (RNFL). As such, we have proposed a Max-Min composition (MMC) method in RNFL. This method deals with the diagnosis under certain constraints like uncertainty and indeterminacy. Further, we have considered the diagnosis problems to validate the sensitivity analysis of the novel multi attribute decision-making technique. Finally, we gave the graphical representations and compared the obtained results with other existing measures (...) in refined neutrosophic fuzzy sets. (shrink)

Legal text retrieval traditionally relies upon external knowledge sources such as thesauri and classification schemes, and an accurate indexing of the documents is often manually done. As a result not all legal documents can be effectively retrieved. However a number of current artificial intelligence techniques are promising for legal text retrieval. They sustain the acquisition of knowledge and the knowledge-rich processing of the content of document texts and information need, and of their matching. Currently, techniques for learning information needs, learning (...) concept attributes of texts, information extraction, text classification and clustering, and text summarization need to be studied in legal text retrieval because of their potential for improving retrieval and decreasing the cost of manual indexing. The resulting query and text representations are semantically much richer than a set of key terms. Their use allows for more refined retrieval models in which some reasoning can be applied. This paper gives an overview of the state of the art of these innovativetechniques and their potential for legal text retrieval. (shrink)

We callsyntactic coding a technique which converts syntactic principles or constraints on representations into grammatical rules which can be implemented in any given rule grammar. In this paper we show that any principle or constraint on output trees formalizable in a certain fragment of dynamic logic over trees can be coded in this sense. This allows to reduce in a mechanical fashion most of the current theories of government and binding into GPSG-style grammars. This will be exemplified with Rizzi'sRelativized (...) Minimality. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to develop a problem representation technique which enables the decomposition of a problem into subproblems such that their solution in sequence constitutes a strategy for solving the problem. An important issue here is that the subproblems generated should be easier than the main problem. We propose to represent a set of problem states by a statement which is true for all the members of the set. A statement itself is just a set of atomic (...) statements which are binary predicates on state variables. Then, the statement representing the set of goal states can be partitioned into its subsets each of which becomes a subgoal of the resulting strategy. The techniques involved in partitioning a goal into its subgoals are presented with examples. (shrink)

Technopoiesis was previously identified as the juvenile phase of expression of a technique that spontaneously evolves towards technopraxis as soon as the perspectives of practical use of the end-products overcome the cosmological resonance of the process itself. This view is re-examined considering the data and analyses exposed in “Refining technopoiesis: Measures and Measuring Thinking in Ancient China,” in which a coexistence of the technopoiesis and technopraxis approaches of technics is suggested.

We argue that developing a human ethics application is an effective method for refining the intent and design of research studies. Our study aimed to investigate the delivery of end-of-life and palliative care nursing to residents of an aged care unit in a Multi-purpose Service/centre in rural Victoria. We used the ethics application process as a strategy to focus the study, and to refine the data collection and analysis techniques. It is our contention that the process of completing the application (...) and gaining ethics approval is laborious; however, the intellectualising that occurs provides researchers with an opportunity to reflect upon and refine their studies, thus ensuring the ultimate success and timely completion of research investigations. (shrink)

To what level are invisible stimuli processed by the brain in the absence of conscious awareness? It is widely accepted that simple visual properties of invisible stimuli are processed; however, the existence of higher-level unconscious processing (e.g., involving semantic or executive functions) remains a matter of debate. Several methodological factors may underlie the discrepancies found in the literature, such as different levels of conservativeness in the definition of "unconscious" or different dependent measures of unconscious processing. In this research topic, we (...) are particularly interested in yet another factor: inherent differences in the amount of information let through by different suppression techniques. In the same conditions of well-controlled, conservatively established invisibility, can we show that some of the techniques in the "psychophysical magic" arsenal (e.g., masking, but also visual crowding, attentional blink, etc.) reliably lead to higher-level unconscious processing than others (e.g., interocular suppression)? Some authors have started investigating this question, using multiple techniques in similar settings. We argue that this approach should be extended and refined. Indeed, in order to delineate the frontiers of the unconscious mind using a contrastive method, one has to disentangle the limits attributable to unawareness itself, and those attributable to the technique inducing unawareness. The scope of this research topic is to provide a platform for scientists to contribute insights and further experiments addressing this fundamental question. (shrink)

The 3Rs, or the replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal research, are widely accepted as the best approach to maximizing high-quality science while ensuring the highest standard of ethical consideration is applied in regulating the use of animals in scientific procedures. This contrasts with the muted scientific interest in the 3Rs when they were first proposed in The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Indeed, the relative success of the 3Rs has done little to encourage engagement with their original text, (...) which remains little read and out of print. By adopting a historical perspective, this article argues that one explanation for this disjunction may be found in another, more celebrated, event of 1959: C. P. Snow’s Rede lecture on The Two Cultures. The moral outlook of The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique derived from an earlier ethos wherein humanistic and scientific values occupied a shared culture. While the synthetic style of The Principles has hindered its readership, this article concludes that there is value to recovering the notion that the humanities and social sciences can contribute to the improvement of animal research. (shrink)

ArgumentDrawing and writing number among the most widespread scientific practices of representation. Neither photography, graphic recording apparatuses, typewriters, nor digital word- and image-processing ever completely replaced drawing and writing by hand. The interaction of hand, paper, and pen indeed involves much more than simply recording or visualizing what was previously thought, observed, or imagined. Both writing and drawing have the power to translate concepts and observations into two-dimensional, manageable, reproducible objects. They help to develop research questions and they open up (...) an interaction between the gathering of phenomena and the formation of theses. Related to the manifold studies of representational activities in the sciences and the humanities, this topical issue tries to refine our understanding of the capacities of drawing and writing as research techniques; i.e. as productive epistemic practices. In particular the contributions address three aspects: the material conditions and configurations of the “scene of drawing and writing,” the involved procedures of production, and the languages of inscription. (shrink)

Argumentation, which can be abstractly defined as the interaction of different arguments for and against some conclusion, is an important skill to learn for everyday life, law, science, politics and business. The best way to learn it is to try it out on real instances of arguments found in everyday conversational exchanges and legal argumentation. The introductory chapter of this book gives a clear general idea of what the methods of argumentation are and how they work as tools that can (...) be used to analyze arguments. Each subsequent chapter then applies these methods to a leading problem of argumentation. Today the field of computing has embraced argumentation as a paradigm for research in artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Another purpose of this book is to present and refine tools and techniques from computing as components of the methods that can be handily used by scholars in other fields. (shrink)

Questions concerning the epistemological status of computer science are, in this paper, answered from the point of view of the formal verification framework. State space reduction techniques adopted to simplify computational models in model checking are analysed in terms of Aristotelian abstractions and Galilean idealizations characterizing the inquiry of empirical systems. Methodological considerations drawn here are employed to argue in favour of the scientific understanding of computer science as a discipline. Specifically, reduced models gained by Dataion are acknowledged as Aristotelian (...) abstractions that include only data which are sufficient to examine the interested executions. The present study highlights how the need to maximize incompatible properties is at the basis of both Abstraction Refinement, the process of generating a cascade of computational models to achieve a balance between simplicity and informativeness, and the Multiple Model Idealization approach in biology. Finally, fairness constraints, imposed to computational models to allow fair behaviours only, are defined as ceteris paribus conditions under which temporal formulas, formalizing software requirements, acquire the status of law-like statements about the software systems executions. (shrink)

Using techniques developed by Comer on sheaf-theoretic duality for cylindric algebras, we refine a result of Judit Madarász by showing that epimorphisms are not surjective even in the class of simple infinite dimensional cylindric algebras.

The classification of techniques used in mitochondrial donation, including their role as purported germ-line gene therapies, is far from clear. These techniques exhibit characteristics typical of a variety of classifications that have been used in both scientific and bioethics scholarship. This raises two connected questions, which we address in this paper: how should we classify mitochondrial donation techniques?; and what ethical implications surround such a classification? First, we outline how methods of genetic intervention, such as germ-line gene therapy, are typically (...) defined or classified. We then consider whether techniques of mitochondrial donation fit into these, whether they might do so with some refinement of these categories, or whether they require some other approach to classification. To answer the second question, we discuss the relationship between classification and several key ethical issues arising from mitochondrial donation. We conclude that the properties characteristic of mitochondrial inheritance mean that most mitochondrial donation techniques belong to a new sub-class of genetic modification, which we call ‘conditionally inheritable genomic modification’. (shrink)

Arthur Danto was an original thinker, and like all creative readers of the history of philosophy he invariably heard in those who caught his attention echoes, faint or raucous, of his own thoughts. Danto rejects the transparency theory as inadequate to how we talk about art and to artistic practice. For Danto, an artwork is not a mere representation, with a particular kind of content. Echoing a familiar theme from traditional aesthetic theory, Danto reminds us that “it is crucial to (...) distinguish the form of a representation from the content of the representation”. Sartre and Danto agree that artistic style and expression differ essentially from mundane character and meaning. By his own admission, Sartre's favored argumentative technique was to invest heavily in sharp categorical distinctions where common sense and philosophical refinement are inclined to see complexity and ambiguity. (shrink)

Query expansion is a technique of information retrieval to select new query terms which improve search performance. Although good terms can be extracted from documents whose relevancy has already been known, it is difficult to get enough such feedback from users in practical situations. In this paper we propose a query expansion method which performs well even if a user only notifies relevancy of documents until just a relevant one is found. In order to tackle this specific condition, we (...) introduce two refinements to a well-known query expansion method. One is the application of transductive learning to increase the amount of latent relevant documents. The other is the introduction of a modified parameter estimation method which laps the predictions of multiple learning trials in order to differentiate the importance of candidate terms for expansion. Experimental results show that our method outperforms traditional methods when an initial search fails. (shrink)

Axiom weakening is a technique that allows for a fine-grained repair of inconsistent ontologies. Its main advantage is that it repairs on- tologies by making axioms less restrictive rather than by deleting them, employing the use of refinement operators. In this paper, we build on pre- viously introduced axiom weakening for ALC, and make it much more irresistible by extending its definitions to deal with SROIQ, the expressive and decidable description logic underlying OWL 2 DL. We extend the definitions (...) of refinement operator to deal with SROIQ constructs, in particular with role hierarchies, cardinality constraints and nominals, and illustrate its application. Finally, we discuss the problem of termi- nation of an iterated weakening procedure. (shrink)

Models developed using machine learning are increasingly prevalent in scientific research. At the same time, these models are notoriously opaque. Explainable AI aims to mitigate the impact of opacity by rendering opaque models transparent. More than being just the solution to a problem, however, Explainable AI can also play an invaluable role in scientific exploration. This paper describes how post-hoc analytic techniques from Explainable AI can be used to refine target phenomena in medical science, to identify starting points for future (...) investigations of causal relationships, and to generate possible explanations of target phenomena in cognitive science. In this way, this paper describes how Explainable AI—over and above machine learning itself—contributes to the efficiency and scope of data-driven scientific research. (shrink)

Reprogenetic technologies, which combine the power of reproductive techniques with the tools of genetic science and technology, promise prospective parents a remarkable degree of control to pick and choose the likely characteristics of their offspring. Not only can they select embryos with or without particular genetically-related diseases and disabilities but also choose embryos with non-disease related traits such as sex. -/- Prominent authors such as Agar, Buchanan, DeGrazia, Green, Harris, Robertson, Savulescu, and Silver have flocked to the banner of reprogenetics. (...) For them, increased reproductive choice and reduced suffering through the elimination of genetic disease and disability are just the first step. They advocate use of these technologies to create beings who enjoy longer and healthier lives, possess greater intellectual capacities, and are capable of more refined emotional experiences. Indeed, Harris and Savulescu in particular take reprogenetic technologies to be so valuable to human beings that they have insisted that their use is not only morally permissible but morally required. -/- Rethinking Reprogenetics challenges this mainstream view with a contextualised, gender-attentive philosophical perspective. De Melo-Martín demonstrates that you do not have to be a Luddite, social conservative, or religious zealot to resist the siren song of reprogenetics. Pointing out the flawed nature of the arguments put forward by the technologies' proponents, Rethinking Reprogenetics reveals the problematic nature of the assumptions underpinning current evaluations of these technologies and offers a framework for a more critical and skeptical assessment. (shrink)

Causality in Macroeconomics examines causality while taking macroeconomics seriously. A pragmatic and realistic philosophy is joined to a macroeconomic foundation that refines Herbert Simon's well-known work on causal order to make a case for a structural approach to causality. The structural approach is used to understand modern rational expectations models, regime switching models, Granger causality, vector autoregressions, the Lucas critique, and concept exogeneity. Techniques of causal inference based on patterns of stability and instability in the face of identified regime changes (...) are developed and illustrated in two empirical case studies. (shrink)

In frameworks in which _topic-__theoretic_ considerations—_e.g._, tracking _subject-matter_ or _topic_—are given equal importance with _veridical_ considerations, assigning topics to formulae in a satisfactory way is of critical importance. While intuitions are more-or-less solid for _extensional_ formulae in a propositional language, arriving at a compelling account of the subject-matter of _intensional_ formulae, _i.e._, formulae including intensional operators, is more challenging. This paper continues previous work on modeling topics of intensional formulae in William Parry’s logic of analytic implication, adapting the general techniques (...) to the framework of _topic-sensitive intentional modals_ (TSIMs) championed by Francesco Berto and his collaborators. As illustrations, we introduce variations on Berto and Peter Hawke’s logic of knowability relative to information ( \(\pmb {\textsf{KRI}}\) ), including a refinement sensitive to topic-theoretic distinctions between knowledge and belief and a refinement capable of internalizing its own properties. Finally, subsystems of Aybüke Ozgun and Berto’s logic of plain hyperintensional belief ( \(\pmb {\textsf{PHB}}\) ) are introduced in which fine-grained distinctions in subject-matter are possible. (shrink)

In this book one of the world's foremost philosophers of language presents his unifying vision of the field--its principal achievements, its most pressing current questions, and its most promising future directions. In addition to explaining the progress philosophers have made toward creating a theoretical framework for the study of language, Scott Soames investigates foundational concepts--such as truth, reference, and meaning--that are central to the philosophy of language and important to philosophy as a whole. The first part of the book describes (...) how philosophers from Frege, Russell, Tarski, and Carnap to Kripke, Kaplan, and Montague developed precise techniques for understanding the languages of logic and mathematics, and how these techniques have been refined and extended to the study of natural human languages. The book then builds on this account, exploring new thinking about propositions, possibility, and the relationship between meaning, assertion, and other aspects of language use. An invaluable overview of the philosophy of language by one of its most important practitioners, this book will be essential reading for all serious students of philosophy. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to present a formal systemPin which we enjoy a smooth-running technique and which countenances a universe of classes which is symmetrical as between large and small. More exactly,Pis a system which differs from the inconsistent system of [1] only in the introduction of a rather natural new restrictive condition on the defining formulas of the elements. It will be proved that if the weaker system of [2] is consistent, thenPis also consistent.After the (...) discovery of paradoxes, it may be recalled, Russell and Zermelo in the same year proposed two different ways of safeguarding logic against contradictions. Since then various simplifications and refinements of these systems have been made. However, in the resulting systems of Zermelo set theory, generation of classes still tends to be laborious and uncertain; and in the systems of Russell's theory of types, complications in the matter of reduplication of classes and meaningfulness of formulas remain. In [2], Quine introduced a system which seems to be free from all these complications. But later it was found out that in it there appears to be an unavoidable difficulty connected with mathematical induction. Indeed, we encounter the curious situation that although we can prove in it the existence of a class V of all classes, and we can also prove particular existence theorems for each of infinitely many classes, nobody has so far contrived to prove in it that V is an infinite class or that there exists an infinite class at all. (shrink)

Scholars loosely affiliated with the "Cambridge School" (e.g., Pocock, Skinner, Viroli, and Pettit) accentuate rule of law, common good, class equilibrium, and non-domination in Machiavelli's political thought and republicanism generally but underestimate the Florentine's preference for class conflict and ignore his insistence on elite accountability. The author argues that they obscure the extent to which Machiavelli is an anti-elitist critic of the republican tradition, which they fail to disclose was predominantly oligarchic. The prescriptive lessons these scholars draw from republicanism for (...) contemporary politics reinforce rather than reform the "senatorial," electorally based, and socioeconomically agnostic republican model (devised by Machiavelli's aristocratic interlocutor, Guicciardini, and refined by Montesquieu and Madison) that permits common citizens to acclaim but not determine government policies. Cambridge School textual interpretations and practical proposals have little connection with Machiavelli's "tribunate," class-specific model of popular government elaborated in The Discourses, one that relies on extra-electoral accountability techniques and embraces deliberative popular assemblies. (shrink)

Recently, Australia became the second jurisdiction worldwide to legalize the use of mitochondrial donation technology. The Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve’s Law) Bill 2021 allows individuals with a family history of mitochondrial disease to access assisted reproductive techniques that prevent the inheritance of mitochondrial disease. Using inductive content analysis, we assessed submissions sent to the Senate Committee as part of a programme of scientific inquiry and public consultation that informed drafting of the Bill. These submissions discussed a range of bioethical (...) and legal considerations of central importance to the political debate. Significantly, submissions from those with a first-hand experience of mitochondrial disease, including clinicians and those with a family history of mitochondrial disease, were in strong support of this legislation. Those in support of the Bill commended the two-staged approach and rigorous licencing requirements as part of the Bill’s implementation strategy. Submissions which outlined arguments against the legislation either opposed the use of these techniques in general or opposed aspects of the implementation strategy in Australia. These findings offer a window into the ethical arguments and perspectives that matter most to those Australians who took part in the Senate inquiry into mitochondrial donation. The insights garnered from these submissions may be used to help refine policy and guidelines as the field progresses. (shrink)

Since each term only has significance in contrast to its negation, the distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal is a Kantian philosophical postulation that is as arbitrary as any binary (e.g., presence–absence) when submitted to Jacques Derrida’s method of deconstruction. According to Noumenism – a philosophy founded on the non-dualistic reinscription of phenomena and noumena – works of art possess elements which are simultaneously sense-data, and no data to any mind. This paradoxical status is achieved by means of an (...) artist-invented mechanism which allows its generative workings to run amok. The mechanism itself is a ‘compound-image’ formed by the paranoiac-critical activity of abolishing the mutual exclusivity of two or more different systems (i.e., the organization of related elements into complex wholes, methods, procedures, techniques, etc.). To illustrate this, an analysis of ‘No. 6’ from Noumenist poet Jason Johnson’s Hymns from Purgatory is undertaken. As they develop, refine or adopt their own philosophies of art, today’s artists and tomorrow’s are challenged to reckon with the ideas put forward in this article. (shrink)

Philosophers of science increasingly believe that much of science is concerned with understanding the mechanisms responsible for the production of natural phenomena. An adequate understanding of scientific research requires an account of how scientists develop and test models of mechanisms. This paper offers a general account of the nature of mechanical models, discussing the representational relationship that holds between mechanisms and their models as well as the techniques that can be used to test and refine such models. The analysis is (...) supported by study of two competing models of a mechanism of speech perception. (shrink)

A theoretical development is carried to establish fundamental results about rank-initial embeddings and automorphisms of countable non-standard models of set theory, with a keen eye for their sets of fixed points. These results are then combined into a “geometric technique” used to prove several results about countable non-standard models of set theory. In particular, back-and-forth constructions are carried out to establish various generalizations and refinements of Friedman’s theorem on the existence of rank-initial embeddings between countable non-standard models of (...) the fragment \ + \-Separation of \; and Gaifman’s technique of iterated ultrapowers is employed to show that any countable model of \ can be elementarily rank-end-extended to models with well-behaved automorphisms whose sets of fixed points equal the original model. These theoretical developments are then utilized to prove various results relating self-embeddings, automorphisms, their sets of fixed points, strong rank-cuts, and set theories of different strengths. Two examples: The notion of “strong rank-cut” is characterized in terms of the theory \, and in terms of fixed-point sets of self-embeddings. (shrink)

This is Part 1 of a paper on fibred semantics and combination of logics. It aims to present a methodology for combining arbitrary logical systems L i , i ∈ I, to form a new system L I . The methodology `fibres' the semantics K i of L i into a semantics for L I , and `weaves' the proof theory (axiomatics) of L i into a proof system of L I . There are various ways of doing this, we (...) distinguish by different names such as `fibring', `dovetailing' etc, yielding different systems, denoted by L F I , L D I etc. Once the logics are `weaved', further `interaction' axioms can be geometrically motivated and added, and then systematically studied. The methodology is general and is applied to modal and intuitionistic logics as well as to general algebraic logics. We obtain general results on bulk, in the sense that we develop standard combining techniques and refinements which can be applied to any family of initial logics to obtain further combined logics. The main results of this paper is a construction for combining arbitrary, (possibly not normal) modal or intermediate logics, each complete for a class of (not necessarily frame) Kripke models. We show transfer of recursive axiomatisability, decidability and finite model property. Some results on combining logics (normal modal extensions of K) have recently been introduced by Kracht and Wolter, Goranko and Passy and by Fine and Schurz as well as a multitude of special combined systems existing in the literature of the past 20-30 years. We hope our methodology will help organise the field systematically. (shrink)

Despite its significance in neuroscience and computation, McCulloch and Pitts's celebrated 1943 paper has received little historical and philosophical attention. In 1943 there already existed a lively community of biophysicists doing mathematical work on neural networks. What was novel in McCulloch and Pitts's paper was their use of logic and computation to understand neural, and thus mental, activity. McCulloch and Pitts's contributions included (i) a formalism whose refinement and generalization led to the notion of finite automata (an important formalism in (...) computability theory), (ii) a technique that inspired the notion of logic design (a fundamental part of modern computer design), (iii) the first use of computation to address the mind–body problem, and (iv) the first modern computational theory of mind and brain. (shrink)

One way to study and understand the notion of truth is to examine principles that we are willing to associate with truth, often because they conform to a pre-theoretical or to a semi-formal characterization of this concept. In comparing different collections of such principles, one requires formally precise notions of inter-theoretic reduction that are also adequate to compare these conceptual aspects. In this work I study possible ways to make precise the relation of conceptual equivalence between notions of truth associated (...) with collections of principles of truth. In doing so, I will consider refinements and strengthenings of the notion of relative truth-definability proposed by Fujimoto (2010): in particular I employ suitable variants of notions of equivalence of theories considered in Visser (2006) and Friedman & Visser (2014) to show that there are better candidates than mutual truth-definability for the role of sufficient condition for conceptual equivalence between the semantic notions associated with the theories. In the concluding part of the paper, I extend the techniques introduced in the first and show that there is a precise sense in which ramified truth (either disquotational or compositional) does not correspond to iterations of comprehension. (shrink)

Subtle-body practices are found particularly in Indian, Indo-Tibetan and East Asian societies, but have become increasingly familiar in Western societies, especially through the various healing and yogic techniques and exercises associated with them. This book explores subtle-body practices from a variety of perspectives, and includes both studies of these practices in Asian and Western contexts. The book discusses how subtle-body practices assume a quasi-material level of human existence that is intermediate between conventional concepts of body and mind. Often, this level (...) is conceived of in terms of an invisible structure of channels, associated with the human body, through which flows of quasi-material substance take place. Contributors look at how subtle-body concepts form the basic explanatory structure for a wide range of practices. These include forms of healing, modes of exercise and martial arts as well as religious practices aimed at the refinement and transformation of the human mindbody complex. By highlighting how subtle-body practices of many kinds have been introduced into Western societies in recent years, the book explores the possibilities for new models of understanding which these concepts open up. It is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Religion and Philosophy. (shrink)

There have been attempts to subsume Charles Darwin's theory of evolution under either one of two distinct intellectual traditions: early Victorian natural science and its descendants in political economy (as exemplified by Herschel, Lyell, or Malthus) and the romantic approach to art and science emanating from Germany (as exemplified by Humboldt and Goethe). In this paper, it will be shown how these traditions may have jointly contributed to the design of Darwin's theory. The hypothesis is that their encounter created a (...) particular tension in the conception of his theory which first opened up its characteristic field and mode of explanation. On the one hand, the domain of the explanandum was conceived of under a holistic and aesthetic view of nature that, in its combination with refined techniques of observation, was deeply indebted to Humboldt in particular. On the other hand, Darwin fashioned explanations for natural phenomena, so conceived, in order to identify their proper causes in a Herschelian spirit. The particular interaction between these two traditions in Darwin, it is concluded, paved the way for a transfer of the idea of causal laws to animate nature while salvaging the romantic idea of a complex, teleological and harmonious order of nature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that there is no compelling therapeutic ‘need’ for human nuclear genome transfer to prevent mitochondrial diseases caused by mtDNA mutations. At most there is a strong interest in this technology on the part of some women and couples at risk of having children with mitochondrial disease, and perhaps also a ‘want’ on the part of some researchers who see the technology as a useful precedent – one that provides them with ‘a quiet way station’ in (...) which to refine the micromanipulations techniques essential for other human germline interventions and human cloning. In advance of this argument, I review basic information about mitochondrial disease and novel genetic strategies to prevent the transmission of mutated mitochondria. Next, I address common features of contemporary debates and discussions about so-called mitochondrial replacement. First, I contest the cliché that science-and-technology is fast outpacing ethics. Second, I dispute the accuracy of the term ‘mitochondrial replacement’. Third, I provide a sustained critique of the purported ‘need’ for genetically-related children. In closing, I call into question the mainly liberal defense of human nuclear genome transfer. I suggest an alternative frame of reference that pays particular attention to issues of social justice. I conclude that our limited resources should be carefully expended in pursuit of the common good, which does not include pandering to acquired desires. (shrink)

In this work a double exponential time inseparability result is proven for a finitely axiomatizable first order theory Q₊. The theory, subset of Presburger theory of addition S₊, is the additive fragment of Robinson system Q. We prove that every set that separates Q₊` from the logically false sentences of addition is not recognizable by any Turing machine working in double exponential time. The lower bound is given both in the non-deterministic and in the linear alternating time models. The result (...) implies also that any theory of addition that is consistent with Q₊—in particular any theory contained in S₊—is at least double exponential time difficult. Our inseparability result is an improvement on the known lower bounds for arithmetic theories. Our proof uses a refinement and adaptation of the technique that Fischer and Rabin used to prove the difficulty of S₊. Our version of the technique can be applied to any incomplete finitely axiomatizable system in which all of the necessary properties of addition are provable. (shrink)

For α less than ε0 let $N\alpha$ be the number of occurrences of ω in the Cantor normal form of α. Further let $\mid n \mid$ denote the binary length of a natural number n, let $\mid n\mid_h$ denote the h-times iterated binary length of n and let inv(n) be the least h such that $\mid n\mid_h \leq 2$ . We show that for any natural number h first order Peano arithmetic, PA, does not prove the following sentence: For all (...) K there exists an M which bounds the lengths n of all strictly descending sequences $\langle \alpha_0, ..., \alpha_n\rangle$ of ordinals less than ε0 which satisfy the condition that the Norm $N\alpha_i$ of the i-th term αi is bounded by $K + \mid i \mid \cdot \mid i\mid_h$ . As a supplement to this (refined Friedman style) independence result we further show that e.g., primitive recursive arithmetic, PRA, proves that for all K there is an M which bounds the length n of any strictly descending sequence $\langle \alpha_0,..., \alpha_n\rangle$ of ordinals less than ε0 which satisfies the condition that the Norm $N\alpha_i$ of the i-th term αi is bounded by $K + \mid i \mid\cdot inv(i)$ . The proofs are based on results from proof theory and techniques from asymptotic analysis of Polya-style enumerations. Using results from Otter and from Matou $\breve$ ek and Loebl we obtain similar characterizations for finite bad sequences of finite trees in terms of Otter's tree constant 2.9557652856... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 39.1 (2006) 45-71 [Access article in PDF] Presencing "Communion" in Chaïm Perelman's New Rhetoric Richard Graff Wendy Winn Department of RhetoricUniversity of MinnesotaOver the second half of his long and distinguished career, Chaïm Perelman reiterated the central themes of his theory of rhetoric many times. As the audience for his work expanded, Perelman was repeatedly invited to summarize the principles presented in La nouvelle rhétorique, his (...) magnum opus authored in collaboration with Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, which appeared in 1958. On these occasions, he would often attempt to clarify or refine the major concepts presented in that treatise. Nevertheless, even today many aspects of Perelman's work remain enigmatic. In outline, The New Rhetoric itself conveys a sense of structural and theoretical clarity, but for many readers this first impression evaporates when they confront the complexity and detail of the work's exposition. In the preface to their new study of Perelman, Alan Gross and Ray Dearin observe:The New Rhetoric is difficult to read, a task made even more difficult for American audiences because virtually all its examples and illustrations are from a literature in a foreign language.... Moreover, Perelman's later attempts to achieve clarity, in The Realm of Rhetoric, and numerous shorter articles, are equally puzzling. Consequently, some of Perelman's best ideas are virtually buried in a very long work, and therefore largely lost even to the most careful readers. In addition, on such central issues as the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy Perelman remains maddeningly obscure. (2003, ix) While Perelman's status as a pioneering figure in the rejuvenation of rhetorical study in Continental Europe is secure, as is his placement among the canonical twentieth-century theorists by American scholars, such difficulties constitute an impediment to contemporary understanding and future appreciation of his achievement; and the sprawling character of The New Rhetoric certainly has not helped to counteract the less [End Page 45] sympathetic reception his work has received in some corners of rhetorical and argumentation studies.1Gross and Dearin's volume joins several other recent studies that have contributed to the untangling of Perelman's thought and to the profitable application of his ideas.2 Still, some of Perelman's "best ideas" remain buried and sorely in need of excavation. Chief among these are considerations prompted by Perelman's use of the evocative yet mysterious term "communion." Although communion appears repeatedly among the panoply of concepts and argumentative techniques described in The New Rhetoric, explicit discussion of it there is brief and scattered, and the subject receives only glancing mention in Perelman's subsequent publications. In turn, communion has been all but ignored in the scholarship responding to or extending Perelman's work.3 This is even the case in studies where one would expect to see more serious engagement with Perelman's ideas on the subject—notably, in those that consider the status of values in argumentation and the role of rhetoric in the constitution and maintenance of community.4In this essay, we offer a detailed analysis of Perelman's conception of communion and, in the course of endowing the concept with greater "presence," aim to show its rich implications for these areas of inquiry. We argue that the idea of communion is a vital, if understated, component of Perelman's proposed "new rhetoric." Like other aspects of Perelman's theory, however, it is an expansive and somewhat slippery notion. In The New Rhetoric, communion is used in a very general sense as the term denoting a community's agreement on questions of value, but also, more narrowly, as an objective sought in certain forms of discourse and as an effect of specific linguistic-stylistic devices. The exegesis needed to indicate the subtle links between these senses will enable us to describe the manner in which Perelman endeavored to integrate the technical lore inherited from the classical tradition of rhetoric with a broadly social and determinedly pluralisticconception of argumentation.We begin by examining communion in relation to Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca's ideas... (shrink)

This article is about a period of technology transfer – the late 1910s and 1920s – when wartime aerial reconnaissance techniques and operations were being adapted to a range of civilian uses, including urban planning, land use analysis, traffic control, tax equalization, and even archaeology. At the center of the discussion is the ‘photomosaic’: a patchwork of overlapping aerial photographs that have been rectified and fit together so as to form a continuous survey of a territory. Initially developed during the (...) First World War to provide coverage of fronts, photomosaic mapping was widely practiced and celebrated during the postwar years as an aid to urban development. The article traces both the refinements in photomosaic technology after the Armistice and the rhetorical means by which the form’s avant-garde wartime reputation was domesticated into an ‘applied realism’ that often effaced its site-specific perspective, its elaborately rectified optics, and the oppositionality of both its military and civilian uses. The article has a broader theoretical aim as well. Classic statements of both structuralist and post-structuralist spatial theory have produced an ossified geometry wherein the vertical is the axis of paradigm, top-down strategy, and manipulative distance and the horizontal the axis of syntagm, grassroots tactics, and resistant proximities and differences. In its close study of the technology and rhetoric surrounding interwar photogrammetry, the article provides an example of how one might reverse the long-standing misrecognition of high-altitude optics as effacing time, difference, and materiality – and what it might mean to view such optics as, instead, a resource in turning from abstract toward differential conceptions of both aerial photography and our theoretical habits. This turn I call ‘applied modernism’, a term that accesses both the wartime photomosaic’s affiliation with avant-garde painting and its insistence that portraits of the total are always projections from partial, specific vantages. (shrink)

An information recovery problem is the problem of constructing a proposition containing the information dropped in going from a given premise to a given conclusion that folIows. The proposition(s) to beconstructed can be required to satisfy other conditions as well, e.g. being independent of the conclusion, or being “informationally unconnected” with the conclusion, or some other condition dictated by the context. This paper discusses various types of such problems, it presents techniques and principles useful in solving them, and it develops (...) algorithmic methods for certain classes of such problems. The results are then applied to classical number theory, in particular, to questions concerning possible refinements of the 1931 Gödel Axiom Set, e.g. whether any of its axioms can be analyzed into “informational atoms”. Two propositions are “informationally unconnected” [with each other] if no informative (nontautological) consequence of one also follows from the other. A proposition is an “informational atom” if it is informative but no information can be dropped from it without rendering it uninformative (tautological). Presentation, employment, and investigation of these two new concepts are prominent features of this paper. (shrink)

Normative Ethical theory underwent a period of refinement in some areas and proliferation in others during the 20th century. Theories prominent in the 19th century, such as Utilitarianism, underwent refinement in light of criticisms; other approaches, such as normative intuitionism and virtue ethics, were developed in new directions, ones that reflected the sophistication of analytical techniques developed by philosophers in the 20th century, particularly in ordinary language philosophy. The middle of the 20th century was marked by an interest in conceptual (...) analysis and what could be revealed about our concepts in the analysis of ‘ordinary’ language appeals to those concepts. For example, Gilbert Ryle argued that the hope of clearing up our concepts via formalizing them was futile, and instead the task of philosophy was to clear up confusions present in the ordinary use of concepts, concepts employed by ordinary people as well as specialists in a given area. Normative ethicists in the very early part of the 20th century had not yet adopted a ‘scientizing’ attitude to philosophy. They believed, for example, that one could rely on intuition in formulating ethical theories.1 Theorists in the early part of the century were also optimistic about the prospects of systematizing normative ethics in a way that would be faithful to our common sense normative judgments. This began, largely, with a critical look at Utilitarianism. (shrink)

The publication of this unique three-volume set represents the culmination of years of work by a large number of scholars, researchers, and professionals in the field of moral development. The literature on moral behavior and development has grown to the point where it is no longer possible to capture the “state of the art” in a single volume. This comprehensive multi-volume Handbook marks an important transition because it provides evidence that the field has emerged as an area of scholarly activity (...) in its own right. Spanning many professional domains, there is a striking variety of issues and topics surveyed: anthropology, biology, economics, education, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, social work, and more. By bringing together work on diverse topics, the editors have fostered a mutually-beneficial exchange not only between alternative approaches and perspectives, but also between “applied” and “pure” research interests. The Theory volume presents current and ongoing theoretical advances focusing on new developments or substantive refinements and revisions to existing theoretical frameworks. The Research volume summarizes and interprets the findings of specific, theory-driven, research programs; reviews research in areas that have generated substantial empirical findings; describes recent developments in research methodology/techniques; and reports research on new and emerging issues. The Application volume describes a diverse array of intervention projects — educational, clinical, organizational, and the like. Each chapter includes a summary report of results and findings, conceptual developments, and emerging issues or topics. Since the contributors to this publication are active theorists, researchers, and practitioners, it may serve to define directions that will shape the emerging literature in the field. (shrink)

Nature's simplest atom and mother of all matter, hydrogen feeds the stars as well as interlaces the molecules of their biological descendants – to whom it ultimately whispers the secrets of quantum reality. Hydrogen’s most prevalent earthly guise lies within the composition of water. A slight electrical disturbance can split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, resulting in diaphanous bubble clouds slowly rising towards the liquid’s surface. Though the founding fathers of electrochemistry posited that the mass of liberated bubbles is (...) directly proportional to the input voltage, certain modes of electrolysis release more energy than is spent. One such mode involves water’s Janus-faced capacity to react as either an acid or a base. Emanating from an array of electrodes at the bottom of a water-filled chamber, strings and strata of hydrogen bubbles meticulously trace their emergent surroundings. In addition to eddy formations incited by a bubble's rapid growth and subsequent detachment from the electrode surface, acoustic vibrations permeate the two-phase fluid. As the sonic frequency and amplitude rises, the hydrogen bubbles start to coalesce with one another. When the sound field reaches maximum intensity, it can trap bubbles within its antinodes. The vibrations are generated both by transducers and by the bubbles themselves, which emit frequencies ranging from the audible spectrum to as high as 800 kHz. A white laser sheet scans and illuminates the hydrogen bubble trajectories. Each quivering bubble-lens divides the white light into its constituent spectrum of colors. While scanning, the laser sheet also swiftly pulsates and thereby extends the perceivable resolution of micro-momentary bubble dynamics. Before it even begins to map out its vibratory environment, a bubble goes through various stages of spatio-temporal evolution. During the first phase of growth, a bubble nucleus inflates linearly with time. At the second stage, bubble growth is limited by the diffusion of gas within the liquid, causing its size to increase as the square root of time. The final phase before detachment is limited by the kinetics of dissolved gas production, causing the bubble to grow as the cube root of time.1 Beyond macroscopically observable bubbles, an expanse of nanobubbles hides within the water’s internal architecture. Some researchers presume that these nanobubbles of dissolved gas are the carriers of water’s magnetic ‘memory’, enabling electromagnetic fields to saturate its innards for hours and even days after their initial appearance. In the seas and oceans, the lingering presence of electromagnetic fields photonically imparted by sunlight, triggers the electrolysis responsible for most of the Earth’s hydrogen. An essential form of photosynthesis, solar water splitting is the cleanest and most efficient means imaginable for generating and storing energy. —Evelina Domnitch & Dmitry Gelfand *** Animals and plants are formed in earth and in water because there is water in earth, and there is pneuma in water, and there is soul heat in all pneuma ; so that in a way all things are full of soul. Hence plants and animals quickly form once this gets enclosed; and when this enclosing happens, when the corporeal liquids get heated, a sort of frothy bubble is formed. Now the difference between the various creatures which are produced in this way are due to the stuff which makes up the envelope around the soul-source.2 Throwing light into this pneumatic spray of perdurances, which would otherwise swarm below the threshold of human visibility, Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand’s Hydrogeny saturates the viewer’s sensorial space with the nano-architectures of froth. Straddling the cell wall between scientific enquiry and artistic praxis, Hydrogeny , beckons a recasting of Lucretius' clinamen in tune with the technologies of the modern observer. For Lucretius it was the indeterminate swerving of an atomistic layer of reality which accounted for the unpredictability of change and the existence of free will. Taken up by Harold Bloom to describe the swerving of cultural production from that which has already been made, the idea has since been textually redressed by Lacan, Derrida, Serres, Deleuze, Nancy, and Badiou. Here we have been given a kaleidoscopic technique for refining and expanding awareness of our enmeshment with so many nested, atomistic layers of object-bubbles—of things—as Aristotle might say,“full of soul.” The gravitational pull of Hydrogeny ushers a de-centered human spectatorship to the ever more intimate recesses of what media philosopher N. Katherine Hayles calls our capacity for “deep attention.”3 Vaporous attention suspended and re-oriented. Microscopic as these diaphanous waves are, the calling they produce is anything but inconsequential. Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand are two-thirds of the Amsterdam-based Art–Science Labratory, Optofonica , an atelier initiated by the Italian interdisciplinary artist TeZ in 2006. Follow more of their work at www.portablepalace.com —Isaac Linder NOTES (1) cf. Brandon, Kelsall, Levine, & Smith. “Interfacial Electrical Properties of Electrogenerated Bubbles.” Journal of Applied Electrochemistry 15 (1985):485-493. (2)Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, 762a18, tr. A. L. Peck (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1942). (3)“ My article on hyper and deep attention ,” N. Katherine Hayles, accessed on September 14, 2011. (shrink)

The metaphor of “gene editing” has been employed widely in popular discussions of CRISPR technology. The editing metaphor obscures the physical mechanism of action in CRISPR techniques, and understates the present frequency of off-target effects. However, the editing metaphor may be a useful means to think about approaches to regulating the future use of CRISPR. Conceiving of CRISPR as an information technology recalls the highly computational, information-oriented context of genomic research in which CRISPR has emerged. More importantly, the editing metaphor, (...) while currently inaccurate, anticipates a future moment when CRISPR technology will be ubiquitous and extremely reliable. Contemporary deliberations about the regulation of CRISPR should keep in mind that the technology may become more powerful—and more susceptible to misuse—as the overall state of genomic science advances and applications of CRISPR become less expensive and more refined. (shrink)

*PSA 2016, symposium on “Data in Time: Epistemology of Historical Data” organized by Sabina Leonelli, 5 November 2016* *See published version: "Radiocarbon Dating in Archaeology: Triangulation and Traceability" in Data Journeys in the Sciences (2020) - link below* Archaeologists put a premium on pressing “legacy data” into service, given the notoriously selective and destructive nature of their practices of data capture. Legacy data consist of material and records that been assembled over decades, sometimes centuries, often by means and for purposes (...) long since discredited or superseded. The primary strategies by which archaeologists put the data to work for new purposes are, I argue, secondary retrieval, recontextualization, and experimental modelling. I focus here on a particularly telling and complex example of secondary retrieval: the extraction of new data from old by means of radiocarbon dating. This is by no means a straightforward process of retrieving physical samples from legacy data to which 14C techniques can be applied that can, on their own, decisively settle chronological questions. When Libby’s post-war radiocarbon revolution got under way, it was expected to establish an absolute chronology that would render obsolete the local and relative chronologies on which archaeologists had long relied. Transformative though it has been, bringing these tools of physical dating to bear on archaeological problems has been a long, tortuous process, now described as proceeding through two subsequent radiocarbon revolutions. The second was an extended process of calibration by which 14C chronologies were corrected and refined, often against the very lines of evidence they were meant to displace. The most recent, a “pragmatic Bayesian” approach to archaeological dating, is motivated by concern that, no matter how much it is refined, radiocarbon dating cannot on its own resolve the chronological problems that archaeologists address; the challenge, its advocates argue, is to ‘fully integrate archaeological information with 14C dating in order to address archaeologically relevant timescales and episodes’. This is a genre of “robustness” reasoning that illustrates its epistemic risks as well as its appeal. As recent philosophical debate makes clear, it depends on appeals to the convergence of independent lines of evidence that may have more rhetorical than epistemic force and that may be spurious. Drawing on this philosophical literature I identify a set of conditions that must be met if these risks are to be avoided, all of which are an explicit focus of debate in cases of contestation about and reconciliation of chronologies based on legacy data. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the construction of theories of software systems yielding adequate predictions of their target systems’ computations. It is first argued that mathematical theories of programs are not able to provide predictions that are consistent with observed executions. Empirical theories of software systems are here introduced semantically, in terms of a hierarchy of computational models that are supplied by formal methods and testing techniques in computer science. Both deductive top-down and inductive bottom-up approaches in the discovery of (...) semantic software theories are refused to argue in favour of the abductive process of hypothesising and refining models at each level in the hierarchy, until they become satisfactorily predictive. Empirical theories of computational systems are required to be modular, as modular are most software verification and testing activities. We argue that logic relations must be thereby defined among models representing different modules in a semantic theory of a modular software system. We exclude that scientific structuralism is able to define module relations needed in software modular theories. The algebraic Theory of Institutions is finally introduced to specify the logic structure of modular semantic theories of computational systems. (shrink)

The development of any novel reproductive technology involving manipulation of human embryos is almost inevitably going to be controversial and evoke sincerely held, but diametrically opposing views. The plethora of scientific, ethical and legal issues that surround the clinical use of such techniques fuels this divergence of opinion. During the policy change that was required to allow the use of mitochondrial donation in the UK, many of these issues were intensely scrutinised by a variety of people and in multiple contexts. (...) This extensive process resulted in the publication of several reports that informed the recommendations made to government. We have been intrinsically involved in the development of mitochondrial donation, from refining the basic technique for use in human embryos through to clinical service delivery, and have taken the opportunity in this article to offer our own perspective on the issues it raises. (shrink)

Shamans of the Piaroa ethnic group (southern Venezuela) conceive of power in terms of knowledge derived from visionary experiences. Märipa is an epistemology concerning the translation of knowledge derived from the integrative mode of consciousness, induced primarily through the consumption of plant hallucinogens, to practical effect during waking life. I integrate mythological, neurobiological, experiential, and ethnographic data to demonstrate what märipa is, and how it functions. The theory and method of märipa underlie not only Piaroa shamanic activity, but all aspects (...) of Piaroa life; mythology, causality, eschatology, and history. Piaroa shamanic practices involve conditioning the mind to achieve optimal perceptual capacities that facilitate accurate prediction and successful psycho‐social prescription. Piaroa shamans describe their technologies of consciousness in terms of gods and spirits, but also in terms of studying and the acquisition of information. Because neurobiological processes underlie the development and experience of märipa, the language of neurobiology enables a partial translation of this indigenous epistemology. The concepts of feed forward neural processing and somatic markers are central to the processes of mental imagery cultivation that Piaroa shamans employ to divine solutions to adaptive problems. Piaroa 'techniques of ecstasy' involve the ability to apply mythological templates of human adaptation to schemas of human behaviour based on years of social analysis in association with heightened information processing capacities derivative of refined experimentation with the integrative mode of consciousness. Keyordsshamanism, neurophenomenology inugrativeconsciousness, hallucinogens. (shrink)