When a new piece of information contradicts a currently held belief, one has to modify the set of beliefs in order to restore its consistency. In the case where it is necessary to give up a belief, some of them are less likely to be abandoned than others. The concept of epistemic entrenchment is used by some AI approaches to explain this fact based on formal properties of the belief set (e.g., transitivity). Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis (...) that contrary to such views, (i) belief is naturally represented by degrees rather than in an all-or-nothing manner, (ii) entrenchment is primarily a matter of content and not only a matter of form, and (iii) consequently prior degree of belief is a powerful factor of change. The two experiments used Elio and Pelletier's (1997) paradigm in which participants were presented with full simple deductive arguments whose conclusion was denied, following which they were asked to decide which premise to revise. (shrink)

When a new piece of information contradicts a currently held belief, one has to modify the set of beliefs in order to restore its consistency. In the case where it is necessary to give up a belief, some of them are less likely to be abandoned than others. The concept of epistemic entrenchment is used by some AI approaches to explain this fact based on formal properties of the belief set (e.g., transitivity). Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis (...) that contrary to such views, (i) belief is naturally represented by degrees rather than in an all-or-nothing manner, (ii) entrenchment is primarily a matter of content and not only a matter of form, and (iii) consequently prior degree of belief is a powerful factor of change. The two experiments used Elio and Pelletier's (1997) paradigm in which participants were presented with full simple deductive arguments whose conclusion was denied, following which they were asked to decide which premise to revise. (shrink)

Someone asked ‘What time is it?’ when her watch reads 3:08 is likely to answer ‘It is 3:10.’ We argue that a fundamental factor that explains such rounding is a psychological disposition to give an answer that, while not necessarily strictly truthful or accurate, is an optimally relevant one (in the sense of relevance theory) i.e. an answer from which hearers can derive the consequences they care about with minimal effort. A rounded answer is easier to process and may carry (...) the same consequences as one that is accurate to the minute. Hence rounding is often a way of optimising relevance. Three simple experiments give support and greater precision to the view that relevance is more important than strict truthfulness in verbal communication. (shrink)

IMTL logic was introduced in [12] as a generalization of the infinitely-valued logic of Lukasiewicz, and in [11] it was proved to be the logic of left-continuous t-norms with an involutive negation and their residua. The structure of such t-norms is still not known. Nevertheless, Jenei introduced in [20] a new way to obtain rotation-invariant semigroups and, in particular, IMTL-algebras and left-continuous t-norm with an involutive negation, by means of the disconnected rotation method. In order to give an algebraic interpretation (...) to this construction, we generalize the concepts of perfect, bipartite and local algebra used in the classification of MV-algebras to the wider variety of IMTL-algebras and we prove that perfect algebras are exactly those algebras obtained from a prelinear semihoop by Jenei's disconnected rotation. We also prove that the variety generated by all perfect IMTL-algebras is the variety of the IMTL-algebras that are bipartite by every maximal filter and we give equational axiomatizations for it. (shrink)

In this paper we carry out an algebraic investigation of the weak nilpotent minimum logic and its t-norm based axiomatic extensions. We consider the algebraic counterpart of WNM, the variety of WNM-algebras and prove that it is locally finite, so all its subvarieties are generated by finite chains. We give criteria to compare varieties generated by finite families of WNM-chains, in particular varieties generated by standard WNM-chains, or equivalently t-norm based axiomatic extensions of WNM, and we study their standard completeness (...) properties. We also characterize the generic WNM-chains, i. e. those that generate the variety [MATHEMATICAL DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL W]ℕ[MATHEMATICAL DOUBLE-STRUCK CAPITAL M], and we give finite axiomatizations for some t-norm based extensions of WNM. (shrink)

Nobody doubts that culture plays a decisive role in understanding human forms of life. But it is unclear how this decisive role should be integrated into a comprehensive explanatory model of human behaviour that brings together naturalistic and social-scientific perspectives. Cultural difference, cultural learning, cultural determination do not mix well with the factors that are normally given full explanatory value in the more naturalistic approaches to the study of human behaviour. My purpose in this paper is to alert to some (...) of the theoretical vulnerabilities or concerns that the cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour might entail. I classify these theoretical concerns into three, loosely defined, categories: epistemological, ontological and ethical. The first have to do with what in anthropology was once labelled as ‘butterfly collecting’. What kind of supplementary, or additional, general theoretical knowledge do we produce when we add to the research different, particularistic, culturally determined, ways of knowing? Ontological concerns refer to the underlying reality that those ways of knowing are meant to disclose. If there are so many ways of knowing the world, where is the reality to be known? Ethical concerns are those entailed in the forms of ‘othering’ that unqualified cross-cultural research is likely to produce in research participants. (shrink)

The point of departure of this paper is Penrose's definition of conscious action as that in which stimulus and response are linked by a non‐algorithmic relationship, which Penrose defines as ‘understanding’. My purpose is to explore the nature of this understanding by means of a two‐step process. The first step is provided by Tononi's Integrated Information Theory of consciousness. This theory provides us with a quantitative measure of conscious states that we need to transform into qualitative meaning. In the second (...) step, we obtain this qualitative meaning with the help of the structuralist theory of mind. From this perspective, meaning originates in the set of qualitative contrasts that define the alternative courses of action that might have been implemented. Work on the analogy between quantitative bits and qualitative binary oppositions does not solve the hard problem of consciousness, but it might help to reformulate it in a new, productive way. (shrink)

Nobody doubts that culture plays a decisive role in understanding human forms of life. But it is unclear how this decisive role should be integrated into a comprehensive explanatory model of human behaviour that brings together naturalistic and social-scientific perspectives. Cultural difference, cultural learning, cultural determination do not mix well with the factors that are normally given full explanatory value in the more naturalistic approaches to the study of human behaviour. My purpose in this paper is to alert to some (...) of the theoretical vulnerabilities or concerns that the cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour might entail. I classify these theoretical concerns into three, loosely defined, categories: epistemological, ontological and ethical. The first have to do with what in anthropology was once labelled as ‘butterfly collecting’. What kind of supplementary, or additional, general theoretical knowledge do we produce when we add to the research different, particularistic, culturally determined, ways of knowing? Ontological concerns refer to the underlying reality that those ways of knowing are meant to disclose. If there are so many ways of knowing the world, where is the reality to be known? Ethical concerns are those entailed in the forms of ‘othering’ that unqualified cross-cultural research is likely to produce in research participants. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 63-64, July 2012.

La pretensión de este artículo es captar las visiones que los y las estudiantes de la Universidad de Lleida (Cataluña, España) tienen sobre la universidad y la ciudad donde pasan unos años primordiales en su vida. Tras un prólogo donde evocamos el recientemovimiento estudiantil contra el denominado ..

La creencia religiosa es una creencia «ordinaria» en un mundo o unos seres «extraordinarios». ¿Cuáles son los medios ordinarios que nos llevan a creer en la existencia de lo extraordinario? ¿Por qué creemos en lo que no entendemos? ¿Por qué tenemos creencias irracionales? Creencias irracionales no son creencias (necesariamente) falsas, sino contraintuitivas: son creencias que contradicen la idea de realidad que usamos en nuestra vida cotidiana. A partir de las aportaciones de las grandes voces de la antropología (Frazer, Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss), (...) la sociología (Durkheim, Weber), la lingüística (Saussure) y el psicoanálisis (Freud, Jung), esta obra ofrece una antropología de las creencias que no plantea lo irracional como patológico ni el análisis correspondiente como una terapia: el autor no quiere curar a nadie de sus creencias irracionales; simplemente, las quiere explicar. (shrink)

What are the theoretical implications of a universal genealogy? After the demise of relativism in kinship studies, there is much to be gained by joining old formal-structural analysis of kinship to recent cognitive-evolutionary approaches. This commentary shows how the logic of kinship terminologies, specifically those of the Seneca-Iroquois, can be clarified by looking at the relationship between opposite-sex/same-sex sibling pairs.

I accept the main thesis of the article according to which representation of knowledge is more basic than representation of belief. But I question the authors’ contention that humans' unique capacity to represent belief does not underwrite the capacity for the accumulation of cultural knowledge.

Nursing professionalization is both ongoing and global, being significant not only for the nursing workforce but also for patients and healthcare systems. For this reason, it is important to have an in‐depth understanding of this process and the factors that could affect it. This literature review utilizes a welfare state approach to examine macrolevel structural determinants of nursing professionalization, addressing a previously identified gap in this literature, and synthesizes research on the relevance of studying nursing professionalization. The use of a (...) welfare state framework facilitates the understanding that the wider social, economic, and political system exercises significant power over the distribution of resources in a society, providing a glimpse into the complex politics of health and health care. The findings shed light on structural factors outside of nursing, such as country‐level education, health, labor market, and gender policies that could impact the process of professionalization and thus could be utilized to strengthen nursing through facilitating increased professionalization levels. Addressing gender inequalities and other structural determinants of nursing professionalization could contribute to achieving health equity and could benefit health systems through enhanced availability, skill‐level, and sustainability of nursing human resources, improved and efficient access to care, improved patient outcomes, and cost savings. (shrink)

The study of perfect, local and bipartite IMTL-algebras presented in [29] is generalized in this paper to the general non-involutive case, i.e. to MTL-algebras. To this end we describe the radical of MTL-algebras and characterize perfect MTL-algebras as those for which the quotient by the radical is isomorphic to the two-element Boolean algebra, and a special class of bipartite MTL-algebras,.

This article discusses China’s attempts to industrialize from the late nineteenth century until the Japanese occupation of 1937. It focuses on the woollen industry and uses data from industrial investigations, market information and company archives. Several attempts to build a woollen industry from the 1880s to the end of the First World War failed. However, in the 1920s and 1930s some private companies in Tianjin, Shanghai and the Yangzi Delta succeeded in managing profitable woollen workshops and mills. An export-based carpet (...) industry was developed in Tianjin while a network of workshops and integrated mills flourished in Shanghai and the Yangzi Delta to supply woollen goods for civilian clothing in the Chinese urban markets. This article aims to contribute to the debate of China’s late industrialization by looking at the structure of the woollen industry and its alignment with actual consumer demands. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the study of the rôle of disjunction inAlgebraic Logic. Several kinds of (generalized) disjunctions, usually defined using a suitable variant of the proof by cases property, were introduced and extensively studied in the literature mainly in the context of finitary logics. The goals of this paper are to extend these results to all logics, to systematize the multitude of notions of disjunction (both those already considered in the literature and those introduced in this paper), (...) and to show several interesting applications allowed by the presence of a suitable disjunction in a given logic. (shrink)

It is well known that MTL satisfies the finite embeddability property. Thus MTL is complete w. r. t. the class of all finite MTL-chains. In order to reach a deeper understanding of the structure of this class, we consider the extensions of MTL by adding the generalized contraction since each finite MTL-chain satisfies a form of this generalized contraction. Simultaneously, we also consider extensions of MTL by the generalized excluded middle laws introduced in [9] and the axiom of weak cancellation (...) defined in [31]. The algebraic counterpart of these logics is studied characterizing the subdirectly irreducible, the semisimple, and the simple algebras. Finally, some important algebraic and logical properties of the considered logics are discussed: local finiteness, finite embeddability property, finite model property, decidability, and standard completeness. (shrink)

We study classes of graded structures satisfying the properties of amalgamation, joint embedding and hereditariness. Given appropriate conditions, we can build a graded analogue of the Fraïssé limit. Some examples such as the class of all finite weighted graphs or the class of all finite fuzzy orders (evaluated on a particular countable algebra) will be examined.

El artículo hace la presentación de los bienes eclesiásticos de la Iglesia donatista en el siglo IV y V, tomando como referencia las fuentes contemporáneas, particularmente a Optato de Milevi y los escritos de san Agustín, sin excluir fuentes donatistas como las Passiones de diversos mártires donatistas. Se aborda en primer lugar la cuestión de las basílicas, posteriormente se dedica un apartado para destacar la lucha entre los católicos y los donatistas por la posesión de dichas basílicas y los efectos (...) de los documentos oficiales sobre la titularidad de dichas basílicas. Se presenta también la cuestión de los bienes inmuebles, así como los ingresos adicionales de la Iglesia donatista que podían provenir de bienhechores privados, herencias, la explotación del culto de los mártires, la apropiación de los templos paganos y la renta de las tierras imperiales. (shrink)

This monograph presents a general theory of weakly implicative logics, a family covering a vast number of non-classical logics studied in the literature, concentrating mainly on the abstract study of the relationship between logics and their algebraic semantics. It can also serve as an introduction to algebraic logic, both propositional and first-order, with special attention paid to the role of implication, lattice and residuated connectives, and generalized disjunctions. Based on their recent work, the authors develop a powerful uniform framework for (...) the study of non-classical logics. In a self-contained and didactic style, starting from very elementary notions, they build a general theory with a substantial number of abstract results. The theory is then applied to obtain numerous results for prominent families of logics and their algebraic counterparts, in particular for superintuitionistic, modal, substructural, fuzzy, and relevant logics. The book may be of interest to a wide audience, especially students and scholars in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, computer science, or related areas, looking for an introduction to a general theory of non-classical logics and their algebraic semantics. (shrink)

This is the continuation of the paper :417–446, 2010). We continue the abstract study of non-classical logics based on the kind of generalized implication connectives they possess and we focus on semilinear logics, i.e. those that are complete with respect to the class of models where the implication defines a linear order. We obtain general characterizations of semilinearity in terms of the intersection-prime extension property, the syntactical semilinearity metarule and the class of finitely subdirectly irreducible models. Moreover, we consider extensions (...) of the language with lattice connectives and generalized disjunctions, study their interplay with implication and obtain axiomatizations and further descriptions of semilinear logics in terms of disjunctions and the proof by cases property. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the problem of existence of saturated models for first-order many-valued logics. We consider a general notion of type as pairs of sets of formulas in one free variable that express properties that an element of a model should, respectively, satisfy and falsify. By means of an elementary chains construction, we prove that each model can be elementarily extended to a $\kappa $-saturated model, i.e. a model where as many types as possible are realized. In order (...) to prove this theorem we obtain, as by-products, some results on tableaux and their consistency and satisfiability and a generalization of the Tarski–Vaught theorem on unions of elementary chains. Finally, we provide a structural characterization of $\kappa $-saturation in terms of the completion of a diagram representing a certain configuration of models and mappings. (shrink)

Transfer theorems are central results in abstract algebraic logic that allow to generalize properties of the lattice of theories of a logic to any algebraic model and its lattice of filters. Their proofs sometimes require the existence of a natural extension of the logic to a bigger set of variables. Constructions of such extensions have been proposed in particular settings in the literature. In this paper we show that these constructions need not always work and propose a wider setting in (...) which they can still be used. (shrink)

Stemming from the works of Petr Hájek on mathematical fuzzy logic, graded model theory has been developed by several authors in the last two decades as an extension of classical model theory that studies the semantics of many-valued predicate logics. In this paper we take the first steps towards an abstract formulation of this model theory. We give a general notion of abstract logic based on many-valued models and prove six Lindström-style characterizations of maximality of first-order logics in terms of (...) metalogical properties such as compactness, abstract completeness, the Löwenheim–Skolem property, the Tarski union property, and the Robinson property, among others. As necessary technical restrictions, we assume that the models are valued on finite MTL-chains and the language has a constant for each truth-value. (shrink)

This article looks through a critical media lens at mediated effects and ethical concerns of virtual reality applications that explore personal and social issues through embodiment and storytelling. In recent years, the press, immersive media practitioners and researchers have promoted the potential of virtual reality storytelling to foster empathy. This research offers an interdisciplinary narrative review, with an evidence-based approach to challenge the assumptions that VR films elicit empathy in the participant—what I refer to as the VR-empathy model. A review (...) of literature from the fields of psychology, computer science, embodiment, medicine, and virtual reality was carried out to question and counter these claims through case studies of both fiction and non-fiction VR experiences. The results reveal that there is little empirical evidence of a correlation between VR exposure and an increase in empathy that motivates pro-social behavior, and a lack of research covering VR films exposure eliciting empathy. Furthermore, the results show an alarming lack of research into the long-term effects of VR films and other VR immersive experiences. This contribution aims to understand and demystify the current “empathy machine” rhetoric and calls for more rigorous, scientific research that can authenticate future claims and systemize ethical best practices. (shrink)

This paper presents an abstract study of completeness properties of non-classical logics with respect to matricial semantics. Given a class of reduced matrix models we define three completeness properties of increasing strength and characterize them in several useful ways. Some of these characterizations hold in absolute generality and others are for logics with generalized implication or disjunction connectives, as considered in the previous papers. Finally, we consider completeness with respect to matrices with a linear dense order and characterize it in (...) terms of an extension property and a syntactical metarule. This is the final part of the investigation started and developed in the papers :417–446, 2010; Arch Math Logic 53:353–372, 2016). (shrink)

En este ensayo se trata de reflexionar sobre la implicación de la hermenéutica (de inspiración nietzscheana) en filosofía de la educación. En la primera parte se lleva a cabo una crítica del positivismo y de la pedagogía tecnológica. En la segunda, se exponen algunas de las implicaciones hermenéuticas más importantes de la filosofía de Nietzsche. Finalmente, en la tercera parte, se realiza una propuesta filosófico-pedagógica de inspiración hermenéutica, que el autor denomina "narrativa" para contraponerla tanto al positivismo como a la (...) metafísica. (shrink)

We determined the prevalence of eating disorder symptoms among elite Spanish athletes from a broad range of sports and levels of competition and examined the associations between the presence of symptoms and perceived sport-specific weight pressures. We surveyed 646 elite athletes representing 33 sports from top-division teams and two elite athlete training centers in Catalonia. Based on the results of the Eating Attitudes Test-26 responses, 5.1% of athletes were at risk of EDs. The highest rates of ED symptoms were observed (...) in male endurance athletes and female esthetic athletes. Competition level was not a risk factor. The only gender differences in the presence of ED symptoms by competing level were observed in athletes competing at the national level. Female athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the two subscales of the Spanish version of the Weight Pressures in Sport tool: coach and sport-specific pressures and pressures from teammates and due to uniform. Male athletes with ED symptoms scored higher on the pressures due to uniform subscale. Finally, symptomatic female but not male athletes competing at international and national levels also perceived greater sport-specific weight pressures. (shrink)

Human Towers are one of the most representative traditional sporting games in Catalonia, recognized in 2010 as Intangible Cultural Heritage by the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture. The objective of this research was to study the emotional states elicited by a representative performance of the colla de Castellers de Lleida. This research is based on an ethnographic case study, with mixed methods in which 17 key informants voluntarily participated. Participant observation was used; the data were recorded in (...) a field diary and oral sources. The content analysis was done using the Atlas.ti software. An SPSS database was also created. The statistical techniques were: Descriptive statistical techniques, cross tables with Pearson's Chi-square values. We also used a classification and regression trees to examine the predictive capacity of five independent variables of emotional states. The results reveal that the comments were mostly oriented toward well-being states, The internal cooperative logic of the Human Towers enhances the intense interpersonal relationships of socio-emotional well-being. (shrink)

In the educational sphere, the concept of democracy is used in many and varied ways, though the hegemonic school culture often starts from a concept of democracy that is taken for granted, and it is understood that the entire educational community shares a similar concept. As a result of the research project “Democracy, participation and inclusive education in schools” we realized that the above-mentioned concept is used without being accurately defined in the school setting. This observation is what has prompted (...) us to write this article, basically structured in two parts. In the first part, based on the theoretical debate occurring in the field of social sciences, we delimit the concept of democracy and structure it in four basic dimensions: governance, inhabitance, otherness and ethos. In the second part, we specify and examine in depth these four dimensions in the school setting in order to construct a broad and transversal, yet specific, definition, with which to be able to develop ambitious democratic projects and, in turn, contribute to scientific debate. (shrink)