This is a brief historical note on game theory. We cover its historical roots (prior to its formal definition in 1944), and look at its development until the late 1960's.

A symmetric network consists of a set of positions and a set of bilateral links between these positions. For every symmetric network we define a cooperative transferable utility game that measures the “power” of each coalition of positions in the network. Applying the Shapley value to this game yields a network power measure, the β-measure, which reflects the power of the individual positions in the network. Applying this power distribution method iteratively yields a limit distribution, which turns out to be (...) proportional to the well-known degree measure. We compare the β-measure and degree measure by providing characterizations, which differ only in the normalization that is used. (shrink)

A symmetric network consists of a set of positions and a set of bilateral links between these positions. For every symmetric network we define a cooperative transferable utility game that measures the “power” of each coalition of positions in the network. Applying the Shapley value to this game yields a network power measure, the β-measure, which reflects the power of the individual positions in the network. Applying this power distribution method iteratively yields a limit distribution, which turns out to be (...) proportional to the well-known degree measure. We compare the β-measure and degree measure by providing characterizations, which differ only in the normalization that is used. (shrink)

We reconsider the Myerson value and the position value for communication situations. In case the underlying game is a unanimity game, we show that each of these values can be computed using the inclusion--exclusion principle. Linearity of both values permits us to calculate them without needing the dividends of the induced games (graph-restricted game and link game). The expression of these dividends is only derived in the existing literature for special communication situations. Moreover, the associated inclusion--exclusion decomposability property depends on (...) what we have called the graph allocation rule. This rule is the relative degree (relative indicator) for the position value (Myerson value). (shrink)

In this article we offer a detailed assessment of current approaches to the origins of language, with a special foots on their historical and theoretical underpinnings. It is a widely accepted view within evolutionary linguistics that an account of the emergence of human language necessarily involves paying special attention to its communicative function and its relation to other animal communication systems. Ever since Darwin, some variant of this view has constituted the mainstream version in evolutionary linguistics; however, it is our (...) contention in this article that this approach is seriously flawed, and that “animal communication” does not constitute a natural kind on which a sound theoretical model can be built. As a consequence, we argue that this communicative perspective is better abandoned in favor of a structural/formal approach based on the notion of homology, and that some interesting and unexpected similarities may be found by applying this venerable comparative method founded in the 19th century by Richard Owen. (shrink)

The Mind-Brain Identity Theory lived a short life as a respectable philosophical position in the late 1950s, until Hilary Putnam developed his famous argument on the multiple realizability of mental states. The argument was, and still is, taken as the definitive demonstration of the falsity of Identity Theory and the foundation on which contemporary functionalist computational cognitive science was to be grounded. In this paper, in the wake of some contemporary philosophers, we reopen the case for Identity Theory and offer (...) a solution to the problem of multiple realizabilty. The solution is based on the necessity, at the time of establishing identity relations, of appealing to the notions of “homology” and “analogy” developed in the nineteenth century by Richard Owen. We also suggest that these notions are useful in order to correct certain shortcomings of some recent attempts at rebutting the Multiple Realizability argument. (shrink)

Kant’s effort to defend the co-existence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will – the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold’s attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon (...) was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte’s theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: the key lies in what I call Fichte’s Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome. (shrink)

A leading contemporary theory of consciousness in theoretical neuroscience apparently shares significant common ground with a philosophical system of thought from Antiquity. Although chronologically disparate, the integrated information theory of consciousness and Aristotelian metaphysics seem to be akin with regards to fundamental ontology, epistemic priority, and causal powers. In this article, I explore these areas of common ground. Additionally, I consider an apparent dissimilarity regarding panpsychism and suggest that an Aristotelian understanding of powers provides a natural way for IIT to (...) reasonably regulate its ascription of consciousness. (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While Kant uses the (...) German equivalent in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy. (shrink)

This essay considers the role of the ‘all affected interests’ principle in democratic theory, focusing on debates concerning its form, substance and relationship to the resolution of the democratic boundary problem. It begins by defending an ‘all actually affected’ formulation of the principle against Goodin’s ‘incoherence argument’ critique of this formulation, before addressing issues concerning how to specify the choice set appropriate to the principle. Turning to the substance of the principle, the argument rejects Nozick’s dismissal of its intuitive appeal (...) and considers the two arguments advanced in favour of the principle as a criterion of democratic inclusion: the interlinked interests argument and the tracking power argument. It is shown that neither of these arguments can substantiate a view of the principle as a criterion of democratic inclusion, although both ground a constitutional understanding of the principle as specifying the scope of a duty of justification. It is then proposed that the principle can play an important role in a two-stage resolution of the democratic boundary problem in which it addresses the question of who is entitled to inclusion in the ‘pre-political’ demos that determines whether to constitute a polity. The second stage of this resolution requires an answer to the question of who should constitute the ‘political demos’, that is, the demos of a constituted polity and it is argued that a version of the ‘‘all subjected persons’’ principle can appropriately play this role.Keywords: all affected interests; all subjected persons; democracy; boundary problem; demos problem. (shrink)

This article argues that the practical difficulties and normative dilemmas at stake in the European refugee crisis as a crisis of EU integration extend beyond refugee policies into what we may call ‘the citizenship regime’ of the European Union in ways that are consequential for refugees, member states, and the European Union. It advances arguments for the relatively rapid access to citizenship of refugees, demonstrates that this norm has at least some acknowledgment in the policies of EU member states and (...) considers what further differentiation of refugees from other classes of migrant might be a part of developing a just and legitimate Common European Asylum Regime. It argues that there are some reasons to favour a CEAS in which refugees receive EU citizenship prior to national citizenship in a member state. (shrink)

The following suggestions for the interpretation of Parmenides and Melissus can be grouped for convenience about one problem. This is the problem whether, as Aristotle thought and as most commentators still assume, Parmenides wrote his poem in the broad tradition of Ionian and Italian cosmology. The details of Aristotle's interpretation have been challenged over and again, but those who agree with his general assumptions take comfort from some or all of the following major arguments. First, the cosmogony which formed the (...) last part of Parmenides' poem is expressly claimed by the goddess who expounds it to have some measure of truth or reliability in its own right, and indeed the very greatest measure possible for such an attempt. Second, the earlier arguments of the goddess prepare the ground for such a cosmogony in two ways. For in the first place these arguments themselves start from assumptions derived from earlier cosmologists, and are concerned merely to work out the implications of this traditional material. And, in the second place, they end by establishing the existence of a spherical universe: the framework of the physical world can be secured by logic even if the subsequent introduction of sensible qualities or ‘powers’ into this world marks some decline in logical rigour. (shrink)

It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom in Groundwork III. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the second Critique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument in Groundwork III rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the second Critique. Accordingly, I argue, there is no (...) reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works. (shrink)

It is now nearly axiomatic among Platonic scholars that the Timaeus and its unfinished sequel the Critias belong to the last stage of Plato's writings. The Laws is generally held to be wholly or partly a later production. So, by many, is the Philebus, but that is all. Perhaps the privileged status of the Timaeus in the Middle Ages helped to fix the conviction that it embodies Plato's maturest theories.

It is often thought that contemporary neuroscience provides strong evidence for physicalism that nullifies dualism. The principal data is neural correlates of consciousness (for brevity NCC). In this chapter I argue that NCC are neutral vis- à-vis physicalist and dualist views of the mind. First I clarify what NCC are and how neuroscientists identify them. Subsequently I discuss what NCC entail and highlight the need for philosophical argumentation in order to conclude that physicalism is true by appealing to NCC. Lastly, (...) the simplicity argument for physicalism that appeals to NCC is presented, analyzed, and found wanting. (shrink)

Some statements couched in the present tense have no reference to time. They are, if you like, grammatically tensed but logically tenseless. Mathematical statements such as ‘twice two is four’ or ‘there is a prime number between 125 and 128’ are of this sort. So is the statement I have just made. To ask in good faith whether there is still the prime number there used to be between 125 and 128 would be to show that one did not understand (...) the use of such statements, and so would any attempt to answer the question. It is tempting to take another step and talk of such timeless statements as statements about timeless entities. If the number 4 neither continues nor ceases to be twice two this is, surely, because the number 4 has no history of any kind, not even the being a day older today than yesterday. Other timeless statements might shake our confidence in this inference: ‘clocks are devices for measuring time’ is a timeless statement, but it is not about a class of timeless clocks. But, given a preoccupation with a favoured set of examples and a stage of thought at which men did not distinguish the properties of statements from the properties of the things they are about, we can expect timeless entities to appear as the natural proxies of timeless statements. (shrink)

In this article I offer a critical commentary on Jeanine Grenberg’s claim that, by the time of the second Critique, Kant was committed to the view that we only access the moral law’s validity through the feeling of respect. The issue turns on how we understand Kant’s assertion that our consciousness of the moral law is a ‘fact of reason’. Grenberg argues that all facts must be forced, and anything forced must be felt. I defend an alternative interpretation, according to (...) which the fact of reason refers to the actuality of our moral consciousness. (shrink)

There is no question that Fichte's theory of conscience is central to his system of ethics. Yet his descriptions of its role in practical deliberation appear inconsistent, if not contradictory. Many scholars have claimed that for Fichte conscience plays a material role by providing the content of our moral obligations—the Material Function View. Some have denied this, however, claiming that conscience only plays a formal role by testing our moral convictions in any given case—the Formal Function View. My aim in (...) this paper is to offer a new contribution to this debate. I begin by supplying further evidence in support of the view that conscience only plays a formal function in Fichte's ethics. Then I call attention to a deeper problem this view faces, namely, that it invites an infinite regress by making one's conviction a matter of higher-order reflection. The key to overcoming this threat, I argue, lies in Fichte's doctrine of feeling, whereby the criterion of one's conviction lies, not in a cognitive state, but in an affective state. In closing, I discuss the relevance of Fichte's theory for current debates over the nature of moral error and moral deference. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that normative ethics is in principle independent of psychology. By contrast, the authors of these essays explore the interconnections between psychology and moral theory. They investigate the psychological constraints on realizable ethical ideals and articulate the psychological assumptions behind traditional ethics. They also examine the ways in which the basic architecture of the mind, core emotions, patterns of individual development, social psychology, and the limits on human capacities for rational deliberation affect morality.

Written in a clear and engaging style, this text demonstrates Nietzsche's significance as a philosopher and as a political theorist by highlighting his critique of liberalism (in both its philosophical and political forms) and by elaborating the form of ethical and political understanding which his philosophy discloses.

With the waves of reform occurring in mental health legislation in England and other jurisdictions, mental capacity is set to become a key medico-legal concept. The concept is central to the law of informed consent and is closely aligned to the philosophical concept of autonomy. It is also closely related to mental disorder. This paper explores the interdisciplinary terrain where mental capacity is located. Our aim is to identify core dilemmas and to suggest pathways for future interdisciplinary research. The terrain (...) can be separated into three types of discussion: philosophical, legal and psychiatric. Each discussion approaches mental capacity and judgmental autonomy from a different perspective yet each discussion struggles over two key dilemmas: whether mental capacity and autonomy is/should be a moral or a psychological notion and whether rationality is the key constitutive factor. We suggest that further theoretical work will have to be interdisciplinary and that this work offers an opportunity for the law to enrich its interpretation of mental capacity, for psychiatry to clarify the normative elements latent in its concepts and for philosophy to advance understanding of autonomy through the study of decisional dysfunction. The new pressures on medical and legal practice to be more explicit about mental capacity make this work a priority. (shrink)

This essay argues that whereas ‘analytic’ political philosophy is focussed on generating reasons that are oriented to the issue of articulating norms of justice, legitimacy and so on, that guide political judgements about institutions and/or forms of conduct; ‘Continental’ political philosophy is oriented to critically assessing the practices of reasoning that characterise our social and political institutions and forms of conduct as well as our first-order normative reflection on them. It explores the distinction between the two orientations in terms of, (...) what are called, their ‘structural problematics’: the guidance problem and the critique problem, before considering briefly ways in which they may be combined. (shrink)

This article addresses two central topics in normative debates on transnational citizenship: the inclusion of resident non-citizens and of non-resident citizens within the demos. Through a critical review of the social membership (Carens, Rubio-Marin) and stakeholder (Baubock) principles, it identifies two problems within these debates. The first is the antinomy of incorporation, namely, the point that there are compelling arguments both for the mandatory naturalization of permanent residents and for making naturalization a voluntary process. The second is the arbitrary demos (...) problem and concerns who determines whether expatriate voting rights are granted (and on what terms). The argument developed provides a way of dissolving the first problem (and defending the proposed solution against possible objections) and resolving the second problem. In doing so it provides a defensible normative basis for the political theory of transnational citizenship. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of Kant's relationship with skepticism in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. My position differs from commonly held views in the literature in two ways. On the one hand, I argue that Kant's relationship with skepticism is active and systematic (contrary to Hill, Wood, Rawls, Timmermann, and Allison). On the other hand, I argue that the kind of skepticism Kant is interested in does not speak to the philosophical tradition in any straightforward sense (...) (contrary to Forster and Guyer). On my reading, Kant takes up a skeptical method in the Groundwork as a way of exposing certain obstacles in our ordinary and philosophical thinking about morality. The central obstacle he is interested in is practical in character, arising from a natural tendency we have to rationalize against the moral law. In attempting to resolve this tendency, I argue, the Groundwork turns out to have a profoundly educative task. (shrink)

There is a debate about the nature of addiction, whether it is a result of brain damage, brain dysfunction, or normal brain changes that result from habit acquisition, and about whether it is a disease. I argue that the debate about whether addiction is a disease is much ado about nothing, since all parties agree it is “unquestionably destructive.” Furthermore, the term ‘addiction’ has disappeared from recent DSM’s in favor of a spectrum of ‘abuse’ disorders. This may be a good (...) thing indicating more nuance in typing the heterogeneous phenomena we used to call ‘addiction’. (shrink)

This chapter presents a reflective, critical position toward the author’s own addiction and toward himself as an addict. It presents the question of whether addressing addiction as a disease is useful; the idea of addiction as a disease seems less useful in describing “what it is like” for the author than to say that his being was physically, psychologically, and relationally disordered. Despite his desires, he could not find a way to regain order and harmony within himself. It was only (...) the phenomenological possibility of feeling and being better that kept hope alive. The solution to addiction is social; other people who cared for the author personally, together with those with professional knowledge, assisted him in regaining some control that he alone had either lost or could not find. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712242; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 430-452.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 451-452.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

Women tend to earn less than their male colleagues. Furthermore, women tend to earn less than men who hold jobs that are nominally different but relevantly similar to their own. Advocates of ‘comparable worth’ protest these facts. Their protest sometimes takes this form: Those differences in pay between men and women are undeserved . The argument for this claim is simple. Some facts are relevant to the wage one deserves for performing a given job; some are not. In the vast (...) majority of cases, the argument continues, gender is not relevant to the wage one deserves; relevant are, say, the skill, responsibility, and working conditions required by the job. When jobs are comparable with respect to these facts, those who work in them deserve equal pay. Therefore, women and men who work the very same jobs deserve equal pay; likewise for women and men whose jobs are nominally different but relevantly similar. (shrink)

Adorno’s commitment to anti-foundationalism generates a concern over how his ethically normative appraisals of social phenomena can be founded. Drawing on both Kohlmann and Bernstein’s account, I produce a new reading which contends somatic impulses are capable of bearing intrinsically normative epistemic and moral content. This entails a new way of understanding Adorno’s contention that Auschwitz produced a new categorical imperative. Working with Bernstein’s account, I claim that Auschwitz makes manifest the hostility of the instrumentalization of reason to the somatic (...) grounds of reason. One’s mimetic identification with the victims of Auschwitz arouses a self-preserving desire to intercede in and re-orient the progress of reason itself, for the sake of one’s own somatic integrity. In closing, I claim – contra Zuidervaart – that this reading allows us to place the ethical as primary in Adorno, without reducing the political to it. (shrink)

In a recent article, Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) propose that mental imagery is less vivid when evoked in a foreign than in a native language. The authors argue that reduced mental imagery could even account for moral foreign language effects, whereby moral choices become more utilitarian when made in a foreign language. Here we demonstrate that Hayakawa and Keysar's (2018) key results are better explained by reduced language comprehension in a foreign language than by less vivid imagery. We argue that (...) the paradigm used in Hayakawa and Keysar (2018) does not provide a satisfactory test of reduced imagery and we discuss an alternative paradigm based on recent experimental developments. (shrink)

This valuable book will give educators solution-based methods and research-based resources to improve classroom culture, as well as enabling schools to elevate students' engagement and academic achievement.

It is often assumed that Fichte's aim in Part I of the System of Ethics is to provide a deduction of the moral law, the very thing that Kant – after years of unsuccessful attempts – deemed impossible. On this familiar reading, what Kant eventually viewed as an underivable 'fact' (Factum), the authority of the moral law, is what Fichte traces to its highest ground in what he calls the principle of the 'I'. However, scholars have largely overlooked a passage (...) in the System of Ethics where Fichte explicitly invokes Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason with approval, claiming that consciousness of the moral law grounds our belief in freedom (GA I/5:65). On the reading I defend, Fichte's invocation of the Factum is consistent with the structure of Part I when we distinguish (a) the feeling of moral compulsion from (b) the moral law itself. (shrink)

adorno’s philosophy bristles with terms that, shorn from any settled stipulative definition, present a challenge to the reader.2 Adorno’s difficult concept of “non-identity” is perhaps the most notorious, but it is “mimesis” that more than any other resists easy comprehension. Despite this, or because of it, mimesis has received sustained and enthusiastic attention. Jameson goes so far as it say that mimesis is for Adorno a “foundational concept, never defined nor argued but always alluded to, by name, as though it (...) had pre-existed all the texts.”3 While the talk of foundational concepts is perhaps a little strong, Adorno gives us cause to think mimesis is a central part of his philosophy, due to its infrequent.. (shrink)

While Kant’s claim that the moral law discloses our freedom to us has been extensively discussed in recent decades, the reactions to this claim among Kant’s immediate successors have gone largely overlooked by scholars. Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon were among three prominent thinkers of the era unwilling to follow Kant in making the moral law the condition for knowing our freedom. Maimon went so far as to reject Kant’s method of appealing to our everyday awareness of duty on the grounds (...) that common human understanding is susceptible to error and illusion. In this paper I shall examine how these skeptical reactions to Kant’s position shaped the background for Fichte’s method of moral justification, leading up to his own deduction of the moral law in the System of Ethics. By way of conclusion, I shall propose a new interpretation of how consciousness of the moral law serves as an entry-point to Fichte’s form of idealism. (shrink)