This article is concerned with frege's "sinn und bedeutung", As an examination of (1) a statement and analysis of frege's argument, And (2) specification and justification of a meaning of 'sense' which fits the data of frege's discussion and does not make 'sense' a subsistent entity. (staff).

The thesis of this paper is that the Tractatus and the Investigations can be related as follows. Wittgenstein attempted in the Tractatus to avoid the conceptual realism of Frege and Russell with respect to propositions. He solved his problem by developing the picture-theory of language. This solution assumed that the units of language are words which arc names of simple objects. Because of this assumption the solution has the undesirable consequence that examples oi genuine names, atomic facts and atomic propositions (...) cannot be given although their existence is logically required by the solution. Wittgenstein had, therefore, eventually to examine the idea of a name. Thus the Philosophical Investigations in which this examination is conducted. (shrink)

In Situations and Individuals, Paul Elbourne argues that the natural language expressions that have been taken to refer to individuals — pronouns, proper names, and definite descriptions — have a common syntax and semantics, roughly that of definite descriptions as construed in the tradition of Frege. In the course of his argument, Elbourne shows that proper names have previously undetected donkey anaphoric readings.This is contrary to previous theorizing and, if true, would undermine what philosophers call the direct reference theory (...) (which holds that the sole contribution of a proper name to the truth conditions of a sentence is an individual) as well as the related doctrine that proper names are rigid designators. Elbourne begins by addressing donkey anaphora, relating other concerns about pronouns to the solution of this notorious problem. His subsequent argumentation provides a unified semantics for the donkey anaphoric and bound and referential uses of pronouns and discusses the prospect of unifying the syntax and semantics of pronouns with the syntax and semantics of normal definite descriptions. Elbourne's aim is not only to advance his proposal of a unified syntax and semantics but also to urge linguists and philosophers dealing with pronoun interpretation to consider a wider range of theories than they do at present, and to test the competing claims of description-based theories and dynamic semantics against the data. (shrink)

On July 2, 2001, a medical milestone was reached when Robert Tools received a total artificial heart implant at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Tools was implanted with an AbioCor artificial heart, one of several brands of new-generation artificial hearts that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical trial. The AbioCor heart was developed by Abiomed of Danvers, Massachusetts.Following the surgery, physicians were guardedly enthusiastic about the device and optimistic about the patient’s future. Tools, 59, (...) has had a history of numerous heart attacks and by-pass surgery, as well as diabetes and kidney problems. He met the requirements of the AbioCor protocol because he was not a candidate for transplant, death was otherwise probable within thirty days, and other interventions were deemed ineffective. Researchers hope that strengthening his heart function will result in increased function of his other vital organs, thus prolonging the patient's life and increasing his energy. But because the device is experimental, nothing can be promised. (shrink)

At a historic dialogue convened at the University of Richmond, Virginia, Baptist and secular humanist scholars in theology, history, philosophy, and the social sciences, came together to define shared concerns and common values. The dialogue focused on major areas of concern: academic freedom; social, political, and religious tolerance; biblical scholarship; separation of church and state; the social agenda of the Christian Coalition and the Southern Baptist Convention; the danger of militant fundamentalism; freedom of conscience and the historic and current role (...) of American Baptists; as well as the plight of pluralistic democracy. (shrink)

On July 2, 2001, a medical milestone was reached when Robert Tools received a total artificial heart implant at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. Tools was implanted with an AbioCor artificial heart, one of several brands of new-generation artificial hearts that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for clinical trial. The AbioCor heart was developed by Abiomed of Danvers, Massachusetts.Following the surgery, physicians were guardedly enthusiastic about the device and optimistic about the patient’s future. Tools, 59, (...) has had a history of numerous heart attacks and by-pass surgery, as well as diabetes and kidney problems. He met the requirements of the AbioCor protocol because he was not a candidate for transplant, death was otherwise probable within thirty days, and other interventions were deemed ineffective. Researchers hope that strengthening his heart function will result in increased function of his other vital organs, thus prolonging the patient's life and increasing his energy. But because the device is experimental, nothing can be promised. (shrink)

Huw Price’s subject naturalism has emerged as a leading pragmatist position within recent debates surrounding philosophical naturalism. Unlike orthodox views which tend to be guided by metaphysical questions about the “place” of, for instance, the mind, meaning, and morality within the natural world, subject naturalism focuses philosophical attention on language-users and the functions that certain concepts play within discursive practices. This paper considers two objections to subject naturalism and argues that they can be overcome by looking to the methodological insights (...) of philosophical genealogy. Although Price occasionally characterizes his project as a kind of genealogy, he offers little explanation of what such a methodological orientation is supposed to involve. I suggest that subject naturalists ought to remedy this theoretical lacuna by looking to the work of Bernard Williams. On the one hand, doing so can serve a diagnostic function: Williams’ conception of genealogy affords a perspective from which subject naturalism’s explanatory inadequacies are more clearly understood. On the other hand, Williams’ elaborated conception of genealogy represents a path by which the subject naturalist can overcome the shortcomings discussed in this paper. (shrink)

The article begins by describing two longstanding problems associated with direct inference. One problem concerns the role of uninformative frequency statements in inferring probabilities by direct inference. A second problem concerns the role of frequency statements with gerrymandered reference classes. I show that past approaches to the problem associated with uninformative frequency statements yield the wrong conclusions in some cases. I propose a modification of Kyburg’s approach to the problem that yields the right conclusions. Past theories of direct inference have (...) postponed treatment of the problem associated with gerrymandered reference classes by appealing to an unexplicated notion of projectability . I address the lacuna in past theories by introducing criteria for being a relevant statistic . The prescription that only relevant statistics play a role in direct inference corresponds to the sort of projectability constraints envisioned by past theories. (shrink)

The present article illustrates a conflict between the claim that rational belief sets are closed under deductive consequences, and a very inclusive claim about the factors that are sufficient to determine whether it is rational to believe respective propositions. Inasmuch as it is implausible to hold that the factors listed here are insufficient to determine whether it is rational to believe respective propositions, we have good reason to deny that rational belief sets are closed under deductive consequences.

The article proceeds upon the assumption that the beliefs and degrees of belief of rational agents satisfy a number of constraints, including: consistency and deductive closure for belief sets, conformity to the axioms of probability for degrees of belief, and the Lockean Thesis concerning the relationship between belief and degree of belief. Assuming that the beliefs and degrees of belief of both individuals and collectives satisfy the preceding three constraints, I discuss what further constraints may be imposed on the aggregation (...) of beliefs and degrees of belief. Some possibility and impossibility results are presented. The possibility results suggest that the three proposed rationality constraints are compatible with reasonable aggregation procedures for belief and degree of belief. (shrink)

This article examined the effects of body–object interaction (BOI) on semantic processing. BOI measures perceptions of the ease with which a human body can physically interact with a word's referent. In Experiment 1, BOI effects were examined in 2 semantic categorization tasks (SCT) in which participants decided if words are easily imageable. Responses were faster and more accurate for high BOI words (e.g., mask) than for low BOI words (e.g., ship). In Experiment 2, BOI effects were examined in a semantic (...) lexical decision task (SLDT), which taps both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The BOI effect was larger in the SLDT than in the SCT, suggesting that BOI facilitates both semantic feedback and semantic processing. The findings are consistent with the embodied cognition perspective (e.g., Barsalou's, 1999, Perceptual Symbols Theory), which proposes that sensorimotor interactions with the environment are incorporated in semantic knowledge. (shrink)

In attempting to form rational personal probabilities by direct inference, it is usually assumed that one should prefer frequency information concerning more specific reference classes. While the preceding assumption is intuitively plausible, little energy has been expended in explaining why it should be accepted. In the present article, I address this omission by showing that, among the principled policies that may be used in setting one’s personal probabilities, the policy of making direct inferences with a preference for frequency information for (...) more specific reference classes yields personal probabilities whose accuracy is optimal, according to all proper scoring rules, in situations where all of the relevant frequency information is point-valued. Assuming that frequency information for narrower reference classes is preferred, when the relevant frequency statements are point-valued, a dilemma arises when choosing whether to make a direct inference based upon relatively precise-valued frequency information for a broad reference class, R, or upon relatively imprecise-valued frequency information for a more specific reference class, R*. I address such cases, by showing that it is often possible to make a precise-valued frequency judgment regarding R* based on precise-valued frequency information for R, using standard principles of direct inference. Having made such a frequency judgment, the dilemma of choosing between and is removed, and one may proceed by using the precise-valued frequency estimate for the more specific reference class as a premise for direct inference. (shrink)

Meta-induction, in its various forms, is an imitative prediction method, where the prediction methods and the predictions of other agents are imitated to the extent that those methods or agents have proven successful in the past. In past work, Schurz demonstrated the optimality of meta-induction as a method for predicting unknown events and quantities. However, much recent discussion, along with formal and empirical work, on the Wisdom of Crowds has extolled the virtue of diverse and independent judgment as essential to (...) maintenance of 'wise crowds'. This suggests that meta-inductive prediction methods could undermine the wisdom of the crowd inasmuch these methods recommend that agents imitate the predictions of other agents. In this article, we evaluate meta-inductive methods with a focus on the impact on a group's performance that may result from including meta-inductivists among its members. In addition to considering cases of global accessibility (i.e., cases where the judgments of all members of the group are available to all of the group's members), we consider cases where agents only have access to the judgments of other agents within their own local neighborhoods. (shrink)

In a recent article, Joel Pust argued that direct inference based on reference properties of differing arity are incommensurable, and so direct inference cannot be used to resolve the Sleeping Beauty problem. After discussing the defects of Pust's argument, I offer reasons for thinking that direct inferences based on reference properties of differing arity are commensurable, and that we should prefer direct inferences based on logically stronger reference properties, regardless of arity.

The applicability of Bayesian conditionalization in setting one’s posterior probability for a proposition, α, is limited to cases where the value of a corresponding prior probability, PPRI(α|∧E), is available, where ∧E represents one’s complete body of evidence. In order to extend probability updating to cases where the prior probabilities needed for Bayesian conditionalization are unavailable, I introduce an inference schema, defeasible conditionalization, which allows one to update one’s personal probability in a proposition by conditioning on a proposition that represents a (...) proper subset of one’s complete body of evidence. While defeasible conditionalization has wider applicability than standard Bayesian conditionalization (since it may be used when the value of a relevant prior probability, PPRI(α|∧E), is unavailable), there are circumstances under which some instances of defeasible conditionalization are unreasonable. To address this difficulty, I outline the conditions under which instances of defeasible conditionalization are defeated. To conclude the article, I suggest that the prescriptions of direct inference and statistical induction can be encoded within the proposed system of probability updating, by the selection of intuitively reasonable prior probabilities. (shrink)

The present paper introduces a simple framework for modeling the relationship between environmental states, perceptual states, and action. The framework represents situations where an agent’s perceptual state forms the basis for choosing an action, and what action the agent performs determines the agent’s payoff, as a function of the environmental conditions in which the action is performed. The framework is used as the basis for a simulation study of the sorts of correspondence between perceptual and environmental states that are important (...) for successful navigation of the world. Some of the results are surprising and conflict with long held views about the kind of perception-to-environment correspondence that is important for knowledge of the world. The results also raise doubts concerning the view that our perceptual states provide a basis for knowledge of the real structure of the external world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SOME DOGMATIC CONSEQUENCES OF PAUL F. KNITTER'S UNITARIAN THEOCENTRISM PAUL D. MOLNAR St. John's University Jamaica, New York EACTIONS TO Paul Knitter's No Other Nanie? vary from criticizing his "unitarian theocentrism" 1 and his sliding away from "creedal Chrisitology" 2 to unequivocail endorsement of his" less Christocentric approach to a theo1ogy of religions;" 3 this shows the challenge Knitter poses to current dogmatics. This 1arHcile w1ll (...) explore three critical dogmatic issues related to Knitter's non-normative ChristoJogy. First, can the idea that Jesus is one savior among others be defonded froni within the Christian-Catholic 1tradition without yie1ding the truth of Christology? Second, if "Jesus remains universailly normativ ;e " for Christians while " other revelations or rev;ea:lers might also be universaUy normative," then does this not p:vomote some form of docetic Christology and lead to a unitarianism, exduded by the naiture of the God revealed in Christ? Third, on the basis of " l'eligious experience " Knitter olaims to perceive an" evolution from ecolesiocentrism to chrfatocentrism to theocentrism" and finally to "soteriooentrism." 4 Is there 1!1ea1ly such an evolution? And if there is noit, oan those who de- ~end the tradition succeed by arguing from experience and praxis rather than from revelation and faith? 5 Moreover, if 1"Review Symposium: Paul Knitter's No Other Name?: A Critical Survey of OMistian Attitudes toward the World Religions," in Horizons 13 (1986): 116-135. This is the view of Daniel Sheridan, p. llS. 2 This is the view of Denise Carmody. Ibid., p. 122. s This is the view of William Cenkner. Ibid., p. 127. 4 Ibid., pp. 133-34. 5 Denise Carmody, e.g., believes that we should stress praxis more than 449 450 PAUL D. MOLNAR we think the tradition should not be defended, have we not ceased to think about theological truth? Rather, have we not made divinity itself indis:tingiuishab1e from our human experiences and praxis at the outset? And does this not open the door to both polytheism allJd pantheism? By making God hut noit Christ normative, Knitter's " nonnormati ¥e" Christology re-1transiates the truth of Jesus' oonsubstantiality with the Father into the content of a myth, an experienice or a vailue judgment having no re1ality in itseH.6 It then defines :reveiLation and salvation.aocording to a unitarian view of God. While Knitter denies this,7 his reasoning aictuaUy is unitarian: In my proposed model, Jesus remains universally normative, but I am asking whether Christians can recognize that other revelations or revealers might also be universally normative. Could there be a complementary uniqueness among the religious traditions of the world? To try to answer that question, 'intellectual conversion;... is a requisite. But it will have to be an intellectual conversion that walks more than' the way to Nicea and Chalcedon'... only on the basis of the praxis of authentic dialogue-grounded in intellectual, moral, and religious conversion-can we know the unique~ ness of Christ.8 doctrine without relativizing Christ. Thus, for her, Rahner's Christology does not mean " that Christians cannot be open to the Buddha or Lord Krishna," Ibid., p. 126. The problem is that this very thinking already relativizes Christ. 6 Even theologians who do not intend the radical views of John Hick run a similar risk by beginning Christology from below in the manner of Paul Knitter. Cf., e.g., Edward L. Krasevac, O.P., "' Christology From Above' And 'Christology From Below '," The Thomist, 51 (1987) : 299-306, arguing that "Christological faith is an apostolic faith that has its origins in a historical process which began with the public ministry of our Lord...." (p. 300) causes us to ask what makes Christology true? Is it "the actual apostolic process " (306) or is it Jesus as the Lord who is and remains the sole foundation and validation for faith in any age? Does this approach not leave the door open to the kind of evolution which Knitter claims to have discovered in Christianity, which then enables him to move beyond Jesus as the only Lord and Savior? 1 Review Symposium, Horizons, p. 131. s Ibid., p. 133. KNITTER'S UNITARIAN THEOCENTRISM 451 Here the ha:.sis... (shrink)

Systems of logico-probabilistic (LP) reasoning characterize inference from conditional assertions interpreted as expressing high conditional probabilities. In the present article, we investigate four prominent LP systems (namely, systems O, P, Z, and QC) by means of computer simulations. The results reported here extend our previous work in this area, and evaluate the four systems in terms of the expected utility of the dispositions to act that derive from the conclusions that the systems license. In addition to conforming to the dominant (...) paradigm for assessing the rationality of actions and decisions, our present evaluation complements our previous work, since our previous evaluation may have been too severe in its assessment of inferences to false and uninformative conclusions. In the end, our new results provide additional support for the conclusion that (of the four systems considered) inference by system Z offers the best balance of error avoidance and inferential power. Our new results also suggest that improved performance could be achieved by a modest strengthening of system Z. (shrink)

This article presents results from a simulation‐based study of inheritance inference, that is, inference from the typicality of a property among a “base” class to its typicality among a subclass of the class. The study aims to ascertain which kinds of inheritance inferences are reliable, with attention to the dependence of their reliability upon the type of environment in which inferences are made. For example, the study addresses whether inheritance inference is reliable in the case of “exceptional subclasses” (i.e., subclasses (...) that are known to be atypical in some respect) and attends to variations in reliability that result from variations in the entropy level of the environment. A further goal of the study is to show that the reliability of inheritance inference depends crucially on which sorts of base classes are used in making inferences. One approach to inheritance inference treats the extension of any atomic predicate as a suitable base class. A second approach identifies suitable base classes with the cells of a partition (of a preselected size k) of the domain of objects that satisfies the condition of maximizing the similarity of objects that are assigned to the same class. In addition to permitting more inferences, our study shows that the second approach results in inheritance inferences that are far more reliable, particularly in the case of exceptional subclasses. (shrink)

The molecular mechanism of temperature‐dependent sex determination (TSD) is a long‐standing mystery. How is the thermal signal sensed, captured and transduced to regulate key sex genes? Although there is compelling evidence for pathways via which cells capture the temperature signal, there is no known mechanism by which cells transduce those thermal signals to affect gene expression. Here we propose a novel hypothesis we call 3D‐TSD (the three dimensions of thermolabile sex determination). We postulate that the genome has capacity to remodel (...) in response to temperature by changing 3D chromatin conformation, perhaps via temperature‐sensitive transcriptional condensates. This could rewire enhancer–promoter interactions to alter the expression of key sex‐determining genes. This hypothesis can accommodate monogenic or multigenic thermolabile sex‐determining systems, and could be combined with upstream thermal sensing and transduction to the epigenome to commit gonadal fate. (shrink)

We propose that synesthetic cross‐activation between the primary auditory cortex and the anatomically adjacent insula may help explain two puzzling conditions—autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) and misophonia—in which quotidian sounds involuntarily trigger strong emotional responses. In ASMR the sounds engender relaxation, while in misophonia they trigger an aversive response. The insula both plays an important role in autonomic nervous system control and integrates multiple interoceptive maps representing the physiological state of the body to substantiate a dynamic representation of emotional wellbeing. (...) We propose that in ASMR cross‐activation of the map for affective (sensual) touch leads to an increase in subjective wellbeing and parasympathetic activity. Conversely, in misophonia the effect of the cross‐activation is to decrease emotional wellbeing and increase sympathetic activity. Our hypothesis also illuminates the connection between hearing and wellbeing more broadly and helps explain why so many people experience decreased wellbeing from modern urban soundscapes. (shrink)

The point, for the 946,326th time is that people get elected to office by currying the favor of powerful interest groups. They don’t get elected for their excellence as political philosophers.Congress has consistently failed to solve some serious problems with the cost, effectiveness, and safety of pharmaceuticals. In part, this failure results from the pharmaceutical industry convincing legislators to define policy problems in ways that protect industry profits. By targeting campaign contributions to influential legislators and by providing them with selective (...) information, the industry manages to displace the public’s voice in developing pharmaceutical policy. (shrink)

In previous work, we studied four well known systems of qualitative probabilistic inference, and presented data from computer simulations in an attempt to illustrate the performance of the systems. These simulations evaluated the four systems in terms of their tendency to license inference to accurate and informative conclusions, given incomplete information about a randomly selected probability distribution. In our earlier work, the procedure used in generating the unknown probability distribution (representing the true stochastic state of the world) tended to yield (...) probability distributions with moderately high entropy levels. In the present article, we present data charting the performance of the four systems when reasoning in environments of various entropy levels. The results illustrate variations in the performance of the respective reasoning systems that derive from the entropy of the environment, and allow for a more inclusive assessment of the reliability and robustness of the four systems. (shrink)

Why, when confronted with policy alternatives that could improve patient care, public health, and the economy, does Congress neglect those goals and tailor legislation to suit the interests of pharmaceutical corporations? In brief, for generations, the pharmaceutical industry has convinced legislators to define policy problems in ways that protect its profit margin. It reinforces this framework by selectively providing information and by targeting campaign contributions to influential legislators and allies. In this way, the industry displaces the public's voice in developing (...) pharmaceutical policy. Unless citizens mobilize to confront the political power of pharmaceutical firms, objectionable industry practices and public policy will not change. Yet we need to refine this analysis. I propose a research agenda to uncover pharmaceutical influence. It develops the theory of dependence corruption to explain how the pharmaceutical industry is able to deflect the broader interests of the general public. It includes empirical studies of lobbying and campaign finance to uncover the means drug firms use to: (1) shape the policy framework adopted and information used to analyze policy; (2) subsidize the work of political allies; and (3) influence congressional voting. (shrink)

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred. Avis examines what he calls an alternative tradition, stemming from the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth and Keats and drawing on the (...) thought of Cleridge and Newman, and experience in both modern philosophy and science. God and the Creative Imagination intriguingly draws on a number of non-theological disciplines, from literature to philosophy of science, to show us that God is appropriately likened to an artist or poet and that the greatest truths are expressed in an imaginative form. Anyone wishing to further their understanding of God, belief and the imagination will find this an inspiring work. (shrink)

The prevailing view among historians of science holds that Charles Darwin became a convinced transmutationist only in the early spring of 1837, after his Beagle collections had been examined by expert British naturalists. With respect to the fossil vertebrate evidence, some historians believe that Darwin was incapable of seeing or understanding the transmutationist implications of his specimens without the help of Richard Owen. There is ample evidence, however, that he clearly recognized the similarities between several of the fossil vertebrates he (...) collected and some of the extant fauna of South America before he returned to Britain. These comparisons, recorded in his correspondence, his diary and his notebooks during the voyage, were instances of a phenomenon that he later called the “law of the succession of types.” Moreover, on the Beagle, he was following a geological research agenda outlined in the second volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which implies that paleontological data alone could provide an insight into the laws which govern the appearance of new species. Since Darwin claims in On the Origin of Species that fossil vertebrate succession was one of the key lines of evidence that led him to question the fixity of species, it seems certain that he was seriously contemplating transmutation during the Beagle voyage. If so, historians of science need to reconsider both the role of Britain’s expert naturalists and the importance of the fossil vertebrate evidence in the development of Darwin’s ideas on transmutation. (shrink)