Early normative studies of human behavior revealed a gap between the norms of practical rationality (what humans ought to do) and the actual human behavior (what they do). It has been suggested that, to close the gap between the descriptive and the normative, one has to revise norms of practical rationality according to the Quinean, engineering view of normativity. On this view, the norms must be designed such that they effectively account for behavior. I review recent studies of human perception (...) which pursued normative modeling and which found good agreement between the normative prescriptions and the actual behavior. I make the case that the goals and methods of this work have been incompatible with those of the engineering approach. I argue that norms of perception and action are observer-independent properties of biological agents; the norms are discovered using methods of natural sciences rather than the norms are designed to fit the observed behavior. (shrink)

Two traditions have had a great impact on the theoretical and experimental research of perception. One tradition is statistical, stretching from Fechner's enunciation of psychophysics in 1860 to the modern view of perception as statistical decision making. The other tradition is phenomenological, from Brentano's “empirical standpoint” of 1874 to the Gestalt movement and the modern work on perceptual organization. Each tradition has at its core a distinctive assumption about the indivisible constituents of perception: the just-noticeable differences of sensation in the (...) tradition of Fechner vs. the phenomenological Gestalts in the tradition of Brentano. But some key results from the two traditions can be explained and connected using an approach that is neither statistical nor phenomenological. This approach rests on a basic property of any information exchange: a principle of measurement formulated in 1946 by Gabor as a part of his quantal theory of information. Here the indivisible components are units (quanta) of information that remain invariant under changes of precision of measurement. This approach helped to understand how sensory measurements are implemented by single neural cells. But recent analyses suggest that this approach has the power to explain larger-scale characteristics of sensory systems. (shrink)

Various connexive FDE-based modal logics are studied. Some of these logics contain a conditional that is both connexive and strict, thereby highlighting that strictness and connexivity of a conditional do not exclude each other. In particular, the connexive modal logics cBK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{-}$$\end{document}, cKN4, scBK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{-}$$\end{document}, scKN4, cMBL, and scMBL are introduced semantically by means of classes of Kripke models. The logics cBK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} (...) \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{-}$$\end{document} and cKN4 are connexive variants of the FDE-based modal logics BK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{-}$$\end{document} and KN4 with a weak and a strong implication, respectively. The system cMBL is a connexive variant of the modal bilattice logic MBL. The latter is a modal extension of Arieli and Avron’s logic of logical bilattices and is characterized by a class of Kripke models with a four-valued accessibility relation. In the systems scBK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{-}$$\end{document}, scKN4, and scMBL, the conditional is both connexive and strict. Sound and complete tableau calculi for all these logics are presented and used to show that the entailment relations of the systems under consideration are decidable for finite premise set. Moreover, the logics cBK-\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbf {cBK}^-$$\end{document} and cMBL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbf {cMBL}$$\end{document} are shown to be algebraizable. The algebraizability of cMBL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbf {cMBL}$$\end{document} is derived from proving cMBL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbf {cMBL}$$\end{document} to be definitionally equivalent to MBL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathbf {MBL}$$\end{document}. All connexive modal logics studied in this paper are decidable, paraconsistent, and inconsistent but non-trivial logics. (shrink)

Neuroscience has established several brain pathways that process visual information. Distinct neural circuits analyze body appearance and movement providing information about the person’s cognitive and emotional states. The activity of the pathways depends on the salience of visual stimuli for the organism in the given circumstances. Since ballet performances are not among the crucial events for the viewer’s organism, not all viewers perceive and interpret bodily signs that express the mental state of the dancer. Treatment of the dancer as close (...) other activates the neural circuits that elaborate emotions, this enables the viewer to feel the internal state of the dancer and enrich the interpretation of the scenic action. (shrink)

In 1933 Godel introduced a calculus of provability (also known as modal logic S4) and left open the question of its exact intended semantics. In this paper we give a solution to this problem. We find the logic LP of propositions and proofs and show that Godel's provability calculus is nothing but the forgetful projection of LP. This also achieves Godel's objective of defining intuitionistic propositional logic Int via classical proofs and provides a Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov style provability semantics for Int which (...) resisted formalization since the early 1930s. LP may be regarded as a unified underlying structure for intuitionistic, modal logics, typed combinatory logic and λ-calculus. (shrink)

We describe a general logical framework, Justification Logic, for reasoning about epistemic justification. Justification Logic is based on classical propositional logic augmented by justification assertions t: F that read t is a justification for F. Justification Logic absorbs basic principles originating from both mainstream epistemology and the mathematical theory of proofs. It contributes to the studies of the well-known Justified True Belief vs. Knowledge problem. We state a general Correspondence Theorem showing that behind each epistemic modal logic, there is a (...) robust system of justifications. This renders a new, evidence-based foundation for epistemic logic. As a case study, we offer a resolution of the GoldmanRed Barns in Justification Logic. Furthermore, we formalize the well-known Gettier example and reveal hidden assumptions and redundancies in Gettier’s reasoning. (shrink)

Why does the theory of law have such a significant role in Russian liberalism, and how is this related to the state of the legal system in Russia and to the public’s legal consciousness? This intro...

In this paper individual proofs are integrated into provability logic. Systems of axioms for a logic with operators “A is provable” and “p is a proof of A” are introduced, provided with Kripke semantics and decision procedure. Completeness theorems with respect to the arithmetical interpretation are proved.

The article proceeds from the concept of understanding local government in Russia as a projection of the potestar (pre-state) organization of public life, which transforms under the dominance of methods of state organization of public life, but retains its influence as the essential core of political and social interaction between people. The existing complex «state-municipal» mechanism for exercising power at the local level largely determines the forms and nature of political actors’ interaction at the regional level. State authorities, which are (...) focused on the totality of their own administrative influences, have not yet succeeded in fully integrating local self-government into the general public space of responsibility for powers, since local power is unbuilt initially on the principles of autogenesis, autochthony and autonomy. The current situation contributes to the archaicism of a part of social relations. For some time now, to work in the multidimensional reality of society, the authorities have begun to need analytical models to understand what is happening. As an explanatory theoretical basis for the modes of existence of local authorities developed and described by the author in the current stage of development of Russian statehood, a modal methodology is used, supplemented by the results of constructing model-oriented political ontologies, which reflect the aggregates of the layers and actors of the municipal sphere of sociopolitical reality at the regional level that are actually and actively present in the Russian society. The author is interested in searching the patterns that operate in the environment created and cultivated by the organizational and activity efforts of state structures against the background of sociocultural and other characteristics inherent in the regions. Possible working models for the needs of public administration arising from the modes offered by the author are still under development, since the reform of constitutional rules proposed by the country’s leadership raises the question of new forms of organizing the continuum of coexistence and interaction of local and state authorities in Russia. The article outlines the main research lines that indicate a number of features and reference points of the author’s approach in understanding the relationship between local government and municipal government, which may serve as an occasion for a new circle of discussions of specialists interested in the prospects for the development of political potential in the Russian municipal environment. (shrink)

Justification Logic provides an axiomatic description of justifications and delegates the question of their nature to semantics. In this note, we address the conceptual issue of the logical type of justifications: we argue that justifications in the logical setting are naturally interpreted as sets of formulas which leads to a class of epistemic models that we call modular models . We show that Fitting models for Justification Logic naturally encode modular models and can be regarded as convenient pre-models of the (...) former. (shrink)

Historical entitlement theories of property rights, which claim that individuals can acquire moral property rights over natural resources by appropriating them, traditionally face a strong objection: it is widely implausible that a single individual can unilaterally impose duties on everyone around him and yet, apparently, this is exactly what such theories allow. In this essay, I argue that the same problem appears in all other theories of distributive justice and if this problem was a reason to reject historical entitlement theories, (...) it would also be a reason to reject all rival theories. Which means that as long, as one is committed to any theory of distributive justice at all, she, at the risk of inconsistency, cannot rely on the aforementioned objection to criticize historical entitlement theories. (shrink)

This paper introduces a theory of ownership that is rooted in Israel Kirzner’s theory of entrepreneurship – The Entrepreneurial Theory of Ownership. Its central idea is that natural resources are not available to us automatically as other approaches to justice implicitly assume. Before we can use a resource, we need to do preparatory work in the form of making an entrepreneurial judgement on it. This fact, as I argue, makes it possible to put private ownership as a natural right on (...) a firm normative ground and answer many traditional challenges to private property. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a semantic analysis of the well-known knowability paradox stemming from the Church–Fitch observation that the meaningful knowability principle /all truths are knowable/, when expressed as a bi-modal principle F --> K♢F, yields an unacceptable omniscience property /all truths are known/. We offer an alternative semantic proof of this fact independent of the Church–Fitch argument. This shows that the knowability paradox is not intrinsically related to the Church–Fitch proof, nor to the Moore sentence upon which it (...) relies, but rather to the knowability principle itself. Further, we show that, from a verifiability perspective, the knowability principle fails in the classical logic setting because it is missing the explicit incorporation of a hidden assumption of /stability/: ‘the proposition in question does not change from true to false in the process of discovery.’ Once stability is taken into account, the resulting /stable knowability principle/ and its nuanced versions more accurately represent verification-based knowability and do not yield omniscience. (shrink)

In this paper the philosophical ideology of eclecticism of Modern times is considered, especially as it has been formulated byJ. Ch.Sturm, and assessment of its contribution to development of philosophical and scientific thought is given. The need of differentiation of eclecticism, syncretism and conciliatorics is proved. Eclecticism is characterized as a progressive for its time current. The decisive impact eclecticism on formation of new scientific outlook is emphasized.

Paradigms of historiography of philosophy in India have being changed since late 19th c. till present, depending on the social and cultural context of the history of Indian philosophy as a part of contemporary Indian culture. This change manifests itself in the conceptions of Indian historians concerning the teaching of Buddhist Mahāyāna school of Yogācāra (4th c. and later). Historians of colonial times, basing themselves on the philosophy of Neovedаntism (S. Radhakrishnan, S. Dasgupta), regarded Buddhism as a derivate of late (...) Vedic culture and Yogācāra as a teaching that reflected - though in an essentially transmuted form - the ideology of Upaniṣads. The latter, according to Neovedantists, was based on the postulate of the existence of the single cosmic soul - Brahman, the true human Self (Ātman) being identical to it. Historians of the late colonial and early postcolonial times (P.T. Raju, D.P. Chattopadhyaya, A.K. Chatterjee, partly also S. Dasgupta) brought Yogācāra closer to the teachings of European idealism, mainly to conceptions of G. Berkeley, G.W.F. Hegel, F. Bradley, J.E. McTaggart, trying to demonstrate a principal identity of fundamental problems in Indian and Western philosophy. At the same time, they brought Yogācāra together with the teaching of Brāhmaṇic school, Advaita Vedānta, regarded as another form of Indian idealism. In later times, following the evolution of contemporary Indian culture and changings in its social and political context, historians like D.J. Kalupahana became to analyze Yogācāra as a kind of philosophy of mind. All these facts show the dependence of strategies of historico-philosophical studies in India on its social, political and cultural context: in the Yogācāra teaching mainly those aspects call attention that a historian sees as the closest to the problematic field of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The paper aims to present a critical analysis of the phenomenon and notion of exceptionalism in bioethics. The authors demonstrate that exceptionalism pertains to phenomena that are not (yet) entirely familiar to us and could potentially bear risks regarding their regulation. After an overview of the state of the art, we briefly describe the origins and evolution of the concept, compared to exception and exclusion. In the second step, they look at the overall development debates on genetic exceptionalism, compared to (...) other bioethical debates on exceptionalism, before presenting a detailed analysis of a specific case of early regulation of genetic screening. In the last part, the authors explain the historical background behind the connection between exceptionalism and exclusion in these debates. Their main conclusion is that while the initial stage of the discussion is shaped by the concept of exceptionalism and awareness of risks of exclusion, the later development centers around exceptions that are needed in detailed regulatory procedures. (shrink)

Byzantine intellectuals not only had direct access to Neoplatonic sources in the original language but also, at times, showed a particular interest in them. During the Early Byzantine period Platonism significantly contributed to the development of Christian doctrines and, paradoxically, remained a rival world view that was perceived by many Christian thinkers as a serious threat to their own intellectual identity. This problematic relationship was to become even more complex during the following centuries. Byzantine authors made numerous attempts to harmonize (...) Neoplatonic doctrines with Christianity as well as to criticize, refute and even condemn them. The papers assembled in this volume discuss a number of specific questions and concerns that drew the interest of Byzantine scholars in different periods towards Neoplatonic sources in an attempt to identify and explore the central issues in the reception of Neoplatonic texts during the Byzantine era. This is the first volume of the sub-series "Byzantinisches Archiv - Series Philosophica", which will be dedicated to the rapidly growing field of research in Byzantine philosophical texts. (shrink)

This article examines a still contentious question: how conservative and liberal elements are combined in Boris N. Chicherin’s worldview and political doctrine. It considers several points of view...

The paper proves a predicate version of Solovay's well-known theorem on provability interpretations of modal logic: If a closed modal predicate-logical formula R is not valid in some finite Kripke model, then there exists an arithmetical interpretation f such that $PA \nvdash fR$ . This result implies the arithmetical completeness of arithmetically correct modal predicate logics with the finite model property (including the one-variable fragments of QGL and QS). The proof was obtained by adding "the predicate part" as a specific (...) addition to the standard Solovay construction. (shrink)

Tracing how the logic of inoperativity works in the domains of language, law, history and humanity, 'Agamben and Politics' systematically introduces the fundamental concepts of Agamben's political thought and a critically interprets his insights in the wider context of contemporary philosophy.

Logical theories for representing knowledge are often plagued by the so-called Logical Omniscience Problem. The problem stems from the clash between the desire to model rational agents, which should be capable of simple logical inferences, and the fact that any logical inference, however complex, almost inevitably consists of inference steps that are simple enough. This contradiction points to the fruitlessness of trying to solve the Logical Omniscience Problem qualitatively if the rationality of agents is to be maintained. We provide a (...) quantitative solution to the problem compatible with the two important facets of the reasoning agent: rationality and resource boundedness. More precisely, we provide a test for the logical omniscience problem in a given formal theory of knowledge. The quantitative measures we use are inspired by the complexity theory. We illustrate our framework with a number of examples ranging from the traditional implicit representation of knowledge in modal logic to the language of justification logic, which is capable of spelling out the internal inference process. We use these examples to divide representations of knowledge into logically omniscient and not logically omniscient, thus trying to determine how much information about the reasoning process needs to be present in a theory to avoid logical omniscience. (shrink)

Here is an account of recent investigations into the two main concepts of negation developed in the constructive logic: the negation as reduction to absurdity, and the strong negation. These concepts are studied in the setting of paraconsistent logic.

У статті розглянуто економічні та правові проблеми управління розвитком міських агломерацій в Україні. Охарактеризовані склад, структура, причини формування міських агломерацій. Систематизовано етапи, чинники й економіко-правові умови розвитку міської агломерації. Виявлено відмінності між управлінням-функціонуванням та управлінням-розвитком міської агломерації. Розглянуто взаємодію територіальних громад щодо розвитку агломерації та її правове забезпечення. Сформульовано комплекс завдань, вирішення яких дозволить подолати економічні, організаційні та правові проблеми управління розвитком міських агломерацій.

This paper analyzes the concept of language developed in Gelug School and discusses its specific features. The majority of the Buddhist schools state that language can express only the relative truth. As for the absolute truth, it can be cognized directly in the meditative state when any duality is absent, including the symbolic linguistic structures. However, the Gelug School accentuates the point that it is impossible to explain the techniques of realization of the absolute without the use of language. That (...) is why the concept of language was developed in the Gelug School, according to which not all verbal structures are obstacles to enlightenment. The followers of the Gelug School subdivide concepts into two types. The first type includes the concepts that have arisen as a result of ascribin the false qualities to the objects. The second type is deprived of the false ascribing; it is formed in the process of using the special type of philosophical discourse – prasangika, which is the factor for emerging of the “middle view”, the proper view of things. This allows the follower of prasanga to efficiently use the verbal structures for adequate cognition on the conceptual level and transition towards the direct attainment of the absolute truth, which as a result leads to gaining freedom and achieving the state of Buddha. (shrink)