This chapter examines the normative question of whether the cultivation of patriotic and nationalist ideals and attachments should have a central place in programs of civic education. It argues that the most useful way to draw the distinction between patriotism and nationalism focuses on their respective objects of loyalty; patriotism is loyalty to a country while nationalism is loyalty to a people. This way of distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism forms the background for the discussion of a variety of instrumental (...) and non-instrumental arguments for cultivating patriotic and nationalist political attachments in schools. It also examines an assumption common to these programs of civic education: that a shared identity is crucial for citizens to have a sense of belonging that supports social stability and desirable forms of political change. The final part of the chapter introduces a number of alternative educational proposals that aim to avoid some of the difficulties faced by patriotic and nationalist strategies. These alternative proposals aim to encourage good citizenship while taking into account new challenges generated by the political, social, and economic conditions of an increasingly globalized world. (shrink)

The concept of fitness, central to population genetics and to the synthetic theory of evolution, is discussed. After a historical introduction on the origin of this concept, the current meaning of it in population genetics is examined: a cause of the selective process and its quantification. Several difficulties arise for its exact definition. Three adequacy criteria for such a definition are formulated. It is shown that it is impossible to formulate an adequate definition of fitness respecting these criteria. The propensity (...) definition of fitness is presented and rejected. Finally it is argued that fitness is a conceptual device, a useful tool, only for descriptive purposes of selective processes, changing from case to case, and thus devoid of any substantial physical counterpart. Any attempt to its reification is an apport to the metaphysical load evolutionary theory has inherited from Natural Theology. (shrink)

The current crisis is one outcome of the financialisation of contemporary capitalism. It arose in the USA because of the enormous expansion of mortgage-lending, including to the poorest layers of the working class. It became general because of the trading of debt by financial institutions. These phenomena are integral to financialisation. During the last three decades, large enterprises have turned to open markets to obtain finance, forcing banks to seek alternative sources of profit. One avenue has been provision of financial (...) services to individual workers. This trend has been facilitated by the retreat of public provision from housing, pensions, education, and so on. A further avenue has been to adopt investment-banking practices in open financial markets. The extraction of financial profits directly out of personal income constitutes financial expropriation. Combined with investment-banking, it has catalysed the current gigantic crisis. More broadly, financialisation has sustained the emergence of new layers of rentiers, defined primarily through their relation to the financial system rather than ownership of loanable capital. Finally, financialisation has posed important questions regarding finance-capital and imperialism. (shrink)

entry for the Entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007.

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Journal of Philosophical Logic 34, 97-119, 2005.

An introduction to the model-theoretic approach in the philosophy of science is given and it is argued that this program is further enhanced by the introduction of partial structures. It is then shown that this leads to a natural and intuitive account of both "iconic" and mathematical models and of the role of the former in science itself.

We investigate the higher-order modal logic , which is a variant of the system presented in our previous work. A semantics for that system, founded on the theory of quasi sets, is outlined. We show how such a semantics, motivated by the very intuitive base of Schrödinger logics, provides an alternative way to formalize some intensional concepts and features which have been used in recent discussions on the logical foundations of quantum mechanics; for example, that some terms like 'electron' have (...) no precise reference and that 'identical' particles cannot be named unambiguously. In the last section, we sketch a classical semantics for quasi set theory. (shrink)

The paper focuses on extending to the first order case the semantical program for modalities first introduced by Dana Scott and Richard Montague. We focus on the study of neighborhood frames with constant domains and we offer in the first part of the paper a series of new completeness results for salient classical systems of first order modal logic. Among other results we show that it is possible to prove strong completeness results for normal systems without the Barcan Formula (like (...) FOL + K)in terms of neighborhood frames with constant domains. The first order models we present permit the study of many epistemic modalities recently proposed in computer science as well as the development of adequate models for monadic operators of high probability. Models of this type are either difficult of impossible to build in terms of relational Kripkean semantics [40].We conclude by introducing general first order neighborhood frames with constant domains and we offer a general completeness result for the entire family of classical first order modal systems in terms of them, circumventing some well-known problems of propositional and first order neighborhood semantics (mainly the fact that many classical modal logics are incomplete with respect to an unmodified version of either neighborhood or relational frames). We argue that the semantical program that thus arises offers the first complete semantic unification of the family of classical first order modal logics. (shrink)

Human rights have become an important ideal in current times, yet our age has witnessed more violations of human rights than any previous less enlightened one. This book explores the historical and theoretical dimensions of this paradox. Divided into two parts, the first section offers an alternative history of natural law, in which natural rights are represented as the eternal human struggle to resist opression and to fight for a society in which people are no longer degraded or despised. At (...) the time of their birth in the 18th Century and again in the popular uprisings of the last decade, human rights became the dominant critique of law and society. The radical rhetoric of rights and its apparently endless expansive potential has led to its adoption by governments and individuals alike seeking to justify their actions on moral grounds and has undermined its radical edge. Part Two examines the philosophical logic of rights. The classical critiques of Kant, Burke, Hegel and Marx illuminate traditional aproaches to the concept of human rights. The work of Heidegger, Sartre and psychoanalysis is used to deconstruct the metaphisical essentialism of bothe universalists and cultural relativists. Finally, through a consideration of the ethics of otherness, and with reference to recent human rights violations, it is argued that the end of human rights is to judge law and politics from a moral stand point which both transcends the present and is historically relevant. (shrink)

It is now well known that, on pain of triviality, the probability of a conditional cannot be identified with the corresponding conditional probability [25]. This surprising impossibility result has a qualitative counterpart. In fact, Peter Gärdenfors showed in [13] that believing ‘If A then B’ cannot be equated with the act of believing B on the supposition that A — as long as supposing obeys minimal Bayesian constraints. Recent work has shown that in spite of these negative results, the question (...) ‘how to accept a conditional?’ has a clear answer. Even if conditionals are not truth-carriers, they do have precise acceptability conditions. Nevertheless most epistemic models of conditionals do not provide acceptance conditions for iterated conditionals. One of the main goals of this essay is to provide a comprehensive account of the notion of epistemic conditionality covering all forms of iteration. First we propose an account of the basic idea of epistemic conditionality, by studying the conditionals validated by epistemic models where iteration is permitted but not constrained by special axioms. Our modeling does not presuppose that epistemic states should be represented by belief sets (we only assume that to each epistemic state corresponds an associated belief state). A full encoding of the basic epistemic conditionals (encompassing all forms of iteration) is presented and a representation result is proved. In the second part of the essay we argue that the notion of change involved in the evaluation of conditionals is suppositional, and that such notion should be distinguished from the notion of updating (modelled by AGM and other methods). We conclude by considering how some of the recent modellings of iterated change fare as methods for iterated supposing. (shrink)

The issue of what consequences to draw from the existence of non-classical logical systems has been the subject of an interesting debate across a diversity of fields. In this paper the matter of alternative logics is considered with reference to a specific belief system and its propositions :the Azande are said to maintain beliefs about witchcraft which, when expressed propositionally, appear to be inconsistent. When the Azande have been presented with such inconsistencies, they either fail to see them as such (...) or else accept them as non-problematical. Is our knowledge of logical truths a relative and culturally determined phenomenon, or is there some (transcendent) criterion that allows us to adjudicate between alternative logical systems? The authors propose an approach for resolving disputes about the status of Azande reasoning which assumes a paraconsistent framework, thus providing a new perspective on this debate. (shrink)

Physical superpositions exist both in classical and in quantum physics. However, what is exactly meant by ‘superposition’ in each case is extremely different. In this paper we discuss some of the multiple interpretations which exist in the literature regarding superpositions in quantum mechanics. We argue that all these interpretations have something in common: they all attempt to avoid ‘contradiction’. We argue in this paper, in favor of the importance of developing a new interpretation of superpositions which takes into account contradiction, (...) as a key element of the formal structure of the theory, “right from the start”. In order to show the feasibility of our interpretational project we present an outline of a paraconsistent approach to quantum superpositions which attempts to account for the contradictory properties present in general within quantum superpositions. This approach must not be understood as a closed formal and conceptual scheme but rather as a first step towards a different type of understanding regarding quantum superpositions. (shrink)

It is becoming clear that many of today’s management theories are inadequate theoretically and practically to move understanding, scholarship, and practice to where it needs to be for scholars, business leaders, and policy makers to cope with an increasing fraught world. This Special Issue’s focus is on sustainability. Sustainability challenges need to incorporate multidisciplinary interventions and the trans- and interdisciplinary nature of solutions. To actively seek transformation toward sustainability, fundamental and innovative short-term as well as long-term efforts are required in (...) society, economy, technology, and education, including our understanding of human behavior and attitudes toward the management of the environment. This introductory piece presents natural science theories as a promising approach for achieving progress toward transformation for sustainability. (shrink)

This paper is a critic analysis of a doctorate thesis and a master dissertation, which subjects are the samba and the afro religions in the city of São Paulo. Both consider the samba and the religion as manifestations and cultural expressions through which the black population in afro-diaspora rebuilded and reupdated memories via religiosity, rythm, dance and performan.

Philosophical considerations as well as several recent studies from neurophysiology, neuropsychology, and psychophysics converged in showing that the peripersonal space is structured in a body-centred manner and represented through integrated sensory inputs. Multisensory representations may deserve the function of coding peripersonal space for avoiding or interacting with objects. Neuropsychological evidence is reviewed for dynamic interactions between space representations and action execution, as revealed by the behavioural effects that the use of a tool, as a physical extension of the reachable space, (...) produces on visual–tactile extinction. In particular, tool-use transiently modifies action space representation in a functionally effective way. The possibility is discussed that the investigation of multisensory space representations for action provides an empirical way to consider in its specificity pre-reflexive self-consciousness by considering the intertwining of self-relatedness and object-directness of spatial experience shaped by multisensory and sensorimotor integrations. (shrink)

Erudite and timely, this book is a key contribution to the renewal of radical theory and politics.

Following the pioneer work of Bruno De Finetti [12], conditional probability spaces (allowing for conditioning with events of measure zero) have been studied since (at least) the 1950's. Perhaps the most salient axiomatizations are Karl Popper's in [31], and Alfred Renyi's in [33]. Nonstandard probability spaces [34] are a well know alternative to this approach. Vann McGee proposed in [30] a result relating both approaches by showing that the standard values of infinitesimal probability functions are representable as Popper functions, and (...) that every Popper function is representable in terms of the standard real values of some infinitesimal measure. Our main goal in this article is to study the constraints on (qualitative and probabilistic) change imposed by an extended version of McGee's result. We focus on an extension capable of allowing for iterated changes of view. Such extension, we argue, seems to be needed in almost all considered applications. Since most of the available axiomatizations stipulate (definitionally) important constraints on iterated change, we propose a non-questionbegging framework, Iterative Probability Systems (IPS) and we show that every Popper function can be regarded as a Bayesian IPS. A generalized version of McGee's result is then proved and several of its consequences considered. In particular we note that our proof requires the imposition of Cumulativity, i.e. the principle that a proposition that is accepted at any stage of an iterative process of acceptance will continue to be accepted at any later stage. The plausibility and range of applicability of Cumulativity is then studied. In particular we appeal to a method for defining belief from conditional probability (first proposed in [42] and then slightly modified in [6] and [3]) in order to characterize the notion of qualitative change induced by Cumulative models of probability kinematics. The resulting cumulative notion is then compared with existing axiomatizations of belief change and probabilistic supposition. We also consider applications in the probabilistic accounts of conditionals [1] and [30]. (shrink)

Gerd Gigerenzer and Thomas Sturm have recently proposed a modest form of what they describe as a normative, ecological and limited naturalism. The basic move in their argument is to infer that certain heuristics we tend to use should be used in the right ecological setting. To address this argument, we first consider the case of a concrete heuristic called Take the Best (TTB). There are at least two variants of the heuristic which we study by making explicit the choice (...) functions they induce, extending these variants of TTB beyond binary choice. We argue that the naturalistic argument can be applied to only one of the two variants of the heuristic; we also argue that the argument for the extension requires paying attention to other “rational” virtues of heuristics aside from efficacy, speed, and frugality. This notwithstanding, we show that there is a way of extending the right variant of TTB to obtain a very well behaved heuristic that could be used to offer a stronger case for the naturalistic argument (in the sense that if this heuristic is used, it is also a heuristic that we should use). The second part of the article considers attempts to extending the naturalistic argument from algorithms dealing with inference to heuristics dealing with choice. Our focus is the so-called Priority Heuristic, which we extend from risk to uncertainty. In this setting, the naturalist argument seems more difficult to formulate, if it remains feasible at all. Normativity seems in this case extrinsic to the heuristic, whose main virtue seems to be its ability to describe actual patterns of choice. But it seems that a new version of the naturalistic argument used with partial success in the case of inference is unavailable to solve the normative problem of whether we should exhibit the patterns of choice that we actually display. (shrink)

In this paper we provide frame definability results for weak versions of classical modal axioms that can be expressed in Fitting's many-valued modal languages. These languages were introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s and are built on Heyting algebras which serve as the space of truth values. The possible-worlds frames interpreting these languages are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra, providing us a form of many-valued accessibility relation. Weak axioms of (...) the form we treat here have been examined from the completeness perspective and further explored for applications in non-monotonic reasoning. Here, we introduce more weak many-valued modal axioms and prove a frame correspondence result for all of them. The classes of corresponding labelled frames possess algebraic properties which are strongly reminiscent of many classical ones, such as the Church-Rosser property, reflexivity, transitivity, partial functionality, etc. (shrink)

Consider a rational agent X at certain point of time t. X's epistemic state can be represented in different ways.

The mathematical concept of pragmatic truth, first introduced in Mikenberg, da Costa and Chuaqui (1986), has received in the last few years several applications in logic and the philosophy of science. In this paper, we study the logic of pragmatic truth, and show that there are important connections between this logic, modal logic and, in particular, Jaskowski's discussive logic. In order to do so, two systems are put forward so that the notions of pragmatic validity and pragmatic truth can (...) be accommodated. One of the main results of this paper is that the logic of pragmatic truth is paraconsistent. The philosophical import of this result, which justifies the application of pragmatic truth to inconsistent settings, is also discussed. (shrink)

This article elaborates on foundational issues in the social sciences and their impact on the contemporary theory of belief revision. Recent work in the foundations of economics has focused on the role external social norms play in choice. Amartya Sen has argued in [Sen93] that the traditional rationalizability approach used in the theory of rational choice has serious problems accommodating the role of social norms. Sen's more recent work [Sen96, Sen97] proposes how one might represent social norms in the theory (...) of choice, and in a very recent article [BS07] Walter Bossert and Kotaro Suzumura develop Sen's proposal, offering an extension of the classical theory of choice that is capable of dealing with social norms. The first part of this article offers an alternative functional characterization of the extended notion of rationality employed by Bossert and Suzumura in [BS07]. This characterization, unlike the one offered in [BS07], represents a norm-sensitive notion of rationality in terms of a pure functional constraint unmediated by a notion of revealed preference (something that is crucial for the application developed in the second part of this article). This functional characterization is formulated for general domains (as is Bossert and Suzumura's characterization) and is therefore empirically more applicable than usual characterizations of rationality. Interestingly, the functional constraint we propose is a variant of a condition first entertained in [AGM85] by Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson in the area of belief change. The second part of this article applies the theory developed in the first part to the realm of belief change. We first point out that social norms can be invoked to concoct counterexamples against some postulates of belief change (like postulate (*7)) that are necessary for belief change to be relational. These examples constitute the epistemological counterpart of Sen's counterexamples against condition α in rational choice (as a matter of fact, Rott has showed in [Rot01] that condition and postulate (*7) are mutually mappable). These examples are variants of examples Rott has recently presented in [Rot04]. One of our main goals in this article consists in applying the theory developed in the first part to develop a theory of norm-inclusive belief change that circumvents the counterexamples. We offer a new axiomatization for belief change and we furnish correspondence results relating constraints of rational choice to postulates of belief change. (shrink)

Let L be a language containing the modal operator B - for full belief. An information model is a set E of stable L-theories. A sentence is valid if it is accepted in all theories of every model.

We present a decision-theoretically motivated notion of contraction which, we claim, encodes the principles of minimal change and entrenchment. Contraction is seen as an operation whose goal is to minimize loses of informational value. The operation is also compatible with the principle that in contracting A one should preserve the sentences better entrenched than A (when the belief set contains A). Even when the principle of minimal change and the latter motivation for entrenchment figure prominently among the basic intuitions in (...) the works of, among others, Quine and Ullian (1978), Levi (1980, 1991), Harman (1988) and Gärdenfors (1988), formal accounts of belief change (AGM, KM – see Gärdenfors (1988); Katsuno and Mendelzon (1991)) have abandoned both principles (see Rott (2000)). We argue for the principles and we show how to construct a contraction operation, which obeys both. An axiom system is proposed. We also prove that the decision-theoretic notion of contraction can be completely characterized in terms of the given axioms. Proving this type of completeness result is a well-known open problem in the field, whose solution requires employing both decision-theoretical techniques and logical methods recently used in belief change. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to present a reading of Plato's utopianism, as expressed mainly through the 'big letters' of the Republic, which will lead us beyond Karl Popper's and Leo Strauss' modernist understandings of Plato and of his world. The author argues that, despite the 'transcendent' aspects of Platonic utopianism, the ideal city should be understood neither as a blueprint to be realized through some totalitarian political project nor as a mere fiction that cannot by definition give rise (...) to a viable existential prospect. The power of Platonic utopianism lies in its articulation to a value-laden cosmological continuum, which may be understood in terms of the self-instituting (through political persuasion and story-telling activites, among others) capacities of ancient Greek city. The utopian perspective is marked by shareability of political reason and by mutuality between participants in a common discursive venture rather than by individualist authoritarian projections or by harmless (that is, non-political in it orientation and ideological in its repercussions) day-dreaming. Even if Plato's philosophical project aspires to transcend the boundaries of ancient Greek cosmos, Platonic politics cannot be separated from its historical context, that is, the circumstances that gave rise to philosophy as a silent perhaps, but revolutionary, in it intentions political act. (shrink)

We prove frame determination results for the family of many-valued modal logics introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s. Each modal language of this family is based on a Heyting algebra, which serves as the space of truth values, and is interpreted on an interesting version of possible-worlds semantics: the modal frames are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra. We introduce interesting generalized forms of the classical axioms D, T, B, 4, (...) and 5 and prove that they are canonical for certain algebraic frame properties, which generalize seriality, reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity and euclideanness. Our results are quite general as they hold for any modal language built on a complete Heyting algebra. (shrink)

Daniel Ellsberg presented in Ellsberg (The Quarterly Journal of Economics 75:643–669, 1961) various examples questioning the thesis that decision making under uncertainty can be reduced to decision making under risk. These examples constitute one of the main challenges to the received view on the foundations of decision theory offered by Leonard Savage in Savage (1972). Craig Fox and Amos Tversky have, nevertheless, offered an indirect defense of Savage. They provided in Fox and Tversky (1995) an explanation of Ellsberg’s two-color problem (...) in terms of a psychological effect: ambiguity aversion . The ‘comparative ignorance’ hypothesis articulates how this effect works and explains why it is important to an understanding of the typical pattern of responses associated with Ellsberg’s two-color problem. In the first part of this article we challenge Fox and Tversky’s explanation. We present first an experiment that extends Ellsberg’s two-color problem where certain predictions of the comparative ignorance hypothesis are not confirmed. In addition the hypothesis seems unable to explain how the subjects resolve trade-offs between security and expected pay-off when vagueness is present. Ellsberg offered an explanation of the typical behavior elicited by his examples in terms of these trade-offs and in section three we offer a model of Ellsberg’s trade-offs. The model takes seriously the role of imprecise probabilities in explaining Ellsberg’s phenomenon. The so-called three-color problem was also considered in Fox and Tversky (1995). We argue that Fox and Tversky’s analysis of this case breaks a symmetry with their analysis of the two-color problem. We propose a unified treatment of both problems and we present a experiment that confirms our hypothesis. (shrink)

Jurisprudence is the prudence of jus, law's consciousness and conscience. Throughout history, when thinkers wanted to contemplate the organisation of society or the relationship between authority and the subject, they turned to law. All great philosophers, from Plato to Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber had either studied the law or had a deep understanding of legal operations. But jurisprudence is also the conscience of law, the exploration of law's justice and of an ideal law or equity at the bar (...) of which state law is always judged. Jurisprudence brings together 'is' and 'ought', the positive and the normative, law and justice. But after a long process of decay, legal theory is today characterised by cognitive and moral poverty. Jurisprudence has become restricted and academically peripheral, a guidebook to technocratic legalism and a legitimation of the existent. Critical jurisprudence returns to the classical tradition of a general philosophy of law and adopts a much wider concept of legality. It is concerned both with posited law and with the law of the law. All legal aspects of the economic, political, emotional and physical modes of production and reproduction of society are part of critical jurisprudence. This widening of scope allows a radical rethinking of the nature of rights, justice, sovereignty and judgement. A political philosophy of justice today must examine the political economy of law; transitions from Empire to nation; ideological and imaginary constructions through which we understand ourselves and relate to others; ways in which gender, race or sexuality create forms of identity that both discipline bodies and offer sites of resistance. Law's complicity with political oppression, violence and racism has to be faced before it is possible to speak of a new beginning for legal thought, which in turn is the necessary precondition for a theory of justice. Critical Jurisprudence offers an ethics of law against the nihilism of power and an aesthetics of existence for the melancholic lawyer. (shrink)

Defeasible conditionals are statements of the form ‘if A then normally B’. One plausible interpretation introduced in nonmonotonic reasoning dictates that ) is true iff B is true in ‘most’ A-worlds. In this paper, we investigate defeasible conditionals constructed upon a notion of ‘overwhelming majority’, defined as ‘truth in a cofinite subset of \’, the first infinite ordinal. One approach employs the modal logic of the frame \\), used in the temporal logic of discrete linear time. We introduce and investigate (...) conditionals, defined modally over \\); several modal definitions of the conditional connective are examined, with an emphasis on the nonmonotonic ones. An alternative interpretation of ‘majority’ as sets cofinal ) rather than cofinite ) is examined. For these modal approaches over \\), a decision procedure readily emerges, as the modal logic \ of this frame is well-known and a translation of the conditional sentences can be mechanically checked for validity; this allows also for a quick proof of \-completeness of the satisfiability problem for these logics. A second approach employs the conditional version of Scott-Montague semantics, in the form of \-many possible worlds, endowed with neighborhoods populated by collections of cofinite subsets of \. This approach gives rise to weak conditional logics, as expected. The relative strength of the conditionals introduced is compared to KLM logics and other conditional logics in the literature. (shrink)