abstract The argument that scarce health care resources should be distributed so that patients in ‘need’ are given priority for treatment is rarely contested. In this paper, we argue that if need is to play a significant role in distributive decisions it is crucial that what is meant by need can be precisely articulated. Following a discussion of the general features of health care need, we propose three principal interpretations of need, each of which focuses on separate intuitions. Although this (...) account may not be a completely exhaustive reflection of what people mean when they refer to need, the three interpretations provide a starting‐point for further debate of what the concept means in its specific application. We discuss combined interpretations, the meaning of grading needs, and compare needs‐based priority setting to social welfare maximisation. (shrink)

Technical, rigorous, and self-contained, this book will be useful for macroeconomists who seek to improve the robustness of decision-making processes.

In a recent paper A. Tabarrok [Believe in Pascal’s Wager? Have I Got a Deal for You!, Theory and Decision 48, 123--128, 2000] argued that a believer who accepts Pascal’s Wager should in addition accept payment of any given fee in return for a given increase in the probability of reaching God. However the conclusion is obtained from manipulations of infinities which are not valid in an expected utility model. In this note, an alternative model is formulated in which Tabarrok’s (...) conclusion can be obtained. (shrink)

The concept of need is often proposed as providing an additional or alternative criterion to cost-effectiveness in making allocation decisions in health care. If it is to be of practical value it must be sufficiently precisely characterized to be useful to decision makers. This will require both an account of how degree of need for an intervention is to be determined and a prioritization rule that clarifies how degree of need and the cost of the intervention interact in determining the (...) relative priority of the intervention. Three common features of health care interventions must be accommodated in a comprehensive theory of need: the probabilistic nature of prognosis (with and without the intervention); the time course of effects; and the fact that the most effective treatments often combine more than one intervention. These common features are problematic for the concept of need. We outline various approaches to prioritization on the basis of need and argue that some approaches are more promising than others. (shrink)

This is a set of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

This is the first of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

This is the second of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret key developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

This is the third of three volumes containing edited versions of papers and commentaries presented in invited symposium sessions of the Eighth World Congress of the Econometric Society. The papers summarize and interpret recent developments and discuss future directions in a wide range of topics in economics and econometrics. The papers cover both theory and applications. Written by leading specialists in their fields, these volumes provide a unique survey of progress in the discipline.

ABSTRACTThe concept of need is often proposed as providing an additional or alternative criterion to cost‐effectiveness in making allocation decisions in health care. If it is to be of practical value it must be sufficiently precisely characterized to be useful to decision makers. This will require both an account of how degree of need for an intervention is to be determined and a prioritization rule that clarifies how degree of need and the cost of the intervention interact in determining the (...) relative priority of the intervention. Three common features of health care interventions must be accommodated in a comprehensive theory of need: the probabilistic nature of prognosis ; the time course of effects; and the fact that the most effective treatments often combine more than one intervention. These common features are problematic for the concept of need. We outline various approaches to prioritization on the basis of need and argue that some approaches are more promising than others. (shrink)

A principle claiming equal entitlement to continued life has been strongly defended in the literature as a fundamental social value. We refer to this principle as ‘equal value of life'. In this paper we argue that there is a general incompatibility between the equal value of life principle and the weak Pareto principle and provide proof of this under mild structural assumptions. Moreover we demonstrate that a weaker, age-dependent version of the equal value of life principle is also incompatible with (...) the weak Pareto principle. However, both principles can be satisfied if transitivity of social preference is relaxed to quasi-transitivity. Footnotes1 The authors are grateful to Luc Bovens, Kristian Schultz Hansen, Søren Holm, Franz Huber, Wiebke Kuklys, Gabriella Pigozzi, and two anonymous referees for detailed and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any errors and shortcomings are the responsibility of the authors alone. (shrink)

A model of ZFC is constructed in which the distributivity cardinal h is 2 ℵ 0 = ℵ 2 , and in which there are no ω 2 -towers in [ω] ω . As an immediate corollary, it follows that any base-matrix tree in this model has no cofinal branches. The model is constructed via a form of iterated Mathias forcing, in which a mixture of finite and countable supports is used.

This article assesses the value of Karl Popper's situational analysis for contem porary sociology We maintain that this element of Popper's social science methodology has been largely neglected by sociologists and suggest that this is because it is borrowed from economics. As such, situational analysis has much in common with recent attempts to introduce rational choice in sociology. Our main question is this: What is the contribution of situational analysis to the current debate about rational choice in sociology? Our answer (...) is that Popper has little to add to this debate. His formulation of situational analysis is too general and too vague to be much of a guide to research. Among other things, situational analysis fails to pay due attention to interests and to social interaction in the explanation of social phenomena. On the positive side, we notice that Popper does include social institutions as the most important element in individuals' situations. (shrink)

Drawing upon core phenomenological contributions of the last decades, the present paper provides an integrated description of the development of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. Specifically, these contributions are the transitional sequences of development of psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia as envisioned by Klosterkötter and rooted in the basic symptoms approach, Conrad’s Gestalt-analysis of developing psychosis, and Sass and Parnas’ self-disturbance approach. Klosterkötter’s contribution provides a general descriptive psychopathological approach to the transitional sequence of the development of auditory hallucinations. The key concepts (...) in Conrad’s proposal are discussed, as their role is central as driving forces of the process from non-psychotic symptoms to overt hallucinations. Finally, Parnas and Sass link psychiatry to philosophy and psychology, and provide an in-depth and thorough description of these phenomena in their work on schizophrenia as a disorder of consciousness and self-experience with hyper-reflexivity and diminished self-affection as key aspects. (shrink)

Experiments on choice blindness support von Hippel & Trivers's (VH&T's) conception of the mind as fundamentally divided, but they also highlight a problem for VH&T's idea of non-conscious self-deception: If I try to trick you into believing that I have a certain preference, and the best way is to also trick myself, I might actually end up having that preference, at all levels of processing.

One important distinction in psychology is between inferences based on associative memory and inferences based on analysis and rules. Much previous empirical work conceive of associative and analytical processes as two exclusive ways of addressing a judgment task, where only one process is selected and engaged at a time, in an either-or fashion. However, related work indicate that the processes are better understood as being in interplay and simultaneously engaged. Based on computational modeling and brain imaging of spontaneously adopted judgment (...) strategies together with analyses of brain activity elicited in tasks where participants were explicitly instructed to perform similarity-based associative judgments or rule-based judgments (n = 74), we identified brain regions related to the two types of processes. We observed considerable overlap in activity patterns. The precuneus was activated for both types of judgments, and its activity predicted how well a similarity-based model fit the judgments. Activity in the superior frontal gyrus predicted the fit of a rule-based judgment model. The results suggest the precuneus as a key node for similarity-based judgments, engaged both when overt responses are guided by similarity-based and rule-based processes. These results are interpreted such that similarity-based processes are engaged in parallel to rule-based-processes, a finding with direct implications for cognitive theories of judgment. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of the External World, taking its point of departure in Peter Zinkernagel's Conditions for Description. In the first section I try to give an outline of the theses contained in that book. In the second I raise a main objection against it, pointing out that Zinkernagel, in one respect, has not sufficiently sharpened the argumentation between phenomenalism and realism. In the third section I turn realism and phenomenalism sharply against each other, presenting the (...) latter in a radical, yet consistent form; the section is an attempt to show how phenomenalism can be rejected. (shrink)

The initial premise of this paper is that the structure of a proof is inherent in the definition of the proof. Side conditions to deal with the discharging of assumptions means that this does not hold for systems of natural deduction, where proofs are given by monotone inductive definitions. We discuss the idea of using higher order definitions and the notion of a functional closure as a foundation to avoid these problems. In order to focus on structural issues we introduce (...) a more abstract perspective, where a structural proof theory becomes part of a more general theory of functional closures. A notion of proof equations is discussed as a structural classifier and we compare the Russell and Ekman paradoxes to illustrate this. (shrink)

This paper aims at constructing the ontological and epistemological background for a methodology to be applied in Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice. The background is constructed as a patchwork, where structuralism, constructivism and post-phenomenology are woven together in order to support Techno-Anthropological reflection and practice in relation to the construction of the self through and with technology. The paper will specifically address what has been named the morality of things, primarily by Jacques Ellul, Hans Jonas, Michel Foucault and Peter-Paul Verbeek. (...) It is the intent of this paper to point out a direction for an appropriate and value-based Techno-Anthropology. This direction is represented by a codex that here has been coined as the 7 ‘E’s: engagement, empathy, embodiment, enactment, enhancement, empowerment, and emancipation. The paper will conclude by showing how these are connected within a Techno-Anthropological perspective. (shrink)

Review of Peter Winch, Spinoza on Ethics and Understanding.

Peter Winch, following Wittgenstein, was critical of the notion that philosophy could pass judgment on matters like the sense of words, the rationality of actions, or the validity of arguments. His critique had both what we might call a local strand – the insight that criteria of thought and action are not universal but vary between cultures and between practices – and a personal strand – the insight that those local criteria are ultimately given shape through the particular applications (...) made of them by individuals. These strands are prominent, for instance, in Winch’s discussion of cross-cultural understanding as well as his treatment of the distinction between valid reasoning and illicit persuasion. (shrink)

I. INTRODUCTION The notion of randomness has always been rather perplexing. Altho it is frequently used in natural and social science, both technically a informally, it seems to have been somewhat neglected by philosophers o science ever since the discussion of the foundations of the so-called fre- quency theory of probability, in which it was assigned a basic role, faded. Yet this discussion is of such significance that any attempt clarifying the notion of randomness will have to relate to it. (...) After a fe preliminary remarks on some of the problems and puzzles of randomne I shall, therefore, expound and discuss a concept of random distribution of a property in classes and sequences, defined in terms of relative f quencies and their limits. Because of certain shortcomings of this conce it appears advisable to turn to probabilities, in terms of which a qu different concept, viz., that of random conjunction of properties, can rea ily be defined as stochastic independence. This concept still has featu clashing with the ordinary sense of 'randomness' which become ma fest in cases where certain probabilities assume extreme values. However when we take measures defined in information theory as measuring the degree of randomness, to which purpose they lend themselves parti larly well, we find that these seemingly troublesome cases are rath harmless. A by-product of the discussion of measures of randomnes the concept of primitive randomness. The conclusion points out som further problems. (shrink)

Romano Guardini gilt als einer der massgeblichen christlichen Denker des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seine Schriften, philosophische und theologische Abhandlungen, aber auch zahlreiche meditative und spirituelle Texte, haben eine weltweite Verbreitung gefunden und pragen ungebrochen bis heute Generationen von Leserinnen und Lesern. Der vorliegende Band, der aus Anlass des 50. Todestages Romano Guardinis am 1. Oktober 2018 sowie zur Eroffnung des Seligsprechungsprozesses erscheint, versammelt Beitrage namhafter Autorinnen und Autoren. Aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven widmen sie sich insbesondere Guardinis Buch "Der Herr" uber Person und (...) Botschaft Jesu Christi, aber beispielsweise auch Aspekten der Gottesfrage, der Ethik oder des Gebets. Eine Fundgrube fur alle, die sich der Person und dem Denken Guardinis neu nahern mochten. Mit Beitragen von Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, Jean Greisch, Karl Kardinal Lehmann (+), Peter Reifenberg, Marius Reiser, Peter Schallenberg, P. Kosmas Lars Thielmann OCist, Karl-Heinz Wiesemann. (shrink)

This reissue of his collection of early essays, Logico-Linguistic Papers, is published with a brand new introduction by Professor Strawson but, apart from minor ...

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

A complete system of classical Aristotelian logic intended for honors high school and college.

The main purpose of this book is to introduce a broader audience to emergence by illustrating how discoveries in the physical sciences have informed the ways we think about it. In a nutshell, emergence asserts that non-reductive behavior arises at higher levels of organization and complexity. As physicist Philip Anderson put it, "more is different." Along the text's conversational tour through the terrain of quantum physics, phase transitions, nonlinear and statistical physics, networks and complexity, the author highlights the various philosophical (...) nuances that arise in encounters with emergence. The final part of the book zooms out to reflect on some larger lessons that emergence affords us. One of those larger lessons is the realization that the great diversity of theories and models, and the great variety of independent explanatory frameworks, will always be with us in the sciences and beyond. There is no "Theory of Everything" just around the corner waiting to be discovered. One of the main benefits of this book is that it will make a number of exciting scientific concepts that are not normally covered at this level accessible to a broader audience. The overall presentation, including the use of examples, analogies, metaphors, and biographical interludes, is geared for the educated non-specialist. (shrink)

Ohne Rücksicht auf disziplinäre Schranken bringt dieses Buch verschiedene nicht-reduktionistische Lerntheorien miteinander ins Gespräch. In einem offenen Diskurs, der die Konzepte zueinander in Beziehung setzt, werden die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven kritisch abgewogen und hinsichtlich ihrer Stärken und Schwächen diskutiert.

Delo se loteva vprašanja aktualnosti pojma subjekta v filozofiji in politiki skozi analizo tistih avtorjev, ki so ga domnevno najbolj radikalno pokopali: pokaže, da vznik radikalno novega in problematika subjekta zavzema osrednje mesto v Deleuzovi filozofiji, kakor tudi v Lyotardovi pozni misli posvečeni praznini, v Foucaultovi obravnavi biopolitike in biooblasti, v delu Negrija in Hardta o Imperiju, ter nazadnje v Badioujevi predelavi temeljnih filozofskih kategorij biti, resnice in subjekta, na osnovi katerih je dandanes znova možna renesansa filozofije. Ta ima po (...) Badiouju štiri razsežnosti, ki se v delu Vznik subjekta nenehno prepletajo: »V osnovi želja filozofije implicira razsežnost upora: ni filozofije brez nezadovoljstva mišljenja v njegovem soočenju s svetom, kakršen je. Pa vendar želja filozofije vključuje tudi logiko: to je, prepričanje v moč argumenta in uma.«. (shrink)

Verili bir durumu anlamayı, onu bir bütün olarak kurgulamak olarak düşünelim. Kurgu basit bir gösterge de olabilir, karmaşık bir yapı da olabilir; belli belirsiz bir iz veya izler toplamı da olabilir. Kurgunun işlevini yerine getirmesini sağlayan gerek ve yeter koşul verili olan durum ile kendi yapısı arasında bir karşılaştırma olanağını sağlamasıdır. Nitekim, en bilindik anlamda bir durumu kurgulamak onu bir başka durumla karşılaştırmaktır. Bu yüzden de karşılaştırma yapmayı anlama yetimiz için ön dayanak olan bir alt-yeti olarak tanımlayabiliriz. Bu alt-yetinin edimsel (...) doğasına ilişkin bazı sorulara yanıt aramak istersek, karşılaştırma dediğimiz edimin doğal koşullarını incelememiz gerekir. Bu bildiride karşılaştırma ediminin doğal koşullarını betimlemeyi amaçlayan bir çerçeve çizmeye ve böylelikle anlama yetimizin ön dayanaklarının edimsel doğasını uygun bir biçimde nasıl yorumlayabileceğimiz sorusuna yanıt vermeye çalışacağım. (shrink)

Can groups really be agents or is group agency just a fiction? Christian List and Philip Pettit argue influentially for group-agent realism by showing how certain groups form and act on attitudes in ways they take to be unexplainable at the level of the individual agents constituting them. Group agency is therefore considered not a fiction or a metaphor but a reality we must account for in explanations of certain social phenomena. In this paper, I challenge this defence of group-agent (...) realism by showing how it is undermined by individual-level analysis of how individuals interact within groups. While group agency can be a useful fiction, real agents are at the individual level, not the collective level. (shrink)