It is well-known that feature structures can be fruitfully viewed as forming a Scott domain. Once a linguistically motivated notion of set value in feature structures is countenanced, however, this is no longer possible inasmuch as unification of set values in general fails to yield a unique result. In Pollard and Moshier 1990 it was shown that, while falling short of forming a Scott domain, the set of feature structures possibly containing set values satisfies the weaker condition of forming (...) a 2/3 SFP domain when equipped with an appropriate notion of subsumption: that is, for any finite setS of feature structures, there is a finite setM of minimal upper bounds ofS such that any upper bound ofS is approximated by a member ofM. Unfortunately, the 2/3 SFP domains are not as pleasant to work with as Scott domains since they are not closed under all the familiar domain constructions; and the question has remained open whether the feature structure domain satisfies the added condition of profiniteness. In this paper we resolve this question in the affirmative. (shrink)

Feature structures are employed in various forms in many areas of linguistics. Informally, one can picture a feature structure as a sort of tree decorated with information about constraints requiring that specific subtrees be identical (isomorphic). Here I show that this informal picture of feature structures can be used to characterize exactly the class of feature structures under their usual subsumption ordering. Furthermore, once a precise definition of tree is fixed, this characterization makes use only of standard domain-theoretic notions regarding (...) the information borne by elements in a domain, thus removing (or better, explaining) all apparentlyad hoc choices in the original definition of feature structures. In addition, I show how this characterization can be parameterized in order to yield similar characterizations of various different notions of feature structure, including acyclic structures, structures with appropriateness conditions and structures with apartness conditions (used to model path inequations). The generalizations to other notions of feature structure also emphasize that the construction given here is in fact independent of the application to feature structures. (shrink)

In the first author's thesis [10], a sequential language, LRT, for real number computation is investigated. That thesis includes a proof that all polynomials are programmable, but that work comes short of giving a complete characterization of the expressive power of the language even for first-order functions. The technical problem is that LRT is non-deterministic. So a natural characterization of its expressive power should be in terms of relations rather than in terms of functions. In [2], Brattka examines a formalization (...) of recursive relations in the style of Kleene's recursive functions on the natural numbers. This paper is an expanded version of [13] which establishes the expressive power of LRTp, a variant of LRT, in terms of Brattka's recursive relations. Because Brattka already did the work of establishing the precise connection between his recursive relations and Type 2 Theory of Effectivity, we thus obtain a complete characterization of first-order definability in LRTp. (shrink)

In the present paper, we endow semi De Morgan logic and a family of its axiomatic extensions with proper multi-type display calculi which are sound, complete, conservative, and enjoy cut elimination and subformula property. Our proposal builds on an algebraic analysis of the variety of semi De Morgan algebras, and applies the guidelines of the multi-type methodology in the design of display calculi.

Liberalism is the view that humans are independent, autonomous, and self-sufficient and, thus, institutional policy is warranted only when it advances these values. As an important thread in moral thought today, liberalism defines a good life as the complete freedom of all people to pursue their own desires, provided that little or no harm is done to others along the way.Moral liberalism also pervades the literature in philosophy of sport today. In this paper, I argue that liberalism as moral policy (...) in sport is wrong because liberalism as moral policy is wrong. Human autonomy implies social responsibility, which moral liberalism today disavows. At paper’s end, I sketch out a normative account of sport, aretism, that fleshes out the types of responsibilities that bind athletes to sport, properly construed as a social institution. (shrink)

Liberal individualism, in its atomic sense, asserts that people are autonomous and self-contained individuals, whose rights are prior to and independent of any conception of the good. It champions individual rights and toleration for different conceptions of the good life, and essays to secure justice for all in equal measure.In prioritizing right over good, liberal individualism demands that the state have a stance of strict neutrality concerning any particular conception of the good. It privileges political analysis, in that no conception (...) of what is good must interfere with the fundamental rights, unconditionally guaranteed, of each individual. Consequently, it is essentially atomic ideal, and this atomism, whether metaphysical ormethodological, effects a separation of persons and institutions. This I call the “Great Divide”.In what follows, I argue that the liberal separation of persons from institutions is a disintegrative political and ethical ideal in personal, social, and ethical senses. (shrink)

"A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure." Charlie Chaplin Freud, in a letter to Max Schiller (25 Mar. 1931), writes of an occasion in which Charlie Chaplin came to Vienna. In his account, Freud cavalierly offers great insight into the person behind the actor, even though he has never met Chaplin. Just recently . . . Charlie Chaplin was in Vienna; I almost caught sight of him, but it was too (...) cold for him, and he left in a hurry. He is undoubtedly a great artist—although he always plays one and the same part, the weak, poor, helpless, clumsy boy for whom life turns out all right in the end. Now do you think he has to forget his own self in .. (shrink)

Critical Reasoning & Philosophy is an innovative and clearly written handbook that teaches studnets how to read critically, think critically while they read, and write thoughtful, sound arguments in response.

That Jefferson execrated Plato in an 1814 letter to friend John Adams. In it, he expresses an unsympathetic, hostile view of Plato’s Republic, and the reasons are several. Nonetheless, Plato’s views on what makes government fundamentally sound are, at base, remarkably similar to Jefferson’s both in substance and sentiment, so much so that it is inconceivable to think that Plato’s Republic had little effect on Jefferson’s political thinking. That makes his execration of Plato difficult to understand. This paper is an (...) attempt to show that Jefferson, despite the tenor of his letter to Adams, had much more than a dilettante’s grasp of the political content of Plato’s major work. Jefferson was very likely quite familiar with the work, since his own political philosophy assimilates key substratal Platonic political principles of good, stable governing. His disavowal of the work and execration of Plato, then, is due to a constellation of other factors: Adams’s feelings toward Plato, Jefferson’s views on the corruptions of Jesus’s teachings, his deep-dyed detestation of metempiricism, his view that Plato was an unoriginal thinker, and strong disagreement with Plato’s means to instantiate substratal political principles. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis, in Freud’s day and our own, has met with and continues to meet with staunch opposition from critics. The most ruinous criticism comes from philosophers, with a special interest in science, who claim psychoanalysis does not measure up to the above-board canons of acceptable scientific practices and, thus, is not scientific. It is common today to direct such criticisms to all metempirical forms of psychotherapy—i.e., psychotherapies that in no way concern themselves with grounding their claims with empirical research. The (...) most common defense is to cold-shoulder the criticism and counter that psychoanalysis, whether or not Freud recognized it, is a hermeneutical, not an etiological, method of therapy. In that regard, its measure of success is not symptom-removal or redirection of drive-energy in socially condoned or acceptable ways, but broadened understanding through a commonly created myth, effected by therapist and patient, for the patient’s wellbeing. In this undertaking, I argue that the hermeneutical apologia of psychoanalysis is a dodge, not a defense—an impenetrable asylum in which therapists can find refuge by buffering themselves from the possibility of criticism of the scientificity of their discipline. Because hermeneuticism disavows the possibility of knowledge in any meaningful sense—and, with that, scientific knowledge gained through observation or experimentation—it levels the epistemological playing field. With knowledge impossible and science annulled, no “investigative” inquiry or discipline can claim a status superior to any other and, hence, psychotherapy is an investigative discipline as legitimate as any other. The literature on the hermeneutic defence of psychotherapy is vast—too vast for anything but a representative sample of it in this critique. I focus merely on some of the most recent literature. (shrink)

When talk of philosophy of pedagogy comes up today, it is common to hear the names of Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, or Paulo Freire, but the name of Paul Goodman, who campaigned vigorously for pedagogical reform much of his life, is seldom mentioned. In spite of neglect of his work, Goodman had much to say on pedagogical practice that is rich, poignant, and relevant today. In consequence, it is unfortunate that he is seldom read and discussed today. This essay (...) is an attempt to fill in the gap in the scholarship. I begin by presenting an elaboration of Goodman's key insights. I then offer a critical analysis of those pedagogical insights. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of several of Thomas Jefferson's philosophical vignettes in his Notes on the State of Virginia. I begin with some thoughts on the structure of the book. I then turn to several of Jefferson's intriguing philosophical vignettes, concerning the aesthetic, natural explanation, Indians, blacks, education, religion, husbandry, and war. I end with some thoughts on what those vignettes tell us about Jefferson's philosophical frame of mind at the writing of his Notes.

This paper is a comprehensive investigation of Freud’s views on technology and human well-being, with a focus on ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’. In spite of his thesis in ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’, I shall argue that Freud, always in some measure under the influence of Comtean progressivism, was consistently a meliorist: He was always at least guardedly optimistic about the realizable prospect of utopia, under the ‘soft dictatorship’ of reason and guided by advances in science and technology, in spite of (...) due recognition in his later years of the possibility of annihilation through technological advances in warfare. The possibility of human annihilation, then, muffled Freud’s meliorism. Freud’s ‘muffled meliorism’, however, was not a quiet commitment to viewing technology as something good. Ultimately, Freud steered a middle course between techno-advocacy and techno-antagonism. The technologies of science, like the discoveries of psychoanalysis, were tools for humans that could be used for human betterment or, as war showed, for human degeneration. (shrink)

In a letter to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson includes a syllabus—a comparative account of the merits of Jewish morality, ancient philosophy, and the precepts of Jesus. Using the syllabus as a guide, this paper is a critical examination of the influence of ancient ethical and religious thinking on Jefferson’s ethical and religious thinking—viz., Jefferson’s views of the ethics and religion of the Hebrews, the ancient philosophers, and Jesus.

In a letter to Benjamin Rush, Jefferson includes a syllabus—a comparative account of the merits of Jewish morality, ancient philosophy, and the precepts of Jesus. Using the syllabus as a guide, this paper is a critical examination of the influence of ancient ethical and religious thinking on Jefferson’s ethical and religious thinking—viz., Jefferson’s views of the ethics and religion of the Hebrews, the ancient philosophers, and Jesus.

Plato noticed a sizeable problem apropos of establishing his republic—that there was always a ready pool of zealous potential rulers, lying in wait for a suitable opportunity to rule on their own tyrannical terms. He also recognized that those persons best suited to rule, those persons with foursquare and unimpeachable virtue, would be least motivated to govern. Ruling a polis meant that those persons, fully educated and in complete realization that the most complete happiness comprises solitary study of things unchanging, (...) would have to compromise their happiness for the wellbeing of their polis and of the people in it. Plato’s solution, in effect that the aristoi would merely recognize their duty to sacrifice personal happiness for the happiness of the polis, has perplexed and continues today to perplex scholars. Like Plato, Jefferson recognized that there was always a pool of eager sharks, ready to govern. His republicanism, comprising a ward system and general education, was founded on the fullest participation of its citizenry, suitably educated and a governing aristoi. The true aristoi, the “natural aristoi”, are the intelligent and virtuous and that government is best which allows for a “pure selection” of the natural aristoi into the governing offices. Nonetheless, as Jefferson’s own life shows, non-parochial governing meant being rent from domestic tranquility, being forced to leave behind one’s personal affairs to decay, and being tossed willy-nilly into the coliseum of nonstop political wrangling. Why would anyone, particularly one wanting to be happy, wish to govern? Thus, Jefferson faced the same problem that Plato faced. How could a state be structured so that the wisest and most virtuous would be motivated to rule? In this paper, I argue that Jefferson, in full recognition of the problem of encouraging the most intelligent and virtuous to govern, the problem of public service, offers a solution that is remarkably Platonic. (shrink)

Scholars today are divided on the motivation behind what is often called Jefferson’s “moral agrarianism”. On the one hand, some scholars take Jefferson at his word when he mentions that agrarianism is a moral vision. For these individuals, Jefferson’s agrarianism is a moral vision and an indispensible part of the good life. On the other hand, other scholars maintain that Jefferson’s moral agrarianism is merely a bit of propaganda that insidiously sheaths a political or economic ideal. For them, Jefferson is (...) through and throughout a politician, and expressions of agrarianism as a moral ideal amount to mere cant. In this paper, I examine arguments for and against Jefferson’s moral agrarianism. I defend the position that Jefferson was an aboveboard moral agrarianist and that the ideal of agrarianism was not just one that was suited for Americans, given their surfeit of land and want of laborers, but an ideal that also applied universally. I end with thoughts on Jefferson’s recognition of the rise of manufacturing in American cities throughout his life. (shrink)

The contention that abortion harms women constitutes a new strategy employed by the pro-life movement to supplement arguments about fetal rights. David C. Reardon is a prominent promoter of this strategy. Post-abortion syndrome purports to establish that abortion psychologically harms women and, indeed, can harm persons associated with women who have abortions. Thus, harms that abortion is alleged to produce are multiplied. Claims of repression are employed to complicate efforts to disprove the existence of psychological harm and causal antecedents of (...) trauma are only selectively investigated. We argue that there is no such thing as post-abortion syndrome and that the psychological harms Reardon and others claim abortion inflicts on women can usually be ascribed to different causes. We question the evidence accumulated by Reardon and his analysis of data accumulated by others. Most importantly, we question whether the conclusions Reardon has drawn follow from the evidence he cites. (shrink)

The contention that abortion harms women constitutes a new strategy employed by the pro-life movement to supplement arguments about fetal rights. David C. Reardon is a prominent promoter of this strategy. Post-abortion syndrome purports to establish that abortion psychologically harms women and, indeed, can harm persons associated with women who have abortions. Thus, harms that abortion is alleged to produce are multiplied. Claims of repression are employed to complicate efforts to disprove the existence of psychological harm and causal antecedents of (...) trauma are only selectively investigated. We argue that there is no such thing as post-abortion syndrome and that the psychological harms Reardon and others claim abortion inflicts on women can usually be ascribed to different causes. We question the evidence accumulated by Reardon and his analysis of data accumulated by others. Most importantly, we question whether the conclusions Reardon has drawn follow from the evidence he cites. (shrink)

In this paper we will argue in favor of federal funding of elective abortion, more specifically in support of Medicaid funding. To do so, we will address the restrictions on public funding presently in place and demonstrate that the various justifications offered in their defense are in­adequate. We will then suggest that the ‘failure to enable’ represented by a ban on Federal funding is morally equivalent to an outright prohibition on abortion for the target population. Just as a moral equivalence (...) can be established between killing and letting die in symmetrical cases, like criteria for equivalence can be established that help to identify those failures to make possible that are morally indistinguishable from proscriptions. On this basis, it can be shown that restrictions on Federal funding in such contexts can be thought to carry the same moral liability as prohibitions. (shrink)

Over the past few years, over a dozen states have proposed, and almost as many have passed, something referred to as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a piece of legislation that makes abortion impermissible once fetal pain is possible and that further stipulates the fetus can feel pain at or before 20 weeks of gestation. Some very important questions immediately relevant to the abortion debate, perhaps even to the more complex issue of fetal rights, are raised by this legislation, (...) especially because it would impinge on the second-trimester abortion rights guaranteed by Roe. We first inquire whether the claim of fetal pain perception at or before 20 weeks is true and how such a claim should be substantiated. Next, we inquire whether the fetal capacity to experience pain, at whatever stage of development, reflects on the morality of abortion and whether it should be at all relevant to determining its legality. Finally, we would like to explore the implications that a commitment to a pain-related or sentience criterion of rights might have for a pro-life agenda. (shrink)

Many say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are (...) themselves substantive. (shrink)

Some have it that wholes are, somehow, identical to their parts. This doctrine is as alluring as it is puzzling. But in this paper, I show that the doctrine is inconsistent with two widely accepted theses. Something has to go.

Here's an interesting question: what are we? David Barnett has claimed that reflection on consciousness suggests an answer: we are simple. Barnett argues that the mereological simplicity of conscious beings best explains the Datum: that no pair of persons can itself be conscious. In this paper, I offer two alternative explanations of the Datum. If either is correct, Barnett's argument fails. First, there aren't any such things as pairs of persons. Second, consciousness is maximal; no conscious thing is a proper (...) part of another conscious thing. I conclude by showing how both moves comport with materialist theories of what we are and then apply them to another anti-materialist argument. (shrink)

Andrews explores spiritual practices that were the vital source from which everything else about Transcendentalism-texts, ideas, and social action-flowed. These practices are eminently available to spiritual seekers today, both those who are connected to conventional forms of religiosity and those who are allergic to 'religion.

Making room for agency in a physical world is no easy task. Can it be done at all? In this article, I consider and reject an argument in the negative.

Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.