Learning to understand a single causal system can be an achievement, but humans must learn about multiple causal systems over the course of a lifetime. We present a hierarchical Bayesian framework that helps to explain how learning about several causal systems can accelerate learning about systems that are subsequently encountered. Given experience with a set of objects, our framework learns a causal model for each object and a causal schema that captures commonalities among these causal models. The schema organizes the (...) objects into categories and specifies the causal powers and characteristic features of these categories and the characteristic causal interactions between categories. A schema of this kind allows causal models for subsequent objects to be rapidly learned, and we explore this accelerated learning in four experiments. Our results confirm that humans learn rapidly about the causal powers of novel objects, and we show that our framework accounts better for our data than alternative models of causal learning. (shrink)

Welfare-friendly outdoor poultry husbandry systems are associated with potentially higher public health risks for certain hazards, which results in a dilemma: whether to choose a system that improves chicken welfare or a system that reduces these public health risks. We studied the views of citizens and poultry farmers on judging the dilemma, relevant moral convictions and moral arguments in a practical context. By means of an online questionnaire, citizens (n = 2259) and poultry farmers (n = 100) judged three practical (...) cases, which illustrate the dilemma of improving chicken welfare or reducing public health risks for Campylobacter, avian influenza and dioxin. Furthermore, they scored the importance of moral arguments and to what extend they agreed with moral convictions related to humans and chickens. Citizens were more likely than farmers to choose a system that benefits chicken welfare at the expense of public health. These different judgments could be explained by differing moral convictions and valuations of moral arguments. Judgments of citizens and farmers were associated with moral arguments and convictions, predominantly with those regarding the value of chickens and naturalness. Citizens agreed stronger with moral convictions regarding the intrinsic value of chickens and regarding naturalness than farmers did, while farmers agreed stronger with conviction regarding fairness. We argue that opinions of citizens and farmers are context-dependent, which may explain the differences between these groups. It implies that opinions of different stakeholder groups should be considered in order to achieve successful innovations in poultry husbandry, which are supported by society. (shrink)

If Bayesian Fundamentalism existed, Jones & Love's (J&L's) arguments would provide a necessary corrective. But it does not. Bayesian cognitive science is deeply concerned with characterizing algorithms and representations, and, ultimately, implementations in neural circuits; it pays close attention to environmental structure and the constraints of behavioral data, when available; and it rigorously compares multiple models, both within and across papers. J&L's recommendation of Bayesian Enlightenment corresponds to past, present, and, we hope, future practice in Bayesian cognitive science.

Company–community agreements are widely considered to be a practical mechanism for recognising the rights, needs and priorities of peoples impacted by mining, for managing impacts and ensuring that mining-derived benefits are shared. The use and application of company–community agreements is increasing globally. Notwithstanding the utility of these agreements, the gender dimensions of agreement processes in mining have rarely been studied. Prior research on women and mining demonstrates that women are often more adversely impacted by mining than men, and face greater (...) challenges in accessing development opportunities that mining can bring. Nonetheless, there is currently little guidance for companies, government or communities in bringing a gender perspective to the fore in mining and agreement processes. It is undisputed in human development literature that investment in women and sensitivity to gender delivers long-term health, education and local development outcomes. In mining and development, a number of key factors remain unexplored. These include: women’s participation in agreement processes, the gendered distribution of agreement benefits, and the extent to which impacts and benefits influence women’s development and economic inclusion. This paper presents the results of the first phase of an applied research project undertaken by the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at The University of Queensland and funded by the Minerals Council of Australia and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The project sought to connect with experienced practitioners who had been directly involved in mining and agreement processes to document and analyse grounded perspectives on gender dynamics and agreements, and connect those experiences with the broader literature. Findings from this study have implications for the role of mining companies and governments in promoting gender equality and empowerment as part of their commitments to sustainable development. They also have implications for community groups and their representatives in terms of how they might engage in agreement processes to maximise women’s participation and influence. In many social contexts, a key challenge will be navigating the territory of cultural norms and gender equality, particularly in cultures where women’s influence in the public sphere is not strong. The authors argue that without consideration of a gender perspective, including gender’s intersection with other factors such as class, race, poverty level, ethnic group and age, mining agreements will not be inclusive, may exacerbate gender inequalities, and fail to contribute to long-term sustainable development. (shrink)

Welfare-friendly outdoor poultry husbandry systems are associated with potentially higher public health risks for certain hazards, which results in a dilemma: whether to choose a system that improves chicken welfare or a system that reduces these public health risks. We studied the views of citizens and poultry farmers on judging the dilemma, relevant moral convictions and moral arguments in a practical context. By means of an online questionnaire, citizens and poultry farmers judged three practical cases, which illustrate the dilemma of (...) improving chicken welfare or reducing public health risks for Campylobacter, avian influenza and dioxin. Furthermore, they scored the importance of moral arguments and to what extend they agreed with moral convictions related to humans and chickens. Citizens were more likely than farmers to choose a system that benefits chicken welfare at the expense of public health. These different judgments could be explained by differing moral convictions and valuations of moral arguments. Judgments of citizens and farmers were associated with moral arguments and convictions, predominantly with those regarding the value of chickens and naturalness. Citizens agreed stronger with moral convictions regarding the intrinsic value of chickens and regarding naturalness than farmers did, while farmers agreed stronger with conviction regarding fairness. We argue that opinions of citizens and farmers are context-dependent, which may explain the differences between these groups. It implies that opinions of different stakeholder groups should be considered in order to achieve successful innovations in poultry husbandry, which are supported by society. (shrink)

The author's purpose is to show that the traditional ways of dealing with problems in the subject of art, Namely, Through discovering "(a) what is the common property in all works of art which distinguishes them from things that are not works of art, And (b) what is the common property in all good works of art which distinguishes them from bad or mediocre ones" are unsatisfactory. (staff).

Does the relation of seeing something as another really differ from seeing the one as resembling the other? Does seeing a cloud as a camel really differ from seeing a resemblance between the cloud and a camel? It is easy to think not, but I claim that the logic of the relation B sees x as resembling y differs markedly from that of B sees x as y and thus that we have two relations, not one. Aspect-perception is nontransitive, nonsymmetric, (...) irreflexive and categorical. Perceived or subjective resemblance is weakly or faintly transitive, symmetric, reflexive and graded. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:God’s Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering. Vol. 1 of Divine Vulnerability and Creation (Princeton Theological Monograph Series, 100)Raymond Kemp AndersonGod’s Wounds: Hermeneutic of the Christian Symbol of Divine Suffering. Vol. 1 of Divine Vulnerability and Creation (Princeton Theological Monograph Series, 100) Jeff B. Pool Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009. 358 pp. $38.00One should not be put off by a negative-sounding title. Jeff Pool’s (...) exhaustive study could as well be titled more positively as “God’s Passion” for the “passio” root-meaning linked to our concept of suffering describes in large part what [End Page 224] he is about. But we must reluctantly concede that Pool’s treatment barely glimmers where we might expect to find light-hearted joy in the passion-resurrection and eschatological promise that he does acknowledge is at the heart of the Christian gospel.In his effort to follow methodological strictures consonant with his Chicago schooling with Langdon Gilkey and others, Pool is at pains to keep his academic back to the wall. So the first part of this two-part volume simply rehearses the enormous plurality of “Christian attestations” to the theme of divine suffering (and patripassianism). Attestations of every stripe rub shoulders here and seem to acquire almost equal footing. Yet by calling his topic a “symbol,” Pool does not mean to question the believed ontological actuality of “divine suffering.” In his view, this suffering is not just a symbol but describes for Christian faith an actuality that corners into the meaning and purpose of our very existence. So, as it turns out, he offers us much more than a history-of-religions compilation of diverse “attestations”; he is intent on reworking a tenable systematic theology and theological ethic as these intersect with his theme.Pool’s criteria for ranking some “attestations” over others remain obscure, and we might think him to be arguing rationalistically from personal preferences, until finally (217 pages into his text) he slips in what he calls “an additional epistemological interlude” that divulges what apparently has been an underlying hermeneutic basis all along: his own Messianic secret, as it were, a Christological-revelational criterion and final norm based on the apostolic tradition.Pool’s proclivity for rational analysis may become self-deceptive. At points he does include disclaimers, explaining that his “analyses” of living realities are only mental abstractions describing aspects of personal wholes that in fact cannot be split apart. Yet he forgets himself here, I think, and attempts to subject both divine and human personhood to scholastic “analysis.” For example, his descriptive categories of different “human capacities to love” (along the lines of Nygren’s three loves) become so reified in his “analysis” that he begins to refer to them as if they were schizoid entities that modify, block, and limit each other in our psyche and even in God’s (as if we could strap down the mystery of holistic love and dissect it). Nevertheless, theologians may find Pool’s analytic endeavors quite challenging.This book is definitely not for your introductory ethics course. Pool’s language is labored and presupposes a wide command of the field. His treatment is original, in some respects idiosyncratic, and intentionally revisionist. Written in a neoscholastic vein, this study will give you far more about God’s suffering than you thought anyone ever wanted or needed to know. Yet it promises you a substantial theological workout, offering something provocative and worth considering on nearly every page. Its greatest strength is its perceptive bibliographical annotations, both in the text and in the wealth of footnotes that compose between a third and half of the book. The bibliography [End Page 225] itself, however, which masses together more than a thousand titles, may be too exhaustive to provide much selective guidance.Raymond Kemp AndersonWilson CollegeCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Glock’s book is about evenly divided between Quine and Davidson. The central claims are (i) that they are best studied in conjunction; (ii) that they ‘can profitably be seen as logical pragmatists’ (meaning primarily that they view language as action that can be understood or clarified by means of formal logic); (iii) that they ‘combine profound insights with serious distortions’; and (iv) that their respective attempts to ‘accommodate higher phenomena such as meaning and thought within a naturalistic framework’ are ‘misguided’ (...) (pp. – ). But the overriding aim is clearly to establish (iv) along with the negative.. (shrink)

The intent of this article is not to compare the philosophies of education of Confucius and Peter Kemp but to draw out what is perennial in Confucius’s philosophy of education and bring it to the contemporary context in Peter Kemp’s philosophy of education. The first part deals with Confucius’s teachings on education. The second part highlights Peter Kemp’s philosophy of education, the context of which is globalization and its dangers. The synthesis of both philosophies would mean that education is a (...) right that everyone is entitled to, that education is basically cultivation of character more than instruction, that the virtues of ren, righteousness, wisdom, and propriety can be adapted and applied to the demands of global citizenship. The method of teaching can be both dialogical (Confucius) and democratic (Kemp) when the teacher is passionate, engaged, knowledgeable of issues, caring for students, and an exemplar of what she teachers. (shrink)

Professor Kemp Smith in providing a new edition of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , embodying all the author’s additions and corrections, has given expression to the perennial interest and fascination which this work has possessed for many minds during the odd one hundred and fifty years since it was first published by Hume’s nephew. The editor himself has performed a great service by contributing an Introduction and a clear and concise summary of the Dialogues , in both of which (...) he expounds his own view as to how Hume’s discussion is to be interpreted. Hume employs three characters—Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes; and. (shrink)

In a series of illuminating papers Frankena called attention to a basic philosophical disagreement about what features distinguish moral from non-moral principles, rules, ideals, etc., and about “what a morality is,” when, for example, one speaks of the “morality” of a person or a group. After reviewing a number of writings, he emphasized an important contrast between two “families” of moralists and moral philosophers. On the one side are those who think that certain “formal” conditions are sufficient to distinguish moral (...) “action-guides” from nonmoral ones. On the other side are those who insist that a certain “material” and “social” condition must be added; as they see it, an action-guide is moral only if it pronounces “actions and agents to be right, wrong, good, bad, etc., simply because of the effect they have on the feelings, interests, ideals, etc., of other persons or centers of sentient experience, actual or hypothetical.” The issue, in brief, is whether any set of principles or other articles counts as a morality simply because a person or a group of persons takes that set as the supreme, or as a rational and universalizable guide to what is right and wrong, or whether such a set must be “social” in the sense that acts are prescribed as right or wrong in virtue of the acts’ effects on others as well as on oneself. In the former group, Frankena includes existentialists, many religious thinkers, Hare, Ladd, Falk, etc.; in the latter, Toulmin, Baier, Singer, Strawson, Kemp, etc. (shrink)

This note relates to two recent papers in the journal. The main point was to highlight Kempe's theory of multisets (as we now call them), especially in the background to the start of Peirce's theory of existential graphs.

The author briskly gives the principles of criticism which he will follow in examining Kant's theory of time, and the distinctions between absolute time, psychological time, and the duration of events and processes which must be made in order to deal with the time theories of Kant and his great predecessors Newton and Leibniz and their defenders. Al-Azm then follows Kant's writings from 1747 through his brief conversion to the Newtonian "receptacle" theory, through the critical period. He considers the Dissertation (...) of 1770, at least in so far as it deals with space and time, to belong to the latter. The principles of criticism are especially relevant to Al-Azm's interpretation of Kant's time doctrine in the critical period. He holds that we must carefully bear in mind Kant's alternation of analytic and synthetic methods, and their dialectic interplay. If we do so, we can explain away the "patchwork" theory of Kemp Smith and others, as the obscurities and apparent inconsistencies and paradoxes which are resolvable in the light of the roles played for Kant by the approaches he employs. Within the first Critique, the teachings on time in the Aesthetic and the Analytic constitute a "genuine dialectic of a highly complex order." Thus, Kant's final position should be sought in the progressive modifications of the preliminary position. Al-Azm regards the Aesthetic as offering merely provisional statements on the subject of time, reached by a process of analysis, at an early dialectical stage, and offering a starting point for a fresh stage in analysis which aims "at the unveiling of the synthetic processes of the understanding." This is accomplished in the Analytic. In a last section, on the first Antinomy, the author considers Strawson's essay, The Bounds of Sense, published in 1966, and cites passages which he feels defend Kant's theory of time, seen in its relation to the critical philosophy, as successfully against Strawson's interpretation as against the claims of its Leibnizian and Newtonian rivals.--M. B. M. (shrink)

Gary Kemp defends Realist approaches to the paradox of analysis. Other, prima facie equally viable approaches to this problem are the Nominalist one of Langford and Camap and the Conceptualist one of Prior and Stalnaker. In the context of a fuller survey focus is set on the realist attempt. This puts one in a better position to arbitrate between these approaches and give a more final assessment of the realist one, including an assessment of Kemp's defence of it. The Conceptualist (...) one, as it turns out, triumphs over the others, and is the basis for a Wittgensteinian vie w of the a priori which is analyzed in the second part of the paper. (shrink)

Gary Kemp defends Realist approaches to the paradox of analysis. Other, prima facie equally viable approaches to this problem are the Nominalist one of Langford and Camap and the Conceptualist one of Prior and Stalnaker. In the context of a fuller survey focus is set on the realist attempt. This puts one in a better position to arbitrate between these approaches and give a more final assessment of the realist one, including an assessment of Kemp's defence of it. The Conceptualist (...) one, as it turns out, triumphs over the others, and is the basis for a Wittgensteinian vie w of the a priori which is analyzed in the second part of the paper. (shrink)

A brilliant attempt to show how the Transcendental Deduction can be construed as a strict logical deduction. Using Kemp Smith's "pathwork" theory in a novel way, Wolff organizes his commentary around four versions of the main argument which reflect Kant's increasing philosophic subtlety. The heart of the commentary is an analysis of synthesis as a rule-directed mental activity. Throughout there is a judicious balance of historical, textual and philosophic analysis, making this a truly rich commentary.--R. J. B.

The Groningen protocol allows for the euthanasia of severely ill newborns with a hopeless prognosis and unbearable suffering. We understand the impetus for such a protocol but have moral and ethical concerns with it. Advocates for euthanasia in adults have relied on the concept of human autonomy, which is lacking in the case of infants. In addition, biases can potentially influence the decision making of both parents and physicians. It is also very difficult to weigh the element of quality of (...) life on the will to live. We feel an important line has been crossed if the international medical community consents to the active euthanasia of severely ill infants and are concerned about the extension of the policy to other at risk groups. (shrink)

The validity of the double effect doctrine is examined in euthanasia and abortion. In these two situations killing is a method of treatment. It is argued that the doctrine cannot apply to the care of the dying. Firstly, doctors are obliged to harm patients in order to do good to them. Secondly, patients should make their own value judgments about being mutilated or killed. Thirdly, there is little intuitive moral difference between direct and indirect killing. Nor can the doctrine apply (...) to abortion. Doctors kill fetuses as a means of treating the mother. They also kill them as an inevitable side effect of other treatment. Drawing a moral distinction between the direct and the indirect killing gives counterintuitive results. It is suggested that pragmatic rules, not ethics, govern practices around euthanasia and cause it to be more restricted than abortion. (shrink)

A brilliant attempt to show how the Transcendental Deduction can be construed as a strict logical deduction. Using Kemp Smith's "pathwork" theory in a novel way, Wolff organizes his commentary around four versions of the main argument which reflect Kant's increasing philosophic subtlety. The heart of the commentary is an analysis of synthesis as a rule-directed mental activity. Throughout there is a judicious balance of historical, textual and philosophic analysis, making this a truly rich commentary.--R. J. B.

Kemp's purpose is to investigate the function of reason in man's practical life. He proceeds by critically discussing the view of Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Hume, and Kant on the relation between reason and morality. This serves as a basis for Kemp's own discussion in which, as is characteristic of many contemporary philosophers, he attempts to distinguish carefully between describing a line of conduct and assessing it. He delineates four methods of assessment: conformity of an action to law, consistency of a (...) line of conduct, intelligence of behavior, and insight or discernment of the requirements of a situation. While the approach of Kemp is in the spirit of many other recent investigations of moral discourse and rules, it is not entirely clear in what ways he makes an advance beyond these investigations.—R. J. B. (shrink)

The physician charter on medical professionalism creates standards of ethical behaviour for physicians and has been endorsed by professional organisations worldwide. It is based on the cardinal principles of the primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy, and social welfare. There has been little discussion in the bioethics community of the doctrine of the charter and none from a Jewish ethical perspective. In this essay the authors discuss the obligations of the charter from a Jewish ethical viewpoint and call on other (...) cultures to develop their own unique perspectives on this important document. (shrink)

This book is a study of the second-edition version of the 'Transcendental Deduction', which is one of the most important and obscure sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By way of a close analysis of the B-Deduction, Adam Dickerson makes the distinctive claim that the Deduction is crucially concerned with the problem of making intelligible the unity possessed by complex representations - a problem that is the representationalist parallel of the semantic problem of the unity of the proposition. Along (...) the way he discusses most of the key themes in Kant's theory of knowledge, including the nature of thought and representation, the notion of objectivity, and the way in which the mind structures our experience of the world. (shrink)

An argument is a conceptual instrument through which a certain logical f order between propositions can be seen to exist. But does an argument show that a proposition is true? It does, if by ‘that’ you mean that the proposition can be seen to follow through the instrument of a valid argument which employs true premises. But when we wonder whether to believe that a proposition is true we do not always wonder whether or not the proposition follows logically from (...) other propositions. We want to know f whether the proposition is in itself true, whether or not it follows from another proposition or series of propositions. That a proposition is true f may be a fact, whether or not the machinery of reason has succeeded in focusing our attention on its truth by extracting its truth from other true premises. (shrink)

Aim: Patients with advanced cancer need information about end-of-life treatment options in order to make informed decisions. Clinicians vary in the frequency with which they initiate these discussions.Patients and methods: As part of a long-term longitudinal study, patients with an expected 2-year survival of less than 50% who had advanced gastrointestinal or lung cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were interviewed. Each patient’s medical record was reviewed at enrollment and at 3 months for evidence of the discussion of patient wishes concerning (...) ventilator support, artificial nutrition and hydration , resuscitation and hospice care. A Kaplan–Meier analysis was also performed and 2-year survival calculated.Results: 60 cancer and 32 ALS patients were enrolled. ALS patients were more likely than cancer patients to have evidence of discussion about their wishes for ventilator support , ANH , DNR and hospice care . At 6 months, 91% of ALS patients were alive compared with 62% of cancer patients; at 2 years, 63% of ALS patients were alive compared with 23% of cancer patients .Conclusions: Cancer patients were less likely than ALS patients to have had documented advanced care planning discussions despite worse survival. This may reflect perceptions that ALS has a more predictable course, that advanced cancer has a greater number of treatment options, or differing views about hope. Nevertheless, cancer patients may be less adequately prepared for end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

An attempt is made to show that Wittgenstein's later philosophy of logic is not the kind of conventionalism which is often ascribed to him. On the contrary, Wittgenstein gives expression to a “mixed” theory which is not only interesting but tends to resolve the perplexities usually associated with the question of the a priori character of logical truth. I try to show that Wittgenstein is better understood not as denying that there are such things as “logical rules” nor as denying (...) that the results of applying such rules are “logically necessary,” but as trying to understand what it is to appeal to a logical rule and what it means to say that the results of applying such a rule are “necessary.” He is not so much overthrowing standard accounts of logical necessity as discovering the limits of the concept. (shrink)

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Although its focus is national, its scope encompasses most of Western Europe and beyond, providing a full-scale account of the First Crusade. Apart from its formidable learning, it is characterized by narrative skill and entertainment value - with topics including unpowered flight and Henry I's zoo. This edition in the Oxford Medieval Texts series (...) is the first modern translation and edition. A full historical introduction is supplied in Volume II. (shrink)

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Although its focus is national, its scope encompasses most of Western Europe and beyond, providing a full-scale account of the First Crusade. Apart from its formidable learning, it is characterized by narrative skill and entertainment value - with topics including unpowered flight and Henry I's zoo. This edition in the Oxford Medieval Texts series (...) is the first modern translation and edition. A full historical introduction is supplied in Volume II. (shrink)

There are many people in the world who want to be Somebody. Let us describe someone as Somebody who comes to believe that, in one or more respects, he or she is a special or significant person and who succeeds, through whatever means, in acquiring some sort of reputation and some sort of fame. People want to become Somebody because they believe that unless they succeed in that respect they will turn out to be a mere mediocrity, or worse still, (...) to be thought of as a mere mediocrity. People want to leave some sort of mark in this world before they die. They do not want their passage through this world to be utterly ineffectual. This, I think, is the seed from which the ideal of being Somebody emerges. (shrink)

Some approaches to the assessment of moral intuitions are discussed. The controlled ethical trial isolates a moral issue from confounding factors and thereby clarifies what a person's intuition actually is. Casuistic reasoning from situations, where intuitions are clear, suggests or modifies principles, which can then help to make decisions in situations where intuitions are unclear. When intuitions are defended by a supporting principle, that principle can be tested by finding extreme cases, in which it is counterintuitive to follow the principle. (...) An approach to the resolution of conflict between valid moral principles, specifically the utilitarian and justice principles, is considered. It is argued that even those who justify intuitions by a priori principles are often obliged to modify or support their principles by resort to the consideration of consequences. (shrink)