Arrhythmias are irregular heartbeats that may be life-threatening. Proper monitoring and the right care at the right time are necessary to keep the heart healthy. Monitoring electrocardiogram patterns on continuous monitoring devices is time-consuming. An intense manual inspection by caregivers is not an option. In addition, such an inspection could result in errors and inter-variability. This article proposes an automated ECG beat classification method based on deep neural networks to aid in the detection of cardiac arrhythmias. The data collected by (...) an Internet of Things enabled ECG monitoring device are transferred to a server. They are analysed by a deep learning model, and the results are shared with the primary caregiver. The proposed model is trained using the MIT-BIH ECG arrhythmia database to classify into four classes: normal beat, left bundle branch block beat, right bundle branch block beat, and premature ventricular contraction. The received data are sampled with an overlapping sliding window and divided into an 80:20 ratio for training and testing, with tenfold cross-validation. The proposed method achieves higher accuracy with a simple model without any preprocessing when compared with previous works. For the train and test sets, we achieved accuracy rates of 99.09 and 99.03%, respectively. A precision, recall, and F1 scores of 0.99 is obtained. The proposed model achieves its goal of developing a simple and accurate ECG monitoring system with improved performance. This simple and efficient deep learning approach for heartbeat classification could be applied in real-time telehealth monitoring systems. (shrink)

Animal behaviour and welfare research are part of a wider endeavour to optimize the health and wellbeing of humans, animals and ecosystems. As such, it is part of the One Health research agenda. This article applies ethical principles described by the One Health High Level Expert Panel to animal behaviour and welfare research. These principles entail that animal behaviour and welfare research should be valued equitably alongside other research in transdisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration. It should include and promote a multiplicity (...) of marginalized voices, including those of animals, and it should apply and describe a harmonious balance between human—animal-environment interactions. Lastly, it should describe how humans need to change behaviour, adopt sustainable solutions and recognize the importance of animal welfare and the integrity of the whole ecosystem. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson’s work provides numerous ways to rethink and improve our approach to metaphysics. This chapter is my attempt to begin to sketch why I still think the easy approach leaves room for substantive metaphysical work, and why I do not think that metaphysics need rely on any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge. After distinguishing two possible forms of deflationism, I argue that the easy ontologist needs to accept (implicitly or explicitly) that there are worldly constraints on what sorts of entities could (...) exist, and could co-exist. I argue this leaves room for a substantive role for metaphysics if (following the work of E.J. Lowe) we take metaphysics to be concerned with the possible ways that reality could be. I explain how this conception does not need to appeal to any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge, and need only make use of conceptual and/or empirical means to arrive at views on what could exist (and co-exist). Thus, the answer I propose to the question posed in the title, at least in my view, is no-one. Or, at least, no-one should be afraid of conceptual analysis. Not even metaphysicians. (shrink)

Discusses the work of G.I. Gurdjieff and his establishment of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of man, and examines the contributions of Gurdjieff's two major disciples, P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage.

This book presents a comprehensive, accessible survey of Western philosophy of music from Pythagoras to the present. Its narrative traces themes and schools through history, in a sequence of five chapters that survey the ancient, medieval, early modern, modern and contemporary periods. Its wide-ranging coverage includes medieval Islamic thinkers, Continental and analytic thinkers, and neglected female thinkers such as Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). All aspects of the philosophy of music are discussed, including music and the cosmos, music's value, music's relation (...) to the other arts, the problem of opera, the origins of musical genius, music's emotional impact, the moral effects of music, the ontology of musical works, and the relevance of music's historical context. The volume will be valuable for students and scholars in philosophy and musicology, and all who are interested in the ways in which philosophers throughout history have thought about music. (shrink)

Organ donation after the circulatory determination of death requires the permanent cessation of circulation while organ donation after the brain determination of death requires the irreversible cessation of brain functions. The unified brain-based determination of death connects the brain and circulatory death criteria for circulatory death determination in organ donation as follows: permanent cessation of systemic circulation causes permanent cessation of brain circulation which causes permanent cessation of brain perfusion which causes permanent cessation of brain function. The relevant circulation that (...) must cease in circulatory death determination is that to the brain. Eliminating brain circulation from the donor ECMO organ perfusion circuit in thoracoabdominal NRP protocols satisfies the unified brain-based determination of death but only if the complete cessation of brain circulation can be proved. Despite its medical and physiologic rationale, the unified brain-based determination of death remains inconsistent with the Uniform Determination of Death Act. (shrink)

This chapter provides an account of sexual ontology, grounded in and responsive to Irigaray’s philosophy, that focuses on the question of possibility. I first consider possibility in terms of the ontological negativity of sexuate beings, whereby one sex or sexuate morphology does not exhaust all that that kind of being is or can be. Second, I consider how sexual difference, as a relational structure of being, engenders possibilities for sexuate beings to develop as irreducible individuals. With particular focus on the (...) human being and the looming question of transhumanist technologies, I argue that these principles develop a sexual ontology that recognizes determinate limits between sexes while allowing for varied and creative expressions of sexuate life. (shrink)

While substantial progress has been made in the field known as artificial consciousness, at the present time there is no generally accepted phenomenally conscious machine, nor even a clear route to how one might be produced should we decide to try. Here, we take the position that, from our computer science perspective, a major reason for this is a computational explanatory gap: our inability to understand/explain the implementation of high-level cognitive algorithms in terms of neurocomputational processing. We explain how addressing (...) the computational explanatory gap can identify computational correlates of consciousness. We suggest that bridging this gap is not only critical to further progress in the area of machine consciousness, but would also inform the search for neurobiological correlates of consciousness and would, with high probability, contribute to demystifying the “hard problem” of understanding the mind–brain relationship. We compile a listing of previously proposed computational correlates of consciousness and, based on the results of recent computational modeling, suggest that the gating mechanisms associated with top-down cognitive control of working memory should be added to this list. We conclude that developing neurocognitive architectures that contribute to bridging the computational explanatory gap provides a credible and achievable roadmap to understanding the ultimate prospects for a conscious machine, and to a better understanding of the mind–brain problem in general. (shrink)

This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that (...) love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections. (shrink)

The past few decades have seen an explosion of research on causal reasoning in philosophy, computer science, and statistics, as well as descriptive work in psychology. In Causation with a Human Face, James Woodward integrates these lines of research and argues for an understanding of how each can inform the other: normative ideas can suggest interesting experiments, while descriptive results can suggest important normative concepts. Woodward's overall framework builds on the interventionist treatment of causation that he developed in Making (...) Things Happen. Normative ideas discussed include proposals about the role of invariant or stable relationships in successful causal reasoning and the notion of proportionality. He argues that these normative ideas are reflected in the causal judgments that people actually make as a descriptive matter. Woodward also discusses the common philosophical practice-particularly salient in philosophical accounts of causation--of appealing to intuitions or judgments about cases in support of philosophical theses. He explores how, properly understood, such appeals are not different in principle from appeals to results from empirical research, and demonstrates how they may serve as a useful source of information about causal cognition. (shrink)

We are immersed within an odorous sea of chemical currents that we parse into individual odors with complex structures. Odors have been posited as determined by the structural relation between the molecules that compose the chemical compounds and their interactions with the receptor site. But, naturally occurring smells are parsed from gaseous odor plumes. To give a comprehensive account of the nature of odors the chemosciences must account for these large distributed entities as well. We offer a focused review of (...) what is known about the perception of odor plumes for olfactory navigation and tracking, which we then connect to what is known about the role odorants play as properties of the plume in determining odor identity with respect to odor quality. We end by motivating our central claim that more research needs to be conducted on the role that odorants play within the odor plume in determining odor identity. (shrink)

A fresh explication of the Thomist justification of self-defense casts off the hobbles of the principle of double effects to find a more secure footing in the historicaldevelopment of subjective natural rights by medieval jurists, and a straight-forward application to the latent threat of death in childbirth posed by non-consensual pregnancy. By articulating the implicit Thomistic right to defensive abortion in terms of conditional rights bestowed in Creation as correlative to particular natural law duties, justly proportionate limits to defensive abortion (...) are identified, and balanced against the forfeited or reserved natural rights variously imputed to conceptus and embryo in non-consensual pregnancies. Subsequently, the varieties of involuntary consent are examined from a Thomist perspective with a view to their relevance in justifying recourse to a rehabilitated practice of defensive abortion when free and full consent to impregnation and childbirth is absent. (shrink)

This article develops an interpretation and defense of Husserl’s account of the omnitemporality of idealities. I first examine why Husserl rejects the atemporality and temporal individuation of idealities on phenomenological grounds, specifically that these attributions prove countersensical in how they relate idealities to consciousness. As an alternative to these conceptions, I develop a two-sided interpretation of omnitemporality expressed in modal terms of actuality and possibility, the actual referring to appearances in time and the possible, to reactivation at any time. In (...) defense of this interpretation of omnitemporality, I consider influential criticisms against Husserl’s account of idealities as they concern time, particularly whether the historical genesis of idealities compromises their omnitemporality by binding them to time. Ultimately, I argue that the transcendental historicity of idealities, despite being relevant to the question of validity and access, proves indifferent to their omnitemporality. (shrink)

One of the most important topics that Thomas Aquinas discusses in his extensive corpus is the love of friendship, which is a unique form of love aimed at persons. Yet Aquinas's teachings on this are perplexing, for he claims that this love always produces union between lover and beloved, and that it is always a mutual love. This implies that one's love depends on reciprocation from the beloved, which seems implausible given the possibility of phenomena such as unrequited love. A (...) common interpretation of Aquinas's account of the love of friendship maintains that it is enough that one desires union and mutuality for such love to obtain even if such desires remain unrealized, but in this paper I reject this reading and argue that achieving union and mutuality is essential to this form of love. This novel interpretation ultimately reveals that the love of friendship is an intrinsically interpersonal act. (shrink)

Many people attempt to give meaning to their lives by pursuing projects that they believe will bear fruit after they have died. Knowing that their death will preclude them from protecting or promoting such projects people who draw meaning from them will often attempt to secure their continuance by securing promises from others to serve as their caretakers after they die. But those who rely on such are faced with a problem: None of the four major accounts that have been (...) developed to explain directed promissory obligation (the Authority View, the Trust View, the Assurance View, and the Reliance View) support the view that we are obligated to keep our promises to persons who are now dead. But I will provide hope for those who wish to use such promises to protect the meaning with which they have endowed their lives. I will argue that while we cannot wrong a person who is now dead by breaking a promise made to her during her life, we could wrong the living by so doing. We thus (might) have reason to keep the promises that we made to those who are now dead. (shrink)

It is becoming increasingly common for authoritarian regimes to leverage digital technologies to surveil, repress and manipulate their citizens. Experts typically refer to this practice as digital authoritarianism (DA). Existing definitions of DA consistently presuppose a politically repressive agent intentionally exploiting digital technologies to pursue authoritarian ends. I refer to this as the intention-based definition. This paper argues that this definition is untenable as a general description of DA. I begin by illustrating the current predominance of the intention-based definition (Section (...) 2). Section 3 then presents four counterexamples to this definition: benign surveillance; digital sovereignty; attention-harvesting algorithms; and tech-induced loneliness. In each case, we witness authoritarianism being promoted by digital technologies without any evidence of this being intentionally caused by politically repressive agents. Based on these observations, I contend that the intention-based definition is underinclusive and is therefore unsustainable. Section 4 outlines an improved definition of DA – what I call the promotion-based definition. Since this more expansive definition does not posit intentional, politically repressive agency as a precondition of DA, it can accommodate the counterexamples discussed in Section 3. Moreover, it enables us to catch a broader spectrum of cases of DA, such as tech-induced loneliness, which those adhering to the intention-based definition are prone to overlook. After outlining further practical benefits of the promotion-based definition, I argue that we still need to distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of DA since they call for distinct types of remedial action. -/- . (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that writers on metaphor have misunderstood Aristotle on metaphor. Aristotle is not an elitist about metaphor and does not consider metaphors to be merely ornamental. Rather, Aristotle believes that metaphors are ubiquitous and believes that people can express themselves in a clearer and more attractive way through the use of metaphors and that people learn and understand things better through metaphor. He also distinguishes between the use of metaphor and the coinage of metaphor, and believes (...) that the ability to coin marvelous new metaphors is a form of literary genius, and he provided an entirely natural origin of metaphor coinage. (shrink)

Newton's bucket, Einstein's elevator, Schrödinger's cat – these are some of the best-known examples of thought experiments in the natural sciences. But what function do these experiments perform? Are they really experiments at all? Can they help us gain a greater understanding of the natural world? How is it possible that we can learn new things just by thinking? In this revised and updated new edition of his classic text _The Laboratory of the Mind_, James Robert Brown continues to (...) defend apriorism in the physical world. This edition features two new chapters, one on “counter thought experiments” and another on the development of inertial motion. With plenty of illustrations and updated coverage of the debate between Platonic rationalism and classic empiricism, this is a lively and engaging contribution to the field of philosophy of science. (shrink)

Beginning right at the start of the recently published volume II of Donner le temps, at its ‘bord’ or ‘boarding’ upon or out of a calmy oceanic surface, this essay examines the functions and movements of distinct surfaces in between Heidegger and Derrida. Confronting thus the tradition of the ‘Grund’, ‘Abgrund’, ‘Urgrund’, ‘Ungrund’, with the khôra-like surface of archi-writing and dissemination, the essay proposes an investigation of the philosophical and writerly space of Derrida/Heidegger not through their marks and letters, but (...) instead through the different surfaces of inscription and – simultaneous – effacement as the ‘proper places’ of thought and experience, of Destruktion and deconstruction. (shrink)

In this article I respond to the constructive criticisms of my views in Markets with Limits that have been developed by Amy E. White, Roderick T. Long, and Julian Koplin. I also outline how Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski have surreptitiously altered their position in the second edition of their book Markets Without Limits—alterations that they appear to have made in response to my criticisms. First, they have changed the view that they attribute to those they identify as anti-commodification theorists (...) in response to my claim that none of them hold the position that they attribute to them. Second, they have altered their definition of what constitutes a “semiotic” objection to markets. I argue that none of these changes successfully address my initial criticisms. By contrast, I believe that the revisions that I make to my views in response to the objections of White and Long address their concerns, and I concur with Koplin’s development of my views in the context of the use of AI. (shrink)

This paper interprets the influential colony management simulator ‘Dwarf Fortress’ existentially, in terms of finitude, absurdity, and narrative. It applies Aarseth/Möring’s proposed method of game interpretation, adopting their definition of ‘cybermedia’ as a generalized game ontology, then providing a specialized ontology of ‘Dwarf Fortress’ which describes its genre and salient gameplay features, incorporating Ian Bogost’s concept of ‘procedural rhetoric’. It then gives an existentialist interpretation of ‘Dwarf Fortress’ which centres on ‘finitude’, ‘absurdity’, and ‘narrative’, showing that ‘Dwarf Fortress’ is a (...) game about the existential tensions involved in being human. We live knowing our lives and civilizations are finite, that there are radical limits on what we can know and do. There is no meaning inherent in the world, or in history, so it is up to us to create our own, and one of our most powerful ways of doing this is narrative. (shrink)

This article critically analyzes Rawls’s attitude toward envy. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls is predominantly concerned with the threat that class envy poses to political stability. Yet he also briefly discusses the kind of envy that individuals experience toward their social peers, which he calls particular envy, and which I refer to as peer envy. He quickly concludes, however, that particular envy would not present a serious risk to the stability of his just society. In this article, I contest (...) this claim by arguing that the principles that structure Rawls’s ideal society are likely to exacerbate particular envy to a politically risky extent. Section 1 reconstructs his account of envy, giving special attention to his belief that competition kindles envy between peers. Section 2 then examines the way in which Rawls often endorses rivalry within the body politic. I argue that the society governed by justice as fairness is, on account of this rivalry, likely to generate a politically problematic degree of particular envy. In Section 3, I invoke ancient Greece as an example of a society that was, as a result of its intense competitiveness, often imperiled by dangerously elevated levels of peer envy. I then survey the key institutional mechanisms by which the ancient Greeks sought to manage this hazardous emotion. It turns out, however, that most of these mechanisms would be unavailable to Rawls insofar as they starkly contravene his principles of justice. I conclude that if Rawlsians wish to establish a society that fosters rivalry, they would do well to reflect on the means by which peer envy can be effectively harnessed. (shrink)

A novel account of virtue signaling and what makes it bad has recently been offered by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke. Despite plausibly vindicating the folk’s conception of virtue signaling as a bad thing, their account has recently been attacked by both Neil Levy and Evan Westra. According to Levy and Westra, virtue signaling actually supports the aims and progress of public moral discourse. In this paper, we rebut these recent defenses of virtue signaling. We suggest that virtue signaling only (...) supports the aims of public moral discourse to the extent it is an instance of a more general phenomenon that we call norm signaling. We then argue that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the quality of public moral discourse by undermining the evidence we typically rely on from the testimony and norm signaling of others. Thus, we conclude, not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation. (shrink)

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper explores some issues about the choice of variables for causal representation and explanation. Depending on which variables a researcher employs, many causal inference procedures and many treatments of causation will reach different conclusions about which causal relationships are present in some system of interest. The assumption of this paper is that some choices of variables are superior to other choices for the purpose of causal analysis. A number of possible criteria for variable choice are described and defended within (...) a broadly interventionist approach to causation. (shrink)

J. L. Schellenberg's Philosophy of Religion argues for a specific brand of sceptical religion that takes ‘Ultimism’ – the proposition that there is a metaphysically, axiologically, and soteriologically ultimate reality – to be the object to which the sceptical religionist should assent. In this article I shall argue that Ietsism – the proposition that there is merely something transcendental worth committing ourselves to religiously – is a preferable object of assent. This is for two primary reasons. First, Ietsism is far (...) more modest than Ultimism; Ietsism, in fact, is open to the truth of Ultimism, while the converse does not hold. Second, Ietsism can fulfil the same criteria that compel Schellenberg to argue for Ultimism. (shrink)

This book on modal logic is especially designed for philosophy students. It provides an accessible yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort is made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams instead of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dicto distinction. Discussion of philosophical (...) issues concerning the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems, which are widely regarded as the easiest to teach and use. It also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness that is easy to extend to quantifiers. This second edition contains a new chapter on logics of conditionals, an updated and expanded bibliography, and is updated throughout. (shrink)

In this paper we explain our pretense account of truth-talk and apply it in a diagnosis and treatment of the Liar Paradox. We begin by assuming that some form of deflationism is the correct approach to the topic of truth. We then briefly motivate the idea that all T-deflationists should endorse a fictionalist view of truth-talk, and, after distinguishing pretense-involving fictionalism (PIF) from error- theoretic fictionalism (ETF), explain the merits of the former over the latter. After presenting the basic framework (...) of our PIF account of truth-talk, we demonstrate a few advantages it offers over T-deflationist accounts that do not explicitly acknowledge pretense at work in the discourse. In turning to the Liar Paradox, we explain how the quasi-anaphoric functioning that our account attributes to truth-talk provides a diagnosis of the Liar Paradox (and other instances of semantic pathology) as having no content—in the sense of not specifying any of what we call M-conditions. At the same time, however, we vindicate the intuition that we can understand liar sentences, thereby avoiding one standard objection to “meaningless strategy” responses to the Liar Paradox. With this diagnosis in place, we then, by way of treatment, introduce a new predicate, ‘semantically defective’, and show how the explanation we give for its application allows for a consistent, yet revenge-immune, (dis)solution of the Liar Paradox, and semantic pathology generally. (shrink)

On a number of occasions in Plato’s dialogues Socrates appears to disavow all knowledge. At Apology 21d, for example, Socrates says of one of his interlocutors: ‘He, having no knowledge, thinks he knows something, while I, having none, don’t think I have any,’ On other occasions, however, Socrates does claim to know some things: ‘It is not a mere guess to say that knowledge and right opinion are different. There are few things I would claim to know, but that at (...) least is among them, whatever else is’ (Meno 98b). Gregory Vlastos has sought to show that Socrates did not contradict himself but operated on the basis of two different senses of ‘know’: ‘know in the sense of having certainty’ and ‘know on the basis of elenctic examination.’ I argue against Vlastos’ interpretation and propose instead that Socrates claimed to know various things, but not the essential nature of virtue. (shrink)

A new process philosophy of signs, where process becomes primary, and fixed relation secondary'Behind Red Doors - Signs, Process and the Political' - a post by James Williams on the Edinburgh University Press blogWhat is a sign? We usually think that it is a fixed relation: a red light signifies 'Stop'. In his bold new book, James Williams now argues that signs are varying processes: seeing the red light triggers a creative response to the question, Should I stop?Williams (...) develops this new process philosophy of signs through a formal model, in contrast to earlier structuralist definitions. He draws on the philosophies of Deleuze and Whitehead, criticises earlier work on the sign in biology by Jakob von Uexküll, and connects to contemporary work on process in the philosophy of biology by John Dupré.The process model has wide applications in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and informs their critical debates with science. In defining the sign as essentially political, this radical definition of the sign opens up new possibilities for social and political critique.". (shrink)

This work argues that philosophy is not just useful, but vital, for thinking coherently about priorities in health policy and public policy.

This paper examines the philosophy of Jean-Francois Lyotard in relation to the analytic philosophy of deep disagreement. It argues not just that his work has relevance for this debate, but that it offers a challenge to the ‘epistemic paradigm’ present in its academic literature, represented by the two most prominent sets of theories within it – the ‘fundamental epistemic principle’ and ‘hinge epistemology’ views, arguably most strongly represented by Michael Lynch and Duncan Pritchard, respectively. Focussing on Lyotard’s text ‘The Differend’, (...) I show how its conceptual framework and philosophy of language locates the cause of deep disagreement not in the epistemic realm, but in things which do not fully submit to epistemic evaluation: the radically incomplete and open nature of language, and our increasingly politically pluralistic world full of incommensurable differences that do not always admit of rational resolution. Lyotard’s work calls for us to conceptualize deep disagreements as problems of politics, not epistemology, and to find new ways of dealing with disagreements that do not force a solution on them (which often comes at the cost of one party being wronged, or worse) and to create new ways of speaking so that our collective conceptual resources can be increased to better deal with specific cases of dispute. Lyotard’s relevance for the philosophy of deep disagreement is also further discussed with references to Miranda Fricker’s work on ‘epistemic injustice’, which Lyotard, in a different vocabulary, is also concerned with and analyses in ‘The Differend’. (shrink)

This paper discusses some procedures developed in recent work in machine learning for inferring causal direction from observational data. The role of independence and invariance assumptions is emphasized. Several familiar examples including Hempel’s flagpole problem are explored in the light of these ideas. The framework is then applied to problems having to do with explanatory direction in non-causal explanation.

The developers of Red Hook Studios’ 2016 gothic horror game ‘Darkest Dungeon’ said that they wanted to ‘capture the human response to stress’. This paper analyses how the game does this with its ‘stress’, ‘affliction’ and ‘virtue’ mechanics. With reference to research literature on stress, I show how these mechanics, which could easily have been cheap gimmicks, approach the topic of stress with admirable detail, offering a complex reflection on the various aspects, positive and negative, of several possible human responses (...) to stress. They show how different responses include similar symptoms, how stress impacts the people around the stressed person, and make the case that stress can break people, but also fuel heroism. It is a fantastic example of how video game mechanics can be used to educate people about complex subjects without explicitly saying this is what they’re doing. (shrink)

Mathematicians often speak of conjectures as being confirmed by evidence that falls short of proof. For their own conjectures, evidence justifies further work in looking for a proof. Those conjectures of mathematics that have long resisted proof, such as the Riemann hypothesis, have had to be considered in terms of the evidence for and against them. In recent decades, massive increases in computer power have permitted the gathering of huge amounts of numerical evidence, both for conjectures in pure mathematics and (...) for the behavior of complex applied mathematical models and statistical algorithms. Mathematics has therefore become (among other things) an experimental science (though that has not diminished the importance of proof in the traditional style). We examine how the evaluation of evidence for conjectures works in mathematical practice. We explain the (objective) Bayesian view of probability, which gives a theoretical framework for unifying evidence evaluation in science and law as well as in mathematics. Numerical evidence in mathematics is related to the problem of induction; the occurrence of straightforward inductive reasoning in the purely logical material of pure mathematics casts light on the nature of induction as well as of mathematical reasoning. (shrink)

This article stages a critical-philosophical encounter between Derridean deconstruction and Peircean biosemiotic theory focussing on the role and status of metaphor within each. It argues that the biosemiotic understanding of metaphor as a structuring principle informing the sign-activity of living organisms and processes offers an alternative understanding of a generalised metaphoricity of life as such and an account of what might be called biological text, textuality or even, biosemiotic intertextuality. The article argues that biological textuality obeys a logic of semiotic (...) immanence that is distinct from the logic of différance and of the quasi-transcendental as thought by Derrida. On this basis it elaborates the way in which metaphor in biosemiotic theory, and also the generalised biological metaphoricity informing the text of life, function as radically non-representational, inferential, and hermeneutic operators which model the semiotic processes of life and thereby enable an epistemologically weak or, in a certain sense, non-philosophical realism. (shrink)

Focusing on David B. Riazanov career and his pioneering efforts in producing a complete edition of the works of Marx and Engels, the article explains why Riazanov’s variety of Marxism was unacceptable to the Soviet regime, and why from 1924 Lenin was credited with being an outstanding Marxist theoretician, whereas previously he had been regarded only as a skilled political activist. The concept of Leninism as a new stage of Marxism was put forward by Bukharin and elaborated on by Stalin (...) and Zinoviev. Georg Lukács attempted to show that Lenin’s thought had the internal coherence that Bukharin postulated. In support of Lenin’s theoretical credentials, his ‘Philosophical Notebooks’ began to be published from 1925. However, neither Riazanov nor his associate Abram M. Deborin subscribed to the official doctrine that Leninism was a new and higher stage of Marxism. For this stance they fell victim to Stalin’s repression. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Howe and Leota/Turp's accounts of gamesmanship by examining case studies of gamesmanship from professional darts. While Leota and Turp make some substantial improvements on Howe in reconceptualizing the idea of sporting excellence, I claim that there are points of criticism that must be addressed, notably in their claims that sports do not prescribe necessary skills, and that it is impossible to distinguish between legitimate sporting strategy unaccounted for by the rules on the one hand, and gamesmanship on (...) the other. Leota and Turp criticise Howe’s account of rules for being misconceived: rather than rules prescribing necessary skills as Howe claims, rules actually proscribe skills and set limits on behaviour, rather than prescribing skills. I use darts and other sports to make the case that rules actually do both things. Elsewhere, in the phenomenon of ‘grouping’, I argue that we find a skill completely unaccounted for by the rules of darts and not a necessary skill for playing darts, which nonetheless counts as excellence for darts. This problematizes some claims from Leota and Turp on which their account of gamesmanship hinges. An aspect of Howe, Leota and Turp’s accounts on which they all agree is the importance of psychological resilience in sporting endeavours, which I discuss with reference to darts and rule changes in professional sport. The article ends with a discussion of an example from darts of a potential gamesmanship strategy, from a match between Michael van Gerwen and Darius Labanauskas, that unquestionably remains within the rules of the sport and which could not be eradicated through rule changes because it would violate the spirit of the sport. This is an interesting, controversial example for studies of the different forms of gamesmanship and their categorization, and indicates some limitations on what I say in my argument. (shrink)

If${\cal M},{\cal N}$are countable, arithmetically saturated models of Peano Arithmetic and${\rm{Aut}}\left( {\cal M} \right) \cong {\rm{Aut}}\left( {\cal N} \right)$, then the Turing-jumps of${\rm{Th}}\left( {\cal M} \right)$and${\rm{Th}}\left( {\cal N} \right)$are recursively equivalent.

The metaethics and metametaethics of Scanlon's "Reasons Fundamentalism".

Conscious recollection, of the kind characterised by sensory mental imagery, is often thought to involve ‘episodically’ recalling experienced events in one’s personal past. One might wonder whether this overlooks distinctive ways in which we sometimes recall ordinary, persisting objects. Of course, one can recall an object by remembering an event in which one encountered it. But are there acts of recall which are distinctively objectual in that they are not about objects in this mediated way (i.e., by way of being (...) about events in which they featured)? This question has broad implications, not least for understanding the nature and role of imagery in remembering, the requirements of memory-based singular thought about objects, and the sense in which remembering involves ‘mental time travel’ through which one ‘relives’ past events. In this paper, I argue that we sometimes do recall objects from our past without remembering events in which they featured. The positive view of such cases I go on to propose draws on a wide body of empirical work in its support and accommodates a more nuanced picture of the role of imagery in remembering. Succinctly, remembering might essentially involve a kind of ‘re-experiencing’, but it need not involve ‘reliving’. (shrink)

It is a reasonable worry that God would not truly love us and want our salvation if He fixed a definite point after which He will no longer offer us the graces to repent of our sins. I propose that Thomas Aquinas succeeds in showing us that God would not be cruel or arbitrary in setting up a world where embodied agents end up after death in a state where they will inevitably fail to repent of their sins. Aquinas proposes (...) that being disembodied is to be in a state where a person cannot be mistaken about what they want, given that they know themselves perfectly. If the disembodied state were like this, it would not be surprising that being in that state makes repentance impossible, since a soul would become fully integrated around whatever one desired, without any conflicting desires that could prompt repentance. Thus, humans would persist in whatever desires they had at the moment of death and disembodiment. I conclude by arguing that, while this scenario stands in need of fuller theodicy, Aquinas’ scenario is helpful in defending a view that God is not cruel or arbitrary for creating a world in which post-mortem repentance is impossible. (shrink)

By critically reviewing the event of Dewey’s visit to China (1919-1921) through historical, philosophical and comparative perspectives, this book finds new value to revive the dialogue between Dewey and Eastern philosophies as a way to respond to contemporary educational challenges.