The first edition of the Handbook of Philosophical Logic (four volumes) was published in the period 1983-1989 and has proven to be an invaluable reference work ...

This eighteenth volume of the acclaimed Handbook of Philosophical Logic includes many contributors who are among the most famous leading figures of applied philosophical logic of our time. Coverage includes deontic logic, practical reasoning, homogeneous and heterogeneous logical proportion, and talmudic logic. Overall, it will appeal to students, practitioners, and researchers looking for an authoritative resource in these areas. The contributors first explore models in terms of dynamic logics for information-driven agency. The paradigm they use is dynamic-epistemic logics for knowledge (...) and belief and their current extensions to the statics and dynamics of agents’ preferences. Next, in the presentation of preference based agency, coverage examines a large number of themes, including interactive social agents and scenarios with long term patterns emerging over time. From here, the book moves on to offer an introduction to homogeneous and heterogeneous logical proportions. Readers will also learn more about the general challenge that the problem of formalizing practical reasoning presents to logical theory. The contributors survey the existing resources that might contribute to the development of such a formalization. They conclude that, while a robust, adequate logic of practical reasoning is not yet in place, the materials for developing such a logic are now available. The last chapter explores topics that deal with the logic of Jewish law and the logic of the Talmud. This includes obligations and prohibitions in Talmudic deontic logic, the handling of loops in Talmudic logic, Temporal Talmudic logic, and quantum states and disjunctive attacks in Talmudic logic. The Talmudic logic system presented are also exported to general logic and to Artificial Intelligence. (shrink)

This second edition of the Handbook of Philosophical Logic reflects great changes in the landscape of philosophical logic since the first edition. It gives readers an idea of that landscape and its relation to computer science and formal language and artificial intelligence. It shows how the increased demand for philosophical logic from computer science and artificial intelligence and computational linguistics accelerated the development of the subject directly and indirectly. This development in turn, directly pushed research forward, stimulated by the needs (...) of applications. New logic areas becameestablished and old areas were enriched and expanded. At the same time, it socially provided employment for generations of logicians residing in computer science, linguistics and electrical engineering departments which of course helped keep the logic community to thrive. The many contributors to this Handbook are active in these application areas and are among the most famous leading figures of applied philosophical logic of our times. (shrink)

Social inclusion/exclusion involves just/unjust social relations and social structures enabling or constraining opportunities for participation and health. In this paper, social inclusion/exclusion is explored as a dialectic. Three discourses – discourses on recognition, capabilities, and equality and citizenship – are identified within Canadian literature. Each discourse highlights a different view of the injustices leading to social exclusion and the conditions supporting inclusion and social justice. An Integrated Framework for Social Justice that incorporates the three discourses is developed and used to (...) critique the dominant focus on distributive justice within foundational Canadian nursing documents. We propose a broader conceptualization of social (in)justice that includes both relational and structural dimensions. Opportunities for multilevel interventions to promote social justice are identified. This framework is congruent with nursing's moral imperative to promote health equity and with the multiple roles played by nurses to promote social justice in everyday practice. (shrink)

MACDONALD SE, NEWBURN‐COOK CV, ALLEN M and REUTTER L.Nursing Inquiry2013;20: 30–41 Embracing the population health framework in nursing researchIndividuals’ health outcomes are influenced not only by their knowledge and behavior, but also by complex social, political and economic forces. Attention to these multi‐level factors is necessary to accurately and comprehensively understand and intervene to improve human health. The population health framework is a valuable conceptual framework to guide nurse researchers in identifying and targeting the broad range of determinants of health. (...) However, attention to the intermediate processes linking multi‐level factors and use of appropriate multi‐level theory and research methodology is critical to utilizing the framework effectively. Nurse researchers are well equipped to undertake such investigations but need to consider a number of political, societal, professional and organizational barriers to do so. By fully embracing the population health framework, nurse researchers have the opportunity to explore the multi‐level influences on health and to develop, implement and evaluate interventions that target immediate needs, more distal factors and the intermediate processes that connect them. (shrink)

The alienation of labour is both classical and contemporary. In its classical form, it speaks to the potential dehumanisation of workers in capitalist societies. In its contemporary form, it manifests itself in the disenfranchisement of the individual because of changes in organised global workplaces. Over the years, Africa’s labour transition from traditional spirituality to contemporary organised global workplaces has fuelled new forms of public labour alienation. Civil servants, in some African countries, experience labour alienation reminiscent of work under capitalism. This (...) is in contradiction to the pre-colonial and traditional view of work as a vocation. Zimbabwe is undergoing negative economic, social, and political growth that has resulted in the alienation of civil servants. The government reneges on its public role of providing space for individual growth and well-being in preference for ‘public capitalism’ and cultural alienation. The potential for an effective public service lies in changing the work culture. Contribution: This article interrogates the impacts of the work culture within the public service in Zimbabwe in an attempt to proffer a return to the African traditional spirituality of work that was founded on the principles of ubuntu. It recognises the traditional symbiotic relationship between being and doing among the indigenous African communities as the panacea for the continent’s human capital development. (shrink)

In “Imposing Risks,” Judith Thomson gives a case in which, by turning on her stove, she accidentally causes her neighbor’s death. She claims that both the following are true: (1) she ought not to have caused her neighbor’s death; (2) it was permissible for her to turn her stove on. In this paper it is argued that it cannot be that both (1) and (2) are true, that (2) is true, and that therefore (1) is false. How this is so (...) is explained, and the implications of this position regarding the relation between rights and duties is explored. (shrink)

Ethics and the Clinical Encounter explores the moral dimensions of clinical medicine and the phenomenon of illness, to determine what ethics must be in order to be fully responsive to clinical encounters. Written in a lively and conversational style with minimal technical terminology, and enhanced by actual experience or real clinical situations, this volume lays out a clinical ethics methodology both in practical and theoretical terms. Here's what the experts had to say: Professor Zaner has provided us with a remarkably (...) lucid and trenchant discussion of the interface of philosophy and the field of medicine. He brings into play an extraordinary range of historial knowledge, extensive observations based on firsthand experience with medical practices, and an acute sense of philosophical argumentation. This is a work that will be an exemplary and indispensable text in the philosophy of medicine for years to come. -- Calvin Schrag... it is a highly original contribution usable in a number of fields.... It really has no competition.... The genius of Zaner's approach is to ground ethics from the 'bottom up' and to direct us to the concrete particulars of therapeutic encounters wherein lie moral and ethical matters... meaty, challenging, and ultimately rewarding.... -- Paul R. Dokecki Richard M. Zaner founded the Center for Clinical and Research Ethics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Having established Vanderbilt's first Hospital Ethics Committee (1985), he served as co-chair of VUMC's Ethics Committee since its inception in 1990. Zaner has published five original books, edited ten, and translated four more, and has published more than 100 sections of books and professional journals. (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who may be (...) uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. (shrink)

Much has been published about the ethical issues encountered by clinicians in genetics/genomics, but those experienced by clinical laboratory scientists are less well described. Clinical laboratory scientists now frequently face navigating ethical problems in their work, but how they should be best supported to do this is underexplored. This lack of attention is also reflected in the ethics tools available to clinical laboratory scientists such as guidance and deliberative ethics forums, developed primarily to manage issues arising within the clinic.We explore (...) what ethical issues are being experienced by clinical scientists, how they think such issues could be best analysed and managed, and whether their practice might be enhanced by more situated approaches to ethics deliberation and practice such as ethical preparedness. From thematic analysis of cases presented by clinical scientists at a specially convened meeting of the UK Genethics Forum, we derived three main ethical themes: (1) the redistribution of labour and responsibilities resulting from the practice of genomic medicine; (2) the interpretation and certainty of results and (3) the proposal that better standardisation and consistency of ethical approaches (for example, more guidelines and policy) could resolve some of the challenges arising.We argue that although standardisation is important for promoting shared understandings of good (including ethical) practice, supplementary approaches to enhance and sustain ethical preparedness will be important to help clinical scientists and others in the recently expanded genetic/genomic medicine environment foster quality ethical thinking. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I reaffirm and extend the notion of social autopoiesis away from mere labels and descriptions to acting physical components of social systems and societies, ranging from subcellular to biological and human. All self-producing biological organisms are essentially societies of interacting components and therefore notions of autopoiesis and social systems are fundamentally, if not definitionally, interrelated. Some examples of real-life applications (...) of social autopoiesis are also given. Future generations of scientists might even find the qualifier “social” redundant because there is no other autopoiesis than “social.”. (shrink)

IntroductionBisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one’s own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of (...) harmful health effects of BPA.MethodsA citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.ResultsOne hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.ConclusionIn the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based. (shrink)

Ukraine in our time is characterized by a high level of saturation by various educational institutions. Now there are 14 classical and 45 technical universities, 30 academies, 72 institutes and 740 other educational institutions of different levels of accreditation, which are in state ownership. At the same time, 90 higher private educational institutions were created, which were licensed by the Ministry of Education of Ukraine. Except for this, various religious churches and religious organizations reorder 50 religious educational institutions. About 5,000 (...) future clerics and preachers learn about them. More than 4,000 Sunday Schools are organized in religious communities of different denominations, which are visited by almost 60 thousand children of the faithful. Education in Ukraine is based on democratic principles, the requirements of the Constitution and the current legislation. (shrink)

This paper investigates the attitudes of two Islamic and Christian thinkers, Saint Aquinas and Mulla Sadra Shirazi, about occurrence and eternity hypothesis issue. Aquinas faces two ideas. The first approach is eternity of the world based on Aristotle's theory and his followers another approach is the world temporal occurrence derived from Christian scriptures. Aquinas believes that the reasons presented for proving the world's occurrence are not convincing and therefore criticizes them. Although he accepts the universe occurrence he has a worshiping (...) view to it and finally regards the world's eternity and occurrence as an antinomical problem. In contrast, Mulla Sadra who has accepted the occurrence does not consider a starting point for the issue and in turn tries to prove it by Substantial Motion approach and therefore regardless of worship aspect of the issue and by employing a rational approach he gains a higher status than Aquinas. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is the intensity of noise emitted by lorries depends on the regime of the vehicle movement. One of the main negative factors caused by road vehicles is air pollution with exhaust gases. The article presents results for noise caused by lorries and gas usage while the vehicle is accelerating. The subject of the study is 4 lorries, and they also feature fuel recording systems which are less than 5 years old. Research methodology. The level of (...) noise emitted by heavyweight transport vehicles is measured according to Lithuanian standard LST ISO 1996-2:2008 requirements. During the tests the noise levels of L A,eq, L C,eq, L C,peak were measured. The tests were done 5 times each and the results are presented as arithmetical averages. Fuel consumption is registered in vehicle data registration system. The researched vehicles have to comply with environmental safety normative requirements; that the vehicle carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, unburned fuel and other hazardous substances contained in the combustion gases must not exceed the prescribed limits. The results of the experimental studies show that EURO6 lorries noise level is the lowest compared to the EURO4 and EURO5. After carrying out the analysis of the caused noise and gas usage, it was found that noise pollution and gas usage are higher without speed control system. The noise caused by lorries can be described in square polynomial which defines the noise inclination change while vehicle is accelerating. Scientific novelty of the research a complex research on noise and fuel consumption of lorries by using and not using speed control system. Research idea and problem is to achieve sustainable transport development objectives, in particular the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It is very important to find ways to forecast and reduce transport noise pollution, while also reducing overall pollution, as well as mitigating the impact on the global climate., Conclusion – after conducting a lorry noise and fuel consumption analysis, it was determined that not using speed control system increases the noise and fuel consumption and if the system is used both of these factors decrease drastically. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss why in some circumstances people express their intentions indirectly: the use of Indirect Speech Acts. Based on Parikh’s games of partial information and Franke’s IBR model, I develop game-theoretic models of ISAs, which are divided into two categories, namely non-conventional ISAs and conventional ISAs. I assume that non-conventional ISAs involve two types of communication situations: communication under certain cooperation and that under uncertain cooperation. I will analyse the cases of ironical request and implicit bribery (...) as typical instances of non-conventional ISAs of each situation type, respectively. I then apply the models to analyse the use of conventional ISAs from an evolutionary perspective, which is inspired by Lewisian convention theory. The models yield the following predictions: the use of non-conventional ISAs under certain cooperation relies on the sympathy between interlocutors, which blocks their evolution towards conventional ISAs; in unc... (shrink)

In Chinese scholarship, Xunzi is often regarded as an eclectic Confucian master who accepted some form of utilitarian thoughts (e.g. Fung Yu-lan, Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan). This characteristic was also observed by some western scholars such as Benjamin I. Schwartz. In a recent study, I argued that the basic character of Xunzi’s philosophy is utilitarianism in a broad sense based on an examination on his intellectual criticism and political criticism. Xunzi asserts that humans are innately driven by self-interested desires, (...) and he evaluates all intellectual works and political behaviours by their utility. However, he does not limit utility to only basic animal desires such as food and sex. In Xunzi’s view, humans also have innate emotions; hence, these emotions should also be accounted for in their utility. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s redefinition of Bentham’s concept of utility. Are Xunzi’s and Mill’s concepts of utility exactly the same? This question has yet to be examined. This article is a comparative study between utilitarianism and Xunzi’s philosophy which especially explores the compatibility of these two philosophies. (shrink)