One important version of the problem of divine freedom is that, if God is essentially good, and if freedom logically requires being able to do otherwise, then God is not free with respect to willing the good, and thus He is not morally praiseworthy for His goodness. I develop and defend a broadly Molinist solution to this problem, which, I argue, provides the best way out of the difficulty for orthodox theists who are unwilling to relinquish the Principle (...) of Alternate Possibilities. The solution is that the divine essence includes the property of transworld goodness: i.e., for any possible morally significant choice that God could have faced, if God had actually faced it, God would have chosen to will the good. This view makes coherent the otherwise paradoxical theological intuition that it is within God’s power to do something evil, but He would not ever do such a thing. (shrink)

The many-property problem has traditionally been taken to show that the adverbial theory of perception is untenable. This paper first shows that several widely accepted views concerning the nature of perception---including both representational and non-representational views---likewise face the many-property problem. It then presents a solution to the many-property problem for these views, but goes on to show how this solution can be adapted to provide a novel, fully compositional solution to the many-property (...) class='Hi'>problem for adverbialism. Thus, with respect to the many-property problem, adverbialism and several widely accepted views in the philosophy of perception are on a par, and the problem is solved. (shrink)

Several methods of approximate reasoning are known, and many remain to be discovered across domains. Some are tied to reasoning with uncertainty. The developments over the last fifty years or so in the development of approximate reasoning methods, and their application across multiple STEM domains, suggest that it is necessary to introduce them early in school. While efforts towards building the infrastructure for the process have been limited, the bigger question is “What should be introduced?”. If concepts are always (...) approximated in real life, then how should they be done mathematically? If the real numbers are not always necessary to approximate concepts or even quantities, then how should they be approximated, and what should be taught in schools? Specifically, functional representations of approximate reasoning are not introduced early. This additionally impedes diversity, ethnomathematical explorations, learning from experience, and through models. The objective of this research is to explain the problem with a focus on the ethnomathematics of cooking, and associated haptic methods. Further, it is argued through the context that of the many approaches to approximate reasoning, intrusive methods are best avoided, and that general rough sets is better suited for modeling such knowledge. Intrusive methods, such as those based on fuzzy or probability theory, are those that indulge in an excess of unjustified numeric assumptions. This builds on earlier work of the present author on modeling approximate reasoning. Her axiomatic approach to granularity are additionally applicable to approximate recipes that possess desired properties. In the contexts of ethnomathematical discourse involving haptic reasoning (as in cooking), it is shown that such an approach can model the essence of context without oversimplifications or outright dismissal of the efforts involved. Further, it has the potential to help in inventing expressive structured languages for the ethnomathematics, and associated model eliciting activities. Distinct facets of three specific contexts are theoretically explored to illustrate aspects of the reasoning, and meta aspects. (shrink)

One of the most influential traditional objections to Adverbialism about perceptual experience is that posed by Frank Jackson’s ‘many property problem’. Perhaps largely because of this objection, few philosophers now defend Adverbialism. We argue, however, that the essence of the many property problem arises for all of the leading metaphysical theories of experience: all leading theories must simply take for granted certain facts about experience, and no theory looks well positioned to explain the facts in a (...) straightforward way. Because of this, the many property problem isn’t on its own a good reason for rejecting Adverbialism; and nor is it a puzzle that will decide amongst the other leading theories. (shrink)

A serious problem for adverbialism about intentionality is the many-property problem, one major aspect of which is the claim that natural inferences between thought contents are blocked if adverbia...

The central objection to the constitution view is the too many thinkers problem - if the animal that constitutes you thinks and you are not it, then there are two thinkers within the region you occupy. Lynne Rudder Baker claims that the animal thinks only derivatively, in virtue of constituting the person that thinks nonderivatively, and this leads to a solution to the too many thinkers problem. This paper offers two objections to Baker’s solution. First, the (...) idea of derivative/ nonderivative properties faces a dilemma unacceptable to constitutionalists: either the too many thinkers problem is reinstated or the constitution view is undermined by the idea itself. Further, Baker should concede that the person thinks in virtue of brain functions. This implies, contra Baker’s claim, that the person thinks derivatively and the animal thinks nonderivatively. The paper also considers a way in which Baker might respond to the two objections. (shrink)

According to David Chalmers, the virtual entities found in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) environments instantiate virtual properties of a specific kind. It has recently been objected that such a view (i) can’t extend to all types of properties; (ii) leads to a proliferation of property-types; (iii) implausibly ascribes massive errors to VR and AR users; and (iv) faces an analogue of Jackson’s “many-property problem”. My first objective here is to show that advocates of (...) virtual properties can deal with each of these objections. The other goal of this paper is to examine the consequences of Chalmers’ theory in the particular case of AR. If we countenance virtual properties, AR highlights that non-virtual objects can possess both non-virtual and virtual properties. With AR, it also appears that a same non-virtual object can have different and even incompatible properties across augmented environments. Lastly, considering properties in light of AR highlights the risk of an “augmented solipsism”, and calls forth interesting questions about the persistence conditions of non-virtual objects in AR environments. (shrink)

Adverbialists propose to analyse sentences of the form ‘Jane has a blue afterimage’ as ‘Jane afterimages blue-ly’. One commonly raised objection to adverbialism is the many-property problem, the problem of accounting for sentences that seem to ascribe more than one property to an afterimage . Plausible responses to this objection may be on offer. In this note, however, I will argue that the many-property problem resurfaces at the level of relations and that, at this level, (...) no solution for the problem is in sight. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBy the Many Categories problem, I mean the prima facie violation of Ockham’s Razor by realists about universals: there is, it might seem, just too much variety. Thus, David Armstrong posits both properties and relations. He also theorises about determinates of determinables. Another influential realist, E. J. Lowe distinguishes non-substantial from substantial universals. Yet again, both Armstrong and Lowe include in their ontology abstract particulars in addition to universals. My aim in this paper is to offer a (...) unification of these categories using an operator-theory. First, I show how operators provide a theory of abstract particulars of relations and of impure relational properties. Then, using impure relational properties I derive the Fregeanion Principle. After some metaphysics of mathematics, I provide a theory of determinables. Finally, I consider kinds and substances. (shrink)

The chapter unfolds in the following sections. The first section exam- ines the reasons for claiming that olfactory perception is spatially unstruc- tured and our experience of smells has an abstract structure. The second section elucidates the further arguments that olfaction cannot generate figure-ground segregation. The third section assesses the conclusion that olfactory perception and experience cannot solve the MPP. Following the overview of the many problems inherent to distal olfactory percep- tion, MST will be introduced as an alternative (...) perspective that allows for figure-ground segregation and perceiving multiple olfactory objects within an array. The chapter then concludes by replying to the shared argument that olfactory distal perception does not have the requisite res- olution to resolve the many properties problem. (shrink)

We study how to partition a set of agents in a stable way when each coalition in the partition has to share a unit of a perfectly divisible good, and each agent has symmetric single-peaked preferences on the unit interval of his potential shares. A rule on the set of preference profiles consists of a partition function and a solution. Given a preference profile, a partition is selected and as many units of the good as the number of coalitions (...) in the partition are allocated, where each unit is shared among all agents belonging to the same coalition according to the solution. A rule is stable at a preference profile if no agent strictly prefers to leave his coalition to join another coalition and all members of the receiving coalition want to admit him. We show that the proportional solution and all sequential dictator solutions admit stable partition functions. We also show that stability is a strong requirement that becomes easily incompatible with other desirable properties like efficiency, strategy-proofness, anonymity, and non-envyness. (shrink)

On a widely shared assumption, our mental states supervene on our microphysical properties – that is, microphysical supervenience is true. When this thesis is combined with the apparent truism that human persons have proper parts, a grave difficulty arises: what prevents some of these proper parts from being themselves thinkers as well? How can I know that I am a human person and not a smaller thinker enclosed in a human person? Most solutions to this puzzle make radical, if (...) not absurd, claims. Recently, however, Michael Burke and Howard Robinson proposed conservative solutions that, according to them, do not have such undesired consequences. This paper argues that the conservative solutions tacitly assume at least one of the radical ones, and therefore they provide no alternative to the extreme solutions. (shrink)

This paper identifies an overdetermination problem faced by the non-reductive dispositional property account of disposition ascriptions. Two possible responses to the problem are evaluated and both are shown to have serious drawbacks. Finally it is noted that the traditional conditional analysis of disposition ascriptions escapes the original difficulty.

This paper identifies an overdetermination problem faced by the non-reductive dispositional property account of disposition ascriptions. Two possible responses to the problem are evaluated and both are shown to have serious drawbacks. Finally it is noted that the traditional conditional analysis of dispositional ascriptions escapes the original difficulty.

In Sinners in the Presence of a Loving God, R. Zachary Manis examines in detail the several facets of the problem of hell, considers the reasons why the usual responses to the problem are unsatisfying, and suggests how an adequate solution to the problem can be constructed.

This paper is divided into two main sections. The first articulates what I believe Strawson's position to be. I contrast Strawson's usage of 'physicalism' with the mainstream use. I then explain why I think that Strawson's position is one of property dualism and substance monism. In doing this, I outline his view and Locke's view on the nature of substance. I argue that they are similar in many respects and thus it is no surprise that Strawson actually holds a (...) view on the mind much like one plausible interpretation of Locke's position. Strawson's use of terminology cloaks this fact and he does not himself explicitly recognize it in his paper. In the second section, I outline some of Strawson's assumptions that he uses in arguing for his position. I comment on the plausibility of his position concerning the relation of the mind to the body compared with mainstream physicalism and various forms of dualism. Before embarking on the two main sections, in the remainder of this introduction, I very briefly sketch Strawson's view. (shrink)

A problem of the many Fs arises in cases where intuitively there is precisely one F (in the region you are talking about), but when you look closely you find many candidates for being that F, each one apparently as well-qualified as the next. Imagine an apparently solitary cloud in an otherwise blue sky. Look closer, and you'll see lots of water vapor molecules, with no one collection of them more eligible than the others to count as (...) the cloud. Many things are like this when you look closely enough. The problem arises for mundane things like rocks, houses and coins. It also arises for entities that present special philosophical challenges, like persons and experiencers. In this essay, I present a new argument that the problem of the many experiencers is an especially hard problem of the many, and property dualism—the view that properties that there is something it is like to instantiate are irreducible—may be the best way to solve it. (shrink)

While it is often taken for granted that the concepts of property and of distributive justice are capable of working together to generate norms which can enhance positive social and political relations, in particular the value of community, this Article argues otherwise. Relying on critical tools deriving from Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and Marx’s notion of fetishism, the author claims that the Rawlsian conception of distributive justice fetishizes the institution of property, and claims to "distribute" participation in society amongst its (...) members as if this amounted to a distribution of so many objects. Taken in this way, the concept of distributive justice has no respectable content. What social justice requires is a means to ensure that people are not "socially excluded," which requires each individual’s participation in the social and cultural enterprise. This sort of participation can no more be "distributed" than can life itself, and the realization of this point undermines the cogency of most discussions of distributive justice. (shrink)

A significant challenge faces any ethic that endorses the view that divine commands are sufficient to impose moral obligations; in this paper, I focus on Kierkegaard's ethic, in particular. The challenge to be addressed is the "modernized" problem of Abraham, popularized especially by Fear and Trembling: the dilemma that an agent faces when a being claiming to be God issues a command to the agent that, by the agent's own lights, seems not to be the kind of command that (...) a loving God would issue. Against a solution to this problem proposed by C. Stephen Evans in Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love, I argue that Kierkegaard regards this scenario as never actually resulting in a fully responsible agent's performance of some horrendous action on account of her non-culpable misinterpretation of God's will and/or failure to discern correctly whether a perceived moral imperative truly is divine in origin. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 1 Seiten: 107-130.

It is argued that, given certain reasonable premises, an infinite number of qualitatively identical but numerically distinct minds exist per functioning brain. The three main premises are (1) mental properties supervene on brain properties; (2) the universe is composed of particles with nonzero extension; and (3) each particle is composed of continuum-many point-sized bits of particle-stuff, and these points of particle-stuff persist through time.

This paper has two principal goals. The first is to set out a bit of conceptual cartography, mapping out a number of distinct conceptual issues that are frequently conflated in the vast literature on multiple realization. The second is to review very briefly how work by Carl Gillett and myself attempts to address a few of the many problems of multiple realization. One of these is explaining what Jerry Fodor apparently took to be mysterious, namely, how multiple realization of (...) properties is possible. (shrink)

Though Kierkegaard's ethic in "Works of Love" frequently has been a target of harsh — and often uncharitable — criticism, a number of recent treatments have sought to defend both its viability and its relevance to the contemporary discussion. Increasingly, the literature is replete with interpretations that situate it within the traditions of virtue ethics and/or divine command theory. I evaluate these readings, focusing primarily on the issue of moral obligation in Kierkegaard's writings. I argue that both the virtue and (...) divine command interpretations are deficient, though Kierkegaard's ethic indeed shares significant points of contact with both traditions. I explicate and defend an alternative account of moral obligation that seems to me most to warrant the label, "Kierkegaardian," and attempt to expand the view, taking Kierkegaard's ethic as a foundation upon which to build a theoretically rigorous account of moral obligation. The resulting view, I argue, captures the best of both virtue ethics and divine command theory, while avoiding the most serious problems of each. (shrink)

While many publications have reported brain hemodynamic responses to decision-making under various conditions of risk, no inventory management scenarios, such as the newsvendor problem, have been investigated in conjunction with neuroimaging. In this study, we hypothesized that NP stimulates the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex joined with frontal polar area significantly in the human brain, and that local brain network properties are increased when a person transits from rest to the NP decision-making phase. A 77-channel (...) functional near infrared spectroscopy system with wide field-of-view was employed to measure frontal cerebral hemodynamics in response to NP in 27 healthy human subjects. NP-induced changes in oxy-hemoglobin concentration, Δ[HbO], were investigated using a general linear model and graph theory analysis. Significant activation induced by NP was shown in both DLPFC and OFC+FPA across all subjects. Specifically, higher risk NP with low-profit margins activated left-DLPFC but deactivated right-DLPFC in 14 subjects, while lower risk NP with high-profit margins stimulated both DLPFC and OFC+FPA in 13 subjects. The local efficiency, clustering coefficient, and path length of the network metrics were significantly enhanced under NP decision making. In summary, multi-channel fNIRS enabled us to identify DLPFC and OFC+FPA as key cortical regions of brain activations when subjects were making inventory-management risk decisions. We demonstrated that challenging NP resulted in the deactivation within right-DLPFC due to higher levels of stress. Also, local brain network properties were increased when a person transitioned from the rest phase to the NP decision-making phase. (shrink)

Shoemaker maintains that when a functionalist theory of mind is combined with his belief about individuating properties and the well-known cerebrumtransplant thought experiment, the resulting position will be a version of the psychological approach to personal identity that can avoid The Problem of Too Many Thinkers. I maintain that the costs of his solution—that the human animal is incapable of thought—are too high. Shoemaker also has not provided an argumentagainst there existing a merely conscious being that is (...) not essentially self-conscious but is spatially coincident with a person who is essentially self-conscious. Both the person and the merely sentient being will be transplanted when the cerebrum is. And another thought experiment will make it impossible for Shoemaker to identify the person and the merely conscious being. (shrink)

It is emphasized that a many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory exists only to the extent that the associated basis problem is solved. The core basis problem is that the robust enduring states specified by environmental decoherence effects are essentially Gaussian wave packets that form continua of non-orthogonal states. Hence they are not a discrete set of orthogonal basis states to which finite probabilities can be assigned by the usual rules. The natural way to get an orthogonal basis (...) without going outside the Schroedinger dynamics is to use the eigenstates of the reduced density matrix, and this idea is the basis of some recent attempts by many-worlds proponents to solve the basis problem. But these eigenstates do not enjoy the locality and quasi-classicality properties of the states defined by environmental decoherence effects, and hence are not satisfactory preferred basis states. This core problem is obscured by approaches that treat the universe as a quantum computer, but it needs to be addressed and resolved before a many-worlds-type interpretation can be said to exist. (shrink)

General preface -- Preface to the second edition -- What is philosophy of religion? -- Philosophy of religion and other disciplines -- Philosophy of religion and philosophy -- Can thinking about religion be neutral? -- Fideism -- Neutralism -- Critical dialogue -- The theistic God : the project of natural theology -- Concepts of God -- The theistic concept of God -- A case study : divine foreknowledge and human freedom -- The problem of religious language -- Natural theology (...) -- Proofs of God's existence -- Classical arguments for God's existence -- Ontological arguments -- Cosmological arguments -- Teleological arguments -- Moral arguments -- Conclusions: The value of theistic argument -- Religious experience -- Types of religious experience -- Models for understanding experience -- Experience of God as direct and mediated -- Are religious experiences veridical? -- Checking experiential claims -- Special acts of God : revelation and miracles -- Special acts -- Theories of revelation -- Is the traditional view defensible? -- What is a miracle? -- Is it reasonable to believe in miracles? -- Can a revelation have special authority? -- Religion, modernity, and science -- Modernity and religious belief -- Naturalism -- Do the natural sciences undermine religious belief? -- Objections from the social sciences -- Religious uses of modern atheism -- The problem of evil -- Types of evil, versions of the problem, and types of response -- The logical form of the problem -- The evidential form of the problem -- Horrendous evils and the problem of hell -- Divine hiddenness -- Faith(s) and reason -- Faith : subjectivity in religious arguments -- The evidentialist challenge to religious belief -- Reformed epistemology -- The place of subjectivity in forming beliefs -- Interpretive judgments and the nature of a cumulative case -- Can faith be certain? -- Faith and doubt : can religious faith be tested? -- What is faith? -- Could one religion be true? (shrink)

Shoemaker maintains that when a functionalist theory of mind is combined with his belief about individuating properties and the well-known cerebrumtransplant thought experiment, the resulting position will be a version of the psychological approach to personal identity that can avoid The Problem of Too Many Thinkers. I maintain that the costs of his solution—that the human animal is incapable of thought—are too high. Shoemaker also has not provided an argumentagainst there existing a merely conscious being that is (...) not essentially self-conscious but is spatially coincident with a person who is essentially self-conscious. Both the person and the merely sentient being will be transplanted when the cerebrum is. And another thought experiment will make it impossible for Shoemaker to identify the person and the merely conscious being. (shrink)

This paper examines the problem of sameness in terms of being it the classical problem of personal identity and various philosophical positions on the existence of the self as a substantive subject. I call this subject an ethical Self, which involves different notions of ego, being, substance, and personhood. The denial of the existence of a permanent self by philosophers like Hume and Buddhists does not seem justified in regard to one's identity or sameness over time. The no-self (...) theorists do not provide any strong ground for how to explain the notion of personhood and one's actions in a moral space without accepting a substantive self as a doer that continues over time. They certainly seem to have failed in establishing a logical connection between their no-self theories on the one hand and the necessity of an ethical self in their philosophical accounts on the other. Rejecting the no-self theory in defense of the self theory of personal identity, I conclude this paper with a note that sameness of a person over time is the prerequisite of morality, law, and present and future plans and that there is no harm in considering a permanent self, as Jīva of Jainism, to solve the problem of personal identity. There is also no harm in preferring the self theory over the no-self theory since the former, unlike the latter, does give a meaning to spirituality and transcendence. (shrink)

AimsThe aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the revised self-rated version of the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX-R) within a non-clinical sample.MethodsThe study was hosted online, with 140 participants completing the DEX-R, GAD-2 and PHQ-2. Sixty participants also completed the FrSBe, with 99 additionally completing the DEX-R again 3 weeks later. Correlations with demographic factors and symptoms of anxiety and depression were conducted. Rasch and factor analysis were also used to explore underlying subconstructs.ResultsThe DEX-R correlated highly (...) with the FrSBe, indicating sound concurrent validity. Internal consistency, split-half reliability and test-retest reliability were excellent. Age and symptoms of depression and anxiety correlated with DEX-R scores, with older age associated with less dysexecutive problems. The Rasch analysis confirmed the multidimensionality of the rating scale, and a three-factor structure was found relating to activation-self-regulatory, cognitive and social-emotional processes. Frequencies of responses on DEX-R items varied, many were not fully endorsed indicating specific relevance of most but not all items to patients.ConclusionInterpretations of DEX-R ratings of dysexecutive problems should consider mood and individual variation. Systematic comparison of DEX-R responses between healthy and clinical groups could help identify a suitable cut off for dysexecutive symptoms. (shrink)

Many philosophers have declared that everything which exists is a particular. There is a weak interpretation of this doctrine which I believe to be a true proposition, and a strong one which I believe to be false.

A common conception of facts is as worldly entities, complexes made upof non-factual constituents such as properties, relations andproperty-bearers. Understood in this way facts face the unityproblem, the problem of explaining why various constituents arecombined to form a fact. In many cases the constituents could haveexisted without being unified in the fact---so in virtue of what arethey so unified? I shall present a new approach to the unity problem.First, facts which are grounded are unified by the (...) obtaining of theirgrounds. Second, many ungrounded facts are such that they must obtainif their non-factual constituents exist (e.g. if the property $F$nessis essential to a particular, $a$, then if $a$ exists the fact that$a$ is $F$ must obtain). In this way the obtaining of these facts isexplained by the essence of some of their constituents. I alsoaddress the possibility of facts which are brutely unified(i.e. neither grounded nor essentially unified), and compare theaccount I offer with some of the main alternatives. (shrink)

Many philosophers have declared that everything which exists is a particular. There is a weak interpretation of this doctrine which I believe to be a true proposition, and a strong one which I believe to be false.

Recent years have seen rapid progress in the development of ontologies as semantic models intended to capture and represent aspects of the real world. There is, however, great variation in the quality of ontologies. If ontologies are to become progressively better in the future, more rigorously developed, and more appropriately compared, then a systematic discipline of ontology evaluation must be created to ensure quality of content and methodology. Systematic methods for ontology evaluation will take into account representation of individual ontologies, (...) performance (in terms of accuracy, domain coverage and the efficiency and quality of automated reasoning using the ontologies) on tasks for which the ontology is designed and used, degree of alignment with other ontologies and their compatibility with automated reasoning. A sound and systematic approach to ontology evaluation is required to transform ontology engineering into a true scientific and engineering discipline. This chapter discusses issues and problems in ontology evaluation, describes some current strategies, and suggests some approaches that might be useful in the future. (shrink)

Speaks defends the view that propositions are properties: for example, the proposition that grass is green is the property being such that grass is green. We argue that there is no reason to prefer Speaks's theory to analogous but competing theories that identify propositions with, say, 2-adic relations. This style of argument has recently been deployed by many, including Moore and King, against the view that propositions are n-tuples, and by Caplan and Tillman against King's view that propositions (...) are facts of a special sort. We offer our argument as an objection to the view that propositions are unsaturated relations. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception have a notoriously difficult time trying to account for hallucinatory experiences. One surprisingly quite popular move, and one that cross-cuts the representationalism/relationalism divide, is to say that hallucinations involve an awareness of uninstantiated properties. In this paper, I provide a new argument against this view. Not only are its proponents forced to classify many hallucinations as veridical, such experiences turn out to be necessarily veridical. In addition, I show that representationalists who endorse the uninstantiated property (...) view must reject the common fundamental kind claim and adopt disjunctivism, and naïve realists/relationalists must radically modify their disjunctivism: The distinction between ‘veridical’ and ‘hallucinatory’ will no longer track a metaphysical distinction between the relevant experiences. (shrink)

Many statistical problems, including some of the most important for physical applications, have long been regarded as underdetermined from the standpoint of a strict frequency definition of probability; yet they may appear wellposed or even overdetermined by the principles of maximum entropy and transformation groups. Furthermore, the distributions found by these methods turn out to have a definite frequency correspondence; the distribution obtained by invariance under a transformation group is by far the most likely to be observed experimentally, in (...) the sense that it requires by far the least “skill.” These properties are illustrated by analyzing the famous Bertrand paradox. On the viewpoint advocated here, Bertrand's problem turns out to be well posed after all, and the unique solution has been verified experimentally. We conclude that probability theory has a wider range of useful applications than would be supposed from the standpoint of the usual frequency definitions. (shrink)

2nd edition. Many-valued logics are those logics that have more than the two classical truth values, to wit, true and false; in fact, they can have from three to infinitely many truth values. This property, together with truth-functionality, provides a powerful formalism to reason in settings where classical logic—as well as other non-classical logics—is of no avail. Indeed, originally motivated by philosophical concerns, these logics soon proved relevant for a plethora of applications ranging from switching theory to cognitive (...) modeling, and they are today in more demand than ever, due to the realization that inconsistency and vagueness in knowledge bases and information processes are not only inevitable and acceptable, but also perhaps welcome. The main modern applications of (any) logic are to be found in the digital computer, and we thus require the practical knowledge how to computerize—which also means automate—decisions (i.e. reasoning) in many-valued logics. This, in turn, necessitates a mathematical foundation for these logics. This book provides both these mathematical foundation and practical knowledge in a rigorous, yet accessible, text, while at the same time situating these logics in the context of the satisfiability problem (SAT) and automated deduction. The main text is complemented with a large selection of exercises, a plus for the reader wishing to not only learn about, but also do something with, many-valued logics. (shrink)

Justifying intellectual property on the basis of labour is an understandably popular strategy, but there is a tension in basing some intellectual property claims on labour that has gone largely unnoticed in treatments of the subject: many forms of innovation cause people to lose their jobs, which seriously hampers the ability of those who lose work to productively use their own labour. This article shows that even under Lockean and other labour‐based justifications of intellectual property rights those who claim (...) property rights to innovations of this type have special obligations to compensate those who lose work because of their inventions. By examining the problem that such innovations create, I hope to contribute to larger debates about automation and the job losses it often brings. Lockean and other labour‐based theories of intellectual property are generally taken to secure strong, noninstrumental rights to intellectual property if they are successful. So, if even these theories imply that those who profit from the innovations driving automation have special obligations to those left jobless by it, that is strong evidence that they do in fact have such obligations. (shrink)

Our days are a vast, intricate, evolving dance of mutual understandings. We stop at a traffic light, offer a plastic card as payment for a meal, leave our weapons at home, or enter a voting booth. We live and work in close proximity, at high speed, with few collisions: on our roads and in our neighborhoods, places of worship, and places of business. Somehow, having all those people around is more liberating than stifling. The secret is that we know roughly (...) what to expect from each other. Knowing what to expect enables us to adapt to each other. Not being obliged to conform to expectations—being free to test the previously untested— is likewise a great benefit. The two benefits seem mutually exclusive, yet property rights, combined with freedom of contract, enable us to reap both at once. We can rely on being able to go to market and find someone selling cauliflower at an affordable price. We can also rely on being able to go to market and find someone rendering obsolete what a few years ago had been cutting-edge technology. We make progress by testing what has not previously been tested. We experiment. One problem with experiments is: many of them don’t work.1 Or, the ideas being tested turn out to be bad ideas. Thus a successful society encourages people not only to experiment, but also to shut down experiments whose inspiration proves unsound. What kind of framework encourages experimentation without at the same time perpetuating bad ideas? Here is one hypothesis: in societies that sustain progress over long periods, people are free to experiment at their own expense and free from having to pay for other people’s bad ideas. This is the true test of a system of property. It is natural to assume instead that the true test of a system of property is a question of whether the system is just. That is, philosophers should theorize about justice first, and only then begin to theorize about what can legitimately become a person’s property. I have become skeptical about this. (shrink)

Modal logics, originally conceived in philosophy, have recently found many applications in computer science, artificial intelligence, the foundations of mathematics, linguistics and other disciplines. Celebrated for their good computational behaviour, modal logics are used as effective formalisms for talking about time, space, knowledge, beliefs, actions, obligations, provability, etc. However, the nice computational properties can drastically change if we combine some of these formalisms into a many-dimensional system, say, to reason about knowledge bases developing in time or moving (...) objects. To study the computational behaviour of many-dimensional modal logics is the main aim of this book. On the one hand, it is concerned with providing a solid mathematical foundation for this discipline, while on the other hand, it shows that many seemingly different applied many-dimensional systems (e.g., multi-agent systems, description logics with epistemic, temporal and dynamic operators, spatio-temporal logics, etc.) fit in perfectly with this theoretical framework, and so their computational behaviour can be analyzed using the developed machinery. We start with concrete examples of applied one- and many-dimensional modal logics such as temporal, epistemic, dynamic, description, spatial logics, and various combinations of these. Then we develop a mathematical theory for handling a spectrum of 'abstract' combinations of modal logics - fusions and products of modal logics, fragments of first-order modal and temporal logics - focusing on three major problems: decidability, axiomatizability, and computational complexity. Besides the standard methods of modal logic, the technical toolkit includes the method of quasimodels, mosaics, tilings, reductions to monadic second-order logic, algebraic logic techniques. Finally, we apply the developed machinery and obtained results to three case studies from the field of knowledge representation and reasoning: temporal epistemic logics for reasoning about multi-agent systems, modalized description logics for dynamic ontologies, and spatio-temporal logics. The genre of the book can be defined as a research monograph. It brings the reader to the front line of current research in the field by showing both recent achievements and directions of future investigations (in particular, multiple open problems). On the other hand, well-known results from modal and first-order logic are formulated without proofs and supplied with references to accessible sources. The intended audience of this book is logicians as well as those researchers who use logic in computer science and artificial intelligence. More specific application areas are, e.g., knowledge representation and reasoning, in particular, terminological, temporal and spatial reasoning, or reasoning about agents. And we also believe that researchers from certain other disciplines, say, temporal and spatial databases or geographical information systems, will benefit from this book as well. Key Features: Integrated approach to modern modal and temporal logics and their applications in artificial intelligence and computer science Written by internationally leading researchers in the field of pure and applied logic Combines mathematical theory of modal logic and applications in artificial intelligence and computer science Numerous open problems for further research Well illustrated with pictures and tables. (shrink)

Theories of causation grounded in counterfactual dependence face the problem of profligate omissions: numerous irrelevant omissions count as causes of an outcome. A recent purported solution to this problem is proportionality, which selects one omission among many candidates as the cause of an outcome. This paper argues that proportionality cannot solve the problem of profligate omissions for two reasons. First: the determinate/determinable relationship that holds between properties like aqua and blue does not hold between negative (...) properties like not aqua and not blue. Negative properties are those at stake in omissive causation. Second: proportionality misconstrues the nature of the problem to be solved. (shrink)

The causal nominalist theory of properties appears at first glance to offer a novel nominalist approach and one that can provide an illuminating response to the one over many problem. I argue, however, that on closer inspection causal ‘nominalism’ collapses into either a version of realism or a mere variant of one of the traditional nominalist approaches. In the case of Whittle’s specific brand of causal nominalism, I suggest it is best thought of as a version of (...) what Armstrong calls ‘ostrich’ nominalism, a view which ultimately refuses to acknowledge the one over many problem rather than provide a solution to it. (shrink)

This book gives an account of a full spectrum of property rights and their relationship to individual liberty. It shows that a purely deontological approach to justice can deal with the most complex questions regarding the property system. Moreover, the author considers the economic, ecological, and technological complexities of our real-world property systems. The result is a more conceptually sound account of natural rights and the property system they demand. If we think that liberty should be at the centre of (...) justice, what does that mean for the property system? Economists and lawyers widely agree that a property system must be composed of many different types of property: the kind of private ownership one has over one's person and immediate possessions, as well as the kinds of common ownership we each have in our local streets, as well as many more. However, theories of property and justice have not given anything approaching an adequate account of the relationship between liberty and any other form of property other than private ownership. It is often thought that a basic commitment to liberty cannot really tell us how to arrange the major complexities of the property system, which diverge from simple private ownership. Property and Justice demonstrates how philosophical rigour coupled with interdisciplinary engagement enables us to think clearly about how to deal with real-world problems. It will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and legal theorists working on property rights and justice. (shrink)

I present and defend a novel version of the homeostatic property cluster account of natural kinds. The core of the proposal is a development of the notion of co-occurrence, central to the HPC account, along information-theoretic lines. The resulting theory retains all the appealing features of the original formulation, while increasing its explanatory power, and formal perspicuity. I showcase the theory by applying it to the problem of reconciling the thesis that biological species are natural kinds with the fact (...) that many such species are polymorphic. (shrink)

Over the last century, many philosophers have argued in favour of a liberal-egalitarian accommodation of capitalism, in which the liberty of the market is to be combined with an egalitarian distribution of property. Theorists of positive freedom, amongst others, have been prominent in arguing for the liberal-egalitarian accommodation. They have argued that an egalitarian distribution of private property is necessary to give every citizen equal positive freedom. To lead an autonomous life, every citizen needs control over some private property. (...) The liberal-egalitarian accommodation to capitalism has come under threat in the last decades, as documented by a renewed widening of inequalities in wealth and income. In this essay, I will argue that this predicament requires us to look at one important precondition of the positive freedom argument. This precondition I call the de-politization of private property. Private property is conceived of as a purely private phenomenon, which has no effects on the exercise of political power. However, whether this precondition is met is a contingent matter; and so defenders of the positive freedom argument therefore need to turn their attention to the problem posed by the relation between private property and political power. (shrink)

The implicit activities of the living body in sports (such as heart rate, involuntary gestures, stress, reflex, emotional regulation and interaction expressions) emerge in the consciousness of the lived body without our voluntary control. We demonstrate physiological emersion, and how, including in dramaturgical perception, physiological flows and processes collide with the image of a whole body. In this paper, we introduce corporeal non-property as the missing (?) link between phenomenology and neuroscience, renewed by research on the cerebral unconscious and the (...) perception of their lived body. Rather than mindfulness, physical activity obliges the subject to learn the unconscious and his motor skills from his living body: a new psychoanalysis of sport is thus established by studying what emerges from the activity of the living body up to the level of the conscious description of motor action. In this paper, we explain why that awareness occurs, and why it matters for the understanding of unconscious activity of the athlete’s living body. This is potentially interesting, although it needs, as a theory, to overcome the obvious reliance of the body on unconscious or habitual/automated physiological processes. But the incorporation of body techniques forms a habitus. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Martin Hackl and I identified a variety of circumstances where scalar implicatures, questions, definite descriptions, and sentences with the focus particle only are absent or unacceptable (Fox and Hackl 2006, henceforth F&H). We argued that the relevant effect is one of maximization failure (MF): an application of a maximization operator to a set that cannot have the required maximal member. We derived MF from our hypothesis that the set of degrees relevant for the semantics of degree (...) constructions is always dense (the Universal Density of Measurement, UDM). The goal of this paper is to present an apparent shortcoming of F&H and to argue that it is overcome once certain consequences of the proposal are shown to follow from more general properties of MF. Specifically, the apparent problem comes from evidence that the core generalizations argued for in F&H extend to areas for which an account in terms of density is unavailable. Nevertheless, I will argue that the account could still be right. Certain dense sets contain "too many alternatives" for there to be a maximal member, thus leading to MF. But, there are other sets that lead to the same predicament. My goal will be to characterize a general signature of MF in the hope that it could be used to determine the identity of alternatives in areas where their identity is not clear on independent grounds. (shrink)