This book provides a new philosophical, semantical and historical analysis of and justification for the relevant logic of entailment. Its fresh and original perspective on the logic of entailment will be valuable for all who want to know more about the historical and philosophical origins of modern symbolic logic.

In recent years many influential philosophers have advocated that philosophy is an a priori science. Yet very few epistemology textbooks discuss a priori knowledge at any length, focusing instead on empirical knowledge and empirical justification. As a priori knowledge has moved centre stage, the literature remains either too technical or too out of date to make up a reasonable component of an undergraduate course. Edwin Mares book aims to rectify this. This book seeks to make accessible to students the standard (...) topics and current debates within a priori knowledge, including necessity and certainty, rationalism, empiricism and analyticity, Quine's attack on the a priori, Kantianism, Aristotelianism, mathematical knowledge, moral knowledge, logical knowledge and philosophical knowledge. (shrink)

Jeune écrivain sénégalais, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr s’est fait enquêteur en Sicile, dans un petit village qui accueille des migrants d’Afrique subsaharienne. Le résultat de cette pratique d’enquête a été l’écriture d’un roman : Silence du chœur.

African Meditations is a unique contemporary portrait of a young philosopher and creative writer as he seeks to establish himself as a teacher upon his return to Senegal, his homeland, after years of study abroad. It is a seamless blend of autobiography, journal entries, and fiction; aphorisms and brief narrative sketches; humor and Zen reflections.

Pojem filosofie nabyl v průběhu historie řadu podob a významů. Kromě tradičního teoretického zaměření se lze setkat s přístupem, který vyzdvihuje praktický dopad filosofování na život člověka. Příspěvek představuje koncept filosofické praxe a reflektuje její současný stav na území České republiky. Autoři vymezují filosofickou praxi jako disciplínu filosofie, a načrtávají její možné dělení na dílčí oblasti. Nastíněny jsou její historické kořeny, které autoři identifikují v antickém Řecku. Dále se věnují systematickému představení doposud sepsaných materiálů k filosofické praxi a přehledu její (...) realizace na území České republiky. Detailní pozornost věnují autoři popisu tří jejích oblastí, mezi které patří filosofie pro děti, filosofický workshop a filosofická konzultace. Kromě teoretického vymezení reflektují rovněž své vlastní postupy v uvedených oblastech. Článek čerpá především ze zahraniční odborné literatury, konkrétně z textů a dalších materiálů filosofických praktikantů. Jeho cílem je představit českému čtenáři doposud podrobněji neřešený koncept filosofické praxe a připravit tak pole pro možnou debatu na akademické rovině. -------- The concept of philosophy has had several forms and meanings throughout the history. Besides the traditional theoretical focus, we may also encounter the approach that highlights a practical impact of philosophizing on one’s life. This text introduces the concept of philosophical practice and reflects its current situation in the Czech Republic. Authors characterize philosophical practice as a discipline of philosophy and present its possible division into subsections. They also present its historical roots, which can be found in ancient Greece. Moreover, authors introduce available sources dealing with the philosophical practice and describe how this discipline is actually practiced in the Czech Republic. Detailed attention is given to three of its sections, namely philosophy for children (P4C), philosophical workshop, and philosophical consultation. Authors present theoretical background and also reflect their own methods in these sections. The text draws primarily from scholarly literature from abroad, particularly from the manuscripts and other sources produced by philosophical practitioners. The aim of this text is to introduce the concept of philosophical practice to the Czech reader and prepare the field for further academic discussion. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss how Australian feminism has contributed to a better understanding of women’s economic position within Australian society. Through this analysis we seek to shed some light on the current implementation of the ‘women in business’ policy in Australia. We trace the development of this position from the early beginnings of unionism and wage centralisation through to the social change movements of the 1960s and 1970s. We then examine how the neo-liberal turn of the 1990s manifested itself (...) in a move from a focus on numerical representation of women, through Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action policies and initiatives, to one that concentrated on an individualist approach to women in business. We conclude that feminism has had its most significant impact at the level of public policy. However, recent epistemological turns in Australian feminism appear to have resulted in less attention being paid to materialist concerns, and furthermore have not been able to resolve the sameness/difference divide that continues to haunt feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Příspěvek se věnuje problematice antického řeckého sportu, konkrétně významu sportovních zápolení a jejich výchovné a vzdělávací roli. Pozornost autor věnuje rozboru pozic filosofů Sókrata, Platóna a Aristotela. Po nastínění kontextu tématu představuje a interpretuje základní filosofické a náboženské premisy sportovního výkonu a jeho výchovné role. Řadí mezi ně úsilí o dosažení božské přízně, nesmrtelnosti, vyššího společenského postavení, ale i ideálů kalokagathia, areté a dalších ctností. Důležitý rozměr antického sportu spatřuje rovněž v jeho formativním potenciálu směřujícímu k přípravě na duševní život. (...) Hlavní část příspěvku se věnuje přístupu k pohybovým zápolením u filosofů Sókrata, Platóna a Aristotela, kteří svými úvahami k chápání výchovné role sportu podstatně přispěli. Následně se autor zaměřuje na identifikaci dobrého sportu podle zmíněných myslitelů a na zkoumání role sportu v kontextu dobrého života, který nahlíží v aristotelském rámci jako dosahování blaženosti. Cílem textu je identifikovat a vyzdvihnout výchovný smysl sportování, poukázat na jeho filosofické konotace a možnou roli sportu v otázce vedení dobrého života. ----------- This manuscript deals with the problematics of ancient Greek sport, specifically with the significance of sporting practices and their educational role. Attention is given to a detailed analysis of the positions of the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. After demonstrating the context, the author presents and interprets fundamental philosophical and religious premises of the athletic performance and its educational role. Among the identified features are the effort of acquiring divine favour, immortality, higher social status, but also the ideals of kalokagathia, areté, and other virtues. Important dimension of ancient Greek sport is also found in its formative potential which aims at the preparation for intellectual life. The main part of the article is focused on the approaches of the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle towards the sporting practices. These thinkers made an important contribution to the understanding of the educational role of sport. Then, the author identifies a good sport according to these thinkers and examines the role of such sport in the context of a good life, which is considered in the Aristotelian perspective as achieving beatitude (eudaimonia). The aim of this article is to identify and highlight an educational purpose of sport, underlines its philosophical connotations, and demonstrate its possible role in the context of a good life. (shrink)

A theory of ersatz impossible worlds is developed to deal with the problem of counterpossible conditionals. Using only tools standardly in the toolbox of possible worlds theorists, it is shown that we can construct a model for counterpossibles. This model is a natural extension of Lewis's semantics for counterfactuals, but instead of using classical logic as its base, it uses the logic LP.

Umbilical cord blood banking is one of many biomedical innovations that confront pregnant women with new choices about what they should do to secure their own and their child’s best interests. Many mothers can now choose to donate their baby’s umbilical cord blood (UCB) to a public cord blood bank or pay to store it in a private cord blood bank. Donation to a public bank is widely regarded as an altruistic act of civic responsibility. Paying to store UCB may (...) be regarded as a “unique opportunity” to provide “insurance” for the child’s future. This paper reports findings from a survey of Australian women that investigated the decision to either donate or store UCB. We conclude that mothers are faced with competing discourses that force them to choose between being a “good mother” and fulfilling their role as a “good citizen.” We discuss this finding with reference to the concept of value pluralism. (shrink)

Two prevailing paradigms explain the diversity of sex-determining modes in reptiles. Many researchers, particularly those who study reptiles, consider genetic and environmental sex-determining mechanisms to be fundamentally different, and that one can be demonstrated experimentally to the exclusion of the other. Other researchers, principally those who take a broader taxonomic perspective, argue that no clear boundaries exist between them. Indeed, we argue that genetic and environmental sex determination in reptiles should be seen as a continuum of states represented by species (...) whose sex is determined primarily by genotype, species where genetic and environmental mechanisms coexist and interact in lesser or greater measure to bring about sex phenotypes, and species where sex is determined primarily by environment. To do otherwise limits the scope of investigations into the transition between the two and reduces opportunities to use studies of reptiles to advance understanding of vertebrate sex determination generally. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Typically seniors like others choose to avoid institutional care. However, when age-related infirmity requires it, they not only enter into the care of others, but they also do so as vulnerable members of society. As their frailty increases with age, so does their dependence on the professionals who care for them and on the enforcement of policies concerning their care. A qualitative case study involving seniors and their carers revealed that breaches of confidentiality, unprofessional behaviour and the non-enforcement of policy, (...) continue to hide the physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by nursing and other staff on vulnerable consumers. Professional ethics, including at a corporate level, enforcing policy, protecting whistleblowers and creating reporting mechanisms for aged care researchers, are amongst the recommendations arising from this study. (shrink)

The quantified relevant logic RQ is given a new semantics in which a formula for all xA is true when there is some true proposition that implies all x-instantiations of A. Formulae are modelled as functions from variable-assignments to propositions, where a proposition is a set of worlds in a relevant model structure. A completeness proof is given for a basic quantificational system QR from which RQ is obtained by adding the axiom EC of 'extensional confinement': for all x(A V (...) B) -> (A V for all xB). with x not free in A. Validity of EC requires an additional model condition involving the boolean difference of propositions. A QR-model falsifying EC is constructed by forming the disjoint union of two natural arithmetical structures in which negation is interpreted by the minus operation. (shrink)

The paper argues that new environmental values are needed as the advanced industrial economy becomes global. Reviewing a range of values from hunter-gatherer, agricultural and industrial societies, the paper suggests that environmental value systems should ideally satisfy three criteria. They should be consistent with scientific understanding of natural systems, they should lead to practical ethical and political proposals and, crucially, they should inspire aesthetic responses of pleasure and awe. Current global value systems fall short of this ideal: Gaia has the (...) potential to combine science and awe, but lacks humane decision criteria, while sustainable development is pragmatic but environmentally minimalist and lacks aesthetic inspiration. The short term need is to integrate different strands of current positions as Hinduism combined pre-existing views. A sequence of priorities is suggested: eliminating irreversible environmental change ; stabilising population change through more equitable trade; and reconsidering the boundaries, practical and aesthetic, between society and nature. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it sets out an interpretation of the relevant logic E of relevant entailment based on the theory of situated inference. Second, it uses this interpretation, together with Anderson and Belnap’s natural deduc- tion system for E, to generalise E to a range of other systems of strict relevant implication. Routley–Meyer ternary relation semantics for these systems are produced and completeness theorems are proven. -/- .

The paper describes a computational model that we have implemented in an experimental dialogue system. Communication in a natural language between two participants A and B is considered, where A has a communicative goal that his/her partner B will make a decision to perform an action D. A argues the usefulness, pleasantness, etc. of D, in order to guide B's reasoning in a desirable direction. A computational model of argumentation is developed, which includes reasoning. Our model is based on the (...) studies in the common-sense conception of how the human mind works in such situations. Theoretical considerations are followed by an analysis of Estonian spoken human–human dialogues. First, calls of clients to travel agencies are studied where a travel agent could use various arguments in order to persuade a client to book a trip. The analysis demonstrates that clients are primarily looking for information; argumentation occurs in a small number of dialogues. Secondly, calls of s... (shrink)

This paper contributes to the growing line of thought in bioethics that respect for autonomy should not be equated to the facilitation of individualistic self determination through standard requirements of informed consent in all healthcare contexts. The paper describes how in the context of donation for living related liver transplantation (LRLT) meaningful, responsible decision making is often embedded within family processes and its negotiation. We suggest that good donor risk communication in families promote “conscientious autonomy” and “reflective trust”. From this, (...) the paper offers the suggestion that transplant teams and other relevant professionals have to broaden their role and responsibility for risk communication beyond proper disclosure by addressing the impact of varied psychosocial conditions on risk interpretation and assessment for potential donors and family stakeholders. In conclusion, we suggest further research questions on how professional responsibility and role-taking in risk communication should be morally understood. (shrink)

A logic is called 'paraconsistent' if it rejects the rule called 'ex contradictione quodlibet', according to which any conclusion follows from inconsistent premises. While logicians have proposed many technically developed paraconsistent logical systems and contemporary philosophers like Graham Priest have advanced the view that some contradictions can be true, and advocated a paraconsistent logic to deal with them, until recent times these systems have been little understood by philosophers. This book presents a comprehensive overview on paraconsistent logical systems to change (...) this situation. The book includes almost every major author currently working in the field. The papers are on the cutting edge of the literature some of which discuss current debates and others present important new ideas. The editors have avoided papers about technical details of paraconsistent logic, but instead concentrated upon works that discuss more 'big picture' ideas. Different treatments of paradoxes takes centre stage in many of the papers, but also there are several papers on how to interpret paraconistent logic and some on how it can be applied to philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper uses an atomistic ontology of universals, individuals, and facts to provide a semantics for ramified type theory. It is shown that with some natural constraints on the sort of universals and facts admitted into a model, the axiom of reducibility is made valid.

BackgroundBiobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people’s (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures.MethodsWe designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated (...) via the Young Person’s Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP’s secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer.ResultsOne hundred two CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16–18 years (63.7%, N = 65) and female (66.7%, N = 68). 72.3% had no prior knowledge of biobanking (N = 73).Acceptability of prospective consent for biobanking was high (91.2%, N = 93) with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘potential benefits outweigh individual risk’, 'frugality', and ‘(in)convenience’.Deferred consent was also deemed acceptable in the large majority (84.3%, N = 86), with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘body integrity’ and ‘sample frugality’. 76.5% preferred to reconsent when cognitively mature enough to give assent (N = 78), even if parental consent was previously in place. 79.2% wanted to be informed if their biobanked biospecimen is reused (N = 80).ConclusionProspective and deferred consent acceptability for biobanking is high among CYP in the UK. Altruism, frugality, body integrity, and privacy are the most important themes. Clear communication and justification are paramount to obtain consent. Any CYP with capacity should be part of the consenting procedure, if possible. (shrink)

There are a bewildering variety of ways the terms "realism" and "anti-realism" have been used in philosophy and furthermore the different uses of these terms are only loosely connected with one another. Rather than give a piecemeal map of this very diverse landscape, the authors focus on what they see as the core concept: realism about a particular domain is the view that there are facts or entities distinctive of that domain, and their existence and nature is in some important (...) sense objective and mind-independent. The authors carefully set out and explain the different realist and anti-realist positions and arguments that occur in five key domains: science, ethics, mathematics, modality and fictional objects. For each area the authors examine the various styles of argument in support of and against realism and anti-realism, show how these different positions and arguments arise in very different domains, evaluate their success within these fields, and draw general conclusions about these assorted strategies. Error theory, fictionalism, non-cognitivism, relativism and response-dependence are taken as the most important positions in opposition to the realist and these are explored in depth. Suitable for advanced level undergraduates, the book offers readers a clear introduction to a subject central to much contemporary work in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

This book introduces the reader to relevant logic and provides the subject with a philosophical interpretation. The defining feature of relevant logic is that it forces the premises of an argument to be really used in deriving its conclusion. The logic is placed in the context of possible world semantics and situation semantics, which are then applied to provide an understanding of the various logical particles and natural language conditionals. The book ends by examining various applications of relevant logic and (...) presenting some interesting open problems. It will be of interest to a range of readers including advanced students of logic, philosophical and mathematical logicians, and computer scientists. (shrink)

Although the concept of food sovereignty is rooted in International Peasant Movements across the global south, activists have recently called for the adoption of this framework among low-income communities of color in the urban United States. This paper investigates on-the-ground processes through which food sovereignty articulates with the work of food justice and community food security activists in Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington. In Oakland, we analyze a farmers market that seeks to connect black farmers to low-income consumers. In Seattle, (...) we attend to the experiences of displaced immigrant farmers from Latin America and their efforts to address their food needs following migration. In both cases, we find that US based projects were constrained by broader forces of neoliberalism that remained unrecognized by local activists. In Oakland, despite a desire to create a local food system led by marginalized African Americans, emphasis on providing green jobs in agriculture led activists to take a market-based approach that kept local food out of the economic grasp of food-insecure neighborhood residents. In Seattle, the marginalization of the immense agroecological knowledge of Latino/an immigrant farmers rendered local food projects less inclusive and capable of transformative change. Taken together, these very different cases suggest that a shift towards food sovereignty necessitates a broad acknowledgement of and resistance to neoliberalism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There has been extensive debate among various disciplines about the nature and value of play. From these discussions it seems clear that play is a phenomenon with more than just one dimension: as a specific type of activity, as a form or structure, as an ontologically distinctive phenomenon, as a type of experience, or as a stance or an attitude towards a particular activity. This article focuses on the importance of the playful attitude in sport. It begins by attempting (...) to describe the underpinning features of a playful attitude, and its relation to Suits’ lusory attitude and the concept of gamification. Finally, it considers and critically evaluates the relationship between play and sport and the importance of the playful attitude in sporting activities. The purpose of this paper is a far deeper analysis of the playful attitude and its relationship to sport than has been previously provided, and a more precise definition as to what the playful attitude is. This will ultimately help to answer questions about the value of sport and how sport ought to be played. (shrink)

We group the existing variants of the familiar set-theoretical and truth-theoretical paradoxes into two classes: connective paradoxes, which can in principle be ascribed to the presence of a contracting connective of some sort, and structural paradoxes, where at most the faulty use of a structural inference rule can possibly be blamed. We impute the former to an equivocation over the meaning of logical constants, and the latter to an equivocation over the notion of consequence. Both equivocation sources are tightly related, (...) and can be cleared up by adopting a particular substructural logic in place of classical logic. We then argue that our perspective can be justified via an informational semantics of contraction-free substructural logics. (shrink)

We show that the implicational fragment of intuitionism is the weakest logic with a non-trivial probabilistic semantics which satisfies the thesis that the probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities. We also show that several logics between intuitionism and classical logic also admit non-trivial probability functions which satisfy that thesis. On the other hand, we also prove that very weak assumptions concerning negation added to the core probability conditions with the restriction that probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities are sufficient to (...) trivialize the semantics. (shrink)

Using Connell's theory of gender and power, this article explores the gender regime of lawn bowls, which is played predominantly by older people. The sport is characterized by men's exploitation of women's labor, heterosexual coupledom, and the desexualization of women. A “woman's place” both on and off the playing field is clearly delineated in terms of otherness, especially as an altruistic wife, mother, and grandmother; consequently, men can bowl relatively freely, whereas women's leisure is constrained by their facilitation of men's (...) interests. (shrink)

Once upon a time, modal logic was castigated because it ‘had no semantics.’ Kripke, Hintikka, Kanger, and others changed all that. In a similar way, when Relevant Logic was introduced by Anderson and Belnap, it too was castigated for ‘having no semantics.’ The present overview marks a culmination of that effort. The semantic approach described here brings together a number of hitherto disparate efforts to set out formal systems for logics of relevant implication and entailment. It also makes clear (despite (...) some of our hopes and utterances) that the One True Logic does not exist. This is as true for relevant logics as Kripke et al., showed it to be for modal logics. In both cases, subtle (and not so subtle) variations on semantical postulates produce different logics in the same family. The question of which semantical postulates are correct makes no sense without further context, i.e., the questioner needs to answer the question: Correct for what? The question that does remain is: What motivates the relevant family of logics? And this is the question that is the main job for this chapter to investigate. (shrink)

This book is dedicated to the work of Alasdair Urquhart. The book starts out with an introduction to and an overview of Urquhart’s work, and an autobiographical essay by Urquhart. This introductory section is followed by papers on algebraic logic and lattice theory, papers on the complexity of proofs, and papers on philosophical logic and history of logic. The final section of the book contains a response to the papers by Urquhart. Alasdair Urquhart has made extremely important contributions to a (...) variety of fields in logic. He produced some of the earliest work on the semantics of relevant logic. He provided the undecidability of the logics R and E, as well as some of their close neighbors. He proved that interpolation fails in some of those systems. Urquhart has done very important work in complexity theory, both about the complexity of proofs in classical and some nonclassical logics. In pure algebra, he has produced a representation theorem for lattices and some rather beautiful duality theorems. In addition, he has done important work in the history of logic, especially on Bertrand Russell, including editing Volume four of Russell’s Collected Papers. (shrink)