Stakeholder theory is widely accepted but elementary aspects remain indeterminate as the term ‘stakeholder’ is an essentially contested concept, being variously describable, internally complex and open in character. Such contestability is highly problematic for theory development and empirical testing. The extent of essential contestability, previously unknown, is demonstrated in this paper through a bounded systematic review of 593 different stakeholder theory definitions. As an essentially contested concept, the solution does not lie in a universal stakeholder definition, but (...) in debating the boundaries of stakeholder identification. To this end, this paper presents the first major attempt at sorting, filtering and ordering stakeholder theory and stakeholder definitions to produce a comprehensive, multi-dimensional classification of stakeholder theory. The constructs of the classification model juxtapose existing stakeholder theories and contributions from across the multi-contextual applications of stakeholder theory, thereby providing an invaluable overview of what we know about stakeholder theory in one model. The classification model is then tested with positive results. The paper concludes with a comprehensive discussion of the implications of classification stakeholder theory definitions, which has for future research. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism constitutes a promising take on scientific realism, one that avoids the well‐known issues that realist stances have with underdetermination and theory change. In its most radical versions, ontic structural realism proposes a type of eliminativism about theoretical entities, ascribing ontological commitment only to the structures, and not to the objects appearing in our theories. More moderate versions of ontic structural realism have also been proposed, allowing for ‘thin’ objects in the ontology. This work connects these takes (...) on structural realism with the independent notion that there are two categorically different kinds of scientific theories, namely those that deal with interactions and those that deal with structural constraints – what are known as interaction and framework theories, respectively. By taking this classification seriously, one can arrive at a selective version of ontic structural realism which is better adapted to our scientific knowledge, in which eliminativist ontic structural realism constitutes a natural fit to framework theories, whereas the moderate version is connected to interaction theories. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the heuristic power of the theoretical distinction between framework and interaction theories applied to the case of General Relativity. According to the distinction, theories and theoretical elements can be classified into two different groups, each with clear ontological, epistemic and functional content. Being so, to identify the group to which a theory belongs would suffice to know a priori its prospects and limitations in these areas without going into a detailed technical analysis. We make (...) the exercise here with General Relativity, anticipate its ontological, epistemic and functional content and show afterwords that such expectations are justified in this case, being consistent with formal issues of General Relativity. With this, we attempt to make a case for the use of the distinction as a powerful tool for scientific and philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Otto Neurath’s early work on the classification of systems of hypotheses in optics provided some of the key insights of Neurath’s later philosophy of science. The chapter investigates how Neurath developed his theory of theory-classification in response to inconsistencies he stumbled upon while studying the historical theories. Neurath’s empiricism and thoroughgoing fallibilism informed his mapping of the group of theories, locating “elementary notions” of theories and taking into account the “blurred margins” of theories. To replace false (...) dichotomies the project provided a finer-grained analysis of theories and could be utilized to locate unconceived alternatives of a domain. The first sections discuss the close links between Neurath’s optical essays, his notion of an “auxiliary motive,” and his attack on pseudorationalism in the “Lost Wanderers of Descartes” paper. The last sections provide a comparison of the two essays, with an extended table of the elementary notions Neurath listed, and discuss Neurath’s two-tier methodology for historical reconstruction. (shrink)

The volume presents phenomena of classification and categorisation in ancient and modern cultures and provides an overview of how cultural practices and cognitive systems interact when individuals or larger groups conceptually organize their world. Scientists of antiquity studies, anthropologists, linguists etc. will find methods to reconstruct early concepts of men and nature from a synchronic and diachronic comparative perspective.

This book is an essay on the epistemology of classifications. Its main purpose is not to provide an exposition of an actual mathematical theory of classifications, that is, a general theory which would be available to any kind of them: hierarchical or non-hierarchical, ordinary or fuzzy, overlapping or non-overlapping, finite or infinite, and so on, establishing a basis for all possible divisions of the real world. For the moment, such a theory remains nothing but a dream. Instead, (...) the authors essentially put forward a number of key questions. Their aim is rather to reveal the “state of art” of this dynamic field and the philosophy one may eventually adopt to go further. To this end they present some advances made in the course of the last century, discuss a few tricky problems that remain to be solved, and show the avenues open to those who no longer wish to stay on the wrong track. Researchers and professionals interested in the epistemology and philosophy of science, library science, logic and set theory, order theory or cluster analysis will find this book a comprehensive, original and progressive introduction to the main questions in this field. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Classification and Explanation in Aristotle’s Theory of DefinitionGreg Bayer1. introductiona problem lies at the heart of Aristotle’s theory of definition. On the one hand, Aristotle says in Topics VI.4 that “the one who defines well must define by means of genus1 and differentia” (141b25–7); indeed his view of definition most often seems to be confined to its role of picking out the definiendum by indicating the (...) class it belongs to—what can be called its “class definition.”2 But on the other hand, in Posterior Analytics II.2 he makes the pronouncement that “knowing what something is ” is the same as knowing why it is ” (90a31–2), and then goes on in II.2 and 8 to argue that definition is an, “explanation” or “explanatory principle.” How can these two notions of definition be reconciled?Short of giving the full Aristotelian solution to this problem, I hope here to suggest one way in which Aristotle’s notion of class definition—especially the reformed version presented in De Partibus Animalium I.2–4—can be shown to relate to his notion of explanatory definition in APo II. The link is his notion of scientific, “problems,” as discussed in APo II. 14 and elsewhere.3 It will turn out that a class definition in effect presents a scientific problem to the scientist which can best be solved by an explanation—ultimately by an “explanatory definition”—accounting for the attributes that form the basis of [End Page 487] class membership. Or more succinctly: the class definition presents a problem that the explanatory definition solves. Further, although the discussion in PA I is meant to be a reform of the simpler but unworkable method of arriving at the genus-differentia formula based upon, “division,” I intend to argue that an important ancillary benefit of the reformed method is that it is capable of articulating scientific problems in a much clearer way than division can. In fact, it seems very well suited to the task of presenting problems and hence to the task of searching for explanatory definitions.2. scientific problemsIn APo II. 14, Aristotle begins to outline the proper procedure for formulating scientific problems. We are told that “in order to obtain problems, we must pick out the sections 4 and divisions” of the subject we are investigating, about which we are formulating a problem (98a1–3). That is, we must learn to pick out each genus in the hierarchy of genera the subject belongs to by learning to identify the attributes associated with each of these genera. This will enable us to account for each attribute we find in the subject under investigation in terms of the genus the attribute is primarily associated with. As Aristotle explains: “Let A stand for animal, B for [an attribute] of every animal, and C, D, and E some particular animal [species]; it is clear why B belongs to D—because of A” (98a9–11).This, in a sense, shows one way a scientific problem—Why does attribute B belong to D?—can be “solved”: by finding the right “division” of D that accounts for its having B. But what is important to note here is that, in fact, our investigation only begins with this process of finding the right genus. This is simply how we “obtain” the problem, strictly speaking, not the means for ultimately solving it. Indeed the problem of accounting for why an attribute belongs to a given subject is not even completely formulated until we are able to determine the proper “division,” or genus, the attribute universally belongs to. Then we can ask the more fundamental question of why the attribute belongs to this genus, i.e., why B belongs to genus A. Now this question can be analyzed further, in terms of the other attributes of the genus. Any genus (or infima species) is, in effect, designated by a regular concomitance of the many attributes that identify it—i.e., attributes that universally co-occur in it. So the scientific problem we are formulating, regarding why a certain attribute belongs to a certain subject, ultimately should be reformulated in this way: Why does... (shrink)

We study the complexity of the classification problem for countable models of set theory (). We prove that the classification of arbitrary countable models of is Borel complete, meaning that it is as complex as it can conceivably be. We then give partial results concerning the classification of countable well‐founded models of.

We analyze the relationship between evolutionary theory and classification of higher taxa in the work of three ichthyologists: Albert C.L.G. Günther (1830–1914), Edward Drinker Cope (1840–1897), and Theodore Gill (1837–1914). The progress of ichthyology in the early years following the Origin has received little attention from historians, and offers an opportunity to further evaluate the extent to which evolutionary theorizing influenced published views on systematic methodology. These three ichthyologists held radically different theoretical views. The apparent commensurability of claims (...) about relationships among groups of fishes belies differences in what the relationships actually were supposed to be. As well, interpreting classification as genealogical did not lead to agreement about taxonomic methodology; instead, applying evolutionary theory raised new axes of disagreement. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values play important roles in classificatory practice, such that philosophical accounts of kinds and classification should be able to accommodate them. Available accounts fail to do so, however. Our aim is to fill this lacuna by showing how non-epistemic values feature in scientific classification, and how they can be incorporated into a philosophical theory of classification and kinds. To achieve this, we present a novel account of kinds and classification, discuss examples from biological (...) class='Hi'>classification where non-epistemic values play decisive roles, and show how this account accommodates the role of non-epistemic values. (shrink)

Newcomb-like problems are classified by the payoff table of their act-state pairs, and the causal structure that gives rise to the act-state correlation. Decision theories are classified by the one or more points of intervention whose causal role is taken to be relevant to rationality in various problems. Some decision theories suggest an inherent conflict between different notions of rationality that are all relevant. Some issues with causal modeling raise problems for decision theories in the contexts where Newcomb problems arise.

In this paper it is argued that qualitative theories (Q-theories) can be used to describe the statistical structure of cross classified populations and that the notion of verisimilitude provides an appropriate tool for measuring the statistical adequacy of Q-theories. First of all, a short outline of the post-Popperian approaches to verisimilitude and of the related verisimilitudinarian non-falsificationist methodologies (VNF-methodologies) is given. Secondly, the notion of Q-theory is explicated, and the qualitative verisimilitude of Q-theories is defined. Afterwards, appropriate measures for (...) the statistical verisimilitude of Q-theories are introduced, so to obtain a clear formulation of the intuitive idea that the statistical truth about cross classified populations can be approached by falsified Q-theories. Finally, it is argued that some basic intuitions underlying VNF-methodologies are shared by the so-called prediction logic, developed by the statisticians and social scientists David K. Hildebrand, James D. Laing and Howard Rosenthal. (shrink)

We characterize the classifiability of a countable first-order theory T in terms of the solvability of the potential-isomorphism problem for models of T.

We relate the classifiability of a complete finitary first-order theory in the sense of S. SHELAH to the determinacy of the class of -saturated models in the sense of stationary logic.

Acquiring perceptual expertise is slow and effortful. However, untrained novices can accurately make difficult classification decisions by reformulating the task as similarity judgment. Given a query image and a set of reference images, individuals are asked to select the best matching reference. When references are suitably chosen, the procedure yields an implicit classification of the query image. To optimize reference selection, we develop and evaluate a predictive model of similarity-based choice. The model builds on existing psychological literature and (...) accommodates stochastic, dynamic shifts of attention among visual feature dimensions. We perform a series of human experiments with two stimulus types and nine classification tasks to validate the model and to demonstrate the model's potential to boost performance. Our system achieves high accuracy for participants who are naive as to the classification task, even when the classification task switches from trial to trial. (shrink)

Characterizing how activity in the central and autonomic nervous systems corresponds to distinct emotional states is one of the central goals of affective neuroscience. Despite the ease with which individuals label their own experiences, identifying specific autonomic and neural markers of emotions remains a challenge. Here we explore how multivariate pattern classification approaches offer an advantageous framework for identifying emotion-specific biomarkers and for testing predictions of theoretical models of emotion. Based on initial studies using multivariate pattern classification, we (...) suggest that central and autonomic nervous system activity can be reliably decoded into distinct emotional states. Finally, we consider future directions in applying pattern classification to understand the nature of emotion in the nervous system. (shrink)

A theory is stable up to Δ if any Δ-type over a model has a few extensions up to complete types. We prove that a theory has no the independence property iff it is stable up to some Δ, where each equation image has no the independence property.

A classification of the global catastrophic risks of AI is presented, along with a comprehensive list of previously identified risks. This classification allows the identification of several new risks. We show that at each level of AI’s intelligence power, separate types of possible catastrophes dominate. Our classification demonstrates that the field of AI risks is diverse, and includes many scenarios beyond the commonly discussed cases of a paperclip maximizer or robot-caused unemployment. Global catastrophic failure could happen at (...) various levels of AI development, namely, before it starts self-improvement, during its takeoff, when it uses various instruments to escape its initial confinement, or after it successfully takes over the world and starts to implement its goal system, which could be plainly unaligned, or feature-flawed friendliness. AI could also halt at later stages of its development either due to technical glitches or ontological problems. Overall, we identified around several dozen scenarios of AI-driven global catastrophe. The extent of this list illustrates that there is no one simple solution to the problem of AI safety, and that AI safety theory is complex and must be customized for each AI development level. (shrink)

Using a classical life history model (the Smith & Fretwell model of the evolution of offspring size), it is demonstrated that even in the presence of overwhelming empirical support, the testability of predictions derived from evolutionary models can give no guarantee that the underlying fitness concept is sound. Non-awareness of this problem may cause considerable justified but avoidable criticism. To help understanding the variable use of fitness in evolutionary models and recognizing potentially problematic areas which need careful consideration, a hierarchical (...) classification of definitions of fitness used in evolutionary models is presented. As a conclusion, it is advocated to use the term fitness more conscientiously than currently often practised and to think more about ways to develop fitness-free evolutionary theories compatible with Darwin's ideas. (shrink)

To assist in the evaluation process when determining architectures for new robots and intelligent systems equipped with artificial emotions, it is beneficial to understand the systems that have been built previously. Other surveys have classified these systems on the basis of their technological features. In this survey paper, we present a classification system based on a model similar to that used in psychology and philosophy for theories of emotion. This makes possible a connection to thousands of years of discourse (...) on the topic of emotion. Five theories of emotion are described based on an emotion theory model proposed by Power and Dalgleish. The paper provides classifications using a model of 10 new questions, for 14 major research projects that describe implementations or designs for systems that use artificial emotions for either robotics or general artificial intelligence. We also analyze the trends in the usage of various theories and complexity changes over time. (shrink)

How Classification Works attempts to bridge the gap between philosophy and the social sciences using as a focus some of the work of Nelson Goodman. Throughout his long career Goodman has addressed the question: are some ways of conceptualizing more natural than others? This book looks at the rightness of categories, assessing Goodman's role in modern philosophy and explaining some of his ideas on the relation between aesthetics and cognitive theory. Two papers by Nelson Goodman are included in (...) the collection and there are analyses of his work by seven leading academics in anthropology, philosophy, sociology and musicology. (shrink)

Introduction into the structure, contents and specifications of the Information Coding Classification, developed in the seventies and used in many ways by the author and a few others following its publication in 1982. Its theoretical basis is explained consisting in the Integrative Level Theory, following an evolutionary approach of ontical areas, and integrating also on each level the aspects contained in the sequence of the levels, the distinction between categories of form and categories of being, the application of (...) a feature of Systems Theory and the inclusion of a concept theory, distinguishing four kinds of relationships, originated by the kinds of characteristics. Its special Subject Groups on each of its nine levels are outlined and the combinatory facilities at certain positions of the Systematifier are shown. Further elaboration and use have been suggested, be it only as a switching language between the six existing universal classification systems at present in use internationally. (shrink)

Locke is often cited as a precursor to contemporary natural kind realism. However, careful attention to Locke’s arguments show that he was unequivocally a conventionalist about natural kinds. To the extent that contemporary natural kind realists see themselves as following Locke, they misunderstand what he was trying to do. Locke argues that natural kinds require either dubious metaphysical commitments (e.g., to substantial forms or universals), or a question-begging version of essentialism. Contemporary natural kind realists face a similar dilemma, and should (...) not appeal to Locke in their defense. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The study of complexity and optimization in decision theory involves both partial and complete characterizations of preferences over decision spaces in terms of real-valued monotones. With this motivation, and following the recent introduction of new classes of monotones, like injective monotones or strict monotone multi-utilities, we present the classification of preordered spaces in terms of both the existence and cardinality of real-valued monotones and the cardinality of the quotient space. In particular, we take advantage of a characterization of (...) real-valued monotones in terms of separating families of increasing sets to obtain a more complete classification consisting of classes that are strictly different from each other. As a result, we gain new insight into both complexity and optimization, and clarify their interplay in preordered spaces. (shrink)

Conditional constructions (if–then) enable us to express our thoughts about possible states of the world, and they form an important ingredient for our reasoning and argumentative capabilities. Different types and argumentative uses have been distinguished in the literature, but their applicability to actual language use is rarely evaluated. This paper focuses on the reliability of applying classifications of connections between antecedents and consequents of conditionals to discourse, and three issues are identified. First, different accounts produce incompatible results when applied to (...) language data. Second, a discrepancy between theory and data was observed in previous studies, which sometimes discard existing classifications for being detached from actual language use. Finally, language users construct various cognitive relations between clauses of conditionals without being able to rely on overt linguistic features, which poses problems for the annotation of conditionals in argumentation and discourse. This paper addresses these issues by means of comparing theoretical types and actual uses of conditionals, by inspecting the dispersion of types in natural-language corpora, and by conducting an experiment in which the inter-rater reliability of classifications was assessed. The results show that the reliability of classifications of conditionals when applied to language data is low. With respect to the aforementioned issues, different classifications produced incompatible results, a discrepancy between theory and data was indeed observed, and low reliability scores indicated a largely interpretative nature of types of conditionals. Given these results, suggestions for the enhancement of reliability in corpus studies of conditionals and beyond are provided to enhance future classification design. (shrink)

The scientific study of emotion has been characterized by classification schemes that propose to 'carve nature at the joints.' This article examines several of these classifications, drawn from both the categorical and dimensional perspectives. Each classification is given credit for what it contributes to our understanding, but the dream of a single, all purpose taxonomy of emotional phenomena is called into question. Such hopes are often associated with the carving at the joints metaphor, which is here argued to (...) be harmful to scientific realism, and better rejected in favor of a pragmatic approach. Questioning the mere discovery theory of scientific progress, I argue that psychologists discover facts about their domain of study, but have to decide how to classify them. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Classification is an important goal in many branches of mathematics. The idea is to describe the members of some class of mathematical objects, up to isomorphism or other important equivalence, in terms of relatively simple invariants. Where this is impossible, it is useful to have concrete results saying so. In model theory and descriptive set theory, there is a large body of work showing that certain classes of mathematical structures admit classification while others do not. In (...) the present paper, we describe some recent work on classification in computable structure theory.Section 1 gives some background from model theory and descriptive set theory. From model theory, we give sample structure and non-structure theorems for classes that include structures of arbitrary cardinality. We also describe the notion of Scott rank, which is useful in the more restricted setting of countable structures. From descriptive set theory, we describe the basic Polish space of structures for a fixed countable language with fixed countable universe. We give sample structure and non-structure theorems based on the complexity of the isomorphism relation, and on Borel embeddings.Section 2 gives some background on computable structures. We describe three approaches to classification for these structures. The approaches are all equivalent. However, one approach, which involves calculating the complexity of the isomorphism relation, has turned out to be more productive than the others. Section 3 describes results on the isomorphism relation for a number of mathematically interesting classes—various kinds of groups and fields. In Section 4, we consider a setting similar to that in descriptive set theory. We describe an effective analogue of Borel embedding which allows us to make distinctions even among classes of finite structures. Section 5 gives results on computable structures of high Scott rank. Some of these results make use of computable embeddings. Finally, in Section 6, we mention some open problems and possible directions for future work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 219-227 [Access article in PDF] The Practical Kinds Model as a Pragmatist Theory of Classification Peter Zachar Pragmatist theories of scientific classification are intended to be pluralistic models that recognize different ways of cutting up the world as valuable, but do not require us to adopt whatever-goes relativism or metaphysical antirealism. How ironic that my application of pragmatism to psychopathology (...) has been charged with not being sufficiently pluralistic because it tries to fit all psychiatric disorders into the Procrustean bed of practical kinds. The Practical Kinds Model in General As a point of clarification, the practical kinds model is not a description of a type of category combined with an argument that all psychiatric disorders should be seen as belonging to that type. If it were that kind of model, I would fully agree with Haslam that practical kinds, fuzzy kinds, and discrete kinds are all potential types of psychiatric disorders. Like Nick Haslam, I believe that there are many different things in the DSM-IV and the ICD-10, and they cannot neatly be classified as the same type of thing.Rather than identifying a type of category, the practical kinds model is a general theory of scientific classification. It is a nonessentialistic theory. Essentialism is the view that things have real essences. In the Aristotelian version of essentialism, an essence is an internal structure, and it is the internal structure that makes anything be the kind of thing it really is. In this classical category model, category members either have the essence or they do not, and everything that has the appropriate essence is a member of that category. The world is supposed to therefore have a well-defined structure, and the job of the scientist is to discover that structure. Ian Hacking (1999) has termed this view of categorization inherent structurism.The practical kinds model does not deny that things have internal structures; it only denies that internal structure by itself determines category membership. Internal structure is an important consideration in identifying categories, but external criteria can always play a role. External or relational criteria play more important roles in some cases than they do in others, but they cannot be eliminated once and for all. Essentialistic theories, which favor an almost exclusive focus on inherent structures, have the advantage of being more parsimonious, but they do so by ignoring real complexity.The best way to illustrate this point is to examine a category whose identification is heavily weighted in terms of internal criteria, or an inherent structure, such as a chemical element. [End Page 219] For example, hydrogen is defined as the element that has an atomic number of 1. This means that it has one proton in its nucleus and normally one electron orbiting its nucleus. The atomic number reflects an internal property, and anything that has an atomic number of 1 is hydrogen. The same is true for the other elements. Anything that has an atomic number of 79 is gold; anything that has an atomic number of 19 is potassium, and so on. Also part of the essentialistic view is the notion that all the important properties of an element are systematically (or lawfully) related to its internal structure.It would be foolish to deny the practical utility of the atomic theory of chemistry. But even in this strongest of cases, external criteria can potentially play a role in how we decide to carve up the world and what we identify as the relevant categories. The point can be clearly illustrated with a Gedanken experiment based on the ideas of Donnellan (1983). Assume that we were to make contact with extraterrestrial life, and the result of that contact was our initiation into a larger galactic community like those portrayed on Star Trek or Babylon 5. Fortunately for us, it turns out that all planets in the community use a gold-based currency, just like we do on Earth. What we call gold, however, is too common to be the galactic basis of a currency, but a particular isotope... (shrink)