In this paper, we describe a framework for studying social agents’ individual decision making, that takes account of the environment and social dynamics. We describe a study in which we explored the efficiency of foraging strategies within a group of individuals faced with a resource-limited environment. We investigated to what extent cooperative and non-cooperative behaviors impacted on the survival rates of a population of individuals. In the experiment presented here, we considered two different types of individuals: selfish individuals (...) who gather energy for their own use, and cooperative individuals who share the energy they gather with others, thus reducing their own individual chances of survival. In order to study the trade-off between non-cooperative and cooperative behaviors in a pseudo-realistic two-dimensional environment, we introduced an agent-based modeling and simulation tool called ACACIA-ES, which simulated local interactions and spatial behavior for large numbers of individuals in complex environments. The main result from our simulation was that a group of cooperative individuals displayed better survival strategies than groups of selfish individuals when faced with a variety of environmental pressures; however, it was very unlikely that such cooperative strategies could resist competition from selfish individuals, if the outcome of past social interactions was memorized, even when a very small group of selfish individuals was introduced. (shrink)

Graeme Forbes (2011) raises some problems for two-dimensional semantic theories. The problems concern nested environments: linguistic environments where sentences are nested under both modal and epistemic operators. Closely related problems involving nested environments have been raised by Scott Soames (2005) and Josh Dever (2007). Soames goes so far as to say that nested environments pose the “chief technical problem” for strong two-dimensionalism. We call the problem of handling nested environments within two-dimensional semantics “the nesting problem”. We show that the two-dimensional (...) semantics for attitude ascriptions developed in Chalmers (2011a) has no trouble accommodating certain forms of the nesting problem that involve factive verbs such as “know” or “establish”. A certain form of the nesting problem involving apriority and necessity operators does raise an interesting puzzle, but we show how a generalized version of the nesting problem arises independently of two-dimensional semantics—it arises, in fact, for anyone who accepts the contingent a priori. We, then, provide a two-dimensional treatment of the apriority operator that fits the two-dimensional treatment of attitude verbs and apply it to the generalized nesting problem. We conclude that two-dimensionalism is not seriously threatened by cases involving the nesting of epistemic and modal operators. (shrink)

In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) semantics has been used to develop a broadly descriptivist approach to meaning that seeks to accommodate externalists’ counterexamples to traditional descriptivism. The 2D possible worlds framework can be used to capture a speaker’s implicit dispositions to identify the reference of her words on the basis of empirical information about her actual environment. Proponents of 2D semantics argue that this aspect of linguistic understanding plays the core theoretical role of meanings: 2D semantics allows us to (...) specify a reference-fixing criterion implicit mastery of which constitutes semantic competence a particular meaning. (shrink)

The starting point for the contemporary debate about theories of health should be the holistic theory of Lennart Nordenfelt, claims George Khushf, not the refuted theory of Christopher Boorse. The present paper is an attempt to challenge Nordenfelt and to present an alternative theory to his and other theories, including Boorse’s. The main problems with Nordenfelt’s theory are that it is relativistic, that it leads to counter-intuitive results as to what goals can count as healthy, that it focuses on the (...) wrong kind of abilities, that it makes measuring health extra difficult, and that it does not give us a sufficient account of health, at most a necessary one. The alternative theory proposed is two-dimensional. First, health is to have developed the abilities and dispositions that members of one’s culture typically develop, and be able to use them, in acceptable circumstances; and second, health is to experience positive moods and sensations, the kinds that have internal causes. The theory solves the problems attached to Nordenfelt’s theory by not being individual relativistic, by eliminating the goals in the definition, by giving an alternative interpretation of “ability,” by making health easier to measure, and by adding the dimension of well-being that, together with health as ability, not only gives us a necessary, but also a sufficient, account of health. (shrink)

This article presents a general conception of aesthetic experience built on an analysis of the relationship between the narrative and the ambient dimensions of the aesthetic value of a natural environment, the forest. First of all, the two dimensions are presented with respect to the possibilities and problems raised by distinguishing between them. Next, the possibilities of their relationship are analysed and it is argued that they are strongly complementary. This complementarity becomes the core of the proposed conception of (...) aesthetic experience, which can explain the difference between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic, and can also provide an answer to the question of the non-reductive differentiation between the aesthetic experience of nature and the experience of a work of art. The conclusion of the article is mainly concerned to eliminate one of the problems localized in presenting the ambient dimension (the ambience paradox), by means of Ricoeur’s conception of the relationship between time and narrative. (shrink)

This paper starts with the study of realistic three-dimensional models, from the two aspects of ink art style simulation model and three-dimensional display technology, explores the three-dimensional display model of three-dimensional model ink style, and conducts experiments through the software development platform and auxiliary software. The feasibility of the model is verified. Aiming at the problem of real-time rendering of large-scale 3D scenes in the model, efficient visibility rejection method and a multiresolution fast rendering method were designed to realize the (...) rapid construction and rendering of ink art 3D virtual reality scenes in a big data environment. A two-dimensional cellular automaton is used to simulate a brushstroke model with ink and wash style, and outlines are drawn along the path of the brushstroke to obtain an effect close to the artistic style of ink and wash painting. Set the surface of the model with ink style brushstroke texture patterns, refer to the depth map, normal map, and curvature map information of the model, and simulate the drawing effect of the method by procedural texture mapping. Example verification shows that the rapid visualization analysis model of ink art big data designed in this paper is in line with the prediction requirements of ink art big data three-dimensional display indicators. The fast visibility removal method is used to deal with large-scale three-dimensional ink art in a big data environment. High efficiency is achieved in virtual reality scenes, and the multiresolution fast rendering method better maintains the appearance of the prediction model without major deformation. (shrink)

Participants maneuvered a rat image through a circular region on the computer screen to find a hidden target platform, blending aspects of two well-known spatial tasks. Like the Morris water maze task, participants first experienced a series of learning trials before having to navigate to the hidden target platform from different locations and orientations. Like the dot-location task, they determined the location of a position within a two-dimensional circular region. This procedure provided a way to examine how the number of (...) surrounding cues (1, 2, or 3) affects the memory for spatial location in navigation. Memory performance was better when there were more cues and when targets were close to cues, consistent with the idea that cues bolster fine-grain memory, especially in proximal regions. Early and late measures of bias in memory reflected biases in a direction toward the nearest cue, implicating a cue-based category structure of the navigational space. Collectively, results suggest cue-based spatial memory representations that have been inferred from the dot-location task generalize to a navigation task within a simple, computer-based environment, as demonstrated by the good fits of the spatial model developed for the dot-location task (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2005, 2007). (shrink)

Jeffery et al. extensively and thoroughly describe how different species navigate through a three-dimensional environment. Undeniably, the world offers numerous three-dimensional opportunities. However, we argue that for most navigation tasks a two-dimensional representation is nevertheless sufficient, as physical conditions and limitations such as gravity, thermoclines, or layers of earth encountered in a specific situation provide the very elevation data the navigating individual needs.

As the result of the complexity inherent in nature, mathematical models employed in ecology are often governed by a large number of variables. For instance, in the study of population dynamics we often deal with models for structured populations in which individuals are classified regarding their age, size, activity or location, and this structuring of the population leads to high dimensional systems. In many instances, the dynamics of the system is controlled by processes whose time scales are very different from (...) each other. Aggregation techniques take advantage of this situation to build a low dimensional reduced system from which behavior we can approximate the dynamics of the complex original system.In this work we extend aggregation techniques to the case of time dependent discrete population models with two time scales where both the fast and the slow processes are allowed to change at their own characteristic time scale, generalizing the results of previous studies. We propose a non-autonomous model with two time scales, construct an aggregated model and give relationship between the variables governing the original and the reduced systems. We also explore how the properties of strong and weak ergodicity, regarding the capacity of the system to forget initial conditions, of the original system can be studied in terms of the reduced system. (shrink)

Developing social skills is essential to succeed in social relations. Two important social constructs in middle childhood, prosocial behavior and reactive aggression, are often regarded as separate behaviors with opposing developmental outcomes. However, there is increasing evidence for the co-occurrence of prosociality and aggression, as both might indicate responsivity to the social environment. Here, we tested whether a bi-dimensional taxonomy of prosociality and reactive aggression could predict internalizing and externalizing problems over time. We re-analyzed data of two well-validated experimental (...) tasks for prosociality and reactive aggression in a developmental population sample. Results revealed no associations between prosociality and reactive aggression, confirming the independence of those constructs. Interestingly, although prosociality and reactive aggression independently did not predict problem behavior, the interaction of both was negatively predictive of changes in externalizing problems over time. Specifically, only children who scored low on both prosociality and reactive aggression showed an increase in externalizing problems 1 year later, whereas levels of externalizing problems did not change for children who scored high on both types of behavior. Thus, our results suggest that at an individual level, reactive aggression in middle childhood might not always be maladaptive when combined with prosocial behavior, thereby confirming the importance of studying social competence across multiple dimensions. (shrink)

Context: Technology has not only changed the way we teach mathematical concepts but also the nature of knowledge, and thus what is possible to learn. While geometric transformations are recognized to be foundational to the formation of students’ geometric conceptions, little research has focused on how these notions can be introduced in elementary schooling. Problem: This project addressed the need for development of students’ reasoning about and with geometric transformations in elementary school. We investigated the nature of students’ understandings of (...) translations, rotations, scaling, and stretching in two dimensions in the context of use of the software application Graphs ’n Glyphs. More specifically, we explored the question “What is the nature of elementary students’ reasoning of geometric transformations when instruction exploits the technological tool Graphs ’n Glyphs?” Method: Using a design research perspective, we present the conduct of a teaching experiment with one pair of fourth-graders, studying translation and rotation. The project investigated how and to what extent activity using Graphs ’n Glyphs can elicit students’ reasoning about geometric transformations, and explored the constraints and affordances of Graphs ’n Glyphs for thinking-in-change about geometric transformations. Results: The students proved adept using the software with carefully designed tasks to explore the behavior of two-dimensional shapes, distinguish among transformations, and develop predictions. In relation to varied conditions of transformations, they formed generalizations about the way a shape behaves, including the use of referent points in predicting outcomes of translations, and recognizing the role of the center of rotation. Implications: The generalizations that the students developed are foundational for developing an understanding of the properties of transformations in the later years of schooling. Dynamic technological approaches to geometry may prove as valuable to elementary students’ understanding of geometry as it is for older students. Constructivist content: This study contributes to ongoing constructivism/constructionism conversations by concentrating on the transformation of ideas when engaging learners in activity through particular contexts and tools. Key Words: Geometry, transformations, constructionist technologies. (shrink)

In summary, many extant definitions of the niche concept are based on the geometric metaphor which represents the niche as an object embedded in a geometric space. There are several difficulties with this approach; the activities of organisms are not fully described, certain attributes of the functional aspect of the niche are not represented, the life cycles of organisms are not described, and the heuristic value of the concept diminishes with increasing dimensionality.An alternative and complementary approach to the niche is (...) the linguistic metaphor. This approach is based on the explanatory objective to explain the assembly of the ecosystems of successional seres from species pools and abiotic environmental factors. The linguistic metaphor suggests that a theory of ecosystem assembly is a generative grammar that associates particular species with environmental features. The niche of a particular species is defined in terms of the rules of a generative-transformational grammar used to derive an hierarchically organized description of that species. This approach also has conceptual difficulties: (1) empirically testing competence theories and distinguishing possible and impossible objects (e.g. species and ecosystems) are difficult, (2) evolutionary processes are difficult to incorporate, (3) the mathematical tools associated with grammars do not have the range of applicability of the mathematical tools associated with the geometric metaphor, and (4) the productions (hierarchical trees) of a grammar are not easily visualized.The geometric and linguistic metaphors of the niche should be viewed as complementary pictures of the same object. The geometric representation is most adept at describing community dynamics and stability, niche overlap, and organism response to abiotic environments. The linguistic metaphor represents well organism activities, niche dynamics, and ecosystem assembly. (shrink)

In two‐dimensional semantics in the tradition of Davies and Humberstone, whether a singular term receives an epistemically shifted reading in the scope of a modal operator depends on whether the world considered as actual is shifted. This means that epistemically shifted readings should be available only in environments where an explicit contrast between the actual world and some counterfactual worlds cannot be made. In this paper, I argue that this is incorrect. Whether a singular term receives an epistemically shifted (...) reading is independent of whether the world treated as actual is shifted. This, I argue, undermines the two‐dimensionalist account of epistemic shift. I then turn to the question how a positive view should handle these two phenomena separately. I argue for treating singular terms with a version of counterpart theory in which the difference between epistemically shifted and other readings is determined in the context of utterance. (shrink)

This work introduces a two-dimensional modal logic to represent agents' Concurrent Common Knowledge in distributed systems. Unlike Common Knowledge, Concurrent Common Knowledge is a kind of agreement reachable in asynchronous environments. The formalization of such type of knowledge is based on a model for asynchronous systems and on the definition of Concurrent Knowledge introduced before in paper [5]. As a proper semantics, we review our concept of closed sub-product of modal logics which is based on the product of modal logics. (...) The key idea is to reason about Concurrent Knowledge under a two-dimensional approach, regarding asynchronous runs and consistent global states as dimensions. We present an axiomatic system for the logic and issue the corresponding soundness and completeness proofs. (shrink)

This paper introduces a two-dimensional modal logic to reason about knowledge in asynchronous multi-agent message-passing systems. We present a new theoretical definition for concurrent knowledge in order to describe the kind of knowledge typical in such asynchronous environments. To define concurrent knowledge, we propose the closed sub-product of modal logics: a two-dimensional formal semantics where one dimension corresponds to asynchronous runs, the other corresponds to consistent cuts and the concurrent knowledge is defined as the transitive closure over the product of (...) the former dimensions. We axiomatize the presented logic issuing proofs of soundness and completeness with respect to the class of closed sub-product of modal frames. (shrink)

Traditional navigation visualization utilizes two-dimensional. maps for road guidance or arrow symbols for turn by turn information. While the advantage of map views is supposed to be the inherent understanding of the surroundings, often these schematic line-drawing bird's eye views are rather confusing than helpful because they cannot provide an overview and an appropriate level of detail in an area of interest at the same time, i.e. the user is forced to change between different resolutions. In this paper we describe (...) a 3D visualization system for vehicle navigation that overcomes these shortcomings by providing a realistic and perspective 3D view of the environment. (shrink)

Most models of corporate social responsibility revolve around the controversy as to whether business is a single dimensional entity of profit maximization or a multi-dimensional entity serving greater societal interests. Furthermore, the models are mostly descriptive in nature and are based on the experiences of western countries. There has been little attempt to develop a model that accounts for corporate social responsibility in diverse environments with differing socio-cultural and market settings. In this paper an attempt has been made to fill (...) this gap by developing a two-dimensional model of corporate social responsibility and empirically testing its validity in the context of two dissimilar cultures – Australia and Bangladesh. The two dimensions are the span of corporate responsibility and the range of outcomes of social commitments of businesses. The test results confirm the validity of the two-dimensional model in the two environments. The Factor analysis revealed two leading dimensions. Cluster analysis pointed to two distinctive clusters of managers in both Australia and Bangladesh, one consisting of managers with a broad contemporary concept of social responsibility, and the other with a limited narrow view. The paper concludes that corporate social responsibility is two-dimensional and universal in nature and that differing cultural and market settings in which managers operate may have little impact on the ethical perceptions of corporate managers. (shrink)

Action is a means of acquiring perceptual information about the environment. Turning around, for example, alters your spatial relations to surrounding objects and, hence, which of their properties you visually perceive. Moving your hand over an object’s surface enables you to feel its shape, temperature, and texture. Sniffing and walking around a room enables you to track down the source of an unpleasant smell. Active or passive movements of the body can also generate useful sources of perceptual information (Gibson (...) 1966, 1979). The pattern of optic flow in the retinal image produced by forward locomotion, for example, contains information about the direction in which you are heading, while motion parallax is a “cue” used by the visual system to estimate the relative distances of objects in your field of view. In these uncontroversial ways and others, perception is instrumentally dependent on action. According to an explanatory framework that Susan Hurley (1998) dubs the “Input-Output Picture”, the dependence of perception on action is purely instrumental: "Movement can alter sensory inputs and so result in different perceptions… changes in output are merely a means to changes in input, on which perception depends directly" (1998: 342). -/- The action-based theories of perception, reviewed in this entry, challenge the Input-Output Picture. They maintain that perception can also depend in a noninstrumental or constitutive way on action (or, more generally, on capacities for object-directed motor control). This position has taken many different forms in the history of philosophy and psychology. Most action-based theories of perception in the last 300 years, however, have looked to action in order to explain how vision, in particular, acquires either all or some of its spatial representational content. Accordingly, these are the theories on which we shall focus here. -/- We begin in Section 1 by discussing George Berkeley’s Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709), the historical locus classicus of action-based theories of perception, and one of the most influential texts on vision ever written. Berkeley argues that the basic or “proper” deliverance of vision is not an arrangement of voluminous objects in three-dimensional space, but rather a two-dimensional manifold of light and color. We then turn to a discussion of Lotze, Helmholtz, and the local sign doctrine. The “local signs” were felt cues for the mind to know what sort of spatial content to imbue visual experience with. For Lotze, these cues were “inflowing” kinaesthetic feelings that result from actually moving the eyes, while, for Helmholtz, they were “outflowing” motor commands sent to move the eyes. -/- In Section 2, we discuss sensorimotor contingency theories, which became prominent in the 20thcentury. These views maintain that an ability to predict the sensory consequences of self-initiated actions is necessary for perception. Among the motivations for this family of theories is the problem of visual direction constancy—why do objects appear to be stationary even though the locations on the retina to which they reflect light change with every eye movement?—as well as experiments on adaptation to optical rearrangement devices (ORDs) and sensory substitution. -/- Section 3 examines two other important 20th century theories. According to what we shall call the motor component theory, efference copies generated in the oculomotor system and/or proprioceptive feedback from eye-movements are used together with incoming sensory inputs to determine the spatial attributes of perceived objects. Efferent readiness theories, by contrast, look to the particular ways in which perceptual states prepare the observer to move and act in relation to the environment. The modest readiness theory, as we shall call it, claims that the way an object’s spatial attributes are represented in visual experience can be modulated by one or another form of covert action planning. The bold readiness theory argues for the stronger claim that perception just is covert readiness for action. -/- In Section 4, we move to the disposition theory, most influentially articulated by Gareth Evans (1982, 1985), but more recently defended by Rick Grush (2000, 2007). Evans’ theory is, at its core, very similar to the bold efferent readiness theory. There are some notable differences, though. Evans’ account is more finely articulated in some philosophical respects. It also does not posit a reduction of perception to behavioral dispositions, but rather posits that certain complicated relations between perceptual input and behavioral provide spatial content. Grush proposes a very specific theory that is like Evans’ in that it does not posit a reduction, but unlike Evans’ view, does not put behavioral dispositions and sensory input on an undifferentiated footing. (shrink)

This article proposes reframing the justice discourse in climate negotiations. In so doing, it makes two claims. First, global climate negotiations deserve to be addressed as an issue of justice on their own due to their peculiar characteristics. Second, a multidimensional theory of justice is superior to distributional theories for this task. To support these arguments, I apply the multidimensional theory of justice to global climate negotiations. This analysis reveals that injustice in the negotiations is multidimensional and irreducible to distributional (...) questions. Furthermore, it shows how promoting justice in this broad sense would have significant effect on the negotiation procedures and substantive outcomes. (shrink)

This paper is divided into three sections. In the first section I briefly outline the background of the problem, i.e. Kripke’s modal argument (Kripke 1980). In the second section I present Chalmers’ account of two- dimensional semantics and two-dimensional argument against physicalism. In the third section I criticize Chalmers’ approach based on two crucial points, one is about necessity of identities and the other is about microphysi- cal descriptions and a priori derivation.

Two-dimensional approaches to semantics, broadly understood, recognize two "dimensions" of the meaning or content of linguistic items. On these approaches, expressions and their utterances are associated with two different sorts of semantic values, which play different explanatory roles. Typically, one semantic value is associated with reference and ordinary truth-conditions, while the other is associated with the way that reference and truth-conditions depend on the external world. The second sort of semantic value is often held to play a distinctive role in (...) analyzing matters of cognitive significance and/or context-dependence. (shrink)

The paper identifies two major strands of truth theories, ontological and epistemological ones, and argues that both are of equal primacy and find their home within two-dimensional semantics. Contrary to received views, it argues further that epistemological truth theories operate on Lewisian possible worlds and ontological truth theories on Wittgensteinian possible worlds and that both are mediated by the so-called epistemic-ontic map the further specification of which is of utmost philosophical importance.

According to general relativity, we live in a four-dimensional curved universe. Since the human mind cannot visualize those four dimensions, a popular analogy compares the universe to a two-dimensional rubber sheet distorted by massive objects. This analogy is often used when teaching GR to upper secondary and undergraduate physics students. However, physicists and physics educators criticize the analogy for being inaccurate and for introducing conceptual conflicts. Addressing these criticisms, we analyze the rubber sheet analogy through systematic metaphor analysis of textbooks (...) and research literature, and present an empirical analysis of upper secondary school students’ use and understanding of the analogy. Taking a theoretical perspective of embodied cognition allows us to account for the relationship between the experiential and sensory aspects of the metaphor in relation to the abstract nature of spacetime. We employ methods of metaphor and thematic analysis to study written accounts of small groups of 97 students who worked with a collaborative online learning environment as part of their regular physics lessons in five classes in Norway. Students generated conceptual metaphors found in the literature as well as novel ones that led to different conceptions of gravity than those held by experts in the field. Even though most students showed awareness of some limitations of the analogy, we observed a conflict between students’ embodied understanding of gravity and the abstract description of GR. This conflict might add to the common perception of GR being counterintuitive. In making explicit strengths and weaknesses of the rubber sheet analogy and learners’ conceptual difficulties, our results offer guidance for teaching GR. More generally, these findings contribute to the epistemological implications of employing specific scientific metaphors in classrooms. (shrink)

If distributed cognition is to become a general analytic frame, it needs to handle more aspects of cognition than just highly efficient problem solving. It should also handle learning. We identify four classes of distributed learning: induction, repurposing, symbiotic tuning, and mutual adaptation. The four classes of distributed learning fit into a two-dimensional space defined by the stability and adaptability of individuals and their environments. In all four classes of learning, people and their environments are highly interdependent during initial learning. (...) At the same time, we present evidence indicating that certain types of interdependence in early learning, most notably mutual adaptation, can help prepare people to be less dependent on their immediate environment and more adaptive when they confront new environments. We also describe and test examples of learning technologies that implement mutual adaptation. (shrink)

Two-dimensional semantics is a framework that helps us better understand some of the most fundamental issues in philosophy: those having to do with the relationship between the meaning of words, the way the world is, and our knowledge of the meaning of words. This selection of new essays by some of the world's leading authorities in this field sheds fresh light both on foundational issues regarding two-dimensional semantics and on its specific applications. Contributors: Richard Breheny, Alex Byrne, David Chalmers, Martin (...) Davies, Gareth Evans, Manuel Garcia-Carpintero, Josep Maci`, Martine Nida-Rumelin, Christopher Peacocke, James Pryor, Francois Recanati, Scott Soames, Cara Spencer, Robert Stalnaker, Kai-Yee Wong, Stephen Yablo. (shrink)

Many species rely on the three-dimensional surface layout of an environment to find a desired goal following disorientation. They generally do so to the exclusion of other important spatial cues. Two influential frameworks for explaining that phenomenon are provided by geometric-module theories and view-matching theories of reorientation respectively. The former posit a module that operates only on representations of the global geo- metry of three-dimensional surfaces to guide behavior. The latter place snapshots, stored representations of the subject’s two-dimensional retinal (...) stimulation at specific locations, at the heart of their accounts. In this paper, I take a fresh look at the debate between them. I begin by making a case that the empirical evidence we currently have does not clearly favor one framework over the other, and that the debate has reached something of an impasse. Then, I present a new explanatory problem—the representation selection problem—that offers the pro- spect of breaking the impasse by introducing a new type of explanatory consideration that both frameworks must address. The representation selection problem requires explaining how subjects can reliably select the relevant representation with which they initiate the reorientation process. I argue that the view-matching framework does not have the resources to address this problem, while a certain type of theory within the geometric-module framework can provide a natural response to it. In showing this, I develop a new geometric-module theory. (shrink)

If distributed cognition is to become a general analytic frame, it needs to handle more aspects of cognition than just highly efficient problem solving. It should also handle learning. We identify four classes of distributed learning: induction, repurposing, symbiotic tuning, and mutual adaptation. The four classes of distributed learning fit into a two-dimensional space defined by the stability and adaptability of individuals and their environments. In all four classes of learning, people and their environments are highly interdependent during initial learning. (...) At the same time, we present evidence indicating that certain types of interdependence in early learning, most notably mutual adaptation, can help prepare people to be less dependent on their immediate environment and more adaptive when they confront new environments. We also describe and test examples of learning technologies that implement mutual adaptation. (shrink)

A number of popular arguments for dualism start from a premise about an epistemic gap between physical truths about truths about consciousness, and infer an ontological gap between physical processes and consciousness. Arguments of this sort include the conceivability argument, the knowledge argument, the explanatory-gap argument, and the property dualism argument. Such arguments are often resisted on the grounds that epistemic premises do not entail ontological conclusion. My view is that one can legitimately infer ontological conclusions from epistemic premises, if (...) one is very careful about how one reasons. To do so, the best way is to reason first from epistemic premises to modal conclusions , and from there to ontological conclusions. Here, the crucial issue is the link between the epistemic and modal domains. How can one reason from theses about what is knowable or conceivable to theses about what is necessary or possible? To bridge the epistemic and modal domains, the framework of two-dimensional semantics can play a central role. I have used this framework in earlier work to mount an argument against materialism. Here, I want to revisit the argument, laying it out in a more explicit and careful form, and responding to a number of objections. In what follows I will concentrate mostly on the conceivability argument. I think that very similar considerations apply to the other arguments mentioned above, however. In the final section of the paper, I show how this analysis might yield a unified treatment of a number of anti-materialist arguments. (shrink)

This study investigates the acquisition of integrated object manipulation and categorization abilities through a series of experiments in which human adults and artificial agents were asked to learn to manipulate two-dimensional objects that varied in shape, color, weight, and color intensity. The analysis of the obtained results and the comparison of the behavior displayed by human and artificial agents allowed us to identify the key role played by features affecting the agent/environment interaction, the relation between category and action development, (...) and the role of cognitive biases originating from previous knowledge. (shrink)

Two-dimensional semantics, which can represent the distinction between a priority and necessity, has wielded considerable influence in the philosophy of language. In this paper, I axiomatize the dagger operator of Stalnaker’s “Assertion” in the formal context of two-dimensional modal logic. The language contains modalities of actuality, necessity, and a priority, but is also able to represent diagonalization, a conceptually important operation in a variety of contexts, including models of the relative a priori and a posteriori often appealed to Bayesian and (...) Gricean contexts. Finally, I sketch the prospects for extending this two-dimensional upgrade to other kinds of modal logics for natural language. (shrink)

We introduce a two‐dimensional metric (interval) temporal logic whose internal and external time flows are dense linear orderings. We provide a suitable semantics and a sequent calculus with axioms for equality and extralogical axioms. Then we prove completeness and a semantic partial cut elimination theorem down to formulas of a certain type.

Although it is widely accepted that personal values of Self-Transcendence are a positive predictor of environmentalism, and Self-Enhancement values are a negative one, these results are not conclusive for all cultural contexts. Regarding political ideologies, research concludes that liberals tend to be more concerned about the environment than conservatives. However, this two-dimensional take on political ideologies does not grasp the diversity of political views, which could be achieved by focusing on political values. In this research, we studied the role (...) of personal and political values in predicting environmental attitudes and behavior in Kazakhstan, a developing country in Central Asia. Using an online survey, we found that Security was a strong predictor of both environmental concern and New Environmental Paradigm, overshadowing the effect of traditionally accepted value dimensions of Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement. While Self-Direction positively predicted environmental concern, Universalism and Benevolence were positive predictors of NEP. Among political values, Civil Liberties predicted NEP positively, and had no significant effect on environmental concern, while Free Enterprise predicted environmental concern negatively, and had no significant effect on NEP. Environmental concern was a strong predictor of all pro-environmental behaviors included in the study, fully mediating the effect of NEP. Based on personal and political values, three profiles of Kazakhstanis who engaged differently in pro-environmental behavior were identified. (shrink)

We present two-dimensional tableau systems for the actuality, fixedly, and up-arrow operators. All systems are proved sound and complete with respect to a two-dimensional semantics. In addition, a decision procedure for the actuality logics is discussed.

Experts play a crucial role in underpinning decision-making in most management situations. While recent studies have disclosed the impacts of individuals’ inherent cognition and the external environment on expert performance, these two-dimensional mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we identified 14 factors that influence expert performance in a bid evaluation and applied cross-impact matrix multiplication to examine the interdependence of the factors. The results indicate that the two dimension-related factors affect each other within a person–environment system, and (...) a poor situation perception gives rise to the deviation of expert performance. Expert performance can be improved if external supervision and expertise are strengthened through deliberate practices. The study proposes a new expert performance research tool, elucidates its mechanism in bid evaluation from a cognitive psychology perspective, and provides guidelines for its improvement in workplace contexts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, ContextsPaul DuncumExploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concept, Contexts, edited by Matthew Rampley. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005, 257 pp., $32.00 paper.I review this new introductory text in light of its competition as a textbook for undergraduates and as an introduction for graduate students. Other such texts include Barnard, Elkins, Mirzeoff, Walker and Chaplin, and Sturken and Cartwright,1 which appears to be the most widely (...) used. Rampley's anthology stands up well among these competitors, especially for those who wish to transition from art to contemporary popular visual culture rather more gently than other texts that, for many students, might come as too abrupt a disjuncture from mainstream practice in schools of art and design. As Matthew Rampley states in his excellent introduction, if the book has an original contribution to make, it is to situate an acknowledgment of traditional practices and issues into the makeup of visual culture studies. Unlike other texts, mentioned above, which tend to stress screen and print media, Rampley's agenda is to remind readers of the historical origins of many recent developments as well as the contribution of cultural forms other than two-dimensional ones. Thus, chapters are included that trace the history and continuing contribution of traditional media; art, design, craft, and architecture each receive individual chapters. MacDonald, for example, describes the complex meanings of craft and its relationship to fine art and design from classical times to today, as well as summarizes the characteristics and politics of craft today. Furthermore, the influence of technology is charted principally through conventional art, and the chapters on photography, film, and fashion are likewise cast largely in terms of historical accounts of whether these forms should be considered to be art.The historical bias is equally evident in the pictures used to illustrate the text. While, for example, there are contemporary popular images, such [End Page 118] as a cover of the Sun newspaper and a photograph of Punks, there are as many crossover images—postcards of famous art portraits and a Michelangelo on a T shirt—as well as many conventional artworks. Delacroix, Corbert, Rauschenberg, David, Fuseli, and Van Goyen are each featured. Some of the popular images are also historical, such as George Mêlées 1902 classic film Voyage to Moon and advertisements from the1930s.Sometimes the historical material takes up much of the space, with recent developments given only cursory treatment, and sometimes the material is dealt with in ways that seem rather old-fashioned to this reader. For example, Glyn Davis's chapter on photography and film is primarily a potted historical account of the relationships between these two cultural forms and art. Further, Davis does not just describe the arguments for and against their inclusion as art but is clearly engaged with these issues himself, an engagement that many proponents of visual culture would find rather quaint—that is, rather less interesting than the particular contribution that these forms make to contemporary life and for whom the question, "Is it art?" is no longer of any particular interest. This art orientation also colors Davis's view of Hollywood films. Clearly preferring "art" films, he completely ignores the role of popular film in exploring the fears, anxieties, beliefs, and so on of the wider public. By contrast, Richard Williams argues against architecture as a form of art, with its limited concerns with aesthetics, style, and canonical buildings, in favor of architecture as discourse and spatial experience. He is more interested in the reception of architecture than its production—first with architecture as signs, as meanings that are mutable, contingent, and arbitrary; and, secondly, as ordinary urban lived experience, with how architecture is but one element within the experience of urban environments.Typical of the avoidance of technical terms in the book as a whole, Williams beautifully describes the difference between structuralism and poststructuralism without once mentioning either of these terms, and in a chapter on architecture he manages to use the term "postmodern" only once. Similarly, in Neil Mulholland's chapter on representation and realism, cultural border crossing and indigenization are both described, albeit briefly, though without recourse to these terms... (shrink)

The much larger appearance of the moon near horizon than the perceived size of the moon at zenith has motivated many scientists to develop theories that aim at explaining this puzzling phenomenon. Considering that the size of retinal images of the moon in these positions are very similar, the explanation of difference in their apparent sizes has relied on perceptual cues of distance embedded in the retinal image of their respective contexts. Although this account of the moon illusion is quite (...) popular, it does not explain all aspects of this phenomenon. The theoretical formulation of the moon illusion based on other factors such as size contrast later may have had some advantages but has also created some new problems. Although the moon is perceived in a three-dimensional (3D) environment, the present analysis proposes that an explanation of the moon illusion based on two-dimensional (2D) cues can remove some of the unnecessary problems. The empty space and size contrast that have already been considered in explaining classic geometric-optical illusions play a parallel role in explaining the moon illusion. In other words, the role of open space in interaction with the image of the moon and different objects near horizon, all reflected on the retina, are considered as the main explaining factors. The advantages of this approach will be discussed and some of the facts pertaining to the moon illusion will be explained within this theoretical framework. (shrink)

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) present us with unprecedented opportunities in bringing together students and educators from widely disparate geographical locations, as well as diverse cultures and backgrounds to participate in a learning experience that should take into cognizance the affordances of these novel arenas in the design of both content and the environment(s) in which this content is to be implemented/enacted. While VLEs do seem to address the requirements of well-structured learning endeavours, the boundaries of which are clearly defined, (...) they are challenged where complex learning material in which boundaries are less easily defined, as is the case in art/creativity education, are concerned. Given that the learning content of the creative fields is open ended by its very nature and as such does not seem to readily lend itself to an implementation within the structure of present-day, two-dimensional virtual learning environments, can such an environment/methodology be developed in the open-ended three-dimensional structure of a metaverse, based upon the critical examination of a real-life, historic precedent? (shrink)

Epistemic two-dimensional semantics is a theory in the philosophy of language that provides an account of meaning which is sensitive to the distinction between necessity and apriority. While this theory is usually presented in an informal manner, I take some steps in formalizing it in this paper. To do so, I define a semantics for a propositional modal logic with operators for the modalities of necessity, actuality, and apriority that captures the relevant ideas of epistemic two-dimensional semantics. I also describe (...) some properties of the logic that are interesting from a philosophical perspective, and apply it to the so-called nesting problem. (shrink)

We explore different ways in which the human visual system can adapt for perceiving and categorizing the environment. There are various accounts of supervised (categorical) and unsupervised perceptual learning, and different perspectives on the functional relationship between perception and categorization. We suggest that common experimental designs are insufficient to differentiate between hypothesized perceptual learning mechanisms and reveal their possible interplay. We propose a relatively underutilized way of studying potential categorical effects on perception, and we test the predictions of different (...) perceptual learning models using a two‐dimensional, interleaved categorization‐plus‐reconstruction task. We find evidence that the human visual system adapts its encodings to the feature structure of the environment, uses categorical expectations for robust reconstruction, allocates encoding resources with respect to categorization utility, and adapts to prevent miscategorizations. (shrink)

The article proposes to model the phenomenon of the cell phone as a wall-window. This model aims at explicating some of the perceptions and experiences associated with cellular technology. The wall-window model means that the cell phone simultaneously separates the user from the physical surroundings (the wall), and connects the user to a remote space (the window). The remote space may be where the interlocutor resides or where information is stored (e.g. the Internet). Most cell phone usage patterns are modeled (...) as a single dimension according to the level of distraction or attention of the user. In order to accommodate nuanced situations such as augmented reality, I suggest a two-dimensional layout: the wall-window. The wall represents the attention to the immediate physical environment, while the window represents the attention to a remote space. The wall-window model further evolves once a screen is woven into this layout. This addition is easily understood due to the screen’s etymology, which is associated with the concepts of shield or barrier. From a technical perspective, the screen has become an integral part of the cell phone. Furthermore, a screen itself is both a wall and a window. Lastly, once a cell phone is supplemented with a screen, it is easier to refer to it as media. And again, media fits into the wall-window model. (shrink)

Two-dimensional (2D) semantics is a formal framework that is used to characterize the meaning of certain linguistic expressions and the entailment relations among sentences containing them. 2D semantics has also been applied to thought contents. In contrast with standard possible worlds semantics, 2D semantics assigns extensions and truth-values to expressions relative to two possible world parameters, rather than just one. So a 2D semantic framework provides finer-grained semantic values than those available within standard possible world semantics, while using the same (...) basic model-theoretic resources. The 2D framework itself is just a formal tool. To develop a semantic theory for someone’s language, a proponent of 2D semantics must do three things: (i) explain what exactly the two possible world parameters represent, (ii) explain the rules for assigning 2D semantic values to a person’s words and sentences, and (iii) explain how 2D semantic values help in understanding the meanings of the person’s words and sentences. (shrink)

Located in Kleinbasel close to the Rhine, the Kaskadenkondensator is a place of mediation and experimental, research-and process-based art production with a focus on performance and performative expression. The gallery, founded in 1994, and located on the third floor of the former Sudhaus Warteck Brewery (hence cascade condenser), seeks to develop interactions between artists, theorists and audiences. Eight, maybe, nine or ten 40 litre bags of potting compost lie strewn about the floor of a high-ceilinged white washed hall. Dumped, split (...) open, the soil mixed with iridescent specks of green, blue and red glitter. On the walls hang large black and white photographic images—negative and positive prints barely clean, hardly sharp, scavenged from the world and presented half processed. On a third wall, hangs a framed golden and charcoal surface. Finally, a huge stain of black dye runs down a wall that descends into a sunken quarter of the Kaskadenkondensator gallery space. The results of a collaboration between Oliver Minder and Walter Derungs reflect on themes addressed in the recent Aesthetics in the 21st Century conference held by the department of English, University of Basel. In particular, the joint show questions how an aesthetic experience may be other than a human-world interaction, hinting at the withdrawal and veiling that objects perform, while demanding that different works engage with each other and play out this game under the non-supervisory eyes of a human audience. Things here are becoming—sometimes it’s a movement towards a more complete ontic whole in a projection of finality, other times it’s a dispersal, an atrophy to rather disarrayed entities. Yet, in the moment and place in which the objects are, we take them as here and now. Let’s get to the material of the stuff that Minder and Derungs have assembled. Oliver Minder employs organic materials—potting earth, cuttlefish ink secretion, rice, and insects; yet his works hardly seem natural in the sense of a harmonic relation between material and the form they are constrained into, the objects they are compelled to occupy. For the substrates on, through, or within which these natural materials are mediated are harshly inorganic substances—Plexiglas, safety glass, acrylic resin, boat varnish, spray paint. Minder, thus, generates a conflict within the materiality of his work between two polar opposites—from the human perspective—in the contiguity of materials engaging with each other in a thrown together formation that nonetheless appears to keep the materials and the objects they make in happy accidental relation to each other. Let me expand a little: on the one hand, the things Minder makes query our belief in substance as belonging in a particular domain, an environment suited to precisely that stuff. We are focused on thinking categorically where things belong, both in terms of natural place and natural relations they might extend to each other. Hence, we are driven to think of environment and order. On the other hand, while extracting things from their conventional place and arranging them within awkward constellations that we as observers feel isn’t quite right, Minder manages to persuade the viewer that the materials are nonetheless “doing alright.” So, simultaneous to our awareness of the appropriateness of the world according to our global notions of accord and uniformity, we are forced to accept the local discrepancies of disassociation, inappropriateness and misplacement. The tension between these two vectors generates a vacillation that intensifies Minder’s work. In the Kaskadenkondensator works, then, it is vital to first consider the material of Minder’s works: potting compost—what is it doing here in the first place?—seems to enjoy being “polluted” by sparkly glitter. Glitter has a long history, used in cosmetics by the Egyptians, and in cave paintings, too, earlier made of beetle shells and mica, nowadays glitter is made of plastic cut to minute sizes down to 50 microns. So what’s the point here? Well shiny bits of dust-like material are actually generated from ultra-thin plastic sheets and are normally cut into shapes that fit contiguously on a two-dimensional surface: squares, triangles, hexagons etc. What then appears to be totally random, chaotic decoration, is actually an array of extremely regular identifiable objects. 1 Of course scale has a role to play here. The minuteness of the dimensions means the regularity is beyond our recognition—all we see are the twinkling surfaces of the multi-coloured grains of plastic. In contrast, potting compost, which appears to be unary in its dull unresponsive lumpen disposition, is in fact an amalgam of a variety of organic and inorganic materials: peat, bark, mushroom compost, and sand and perlite, and should perhaps be more proactively exciting to the viewer because of this complexity. Yes; we can (if we care to) identify different textures, different sizes in the mixture of the medium, but I claim that we tend to treat this organic/inorganic assemblage as just a simple substance. Further and crucially important to our consideration here is that the medium is partially contained, but also partially spilling from the split plastic bags in which it is sold in garden centres. That the compost spills out gives it a movement suggesting life; that the bags are cast here and there in a random fashion by Oliver Minder, lying like discarded carcasses, hacked torsos, dismembered bodies, suggests a horrific murder scene, a Tatort. 2 The glitter flourishes in the medium, lies happy and decorative; that is simply what it does, how it is—always already broken, made-for-scattering, designed to be incomplete; the taken-to-be-natural compost, in contrast, cannot rest content but is forced to speak to us metaphorically in its abject overflowing of violence and rupture. While Oliver Minder’s elements in the installation direct our attention to material, Walter Derungs’ works raise questions around seeing and making in photography. There is a simultaneous flicker between the materials and their use in the production of a sense making representation, on the one hand, and on the other the very notion of what is worthy of picturing, framing, representing on the other. Derungs' images are of non-places. Ranging from archaic decaying monster buildings, buildings that have gone far beyond the ravages of a time that we can safely associate with the genteel preservation of a Bernd and Hill Belcher post-industrial decline, to the background “noise” of an urban world that is falling apart, and to which we most of the time seem to pay little attention, and habitually just pass by. In this respect, their non-ness differs somewhat from the conventional association of the term with Marc Augé 3 , where emphasis is on the specifics (if we do care to examine them for their non-placedness) of the spatial or place containment in which movement between multimodal coordinates occurs in supermodern late capitalist post-urban spaces. In other words, we might be in an Augéian non-place and (not) experience—be impervious to—that environment, or we might in Derungs’ manner look out from such a position at the “scenery” around us. I claim scenery, as this is what Derungs seems to do with his partial photography—construct a very purposefully articulated, symmetric, flat world of image. Mostly depopulated, his images construct a space in which the direction of time is uncertain: are these partial structures falling apart, or perhaps terminated in a never-to-be-completed state, or are they a few steps from final completion? Temporal and spatial dimensions figure large in Derungs’ image-making: his world, and perhaps this is in fact the only way for it to be registered photographically, is already image before it is photographed. A key combination of images in this show is a matrix of six black and white negative prints measuring 300 x 215 cm that form the image of a semi-derelict (or is it yet incomplete) church, and adjacent on a perpendicular wall, a single black and white positive print 150 x 250 cm of two bricked-up windows of a late-Victorian industrial building. What are we led to believe that we see here? In the negative print, the conditions of perception 4 are sufficiently reproduced for us to recognise the structure of the building, to distinguish ground and form, to relate some partial elements of narrative, and to recognize symbols such as the alter cross and figure of Christ, a looming crane, a traffic cone, and banks of tiered seating. We piece the image together both from the individual forms which we recognize despite the tonal reversal, and we piece the six prints together as a whole, the matrix of lines between them emphasizing our purview onto the world. While we recognise the forms at work in the image and might possibly relate the negative reversals to other figurations such as Vera Lutter’s camera obscura exposures, we cannot but avoid seeing the partialness of the image in the sponge marks of the developer that was spread by hand across the prints. 5 Derungs’ thus intervenes with our usual conception of photography as the mimetic realist vehicle sine qua non , by exposing the viewer to tonal reversal and incomplete or over developed areas of the print. We thus confront both the idiom of such image making and its raw (chemical) materiality at once in the simultaneity of the recognition of what the image pictures and the recognition that it is in the act of picturing. The church image, taken from the series “BW Negativs 2011,” thus orients us towards how we see things in the world via photographs. The single image of the bricked-up wall presents us with a completely different visuality that relates to a faciality 6 which we cannot easily escape from. We look, or rather try to look with no success, through the face of the windows, through the classic Albertian screen 7 which has already been given to us in the church matrix beside. Yet although we should be able to make more of these concealed windows because they are a positive print, because they are complete, because they approach us on a more realistic scale, reproduced at life size, we cannot. The objects pictured here withdraw from us; furthermore, they merely mock our blindness at not seeing how we look. Blocked up with quite a hint of paned glass behind, one window is blanked out with a white blind, the other simply blankly dark. The apertures look like eyes with teeth in them, or a Dogon mask, or even Man Ray’s Noire et Blanche (1926) if we want to get really perverse. The height of elegant modernist chauvinist beauty thrown against the vacuity of post-industrial decline. Derungs thus catapults us consciously into a world enfolded with and through images, but in such a way that the images themselves become objects that stand resistant to us, impervious to our gaze, indifferent. We—and indeed they—do not attempt to reach out to a real that is beyond, rather the images play in a world that is just theirs, and we can only enter that world if we too submit to their regime: tonal reversal, segmented, partial, inadequate, still, wrenched out of time. In contemplation, in the flood of the image “falling” off the wall, we too become image-object. Perhaps enough has now been said about the works, yet enough can never really be said, we know the image will always exceed the word—let’s accelerate the critique: Derungs’ work continues in a second space partially partitioned from this first room. Opposing three more “BW Negativs” which figure yet more quotidian aspects of the world is Minder’s gold spray paint and cuttlefish secretion mix: things that just shouldn’t work together do in the dialogue between stuff that Derungs and Minder have constructed. Minder makes things; Derungs makes images; together they make objects which inhabit their own world which we can approach and sensually engage with and come to grips with only on those objects’ own terms. This is best summarised by a final work made by Oliver Minder which on a third wall faces these two semi-partitioned spaces. A deep black stain about 100 X 200 cm with streak marks running down a further 2 metres hovers positioned to observe the whole work, and also to be part of this installation, too. This liminal flat suzerain lies in/out of the whole work. The stain of cuttlefish secretion resonates with Derungs’ sponge strokes on the church image; it mirrors the iris of an all-seeing eye; it combines material in situ with the situation itself. Where Minder’s other works have material and medium or substrate upon which the material is exercised, this single black hole is image which sucks everything up into itself. It draws the viewer, who must otherwise look away attentively at the floor work, and imagine horror, or smile at the ironic play of glitter. Look away at the image constructions that suggest how it is we too look to our world. See the play of thing and image in a third area. Or, finally return to the base of the pyramid that triangulates, to realise the stuff-image that unlocks it all for us. Black on white, organic on inorganic, material to substrate, that which in the falling out of one on the other, in its running down the wall simply gives form to both content and expression in one direction, and content and expression to form in another. NOTES In fact, glitter is used as associative forensic evidence: the 20,000 or so varieties are all uniquely identifiable. Joel Sternfeld, Tatorte: Bilder gegen das Vergessen (München: Schirmer/Mosel, 1996). Marc Augé, Non­places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 2006). An echo of the uneven paint strokes of light­sensitive chemicals in the paper preparations made by Henry Talbot some 170 years ago in the first sun drawings that also often pictured architectural forms. It was Talbot’s surprising discovery that where a weaker chemical solution was more thinly spread, greater light sensitivity was actualized, yet this virtual image had then to be chemically developed in a second step. Thus, Derungs unevenly finished spongings suggestively trace back to this originary technology (although his sweeps are the stains of uneven development and not those of the initial preparation of light–sensitive material). Umberto Eco, “Critique of the Image” in “Articulations of Cinematic Code” Cinematics 1, 1970. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Geoffrey Batchen, Burning With Desire: the Conception of Photography (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999). (shrink)

This paper offers a two dimensional variation of Standard Deontic Logic SDL, which we call 2SDL. Using 2SDL we can show that we can overcome many of the difficulties that SDL has in representing linguistic sets of Contrary-to-Duties (known as paradoxes) including the Chisholm, Ross, Good Samaritan and Forrester paradoxes. We note that many dimensional logics have been around since 1947, and so 2SDL could have been presented already in the 1970s. Better late than never! As a detailed case study (...) illustrating the power of 2SDL, we examine the system DL of Deontic Logic of Andrew Jones and Ingmar Pörn offered in 1985 to solve the Chisholm paradox of Contrary to Duties. The critical examination is done using logics and methods available in 1985 and solutions are proposed using what was available in 1985. (shrink)

This paper offers a two dimensional variation of Standard Deontic Logic SDL, which we call 2SDL. Using 2SDL we can show that we can overcome many of the difficulties that SDL has in representing linguistic sets of Contrary-to-Duties (known as paradoxes) including the Chisholm, Ross, Good Samaritan and Forrester paradoxes. We note that many dimensional logics have been around since 1947, and so 2SDL could have been presented already in the 1970s. Better late than never! As a detailed case study (...) illustrating the power of 2SDL, we examine the system DL of Deontic Logic of Andrew Jones and Ingmar Pörn offered in 1985 to solve the Chisholm paradox of Contrary to Duties. The critical examination is done using logics and methods available in 1985 and solutions are proposed using what was available in 1985. (shrink)

The imagistic promotion of the iconic city form is increasingly achieved by the deployment of the CCTV webcam system. This not only presents new material to mediate people's engagement with this space, but also offers new ways to materialize its actual three-dimensional form. Recent design-based research conducted at the University of Technology, Sydney, shows that the function of the CCTV Internet cameras can be extended and adapted to provide a type of engagement with urban environments that subverts its more representational (...) role and converts it into one that is qualitative and experiential. The article will discuss how the performative aspects offered by this virtual environment can be productively employed by the Internet user to not only create a new type of engagement with public space, but also, ultimately, to curate this space. The article will also reveal how the strategic deployment of recently developed non-proprietary software can be used to intervene within the operational logic of the Internet camera to exploit its potential for use as a design tool. By the strategic recruitment of this software, raw virtual qualitative data from webcam images are processed to generate a formal response to civic space. This type of intervention, which utilizes the two-dimensional image as a platform for intervention within three-dimensional space, asks the designer to relinquish the techniques traditionally used to generate urban form and instead to capitalize upon the opportunities for material intervention offered by the spatial ambiguity of virtual and real-time environments. The exploration of the distortional optical properties associated with contemporary camera technology begins to suggest the development of a range of new techniques for design intervention that will continue to evolve in direct relationship to the technology they exploit. This article will therefore discuss how the utilization of the interactive potential of the CCTV system can produce a new understanding of urban space that replaces any symbolic role for form with the affect of form. This range of unprecedented techniques can be seen to offer a new paradigm for material intervention within both virtual and urban space. (shrink)

This paper offers a two dimensional variation of Standard Deontic Logic SDL, which we call 2SDL. Using 2SDL we can show that we can overcome many of the difficulties that SDL has in representing linguistic sets of Contrary-to-Duties (known as paradoxes) including the Chisholm, Ross, Good Samaritan and Forrester paradoxes. We note that many dimensional logics have been around since 1947, and so 2SDL could have been presented already in the 1970s. Better late than never! As a detailed case study (...) illustrating the power of 2SDL, we examine the system DL of Deontic Logic of Andrew Jones and Ingmar Pörn offered in 1985 to solve the Chisholm paradox of Contrary to Duties. The critical examination is done using logics and methods available in 1985 and solutions are proposed using what was available in 1985. (shrink)

In this paper, we axiomatize the deontic logic in Fusco 2015, which uses a Stalnaker-inspired account of diagonal acceptance and a two-dimensional account of disjunction to treat Ross’s Paradox and the Puzzle of Free Choice Permission. On this account, disjunction-involving validities are a priori rather than necessary. We show how to axiomatize two-dimensional disjunction so that the introduction/elimination rules for boolean disjunction can be viewed as one-dimensional projections of more general two-dimensional rules. These completeness results help make explicit the restrictions (...) Fusco’s account must place on free-choice inferences. They are also of independent interest, as they raise difficult questions about how to ‘lift’ a Kripke frame for a one- dimensional modal logic into two dimensions. (shrink)

The book integrates humans’ biological lives as animals with acculturation and interaction within diverse social worlds. Recent work in evolutionary biology, the social theory of practices, and cognition as embodied and enactive shows how aspects of human life often treated as social or cognitive are integrated “naturecultural” phenomena. Human evolution enables people’s varied biological development in practice-differentiated environments sustained by ongoing niche reconstruction. These naturecultural aspects of human life include language and other expressive repertoires; cultivated bodily skills; differentiated practical and (...) cultural domains and their associated settings and equipmental complexes; critical assessment of lives and practices; and power and resistance. This interdependent, practice-differentiated way of life explains how humans are accountable and responsive to diverse normative concerns. Our moral, social, practical, skillful, epistemic, conceptual, aesthetic, and other normative concerns are evolved, “two-dimensional” transformations of other animals’ one-dimensional biological success or failure in sustaining their lineages. These diverse normative concerns are not already-determinate norms, however. They indicate what is at issue and at stake in the ongoing development of various practices and their mutual interdependence, including how people express and reason about those issues discursively. Social power is thereby also a normative phenomenon, expressing how causal capacities and actions reconfigure the normative significance of other people’s situations. The book primarily addresses the biological significance of people’s situated involvement with one another. It nevertheless also highlights the social-ecological interdependence of people’s practice-differentiated ways of life with many non-human companion species, from microbial symbionts and pathogens to domesticated or commensal plants and animals. (shrink)

In this paper, we axiomatize the deontic logic in Fusco (2015), which uses a Stalnaker-inspired account of diagonal acceptance and a two-dimensional account of disjunction to treat Ross’s Paradox and the Puzzle of Free Choice Permission. On this account, disjunction-involving validities are a priori rather than necessary. We show how to axiomatize two-dimensional disjunction so that the introduction/elimination rules for boolean disjunction can be viewed as one-dimensional projections of more general two-dimensional rules. These completeness results help make explicit the restrictions (...) Fusco’s account must place on free-choice inferences. They are also of independent interest, as they raise difficult questions about how to “lift” a Kripke frame for a one-dimensional modal logic into two dimensions. (shrink)