Comparable worth is a controversial compensation strategy. In this paper, research issues that arise when employers perform point-based job evaluations, but deviate from them because of market factors, are discussed. Greater research attention to the actual operation of markets and to the consequences of conflicts in equity perceptions is encouraged.

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that (...) has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility. (shrink)

This paper is about the good side of modal logic, the bad side of modal logic, and how hybrid logic takes the good and fixes the bad.In essence, modal logic is a simple formalism for working with relational structures . But modal logic has no mechanism for referring to or reasoning about the individual nodes in such structures, and this lessens its effectiveness as a representation formalism. In their simplest form, hybrid logics are upgraded modal logics in which reference to (...) individual nodes is possible.But hybrid logic is a rather unusual modal upgrade. It pushes one simple idea as far as it will go: represent all information as formulas. This turns out to be the key needed to draw together a surprisingly diverse range of work . Moreover, it displays a number of knowledge representation issues in a new light, notably the importance of sorting. (shrink)

In their simplest form, hybrid languages are propositional modal languages which can refer to states. They were introduced by Arthur Prior, the inventor of tense logic, and played an important role in his work: because they make reference to specific times possible, they remove the most serious obstacle to developing modal approaches to temporal representation and reasoning. However very little is known about the computational complexity of hybrid temporal logics.In this paper we analyze the complexity of the satisfiability problem of (...) a number of hybrid temporal logics: the basic hybrid language over transitive trees; nominal Until logic; and referential interval logic. We discuss the effects of including nominals, the @ operator, the somewhere modality E, and the difference operator D. Adding nominals to tense logic leads for several frame-classes to an increase in complexity of the satisfiability problem from PSPACE to EXPTIME. On transitive trees, however, the satisfiability problem for this language can be decided in PSPACE. Along the way we make a detour through hybrid propositional dynamic logic: we establish upper bounds for a number of temporal logics by generalizing results due to Passy and Tinchev [29] and De Giacomo [16]. We conclude with some remarks on the relevance of our results to description logic, and draw attention to the utility of the spypoint technique for proving upper and lower bounds. (shrink)

Hybridization is a method invented by Arthur Prior for extending the expressive power of modal languages. Although developed in interesting ways by Robert Bull, and by the Sofia school , the method remains little known. In our view this has deprived temporal logic of a valuable tool.The aim of the paper is to explain why hybridization is useful in temporal logic. We make two major points, the first technical, the second conceptual. First, we show that hybridization gives rise to well-behaved (...) logics that exhibit an interesting synergy between modal and classical ideas. This synergy, obvious for hybrid languages with full first-order expressive strength, is demonstrated for a weaker local language capable of defining the Until operator; we provide a minimal axiomatization, and show that in a wide range of temporally interesting cases extended completeness results can be obtained automatically. Second, we argue that the idea of sorted atomic symbols which underpins the hybrid enterprise can be developed further. To illustrate this, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of a simple hybrid language which can quantify over paths. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss two hybrid languages, ℒ and ℒ, and provide them with complete axiomatizations. Both languages combine features of modal and classical logic. Like modal languages, they contain modal operators and have a Kripke semantics. Unlike modal languages, in these systems it is possible to 'label' states by using A and ↓ to bind special state variables.This paper explores the consequences of hybridization for completeness. As we shall show, the challenge is to blend the modal idea of (...) canonical models with the classical idea of witnessed maximal consistent sets. The languages ℒ and ℒ provide us with two extreme examples of the issues involved. In the case of ℒ, we can combine these ideas relatively straightforwardly with the aid of analogs of the Barcan axioms coupled with a modal theory of labeling. In the case of ℒ, on the other hand, although we can still formulate a theory of labeling, the Barcan analogs are not valid. We show how to overcome this difficulty by using COV*, an infinite collection of additional rules of proof which has been used in a number of investigations of extended modal logic. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has claimed that on a theory of revealed preference it is tautological that any eligible player - one whose preferences are consistent - plays hawk, chooses a strategy of non-cooperation with the other prisoner. This claim is examined and rejected. A prisoner in the appropriate sense is defined not by preferences over actions (playing hawk or playing dove) but by preferences over the four possible outcomes which result from the players' actions jointly (both playing hawk, both playing (...) dove, the first playing hawk and the second dove, and vice versa). It is not inconsistent to suppose that a prisoner has the appropriate preferences over outcomes but nevertheless chooses to play dove. This can happen either if the prisoner believes for some reason that the full range of outcomes is not available, or if the prisoner is simply a bad strategic thinker. It is perhaps tautological that a player with the appropriate preferences over outcome and with suitable beliefs will if rational choose to play hawk. However, rationality would then involve an appeal to a further principle, the sure-thing principle: if a prisoner would choose hawk knowing that the other will choose hawk, and would also choose hawk knowing that the other will choose dove, then hawk should be chosen when it is uncertain what the other will choose. (shrink)

This thesis concerns the source of modal truth. I aim to answer the question: what is it in virtue of which there are truths concerning what must have been the case as a matter of necessity, or could have been the case but isn't. I begin by looking at a dilemma put forward by Simon Blackburn which attempts to show that any realist answer to this question must fail, and I conclude that either horn of his dilemma can be (...) resisted. I then move on to clarify the nature of the propositions whose truth I am aiming to find the source of. I distinguish necessity de re from necessity de dicto, and argue for a counterpart theoretic treatment of necessity de re. As a result, I argue that there is no special problem concerning the source of de re modal facts. The problem is simply to account for what it is in virtue of which there are qualitative ways the world could have been, and qualitative ways it couldn't have been. I look at two ways to answer this question: by appealing to truthmakers in the actual world, or by appealing to non-actual ontology. I develop a theory of truthmakers, but argue that it is unlikely that there are truthmakers for modal truths among the ontology of the actual. I look at the main possibilist ontology, David Lewis' modal realism, but argue that warrant for that ontology is unobtainable, and that we shouldn't admit non-actual possibilia into our ontology. I end by sketching a quasi-conventionalist approach to modality which denies that there are modal facts, but nevertheless allows that we can speak truly when we use modal language. (shrink)

Blackburn’s dilemma (as commonly understood) is that in explaining truths of the form ‘Necessarily-P’ we have to appeal either to a necessary truth, in which case we don’t seem to make the right kind of progress, or to a contingent truth, in which case we seem to undermine the necessity we were meant to be explaining. This paper advances two claims. First, it is argued that the dilemma is wider in scope than usually supposed. The standard assumption (evident also (...) in Black-burn’s original paper (1993)) is that the dilemma applies to explanations of truths of the form ‘Necessarily-P’. I argue that the real problem identified by Blackburn doesn’t just apply to explanations of truths of this form, but to explanations of necessary truths in general (e.g. truths of logic, mathematics, etc.). In the course of this argument it also transpires that the real problem on the necessity horn is rather different—and rather less susceptible to obvious objections—than it is usually taken to be. It concerns the antinaturalistic core of necessity. Second, it is argued that there is an escape from the antinaturalistic core on the contingency horn. In the footsteps of Wright (1985), the claim is that the contingency horn is tenable for those who believe that the necessary truth in question is analytic, i.e. follows from its meaning. (shrink)

Se è un difetto della ragione essere incapaci di adottare certi mezzi, allo stesso modo è un difetto della ragione essere incapaci di adottare certi fini, dicono i kantiani. Secondo Blackburn questa tesi non-strumentalista deve la sua apparente validità ad una fallacia modale. Dal condizionale «Se si adotta il fine X, è necessario adottare il mezzo Y», si deriva il conseguente «Si deve adottare il mezzo Y», ci si interroga sulla natura del modale che occorre nel conseguente, poi si (...) ricostruisce l’antecedente come «E’ necessario adottare il fine X» e infine si ricostruisce il condizionale come «Se è necessario adottare il fine X, è necessario adottare il mezzo Y». Il non-strumentalista è così portato a credere che la stessa normatività che è contenuta nel principio strumentalista deve essere derivata dalla normatività dei fini (p. 242). (shrink)

In this note we show that the classical modal technology of Sahlqvist formulas gives quick proofs of the completeness theorems in [8] (D. Gregory, Completeness and decidability results for some propositional modal logics containing “actually” operators, Journal of Philosophical Logic 30(1): 57–78, 2001) and vastly generalizes them. Moreover, as a corollary, interpolation theorems for the logics considered in [8] are obtained. We then compare Gregory's modal language enriched with an “actually” operator with the work of Arthur Prior now known under (...) the name of hybrid logic. This analysis relates the “actually” axioms to standard hybrid axioms, yields the decidability results in [8], and provides a number of complexity results. Finally, we use a bisimulation argument to show that the hybrid language is strictly more expressive than Gregory's language. (shrink)

A modal logic is developed to deal with finite ordered binary trees a they are used in linguistics. A modal language is introduced with operators for the ‘mother of’, ‘first daughter of’ and ‘second daughter of’ relations together with their transitive reflexive closures. The relevant class of tree models is defined and three linguistic applications of this language are discussed: context free grammars, command relations, and trees decorated with feature structures. An axiomatic proof system is given for which completeness is (...) shown with respect to the class of finite ordered binary trees. A number of decidability results follow. (shrink)

Pragmatists have traditionally been enemies of representationalism but friends of naturalism, when naturalism is understood to pertain to human subjects, in the sense of Hume and Nietzsche. In this volume Huw Price presents his distinctive version of this traditional combination, as delivered in his René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University in 2008. Price contrasts his view with other contemporary forms of philosophical naturalism, comparing it with other pragmatist and neo-pragmatist views such as those of Robert Brandom and Simon Blackburn. (...) Linking their different 'expressivist' programmes, Price argues for a radical global expressivism that combines key elements from both. With Paul Horwich and Michael Williams, Brandom and Blackburn respond to Price in new essays. Price replies in the closing essay, emphasising links between his views and those of Wilfrid Sellars. The volume will be of great interest to advanced students of philosophy of language and metaphysics. (shrink)

The idea of combining logics, structures, and theories has recently been attracting interest in areas as diverse as constraint logic programming, theorem proving, verification, computational linguistics, artificial intelligence and indeed, various branches of logic itself. It would be an exaggeration to claim that these (scattered, and by-and-large independent) investigations have crystallized into an enterprise meriting the title "combined methods"; nonetheless, a number of interesting themes are emerging. This introduction notes some prominent ones and relates them to the papers in this (...) special issue. (shrink)

Within a year of each other, three one-volume general dictionaries of philosophy have recently appeared; when our future colleagues in philosophy look back on the 1990s they may well think of it as the decade of reference works. But however productive these years may prove to be in this genre, clearly visible somewhere around the top of the heap will be this handy, useful, entertaining, and instructive contribution from Simon Blackburn. Its two immediate competitors are the Cambridge Dictionary of (...) Philosophy, edited by Robert Audi, and the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich. No detailed comparison will be attempted here, but two points stand out as obviously giving Blackburn’s dictionary a rather different use and flavor from the others: while containing a closely comparable number of entries, it is distinctly shorter and handier in format; and it has all been written by a single author. (shrink)

The article challenges conventional assumptions regarding the question of incest survival within contemporary discourses. A textual analysis of Kathryn Harrison's autobiographical novel tracing her consensual sexual relationship with her father is used to address the issue of failed or unresolved mourning as a prototypically ‘modern’ cultural phenomenon. Psychoanalytically informed feminist literary criticism is used to explore the parallels between the cultural construction of femininity and failed or postponed mourning in western historical and philosophical traditions. Following the work of Juliana Schiesari (...) and Kathleen Woodward, the article contends that melancholia is a gendered discourse that has historically privileged male theorists and film-makers, such as Barthes and Fassbinder. The article suggests that contemporary women writers, such as Harrison, are engaged in a revisionary approach to the construction of loss within their writing. By situating themselves at the heart of the contemporary family narrative, instead of the ‘melancholic’ margins, they are able to produce a counter-discourse that dispels the conventional dynamics of the traditional family romance. By using the ‘writing cure’ to overcome ideological loss, the desiring daughter is able to challenge misogynist constructions of femininity within contemporary literature. (shrink)

The twenty-sixth volume in the highly acclaimed Library of Living Philosophers series is devoted to the work of British philosopher of logic and metaphysician, P. F. Strawson. Following the Library of Living Philosophers series format, the volume contains an intellectual autobiography, twenty critical and descriptive essays by leading philosophers from around the world, Strawson's replies to the essays, and a bibliography of Strawson's works. Born in 1919, Strawson was a leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy. He is the author of (...) the early and extremely influential paper "On Referring" in which he criticized Russell's theory of definite descriptions. His most influential book, Individuals, helped to raise the status of metaphysics as a philosophical enterprise. Themes first addressed in this book continued to be of concern to him in his later work, including the possibility of objective knowledge, the subject-predicate distinction, the ontological status of persons, and the problem of individuation. Contributors to the book include: Ruth Garrett Millikan, Susan Haack, E. M. Adams, Panayot Butchvarov, Richard Behling, John McDowell, Simon Blackburn, Tadeusz Szubka, David Frederick Haight, Joseph S. Wu, Andrew G. Black, David Pears, Robert Boyd, Hilary Putnam, Paul F. Snowdon, Arindam Chakrabarti, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Ernest Sosa, Chung-M. Tse, John R. Searle, P. F. Strawson. (shrink)