In solving judgment aggregation problems, groups often face constraints. Many decision problems can be modelled in terms the acceptance or rejection of certain propositions in a language, and constraints as propositions that the decisions should be consistent with. For example, court judgments in breach-of-contract cases should be consistent with the constraint that action and obligation are necessary and sufficient for liability; judgments on how to rank several options in an order of preference with the constraint of transitivity; and judgments on (...) budget items with budgetary constraints. Often more or less demanding constraints on decisions are imaginable. For instance, in preference ranking problems, the transitivity constraint is often contrasted with the weaker acyclicity constraint. In this paper, we make constraints explicit in judgment aggregation by relativizing the rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure to a constraint set, whose variation yields more or less strong notions of rationality. We review several general results on judgment aggregation in light of such constraints. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What role, if any, should Confucianism play in the politics of our time? In some of my previous works, I claimed that modern liberal states are not permitted to promote Confucian values on the basis of their intrinsic merits. Yet, drawing insights from Joseph Chan’s moderate state perfectionism and John Rawls’s wide view of public political culture, I proposed the “wide view of moderate perfectionism.” According to this view, in public political discussion, citizens should be allowed to deliberate whether and (...) how Confucianism, among other reasonable moral doctrines, can make positive contributions to their social and political thinking and public policymaking, provided that certain conditions are met. This view has been criticized by some scholars, in particular Zhuoyao Li. Li argues that the practice of the wide view of moderate perfectionism would inevitably harm civility. In this article, I clarify and develop the wide view and respond to Li’s criticisms. (shrink)

Herbrand disjunctions are a means for reducing the problem ofwhether a first-oder formula is valid in an open theory T or not to theproblem whether an open formula, one of the so called Herbrand disjunctions,is T -valid or not. Nevertheless, the set of Herbrand disjunctions, which hasto be examined, is undecidable in general. Fore this reason the practicalvalue of Herbrand disjunctions has been estimated negatively .Relying on completeness proofs which are based on the algebraizationtechnique presented in [30], but taking a (...) more optimistic view, we show howHerbrand disjunctions become the base of a method for building in theoriesinto automatic theorem provers [26]. Surveying newer results we discusshow to treat heterogeneous theories [29] as well as practical implications ofdifferent normal form transformations. (shrink)

This book contains the definitive statement of Franz Brentano's views on meta physics. It is made up of essays which were dictated by Brentano during the last ten years of his life, between 1907 and 1917. These dictations were assembled and edited by Alfred Kastil and first published by the Felix Meiner Verlag in 1933 under the title Kategorienlehre. Kastil added copious notes to Brentano's text. These notes have been included, with some slight omissions, in the present edition; the (...) bibliographical references have been brought up to date. Brentano's approach to philosophy is unfamiliar to many contemporay readers. I shall discuss below certain fundamental points which such readers are likely to find the most difficult. I believe that once these points are properly understood, then what Brentano has to say will be seen to be of first importance to philosophy. THE PRIMACY OF THE INTENTIONAL To understand Brentano's theory of being, one must realize that he appeals to what he calls inner perception for his paradigmatic uses of the word "is". For inner perception, according to Brentano, is the source of our knowledge of the nature of being, just as it is the source of our knowledge of the nature of truth and of the nature of good and evil. And what can be said about the being of things that are not apprehended in inner perception can be understood only by analogy with what we are able to say about ourselves as thinking subjects. (shrink)

Den Plan, seine Untersuchungen zur Deskriptiven Psychologie in einem umfassenden Werk zur Darstellung zu bringen, hat Brentano nicht verwirklicht. Neben kleineren Schriften zu diesem Gedankenkreis sind aber die Kollegmanuskripte der 1887 bis 1891 unter wechselnden Titeln gehaltenen Wiener Vorlesungen zur Deskriptiven Psychologie erhalten.

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this problem (...) generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

As cause we often specify an event the occurrence of which first guaranteed that of the effect. This notion is explicated in a framework of branching worlds in Sections I to V. VI and VII point out its close relations to the concept of an agent's bringing about an event. The topic of the last two sections is the distinction between causes and necessary circumstances. For this purpose conditionals are used, interpreted with respect to branching worlds without a similarity relation (...) between them. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft und Universalgeschichte.--Bd. 2. Althistorische Kontroversen zu Mythos und Geschichte.

In Interviews wird – vor allem von Politikern – oft „um den heißen Brei herum geredet“. Welche Gründe gibt es für diese Vagheit in der Sprache und in der inhaltlichen Aussage? Auf welchen Ebenen der Kommunikation liegt die Vagheit in den Fragen und Antworten eines Interviews? Und welche Strategien verfolgen die Interviewpartner damit? Kerstin Petermann hat deutsch- und englischsprachige Interviews mit Gesprächspartnern aus Politik, Kultur und Gesellschaft untersucht. Im Ergebnis Ihrer Studie formuliert sie Aussagen zu Semantik und Syntax in (...) den Interviews sowie wertvolle Hinweise für die journalistische Arbeit. (shrink)

Marxism has been for a long time the reference of the European Worker's Movement. It took the form of a millenarist faith and was embodied in large organizations. Orthodox marxism had no more reason for existence when the working class was integrated in the modern society.Communism gave a new inspiration but at the expense of an intellectual degeneration. When it became a state religion, marxism stopped to be creative and became a Gnosis. The varied forms of leftisms which emerged in (...) the sixties are the last avatar of marxism in the developped countries. But they have only a remote relationship with Marx's doctrine. The same process took place in the Third World where the marxist-leninist vulgate was absorbed by nationalism. (shrink)

Since its success in the European elections of the 17th ]une 84, the National Front of J.M. Le Pen represents today the extreme right which had disappeared as a politica! force, if not as a way of thinking in France. With 10,95 % of the votes cast, the National Front becomes a political force which must be taken into account, especially when by-elections take place. This ultra-nationalist and populist party focuses the political debate almost exclusively on insecurity and immigration problems (...) but also develops the traditional themes of the extreme right. The National Front's electorale has poor sociological caracteristics and largely overlaps the traditional extreme-right. The disenchantment of a part of the electorate of the left, the drifting to the right of an important fraction of the electorate, the rising of xenophobia and racism are the principal causes for the relative success of J.M. Le Pen. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A growing number of applications of automated reasoning exhibitsthe necessity of flexible deduction systems. A deduction system should beable to execute inference rules which are appropriate to the given problem.One way to achieve this behavior is the integration of different calculi. Thisled to so called hybrid reasoning [22, 1, 10, 20] which means the integrationof a general purpose foreground reasoner with a specialized background reasoner. A typical task of a background reasoner is to perform special purposeinference rules according to a (...) built-in theory. The aim of this paper is togo a step further, i.e. to treat the background reasoner as a hybrid systemitself. The paper formulates sufficient criteria for the construction of complete calculi which enable reasoning under hybrid theories combined fromsub-theories. For this purpose we use a generic approach described in [20].This more detailed view on built-in theories is not covered by the knowngeneral approaches [1, 3, 6, 20] for building in theories into theorem provers.The approach is demonstrated by its application to the target calculi of thealgebraic translation [9] of multi-modal and extended multi-modal [7] logicto first-order logic. (shrink)

The concept of workforce agility has become increasingly popular in recent years as agile individuals are expected to be better able to handle change and uncertainty. However, agility has rarely been studied in a systematic way. Relations between agility and positive work outcomes, such as higher performance or increased well-being, have often been suggested but rarely been empirically tested. Furthermore, several different workforce agility measures are used in the literature which complicates the comparison of findings. Recognizing these gaps in the (...) literature, we developed a new workforce agility measure, compared this measure to established workforce agility measures, and empirically tested the relations of workforce agility with work outcomes. For this purpose, we surveyed participants from two samples. In a first step, we used Sample 1 to examine the factor structure of the measure for item selection. In a second step, we used Sample 2 to confirm the 10-factor structure and to compare the predictive validity of our measure along with two other agility measures. Findings demonstrate predictive validity for all three workforce agility scales, especially in relation to innovative performance. Furthermore, workforce agility related positively to task and innovative performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and well-being. (shrink)

When one thinks—knows, believes, imagines—that something is the case, one’s thought has a topic: it is about something, towards which one’s mind is directed. What is the logic of thought, so understood? This book begins to explore the idea that, to answer the question, we should take topics seriously. It proposes a hyperintensional account of the propositional contents of thought, arguing that these are individuated not only by the set of possible worlds at which they are true, but also by (...) their topic: what they are about. The book then builds epistemic, doxastic, probabilistic, and conditional logics based on this view. It applies them to issues ranging from dogmatism, scepticism, and epistemic fallibilism, to imagination and suppositional reasoning, belief revision, framing effects, and the acceptability of indicative conditionals. (shrink)

Suppose several individuals (e.g., experts on a panel) each assign probabilities to some events. How can these individual probability assignments be aggregated into a single collective probability assignment? This article reviews several proposed solutions to this problem. We focus on three salient proposals: linear pooling (the weighted or unweighted linear averaging of probabilities), geometric pooling (the weighted or unweighted geometric averaging of probabilities), and multiplicative pooling (where probabilities are multiplied rather than averaged). We present axiomatic characterisations of each class of (...) pooling functions (most of them classic, but one new) and argue that linear pooling can be justified procedurally, but not epistemically, while the other two pooling methods can be justified epistemically. The choice between them, in turn, depends on whether the individuals' probability assignments are based on shared information or on private information. We conclude by mentioning a number of other pooling methods. (shrink)

The Description Logic Handbook covers all aspects of the research in the field of knowledge representation. Written by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, and covering the basic technical material and implementational aspects, it is both a unique reference and a self-study guide.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson’s disease. However, identifying stimulation parameters, such as contact and current amplitudes, is time-consuming based on trial and error. Directional leads add more stimulation options and render this process more challenging with a higher workload for neurologists and more discomfort for patients. In this study, a sweet spot-guided algorithm was developed that automatically suggested stimulation parameters. These suggestions were retrospectively compared to clinical monopolar reviews. A cohort of 24 Parkinson’s disease (...) patients underwent bilateral DBS implantation in the subthalamic nucleus at our center. First, the DBS’ leads were reconstructed with the open-source toolbox Lead-DBS. Second, a sweet spot for rigidity reduction was set as the desired stimulation target for programming. This sweet spot and estimations of the volume of tissue activated were used to suggest (i) the best lead level, (ii) the best contact, and (iii) the effect thresholds for full therapeutic effect for each contact. To assess these sweet spot-guided suggestions, the clinical monopolar reviews were considered as ground truth. In addition, the sweet spot-guided suggestions for best lead level and best contact were compared against reconstruction-guided suggestions, which considered the lead location with respect to the subthalamic nucleus. Finally, a graphical user interface was developed as an add-on to Lead-DBS and is publicly available. With the interface, suggestions for all contacts of a lead can be generated in a few seconds. The accuracy for suggesting the best out of four lead levels was 56%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were not significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p = 0.3). The accuracy for suggesting the best out of eight contacts was 41%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p < 0.001). The sweet spot-guided suggestions of each contact’s effect threshold had a mean error of 1.2 mA. On an individual lead level, the suggestions can vary more with mean errors ranging from 0.3 to 4.8 mA. Further analysis is warranted to improve the sweet spot-guided suggestions and to account for more symptoms and stimulation-induced side effects. (shrink)

Pets are truly great companions. Some individuals feel that owning a pet can help them prepare for a growing family by giving them a taste of what it would be like to have children. This study also looks into the psychological well-being and life experiences of LGBT fur parents. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study were: (1) With the presence of fur babies, participants had the ease to overcome stressful events, especially the ones that affect their (...) mental health. With these, they have the desire to take care of their fur babies under all circumstances because they see their fur babies as family members. Fur babies are excellent sources of motivation, confidence, and happiness for fur parents. They are treated as family members because they contribute to the mental and emotional aspects of fur parents. Moreover, the majority of respondents valued their pets far more than their actual family members, however, some didn't spend as much time with their relatives and friends. This study comes to the conclusion that a stronger bond with one's dog was also linked to higher anxiety about being unloved and rejected by family members and people surrounding us, which was linked to a heavier impact on one's psychological well-being. In reality, fur parents, especially LGBT parents, offer their fur babies a lot of love and attention compared to other things. (shrink)

Fusing philosophy and theology, the book assigns both Judaism and Christianity distinct but equally important roles in the spiritual structure of the world and ...

Die Kontroverse Jacobi - Schelling über die Frage, wie Gott zu denken sei, war zugleich Ausdruck und Anregung für die Diskussion des Verhältnisses von Glaube, Wissen, Philosophie und Theologie, die seit der Neuzeit lebendig ist. Der unterschiedliche Weg des Denkens beider Philosophen bis zum Streit und die Kontroverse selbst mit ihren Themen sind Marksteine. Die offenbar gewordene Aporie beider «Lösungen» verweist auf die Notwendigkeit, über ihre Aussagen hinaus weiterzudenken (Hegel, Schellings Spätphilosophie, Gegenwartsdenken). Daraus lassen sich religionsphilosophische und wissenschaftstheoretische Prolegomena zu (...) einer theologischen Behandlung des Themas Denken und Transzendenz eruieren. (shrink)

The widely discussed "discursive dilemma" shows that majority voting in a group of individuals on logically connected propositions may produce irrational collective judgments. We generalize majority voting by considering quota rules, which accept each proposition if and only if the number of individuals accepting it exceeds a given threshold, where different thresholds may be used for different propositions. After characterizing quota rules, we prove necessary and sufficient conditions on the required thresholds for various collective rationality requirements. We also consider sequential (...) quota rules, which ensure collective rationality by adjudicating propositions sequentially and letting earlier judgments constrain later ones. Sequential rules may be path-dependent and strategically manipulable. We characterize path-independence and prove its essential equivalence to strategy-proofness. Our results shed light on the rationality of simple-, super-, and sub-majoritarian decision-making. (shrink)

We need to understand the impossible. Francesco Berto and Mark Jago start by considering what the concepts of meaning, information, knowledge, belief, fiction, conditionality, and counterfactual supposition have in common. They are all concepts which divide the world up more finely than logic does. Logically equivalent sentences may carry different meanings and information and may differ in how they're believed. Fictions can be inconsistent yet meaningful. We can suppose impossible things without collapsing into total incoherence. Yet for the leading philosophical (...) theories of meaning, these phenomena are an unfathomable mystery. To understand these concepts, we need a metaphysical, logical, and conceptual grasp of situations that could not possibly exist: Impossible Worlds. This book discusses the metaphysics of impossible worlds and applies the concept to a range of central topics and open issues in logic, semantics, and philosophy. It considers problems in the logic of knowledge, the meaning of alternative logics, models of imagination and mental simulation, the theory of information, truth in fiction, the meaning of conditional statements, and reasoning about the impossible. In all these cases, impossible worlds have an essential role to play. (shrink)