A total of 152 students were asked to respond to a series of causal conditional (“If P then Q”) inferences with major premises for which there was variable access to information contradicting the premises. Half the students were given 12.5 s for each inference, the other half were given 8.5 s. The percentage of accepted inferences was significantly lower when the time was shorter for the MP and MT inferences, but no effect was observed for the AC and DA inferences. (...) Results are interpreted as supporting the idea that inhibition of retrieved information contradicting the premise is necessary to explain reasoning with the MP and MT inferences under logical instructions (Markovits & Barrouillet, 2002). (shrink)

Based on the hypotheses that (1) a physiological organization exists inside each activity of daily life and (2) the pattern of evolution of physiological variables is characteristic of each activity, pattern changes should be detected on daily life physiological recordings. The present study aims at investigating whether a simple segmentation method can be set up to detect pattern changes on physiological recordings carried out during daily life. Heart and breathing rates and skin temperature have been non-invasively recorded in volunteers following (...) scenarios made of “daily life” steps (13 records). An observer, undergoing the scenario, wrote down annotations during the recording time. Two segmentation procedures have been compared to the annotations, a visual inspection of the signals and an automatic program based on a trends detection algorithm applied to one physiological signal (skin temperature). The annotations resulted in a total number of 213 segments defined on the 13 records, the best visual inspection detected less segments (120) than the automatic program (194). If evaluated in terms of the number of correspondences between the times marks given by annotations and those resulting from both physiologically based segmentations, the automatic program was better than the visual inspection. The mean time lags between annotation and program time marks remain <60 s (the precision of annotation times marks). We conclude that physiological variables time series recorded in common life conditions exhibit different successive patterns that can be detected by a simple trends detection algorithm. Theses sequences are coherent with the corresponding annotated activity. (shrink)

The classic model of blood pressure regulation by Guyton et al. (Annu Rev Physiol 34:13–46, 1972a; Ann Biomed Eng 1:254–281, 1972b) set a new standard for quantitative exploration of physiological function and led to important new insights, some of which still remain the focus of debate, such as whether the kidney plays the primary role in the genesis of hypertension (Montani et al. in Exp Physiol 24:41–54, 2009a; Exp Physiol 94:382–388, 2009b; Osborn et al. in Exp Physiol 94:389–396, 2009a; Exp (...) Physiol 94:388–389, 2009b). Key to the success of this model was the fact that the authors made the computer code (in FORTRAN) freely available and eventually provided a convivial user interface for exploration of model behavior on early microcomputers (Montani et al. in Int J Bio-med Comput 24:41–54, 1989). Ikeda et al. (Ann Biomed Eng 7:135–166, 1979) developed an offshoot of the Guyton model targeting especially the regulation of body fluids and acid–base balance; their model provides extended renal and respiratory functions and would be a good basis for further extensions. In the interest of providing a simple, useable version of Ikeda et al.’s model and to facilitate further such extensions, we present a practical implementation of the model of Ikeda et al. (Ann Biomed Eng 7:135–166, 1979), using the ODE solver Berkeley Madonna. (shrink)

This evenhanded treatment addresses the decades-old dispute among probability theorists, asserting that both statistical and inductive probabilities may be treated as sentence-theoretic measurements, and that the latter qualify as estimates of the former. Beginning with a survey of the essentials of sentence theory and of set theory, the author examines statistical probabilities, showing that statistical probabilities may be passed on to sentences, and thereby qualify as truth-values. An exploration of inductive probabilities follows, demonstrating their reinterpretation as estimates of truth-values. Each (...) chapter is preceded by a summary of its contents. Illustrations and footnotes elucidate definitions, theorems, and technicalities. 1962 ed. (shrink)

La formule de Hobbes est bien connue, selon laquelle l'Etat est un Dieu mortel.

L'histoire des sciences suffit à réfuter la thèse de la mathématisation impossible, selon laquelle la mathématisation procéderait d'un formalisme abstrait manquant les choses mêmes ou la spécificité d'un domaine d'objets. Cette histoire montre en effet qu'on n'a pas cessé de mathématiser des choses dont il avait été longtemps dit qu'elles devaient, étant donné leur nature, éternellement résister à la mathématisation. À la thèse de la mathématisation impossible, il est dès lors tentant d'opposer la thèse de la mathématisation inéluctable, selon laquelle (...) une science bien formulée est une science mathématiquement constituée. Cette dernière thèse est cependant souvent associée à l'idée que l'introduction des mathématiques dans une discipline constituerait un processus qui ne présenterait aucune difficulté et qui ne serait suivie d'aucune perte. Contre cette idée, les articles rassemblés dans ce volume ont voulu, comme le titre de ce dernier l'indique, restituer à la mathématisation son caractère problématique. La méthode adoptée dans ce volume est résolument empirique : il s'appuie non pas sur des réflexions a priori sur ce que seraient les objets mathématiques, mais sur des études de cas empruntées à différentes périodes de l'histoire et à différentes sciences. Le pari a été fait que ces différentes rubriques pourraient être articulées les uns aux autres dans trois parties qui ont respectivement pour titres "Les exigences de la mesure : la quantification", "La formalisation : la puissance des formes symboliques", et "La modélisation, une nouvelle forme de mathématisation?" Assurément, une tendance historiographique générale de ces trente dernières années a consisté à privilégier les études de cas locales et singulières, ce qui nous a permis de prendre congé du style épique, qui néglige les détails de l'histoire. Cependant, l'espèce de nominalisme qui en résulte tourne rapidement court, si l'on en reste à ces études de cas singulières. Ce volume repose donc sur un pari : essayer d'articuler différentes études de cas de manière à dégager certaines formes de la mathématisation. Que ce pari ait été gagné ou perdu, ce sera au lecteur d'en juger. (shrink)

Penser sans obéir aux ressorts constitutifs de la pensée française contemporaine : voilà l'exigence qu'indique Maurice Blanchot. Deux enjeux déterminent en conséquence cet ouvrage. Il s'agit d'abord de montrer combien l'oeuvre théorique et narrative de Blanchot, en faisant valoir des thèmes aussi singuliers que ceux du calme ou de l'enfance, se soustrait à l'épreuve contemporaine de l'événement. Point d'autant plus étonnant que Blanchot ne cesse - aussi - de requérir cette épreuve et de s'entretenir avec ceux-là même qui, tels Levinas, (...) Deleuze, Derrida ou Foucault, ont déployé la logique contemporaine. Il s'agit ensuite de forger les catégories positives de la recherche ainsi indiquée. L'analyse minutieuse ici proposée de la dimension élémentale (nuit, mer, ciel) propre au neutre blanchotien et de l'écriture fragmentaire déployée à la fin de l'oeuvre, conduit ainsi à dégager une question qui, dépourvue de la force d'appeler encore réponse, se pose dans le milieu calme du silence. Loin de reconduire la pensée au nihilisme ou à un silence impensable-indicible typiquement contemporain, cette problématisation, avec Blanchot, de la pensée française contemporaine introduit à une recherche qui, ni déconstructrice ni non-philosophique, engage l'enfance de la philosophie. (shrink)

An art of the everyday? Parting from Georges Perec and Vilhelm Hammershøi Contemporary continental philosophy seems to be deeply connected to art, whether it is poetry and literature, painting or music. This connection is built upon the primacy of a trial of the invisible, which is very often a trial of the event. The aim of this article is to establish an art of the everyday freed from this contemporary "eventism". We thus examine how the researches of Georges Perec in (...) literature and of Vilhelm Hammershøi in painting meditate on the strangeness of the everyday – its flatness, its silence – which are irreducible to this aesthetic trial as it can be conceptualized by the philosophy of the life of Deleuze-Guattari and by the humanism of Levinas. This research thus beckons towards an art of the common contesting the contemporary primacy of the vital and the human. (shrink)

A constructive dialogue between Henry’s phenomenology and Rorty’s pragmatism does not seem very likely: each would probably consider that the other has not been faithful to his claim of breaking with philosophical tradition and thus ultimately reproduces its limits. Nevertheless, one can also note that Henry and Rorty are not at the same level of analysis: while Henry focuses on giving coherent grounds for any philosophical critique of representation, Rorty is occupied with the consequences of such critique on philosophy itself. (...) If one considers this difference, there emerge new results: Henry’s phenomenology is fundamental for the recognition of what Rorty calls the “human being’s sense of self-identity”, while it falls to Rorty’s pragmatism to ensure that, as hoped by Henry, there is “a mode of philosophy that does not harm essence”.  . (shrink)

The more traditional approaches to the history and philosophy of science and technology continue as well, and probably will continue as long as there are skillful practitioners such as Carl Hempel, Ernest Nagel, and th~ir students. Finally, there are still other approaches that address some of the technical problems arising when we try to provide an account of belief and of rational choice. - These include efforts to provide logical frameworks within which we can make sense of these notions. This (...) series will attempt to bring together work from all of these approaches to the history and philosophy of science and technology in the belief that each has something to add to our understanding. The volumes of this series have emerged either from lectures given by authors while they served as honorary visiting professors at the City College of New York or from conferences sponsored by that institution. The City College Program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology oversees and directs these lectures and conferences with the financial aid of the Association for Philosophy of Science, Psychotheraphy, and Ethics. MARTIN TAMNY RAPHAEL STERN PREFACE The papers in this collection stem largely from the conference 'Foun dations: Logic, Language, and Mathematics' held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on 14-15 November 1980. (shrink)

As a survey of many technical results in probability theory and probability logic, this monograph by two widely respected scholars offers a valuable compendium of the principal aspects of the formal study of probability. Hugues Leblanc and Peter Roeper explore probability functions appropriate for propositional, quantificational, intuitionistic, and infinitary logic and investigate the connections among probability functions, semantics, and logical consequence. They offer a systematic justification of constraints for various types of probability functions, in particular, an exhaustive account of (...) probability functions adequate for first-order quantificational logic. The relationship between absolute and relative probability functions is fully explored and the book offers a complete account of the representation of relative functions by absolute ones. The volume is designed to review familiar results, to place these results within a broad context, and to extend the discussions in new and interesting ways. Authoritative, articulate, and accessible, it will interest mathematicians and philosophers at both professional and post-graduate levels. (shrink)

Une philosophie de la vie est-elle possible? Cette question ne tarde jamais à surgir à la lecture de Michel Henry. Personne n'a manqué de la soulever, pas même Henry. Pour autant, les commentateurs n'en font pas grand cas, surtout depuis qu'il y aurait répondu.

DEALING INITIALLY WITH QC, THE STANDARD QUANTIFICATIONAL CALCULUS OF ORDER ONE, THE AUTHOR COMMENTS ON A SHORTCOMING, REPORTED IN 1956 BY MONTAGUE AND HENKIN, IN CHURCH'S ACCOUNT OF A PROOF FROM HYPOTHESES, AND SKETCHES THREE WAYS OF RIGHTING THINGS. THE THIRD, WHICH EXPLOITS A TRICK OF FITCH'S, IS THE SIMPLEST OF THE THREE. THE AUTHOR INVESTIGATES IT SOME, SUPPLYING FRESH PROOF OF UGT, THE UNIVERSAL GENERALIZATION THEOREM. THE PROOF HOLDS GOOD AS ONE PASSES FROM QC TO QC asterisk , THE (...) PRESUPPOSITION-FREE VARIANT OF QC. TURNING NEXT TO QC subscript = , THE STANDARD QUANTIFICATIONAL CALCULUS OF ORDER ONE WITH '=', AND TO THE PRESUPPOSITION-FREE VARIANT QC subscript = OF QC subscript = , THE AUTHOR NEXT ESTABLISHES THE LEMMAS NEEDED THERE TO PROVE UGT. THAT, GIVEN FITCH'S ACCOUNT OF A PROOF FROM HYPOTHESES, UGT HOLDS FOR QC subscript = WAS ARGUED IN LEBLANC'S "TRUTH-VALUE SEMANTICS", BUT THE PROOF WAS IN ERROR. (shrink)