Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Pseudoscience spreads through communicative and inferential processes that make people vulnerable to weird beliefs. However, the fact that pseudoscientific beliefs are unsubstantiated and have no basis in reality does not mean that the people who hold them have no reasons for doing so. We propose that, reasons play a central role in the diffusion of pseudoscience. On the basis of cultural epidemiology and the interactionist theory of reasoning, we will here analyse the structure and the function of reasons in the (...) propagation of pseudoscience. We conclude by discussing the implications of our approach for the understanding of human irrationality. (shrink)

To secure cooperative opportunities people align their beliefs with the normative expectations of their social environment. These expectations are continuously managed by interactive reasoning, a process that results in dynamical pools of reasons. When people are more concerned about their social standing and reputation than truth, pools of reasons give rise to collective irrationalities. They determine what people should believe if they want to be known as a reliable group member. This account has implications for our understanding of human irrationality (...) and how to deal with it. (shrink)

The demarcation between science and pseudoscience is a long-standing problem in philosophy of science. Although philosophers have been hesitant to engage in this project since Larry Laudan announce...

Why do irrational beliefs adopt the trappings of science, to become what is known as “pseudoscience”? Here, we develop and extend an epidemiological framework to map the factors that explain the form and the popularity of irrational beliefs in scientific garb. These factors include the exploitation of epistemic vigilance, the misunderstanding of the authority of science, the use of the honorific title of “science” as an explicit argument for belief, and the phenomenon of epistemic negligence. We conclude by integrating the (...) various factors in an epidemiological framework and thus provide a comprehensive cultural evolutionary account of science mimicry. (shrink)

Science is a collaborative effort to produce knowledge. Scientists thus must assess what information is trustworthy and who is a competent and honest source and partner. Facing the problem of trust, we can expect scientists to be vigilant. In response to their peers’ vigilance scientists will provide reasons, not only to convince their colleagues to adopt their practices or beliefs, but also to demonstrate that their beliefs and practices are justified. By justifying their beliefs and practices, scientists also justify themselves. (...) Reasons in science thus do not only function as tools of persuasion but also to manage reputation. This analysis strongly suggests that science constitutes a moral system, which has implications for the study and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Why do irrational beliefs adopt the trappings of science, to become what is known as “pseudoscience”? Here, we develop and extend an epidemiological framework to map the factors that explain the form and the popularity of irrational beliefs in scientific garb. These factors include the exploitation of epistemic vigilance, the misunderstanding of the authority of science, the use of the honorific title of “science” as an explicit argument for belief, and the phenomenon of epistemic negligence. We conclude by integrating the (...) various factors in an epidemiological framework and thus provide a comprehensive cultural evolutionary account of science mimicry. (shrink)

We show that metric spaces and continuous functions between them are domain representable using the category of Scott-Ershov domains. A notion of effectivity for metric spaces is thereby inherited from effective domain theory. It is shown that a separable metric space with an effective metric can be represented by an effective domain. For a class of spaces, including the Euclidean spaces, the usual notions of effectivity are obtained. The Banach fixed point theorem is a consequence of the least fixed point (...) theorem for domains. A notion of semieffective domains is introduced and used to give a new proof of Ceitin's theorem. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

There has been a recent interest in hierarchical generalizations of classic incompleteness results. This paper provides evidence that such generalizations are readily obtainable from suitably formulated hierarchical versions of the principles used in the original proofs. By collecting such principles, we prove hierarchical versions of Mostowski’s theorem on independent formulae, Kripke’s theorem on flexible formulae, Woodin’s theorem on the universal algorithm, and a few related results. As a corollary, we obtain the expected result that the formula expressing “$\mathrm {T}$is$\Sigma _n$-ill” (...) is a canonical example of a$\Sigma _{n+1}$formula that is$\Pi _{n+1}$-conservative over$\mathrm {T}$. (shrink)

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

The puzzle of belief arises as currently no definition captures the various ways in which people believe. As a solution to this puzzle and to make the study of belief empirically tractable, Van Leeuwen and Lombrozo suggest acknowledging the plurality of beliefs and organizing beliefs according to their shared functions and traits. However, their proposal does not make yet the distinction between proper and derived functions of belief‐generating cognitive systems. For that, we need a theoretical perspective anchored in evolutionary thinking. (...) Such a perspective allows us to recognize the adaptive problems belief‐generating cognitive systems solve and what sorts of beliefs they will tend to produce. By analyzing beliefs based on evolutionary considerations, we not only make the puzzle of belief empirically tractable, but also take an important step toward solving it. (shrink)

Recent events indicate that creationists are becoming increasingly active in the Netherlands. This article offers an overview of these events. First, I discuss the introduction of intelligent-design (ID) creationism into the Dutch public sphere by a renowned physicist, Cees Dekker. Later, Dekker himself shifted toward a more evolution-friendly position, theistic evolution. Second, we see how Dekker was followed in this shift by Andries Knevel, an important figure within the Dutch evangelical broadcasting group, the Evangelische Omroep (EO). His conversion to ID, (...) and subsequently to theistic evolution, brought him into conflict with young-Earth creationists who still strongly identify themselves with the EO. Third, provoked by the dissidence of prominent orthodox believers and the celebrations surrounding the Darwin year, young-Earth creationists became very visible. After three decades of relative silence, they started a project to make sure that the Dutch people would hear of the “alternatives” to evolutionary theory. This article (1) adds to the growing number of reports on creationists' increased activity in Europe and (2) suggests that ID, in a context different from the United States, did not unite but rather divided the Dutch orthodox Protestant community. (shrink)

In the field of cultural evolution it is generally assumed that the study of culture and cultural change would benefit enormously from being informed by evolutionary thinking. Recently, however, there has been much debate about what this “being informed” means. According to the standard view, an interesting analogy obtains between cultural and biological evolution. In the literature, however, the analogy is interpreted and used in at least three distinct, but interrelated ways. We provide a taxonomy in order to clarify these (...) different meanings. Subsequently, we discuss the alternatives model of cultural attraction theory and memetics, which both challenge basic assumptions of the standard view. Finally, we briefly summarize the contributions to the special issue on Darwin in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, which is the result of a collaborative project between scholars and scientists from the universities of Lille and Ghent. Furthermore, we explain how they add to the discussions about the integration of evolutionary thinking and the study of culture. (shrink)

Creationists argue that 'Darwinism' hardly deserves the label of science. By employing a whole range of tactics, they downplay its scientific merit. Firstly, they set up definitions of science and claim that evolutionary theory cannot live up to them. Science, they claim, is based on observation and experimentation. As no scientist ever witnessed one species evolving into another, evolutionary theory remains 'just a theory'. Secondly, they convert evolutionary theory into a concept no evolutionary biologist would ever defend. For instance, they (...) claim that Darwinian evolution is a process of pure chance, requiring matter to form complex features at random. Therefore, evolutionary theory fails dramatically as an adequate explanation for biological 'design'. Thirdly, they demand evidence evolutionary theory cannot deliver in principle. Paleontologists do not expect to find exact 'missing links' as there is none to be found. Evolution is not the ascension of a great chain of being. It is an extraordinary response of a religion that longs to be science. Turning Darwinian theory into a straw man serves at least two functions. Firstly, it allows creation 'scientists' to discard the evidence as insufficient. Secondly, it fits in nicely with the creationist strife for balanced treatment. (shrink)

The leading Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2002) argued that the first No Free Lunch theorem, first formulated by Wolpert and Macready (IEEE Trans Evol Comput 1: 67–82, 1997), renders Darwinian evolution impossible. In response, Dembski’s critics pointed out that the theorem is irrelevant to biological evolution. Meester (Biol Phil 24: 461–472, 2009) agrees with this conclusion, but still thinks that the theorem does apply to simulations of evolutionary processes. According to Meester, the theorem shows (...) that simulations of Darwinian evolution, as these are typically set in advance by the programmer, are teleological and therefore non-Darwinian. Therefore, Meester argues, they are useless in showing how complex adaptations arise in the universe. Meester uses the term teleological inconsistently, however, and we argue that, no matter how we interpret the term, a Darwinian algorithm does not become non-Darwinian by simulation. We show that the NFL theorem is entirely irrelevant to this argument, and conclude that it does not pose a threat to the relevance of simulations of biological evolution. (shrink)

An algebra is effective if its operations are computable under some numbering. When are two numberings of an effective partial algebra equivalent? For example, the computable real numbers form an effective field and two effective numberings of the field of computable reals are equivalent if the limit operator is assumed to be computable in the numberings . To answer the question for effective algebras in general, we give a general method based on an algebraic analysis of approximations by elements of (...) a finitely generated subalgebra. Commonly, the computable elements of a topological partial algebra are derived from such a finitely generated algebra and form a countable effective partial algebra. We apply the general results about partial algebras to the recursive reals, ultrametric algebras constructed by inverse limits, and to metric algebras in general. © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

The moral disciplining theory proposes that people moralize excessive innocent behavior to discipline others to behave in ways that facilitate cooperation. However, such disciplining might not always be effective. To solve this puzzle of ineffective moralization we should think of puritanism in terms of moral advertisement aimed at reputation management rather than the manipulation of others.

In his recent book Islam Evolving: Radicalism, Reformation, and the Uneasy Relationship with the Secular West, Taner Edis discusses Islamic responses to the modern world and how the West deals and should deal with them. He argues convincingly that the biggest threat to secular liberalism is not fundamentalism but an Islamic form of modernity. He attributes some of the latter's success to Western neoliberalism and to the failure of secular liberals to come up with persuasive arguments. He thus puts part (...) of the blame on the West. However, although self-criticism is an essential aspect of a well-functioning democracy, we should not take it too far. Instead, there exist convincing reasons why a secular liberal society is strongly preferable to a religious conservative one. (shrink)