Here's the thing: when you look at it from just the right angle, it's entirely obvious how semantics for second-order relevant logics ought to go. Or at least, if you've understood how semantics for first-order relevant logics ought to go, there are perspectives like this. What's more is that from any such angle, the metatheory that needs doing can be summed up in one line: everything is just as in the first-order case, but with more indices. Of course, it's no (...) small matter finding the magical angle from which everything becomes obvious. And even having found this perspective, one cannot assume one's audience will find things as obvious as oneself. All that to say this: if the results in the paper below strike you as obvious, pay attention to the perspective that makes that possible. And if they don't, feel free to ignore this preamble in its entirety. (shrink)

Excerpt“We have invented happiness,” said the last men, and they blinked. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra1Introduction One of the key issues in the Marxist sociopolitical theory of the critique of capitalism regards the idea of “domination” or “control.” Webster's Dictionary defines domination as: (1) supremacy or preeminence over another; (2) exercise of mastery or ruling power; (3) exercise of preponderant, governing, or controlling influence.2 From a sociopolitical perspective, domination can be addressed using two different approaches. The first, a traditional approach, (...) views domination as external to the individual or the group…. (shrink)

Formal symptoms of relevance usually concern the propositional variables shared between the antecedent and the consequent of provable conditionals. Among the most famous results about such symptoms are Belnap’s early results showing that for sublogics of the strong relevant logic R, provable conditionals share a signed variable between antecedent and consequent. For logics weaker than R stronger variable sharing results are available. In 1984, Ross Brady gave one well-known example of such a result. As a corollary to the main result (...) of the paper, we give a very simple proof of a related but strictly stronger result. (shrink)

Relevant logics infamously have the property that they only validate a conditional when some propositional variable is shared between its antecedent and consequent. This property has been strengthened in a variety of ways over the last half-century. Two of the more famous of these strengthenings are the strong variable sharing property and the depth relevance property. In this paper I demonstrate that an appropriate class of relevant logics has a property that might naturally be characterized as the supremum of these (...) two properties. I also show how to use this fact to demonstrate that these logics seem to be constructive in previously unknown ways. (shrink)

This book investigates the phenomenological ways that dance choreographing and dance performance exemplify both Truth and meaning-making within Native American epistemology, from an analytic philosophical perspective. Given that within Native American communities dance is regarded both as an integral cultural conduit and “a doorway to a powerful wisdom,” Shay Welch argues that dance and dancing can both create and communicate knowledge. She explains that dance—as a form of oral, narrative storytelling—has the power to communicate knowledge of beliefs and histories, (...) and that dance is a form of embodied narrative storytelling. Welch provides analytic clarity on how this happens, what conditions are required for it to succeed, and how dance can satisfy the relational and ethical facets of Native epistemology. (shrink)

Emphasizing the creative nature of mathematics, this conversational textbook guides students through the process of discovering a proof as they transition to advanced mathematics. Using several strategies, students will develop the thinking skills needed to tackle mathematics when there is no clear algorithm or recipe to follow.

Relevance logics are a misunderstood lot. Despite being the subject of intense study for nearly a century, they remain maligned as too complicated, too abstruse, or too silly to be worth learning much about. This Element aims to dispel these misunderstandings. By focusing on the weak relevant logic B, the discussion provides an entry point into a rich and diverse family of logics. Also, it contains the first-ever textbook treatment of quantification in relevance logics, as well as an overview of (...) the cutting edge on variable sharing results and a guide to further topics in the field. (shrink)

There is a natural story about what logic is that sees it as tied up with two operations: a ‘throw things into a bag’ operation and a ‘closure’ operation. In a pair of recent papers, Jc Beall has fleshed out the account of logic this leaves us with in more detail. Using Beall’s exposition as a guide, this paper points out some problems with taking the second operation to be closure in the usual sense. After pointing out these problems, I (...) then turn to fixing them in a restricted case and modulo a few simplifying assumptions. In a followup paper, the simplifications and restrictions will be removed. (shrink)

In 1988, Kit Fine published a semantic theory for quantified relevant logics. He referred to this theory as stratified semantics. While it has received some attention in the literature, 1–20, 1992; Mares & Goldblatt, Journal of Symbolic Logic 71, 163–187, 2006), stratified semantics has overall received much less attention than it deserves. There are two plausible reasons for this. First, the only two dedicated treatments of stratified semantics available are, 27–59, 1988; Mares, Studia Logica 51, 1–20, 1992), both of which (...) are quite dense and technically challenging. Second, there are a number of prima facie reasons to be worried about stratified semantics. The purpose of this paper is to revitalize research on stratified semantics. I will do so by giving a ‘user friendly’ presentation of the semantics, and by giving reasons to think that the prima facie reasons to be worried about it are too simplistic. (shrink)

This Article proposes a thought-experiment with regard to the administration of class actions. It is almost axiomatic that class actions are determined through a single “certification.” However, class actions can be certified through a tiered certification, e.g., a preliminary certification on a more lenient standard, followed by a full certification. Flattening the certification process allows a richer set of solutions to familiar dilemmas. Currently, a noncertified class does not bar subsequent certification attempts. Focusing on this problem, this Article demonstrates that (...) tiered certification is a superior solution — members of a class that passed the first certification but not the second receive at least minimal procedural protection and thus could be precluded from serial certification attempts. More generally, tiered certification can better handle several species of collective litigation, which can be referred to as semi-class actions. Collective proceedings, whose certification costs are greater than their social benefit, do not justify a comprehensive class treatment. But to the extent that these cases entail some modest social value, they deserve to pass a less onerous, preliminary certification. The Article discusses cases that fit this pattern, for instance prospective, class-wide relief for technical regulatory violations. (shrink)

BackgroundSleep, physical activity, and diet have been associated with mental health and well-being individually in young adults. However, which of these “big three” health behaviors most strongly predicts mental health and well-being, and their higher-order relationships in predictive models, is less known. This study investigated the differential and higher-order associations between sleep, physical activity, and dietary factors as predictors of mental health and well-being in young adults.MethodIn a cross-sectional survey design, 1,111 young adults ages 18–25 from New Zealand and the (...) United States answered an online survey measuring typical sleep quantity and quality; physical activity; and consumption of raw and processed fruit and vegetables, fast food, sweets, and soda, along with extensive covariates and the outcome measures of depressive symptoms [measured by the Center for Epidemiological Depression Scale ] and well-being.ResultsControlling for covariates, sleep quality was the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms and well-being, followed by sleep quantity and physical activity. Only one dietary factor—raw fruit and vegetable consumption—predicted greater well-being but not depressive symptoms when controlling for covariates. There were some higher-order interactions among health behaviors in predicting the outcomes, but these did not survive cross-validation.ConclusionSleep quality is an important predictor of mental health and well-being in young adults, whereas physical activity and diet are secondary but still significant factors. Although strictly correlational, these patterns suggest that future interventions could prioritize sleep quality to maximize mental health and well-being in young adults. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine a number of relevant logics’ variable sharing properties from the perspective of theories of topic or subject-matter. We take cues from Franz Berto’s recent work on topic to show an alignment between families of variable sharing properties and responses to the topic transparency of relevant implication and negation. We then introduce and defend novel variable sharing properties stronger than strong depth relevance—which we call cn-relevance and lossless cn-relevance—showing that the properties are satisfied by the weak (...) relevant logics and , respectively. We argue that such properties address a sort of semantic lossiness of strong depth relevance. (shrink)

Jc Beall has made several contributions to the theory of restricted quantification in relevant logics. This paper examines these contributions and proposes an alternative account of restricted universals. The alternative is not, however, a theory of relevant restricted universals in any real sense. It is, however, a theory of restricted universals phrased in the most plausible general quantificational theory for relevant logics—Kit Fine’s stratified semantics. The motivation both for choosing this semantic framework and for choosing the particular theory of restricted (...) quantification we use is because they are the best way of dealing with these topics from Beall’s theory-building theory picture of logic, establishing a second point of contact with Beall’s work. (shrink)

Abstractionism in the philosophy of mathematics aims at deriving large fragments of mathematics by combining abstraction principles (i.e. the abstract objects $\S e_1, \S e_2$, are identical if, and only if, an equivalence relation $Eq_\S$ holds between the entities $e_1, e_2$) with logic. Still, as highlighted in work on the semantics for relevant logics, there are different ways theories might be combined. In exactly what ways must logic and abstraction be combined in order to get interesting mathematics? In this paper, (...) we investigate the matter by deriving the axioms of second-order Peano Arithmetic from Frege's Basic Law V (the extension of $F$ is identical with the extension of $G$ if, and only if, $F$ and $G$ are extensionally equivalent) in the presence of a relevant higher-order logic. The results are interesting. Not only must we take on logic as true, and not only must we apply our logic to abstraction principles, but also we have to apply our theory of abstraction back to the logic in order to arrive at arithmetic. Thus, what Abstractionism gives us is not simply what we get from abstraction via logic, but also what we get from logic via abstraction. (shrink)

This paper presents a new semantics for the weak relevant logic DW that makes the role of the infamous Routley star more explicable. Central to this rewriting is combining aspects of both the American and Australian plan for understanding negations in relevance logics.

I present a version of Kit Fine's stratified semantics for the logic RWQ and define a natural family of related structures called RW hyperdoctrines. After proving that RWQ is sound with respect to RW hyperdoctrines, we show how to construct, for each stratified model, a hyperdoctrine that verifies precisely the same sentences. Completeness of RWQ for hyperdoctrinal semantics then follows from completeness for stratified semantics, which is proved in an appendix. By examining the base category of RW hyperdoctrines, we find (...) reason to be worried about the ontology of stratified models. (shrink)

I construct an analysis of social trust that attends distinctively to cooperation in social relations that has the capability to (begin to) counter the default social distrust obtained due to oppressive conditions via a form of collective reasoning. For social trust to overcome oppression it must be a normatively transparent form of trust. Transparent trust can counter the effects of oppression on social interaction and foster social cooperation by correcting unequal positions of social vulnerability and improving disparities in credibility resultant (...) of oppression since collective reasoning in norm legitimization permits all individuals to participate in the process of self and other defining and the development of the concomitant norms that guide these processes. (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a semantics for a range of positive substructural logics, including both logics with and logics without modal connectives. The semantics is novel insofar as it is meant to explicitly capture the computational flavor of these logics, and to do so in a way that builds in both nondeterministic and nonconcurrent computational processes.

In _Vibrant Matter_ the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we (...) to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the_ _effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a novel way of building arithmetics whose background logic is R. The purpose of doing this is to point in the direction of a novel family of systems that could be candidates for being the infamous R#1/2 that Meyer suggested we look for.

Logic: the Basics is an accessible introduction to the core philosophy topic of standard logic. Focussing on traditional Classical Logic the book deals with topics such as mathematical preliminaries, propositional logic, monadic quantified logic, polyadic quantified logic, and English and standard ‘symbolic transitions’. With exercises and sample answers throughout this thoroughly revised new edition not only comprehensively covers the core topics at introductory level but also gives the reader an idea of how they can take their knowledge further and the (...) philosophical questions around logic. -/- Logic: the Basics is essential reading for first-year undergraduate philosophy students on standard introductory logic courses. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a number of issues related to a life lived with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Primarily, I am interested in discussing how one unwillingly changes their personal identity by forced medicating—demanded by others implicitly and explicitly. My motivation is something deep and invasive in me. I want to know, I have always wanted to know, why others want me to not be Me so badly. I have thought about this question for years, and though others may (...) simply chalk it up to just one of the standard paranoid or narcissistic traits of borderline personality disorder, there is something more to this question that many of us agonize over most of our lives. There is a deeply normative component to this question that extends beyond the mere fear of abandonment; it is tied to a desire by others to erase—literally—who we are for their own comfort. In this sense, then, I invite you to travel along a path of what it can mean to be a BPDer, from a narrative, phenomenological, and cognitive lived, embodied perspective. My purpose is to show that the treatments for us that others desire cannot avoid (and usually do not want to avoid) the unraveling of who we really are. Whether we want to or not, we give up our self to keep other people with us. And for many, this is too much to ask, and can be one, though not the only, reason suicide and self‐harm seem to be necessary recourses. One in 10 people with BPD commit suicide. So this is a serious matter, indeed. (shrink)

Linnebo and Pettigrew present some objections to category theory as an autonomous foundation. They do a commendable job making clear several distinct senses of ‘autonomous’ as it occurs in the phrase ‘autonomous foundation’. Unfortunately, their paper seems to treat the ‘categorist’ perspective rather unfairly. Several infelicities of this sort were addressed by McLarty. In this note I address yet another apparent infelicity.

The Against Apion of Josephus is not only a defense of Judaism and Jewish history, but also an essay in historiography and historical criticism, as an outline of the work reveals. Josephus explains how history should and should not be written, and attempts to prove that certain versions of the past are truer than others. The Against Apion may attack the reliability and integrity of Greek historiography as being divisive and instable, but it is from the Greeks that Josephus learned (...) the idea and techniques of historical criticism. He develops his argument by appeal to the superiority of Jewish history, canon, and community, but all these pro-Jewish and anti-Greek arguments have Greek origins. The Greek argument from consensus shaped the historical and theological argumentation of the Against Apion, and Greek precedents provided the basis for the ahistorical or antihistorical view of Judaism that Josephus proposes. Josephus' polemic proves weakest in his argument from canon, and in his contrasting Jewish stability with Greek restiveness. (shrink)

Inanimate air vents and grain silos, as well as parents and children, siblings, friends, neighbors, famous actors and athletes, unknown passersby, dogs, and livestock. All these rub shoulders - so to speak - in the pages of Couples, sought out by Shay's keen eye and coupled forever by his impertinent camera."--Jacket.

Abstraction principles provide implicit definitions of mathematical objects. In this paper, an abstraction principle defining categories is proposed. It is unsatisfiable and inconsistent in the expected ways. Two restricted versions of the principle which are consistent are presented.

A collection drawn from five decades of the photographer's work celebrates animals with humans in natural and domestic settings, from the image of a man passing a peanut to a monkey to a pig drinking a can of beer, in a volume that also seeks to reveal the animal within human beings.

Prominent atheists claim the Bible is a racist text. Yet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read it daily. Then again, so did many ardent segregationists. Some atheists claim religion serves to oppress the masses. Yet the classic text of the French Revolution, What is the Third Estate?, was written by a priest. On the other hand, the revolutionaries ended up banning religion. What do we make of religion's confusing role in history? And what of religion's relationship to science? Some scientists (...) claim that we have no free will. Others argue that advances in neurobiology and physics disprove determinism. As for whispering to the universe, an absurd habit say the skeptics. Yet prayer is a transformative practice for millions. This book explores the most common atheist critiques of the Bible and religion, incorporating Jewish, Christian, and Muslim voices. The result is a fresh, modern re-evaluation of religion and of atheism. (shrink)

A collection of photographs depicts life on Chicago's west side between 1949 and mid-1960s.

With aims to both increase organ supply and better reflect individual donation preferences, many nations worldwide have shifted from ‘opt‐in’ to ‘opt‐out’ systems for post‐mortem organ donation (PMOD). In such countries, while a prospective donor's willingness to donate their organs/tissues for PMOD was previously ascertained—at least partially—by their having recorded positive donation preferences on an official register prior to death, this willingness is now presumed or inferred—at least partially—from their not having recorded an objection to PMOD—on an official organ donation (...) register. Using evidence regarding the presence and prevalence of selective donation preferences, and via exploration of how appeals to donation preferences are used to both motivate and legitimate shifts to opt‐out frameworks, this paper draws attention to a set of previously unexplored problems for opt‐out organ donation arising in contexts where: (a) individuals demonstrate selective post‐mortem organ/tissue donation preferences, (b) legislation provides prospective donors with the opportunity to selectively permit/refuse the donation of certain organs/tissues in line with these preferences. While selective preferences pose few problems for opt‐in systems where a selective occasion is built into the process of signing the donor register, this is not the case for opt‐out systems. The loss of this selective occasion can cause significant problems where appeals to preferences motivate/legitimate shifts to opt‐out but evidence regarding variable preferences does not feed into determinations regarding organ/tissue exclusions. The nature of these problems depends on how the authorization aspect of ‘opt‐out’ systems is framed (e.g. as presumed consent, deemed consent or, given the role of familial consent in many jurisdictions as consent in name only). (shrink)

Firms and industries increasingly subscribe to voluntary codes of conduct. These self-regulatory governance systems can be effective in establishing a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. However, these codes can also be largely symbolic, reactive measures to quell public criticism. Cross-sector alliances (between for-profit and nonprofit actors) present a learning platform for infusing participants with greater incentives to be socially responsible. They can provide multinationals new capabilities that allow them to more closely ally social responsibility with economic performance. This paper (...) examines learning facilitators in cross-sector alliances that enrich corporate understanding of stakeholder concerns. It suggests that these organizational learning experiments can translate into globally responsible practices and processes that improve the content and effectiveness of voluntary corporate codes. (shrink)

Categorial logic, as its name suggests, applies the techniques and machinery of category theory to topics traditionally classified as part of logic. We claim that these tools deserve attention from a greater range of philosophers than just the mathematical logicians. We support this claim with an example. In this paper we show how one particular tool from categorial logic---hyperdoctrines---suggests interesting metaphysics. Hyperdoctrines can provide semantics for quantified languages, but this account of quantification suggests a metaphysical picture quite different from the (...) one suggested by standard model-theoretic semantics. (shrink)

This book focuses on feminist analyses of women’s oppression-perpetuating choices in order to ascertain how such biases in theorizing can undermine liberation.

This essay will examine some rather serious trouble confronting claims that mathematicalia might be social constructs. Because of the clarity with which he makes the case and the philosophical rigor he applies to his analysis, our exemplar of a social constructivist in this sense is Julian Cole, especially the work in his 2009 and 2013 papers on the topic. In a 2010 paper, Jill Dieterle criticized the view in Cole’s 2009 paper for being unable to account for the atemporality of (...) mathematical existents. Cole’s 2013 paper addresses this objection, providing a modification of his 2009 paper allowing for atemporal mathematicalia. An unusual consequence of Cole’s account is that at least some existential claims about mathematicalia used to be false but now have always been true. By examining the semantics of such claims, we demonstrate that social constructivism is in fact, despite Cole’s attempts to rectify matters, incompatible with atemporal mathematicalia. In the course of examining these semantic details, however, an alternative hybrid view of fictionalism and social constructivism emerges. Those tempted by social constructivism, while perhaps disappointed by the negative results of the paper, may be encouraged by how much of their view can be recovered in this alternative account. (shrink)

"It is well to remind ourselves, from time to time, that "Ethics" is but another word for "righteousness," that for which many men and women of every generation have hungered and thirsted, and without which life becomes meaningless. Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements. (...) To attain individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly to fail to apprehend the situation. This book is a study of various types and groups who are being impelled by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct."--. (shrink)