Mathematical models are a well established tool in most natural sciences. Although models have been neglected by the philosophy of science for a long time, their epistemological status as a link between theory and reality is now fairly well understood. However, regarding the epistemological status of mathematical models in the social sciences, there still exists a considerable unclarity. In my paper I argue that this results from specific challenges that mathematical models and especially computer simulations face in the social (...) sciences. The most important difference between the social sciences and the natural sciences with respect to modeling is that in the social sciences powerful and well confirmed background theories (like Newtonian mechanics, quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity in physics) do not exist in the social sciences. Therefore, an epistemology of models that is formed on the role model of physics may not be appropriate for the social sciences. I discuss the challenges that modeling faces in the social sciences and point out their epistemological consequences. The most important consequences are that greater emphasis must be placed on empirical validation than on theoretical validation and that the relevance of purely theoretical simulations is strongly limited. (shrink)

This paper discusses critically what simulation models of the evolution of cooperation can possibly prove by examining Axelrod’s “Evolution of Cooperation” (1984) and the modeling tradition it has inspired. Hardly any of the many simulation models in this tradition have been applicable empirically. Axelrod’s role model suggested a research design that seemingly allowed to draw general conclusions from simulation models even if the mechanisms that drive the simulation could not be identified empirically. But this research design was fundamentally flawed. At (...) best such simulations can claim to prove logical possibilities, i.e. they prove that certain phenomena are possible as the consequence of the modeling assumptions built into the simulation, but not that they are possible or can be expected to occur in reality. I suggest several requirements under which proofs of logical possibilities can nevertheless be considered useful. Sadly, most Axelrod-style simulations do not meet these requirements. It would be better not to use this kind of simulations at all. (shrink)

While quantum theory cannot be described by a local hidden variable model, it is nevertheless possible to construct such models that exhibit features commonly associated with quantum mechanics. These models are also used to explore the question of \-ontic versus \-epistemic theories for quantum mechanics. Spekkens’ toy theory is one such model. It arises from classical probabilistic mechanics via a limit on the knowledge an observer may have about the state of a system. The toy theory for the simplest possible (...) underlying system closely resembles stabilizer quantum mechanics, a fragment of quantum theory which is efficiently classically simulable but also non-local. Further analysis of the similarities and differences between those two theories can thus yield new insights into what distinguishes quantum theory from classical theories, and \-ontic from \-epistemic theories. In this paper, we develop a graphical language for Spekkens’ toy theory. Graphical languages offer intuitive and rigorous formalisms for the analysis of quantum mechanics and similar theories. To compare quantum mechanics and a toy model, it is useful to have similar formalisms for both. We show that our language fully describes Spekkens’ toy theory and in particular, that it is complete: meaning any equality that can be derived using other formalisms can also be derived entirely graphically. Our language is inspired by a similar graphical language for quantum mechanics called the ZX-calculus. Thus Spekkens’ toy bit theory and stabilizer quantum mechanics can be analysed and compared using analogous graphical formalisms. (shrink)

Recent laboratory experiments have shown that both infant and adult learners can acquire word‐referent mappings using cross‐situational statistics. The vast majority of the work on this topic has used unfamiliar objects presented on neutral backgrounds as the visual contexts for word learning. However, these laboratory contexts are much different than the real‐world contexts in which learning occurs. Thus, the feasibility of generalizing cross‐situational learning beyond the laboratory is in question. Adapting the Human Simulation Paradigm, we conducted a series of experiments (...) examining cross‐situational learning from children's egocentric videos captured during naturalistic play. Focusing on individually ambiguous naming moments that naturally occur during toy play, we asked how statistical learning unfolds in real time through accumulating cross‐situational statistics in naturalistic contexts. We found that even when learning situations were individually ambiguous, learners’ performance gradually improved over time. This improvement was driven in part by learners’ use of partial knowledge acquired from previous learning situations, even when they had not yet discovered correct word‐object mappings. These results suggest that word learning is a continuous process by means of real‐time information integration. (shrink)

In contemporary artificial intelligence, the challenge is making intricate connectionist systems—comprising millions of parameters—more comprehensible, defensible, and rationally grounded. Two prevailing methodologies address this complexity. The inaugural approach amalgamates symbolic methodologies with connectionist paradigms, culminating in a hybrid system. This strategy systematizes extensive parameters within a limited framework of formal, symbolic rules. Conversely, the latter strategy remains staunchly connectionist, eschewing hybridity. Instead of internal transparency, it fabricates an external, transparent proxy system. This ancillary system’s mandate is elucidating the principal system’s (...) decisions, essentially approximating its outcomes. Leveraging natural language processing as our analytical lens, this paper elucidates both methodologies: the hybrid method is underscored by the compositional vector semantics, whereas the purely connectionist method evolves as a derivative of neural semantic parsers. This discourse extols the merits of the purely connectionist approach for its inherent flexibility and for a pivotal delineation: segregating the explanatory apparatus from the operational core, thereby rendering artificial intelligence systems reminiscent of human cognition. (shrink)

Anlambilimsel bileşimsellik ilkesi, herhangi bir ifadenin anlamının o ifadenin parçalarının anlamlarının bir fonksiyonu olduğunu bildirmektedir. İlke Gottlob Frege’nin dilsel anlamı fonksiyon argüman uygulaması olarak ele alan çalışmalarına dayanmaktadır. Bileşimselliğin, Richard Montague ile birlikte biçimsel anlambilim içerisinde merkezi bir rol aldığı görülmektedir. Bileşimsellik ilkesi, dilsel yapı ve anlamsal yapı arasında homomorfik bir ilişki bulunduğunu bildirmektedir. İlkenin savunucuları bileşimselliğin dilin sistematik ve üretken yapısına önemli katkılar sağladığını iddia etmektedirler. Wlodek Zadrozny, bu görüşe karşı olarak, bileşimselliğin dilin sistematik yapısına herhangi bir katkı sağlamadığını (...) iddia etmektedir. Zadrozny, iddiasını temellendirmek için, herhangi bir anlambilimsel yapının bileşimsel olarak kodlanabileceğini gösteren bir ispat ortaya atmıştır. Zadrozny herhangi bir anlambilimsel yapı için böyle bir anlam fonksiyonunun var olduğunu ise Peter Aczel’in iyi-yapılanmamış kümeler kuramına dayandırmaktadır. Çözüm Lemması bize böyle bir anlam fonksiyonunun var olduğunu bildirmektedir. Zadrozny’nin iddiasına karşı önemli bir itiraz bulunmaktadır. Elde edilen anlamsal yapının asıl anlamsal yapıyı kodlamak için yeterli olmadığı iddia edilmektedir. Bu iddianın temelinde eş anlamlılık olgusu bulunmaktadır. Eş anlamlı ifadelerin yer değiştirme ilkesine uymadığı, bileşimsel olmayan anlambilimsel yapıların elde edilen bileşimsel yapılar tarafından temsil edilemeyeceği iddia edilmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Zadrozny’nin ispatı incelenerek, eş anlamlılık üzerinden yapılan itiraz cevaplandırılmaktadır. İtirazın konusu olan eş anlamlılığın, anlambilimsel olarak korunması gereken bir özellik olmadığı iddia edilmektedir. (shrink)

The topic of population is treated only lightly in the major modern biographies of John Maynard Keynes, yet Keynes himself had strong - if varying - views on the subject. For many years he maintained a neo-Malthusian view of population, based on a postulated link between population growth and deteriorating terms of trade. This led him to take up a militant stance towards 'overpopulated' countries, notably India, China, and Egypt. Keynes on Population publishes two of John Maynard Keynes's manuscripts not (...) published in the Collected Writings: his Cambridge lectures on population and 1914 Oxford lecture on 'Population'. It provides a detailed commentary on the text of 'Population' and discusses the extent of Keynes's engagement with the Social Darwinist doctrine of the 'rapid multiplication of the unfit' and with eugenics. It then traces the subsequent vicissitudes of his views on population and his interventions in the contemporary politics of population. These include his part in the 1920s campaign for birth control, the reversal of his neo-Malthusianism, and his eventual support for family allowances. (shrink)

The standard approach to model how human beings understand natural languages is the symbolic, compositional approach according to which the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its constituents. In other words, meaning plays a fundamental role in the model. In this work, because of the polysemous, flexible, dynamic, and contextual structure of natural languages, this approach is rejected. Instead, a connectionist model which eliminates the concept of meaning is proposed.

In this article, I argue that Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg needs to be reassessed and extricated from the many misunderstandings that surround it. First, I suggest that we consider her cyborg as an ethical concept. I propose that her cyborg can be productively placed within the ethical framework developed by Luce Irigaray, especially in relationship to her concept of the “interval between.” Second, I consider how Haraway's “cyborg writing” can be understood as embodied ethical writing, that is, as (...) a contemporary écriture feminine. I believe that this cyborgian “writing the body” offers us a way of both creating and understanding texts that think through ethics, bodies, aesthetics, and politics together as part of a vital and relevant contemporary feminist ethics of embodiment. I employ the term “poethics” as a useful way to describe such a practice. (shrink)

This paper explores contract cheating from the perspectives of researchers at three post-secondary institutions in Alberta, Canada, describing their efforts to develop and advance awareness of, interventions against, and responses to contract cheating at their respective institutions. Contract cheating is when a third party produces or completes academic work for a student, and the student then presents the work as their own. The student might have personal connections to the third party, or the student might pay a fee and outsource (...) the academic work to the third party. All three institutions are experiencing an increase in the incidence of contract cheating, which is consistent with trends at colleges and universities across Canada and the world. Contract cheating is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one, due in part to students having access to thousands of online companies offering to help them with their academic work. This paper examines personal narratives from four researchers and identifies five key themes: types of contract cheating, students, awareness, evidence and policy implications, and educational development. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between Churchill’s view of Britain as the home of freedom and his broader conception of Western/European civilization. It considers: first, his attitude to Classical learning and culture; second, his experiences of European travel; and third, his attitude to the Bolsheviks (as much as the Nazis) as the barbaric antithesis of civilization. It is argued that his vision of the European future was linked both to his own experiences of free and civilized travel in the Nineteenth (...) Century and a growing scepticism about the speedier and more globalized locomotion of the Twentieth. Moreover, Churchill’s late-life commitment to the virtues of Classical learning, about which he had previously been sceptical, was connected to his post-WWII enthusiasm for European unity. He believed that a united Europe could act as a vehicle for spiritual and cultural values passed down from the ancient world which themselves had become a part of the continent’s Christian heritage. Although it has rightly been pointed out that Churchill was not a conventional religious believer, he still conceived ‘Christendom’ as a significant geopolitical space (with flexible boundaries) and he saw it as the spiritual inheritor of Greece and Rome. (shrink)

This article presents results from a self-report survey of misconduct behaviours and the stress students (n = 916) experienced at one Canadian community college. Results showed that students engaged in a variety of contract cheating behaviours, and experienced a myriad of stressors both in and outside the college context, including traumatic life events. Those who engaged in commercial contract cheating and inappropriate sharing behaviours experienced significantly higher levels of stress. This result differed by type of stress suggesting that not all (...) stress may lead to violation behaviour. Results also suggest that some students are exposed to more stress than others, which could put them at higher risk for engaging in contract cheating. Understanding contract cheating using the stress process framework draws our attention to how a student’s location in the social institutions of work, family, and school, how their positions of advantage or disadvantage, and their involvement in social relationships may produce stress which we have found to be associated with contract cheating. Seeing stress in this way allows post-secondary institutions to address the structural conditions which lead to stress through the development of policy, procedure, and supports for students as they navigate academic integrity throughout their programs. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, EarlyView.