This paper argues that the obvious validity of certain inferences involving indirect speech reports as premises and truth or falsity ascriptions as conclusions is incompatible with Davidson's so-called "paratactic" analysis of the logical form of indirect discourse. Besides disqualifying that analysis, this problem is also claimed to indicate that the analysis is doubly in tension with Davidson's metasemantic views. Specifically, it can be reconciled neither with one of Davidson's key assumptions regarding the adequacy of the kind (...) of semantic theory he recommends nor with one of his key assumptions regarding the inadequacy of a kind of semantic theory he rejects. (shrink)

This article aims to make a distinction among contemporary artworks that use algorithmic technologies. Departing from Science, Technology and Society (STS) studies, the focus is given to artworks that use algorithmic agencies, as assemblages of human and nonhuman entities. Making an ethno-methodological analysis of three artworks, The Pitiful Story of Deniz Yılmaz (2015–present) of Bager Akbay, Artificial Intelligence for Governance, the Kitty AI (2016) of Pınar Yoldaş and Plantoid (2015) of Primavera Di Filippi, the article examines paratactical use of (...) algorithmic agencies in contemporary artistic practice. Exploring, revealing and learning from the tactics used by platforms, corporations and institutions that control and govern, paratactical use of algorithmic agencies generates a self-reflexive perspective on such tactics of control. Paratactical works also explore absurdities and contingencies embedded in algorithmic technologies. They work within failures and errors, and perform subversive ways of thinking, acting and enacting. In conclusion, paratactical works deal with the reproduction, distribution and normalization of ignorance, extinction, degeneration, corruption and destruction. (shrink)

Intersemiotic projection is one of the most common configurations in the knowledge construction process of academic comics. Although previous studies address some general features of intersemiotic projection, further research on interdependency relations of intersemiotic projection is needed in order to map out the whole system. This study, based on the social-semiotic approach to multimodal studies, proposes a systemic framework of image-text paratactic and hypotactic projection in academic comics. This framework identifies three sub-categories of paratactic projection and hypotactic projection, (...) respectively: Emergent, Adjoined, Sequential, Compound, Subsumed, and Fused. The use of these projection configurations contributes to the realization of the communicative purposes of academic comics to evidence, exemplify, emphasize, explain, elaborate, and visualize the discussed knowledge. This research attempts not only to contribute to the theoretical development of multimodality from the social-semiotic perspective by refining and enlarging the multimodal hypotactic projection framework but also to provide an effective and applicable tool for comics analysis. (shrink)

This paper takes another look at Davidson's paratactic theory of indirect discourse and evaluates some revisions to it, proposed recently by Ian Rumfitt (Mind, 1993). Davidson's original version of the theory – according to which indirect speech reports refer to token utterances – has a problem dealing with ambiguity. Rumfitt suggests that we can solve this problem by supposing that the immediate objects of verbs in indirect speech are token representations of disambiguated LF tree-structures. I argue that this proposal (...) is inadequate and suggest that it is better to think of indirect speech as relating speakers to utterance types. (shrink)

In his 'paratactic' analysis of indirect speech reports, Davidson took the occurrence of 'that' in 'Galileo said that the Earth moves' to be a demonstrative expression which refers to the reporter's subsequent utterance of 'the Earth moves'. Ian McFetridge used his 'counting problem' to argue that we get a better version of the paratactic theory if we take the demonstrative 'that' to refer to the proposition expressed by the reporter's utterance, rather than to the utterance itself. In (...) this note, I defend McFetridge's argument against an objection of Richard Holton's. (shrink)

The most distinctive, and probably the most striking, assumption of Donald Davidson's well known ‘paratactic’ analysis of the logical form of saying ascriptions is that the “that”-clause that, in such an ascription, specifies the content of the ascribed act of saying, is neither syntactically nor semantically part of the sentence effecting the ascription. The present paper identifies a neglected problem that this assumption engenders for the Davidsonian analysis. The problem arises in connection with instances of saying ascriptions (...) that are both self-verifying and self-referential, and consists in the fact that, given the Davidsonian assumption, these ascriptions must be assigned logical forms that misrepresent their logically relevant properties. (shrink)

RESUMENPresento una exposición de los argumentos de M. Dummett contra el proyecto davidsoniano de reducir, al menos en la formulación de una teoría del significado, la fuerza de habla de una emisión al sentido de una oración que funcione como un adscriptor de dicha fuerza. Constitutivas de tales argumentos son las tesis de que no hay fuerza sin convenciones lingüísticas y de que la fuerza de la aserción es un factor esencial en la determinación de la creencia.PALABRAS CLAVEFUERZA DEL HABLA-MODO (...) VERBAL-ASERCIÓN-CREENCIAABSTRACTAs it is known Frege distinguished two factors in meaning, sense and force. Now, the force of an utterance cannot be identified syntactically with the verbal mood of a sentence. On face of it Davidson tries to maintain a very formal conception of language analyzing the force in terms of truth-conditions, that is to say, in terms of sense.He introduces his paratactic analysis. But there is an objection by Dummett that the force is beyond the sense and so the meaning has a factor of use which is not formally reducible.KEYWORDSMEANING-FORCE-SENSE-PRATACTIC ANALYSIS. (shrink)

Analiza zdań psychologicznych stanowi jeden z najważniejszych elementów programu semantycznego zainicjowanego przez Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego, zwanego reizmem w wersji semantycznej. Celem tego programu było wyeliminowanie z języka wyrażeń oraz struktur gramatycznych, które reifikowały relacje, własności, zdarzenia oraz zawartości aktów psychicznych. Aby wyeliminować zawartości aktów psychicznych Kotarbiński zaproponował oryginalną analizę wypowiedzeń zdań psychologicznych parafrazowanych w postaci par wypowiedzeń, eliminując tym samym konieczność wprowadzania wszelkich bytów mentalnych lub intencjonalnych. W artykule przedstawiam krótko rozwiązania problemu zdań psychologicznych autorstwa Fregego i Russella, następnie wskazuję na (...) filozoficzne inspiracje reizmu Kotarbińskiego. Analiza zdań psychologicznych przedstawiona przez Kotarbińskiego nie tylko rozwiązuje problem braku zastępowalności ekstensjonalnej, ale doprecyzowuje również jego poglądy reistyczne. Na koniec dokonuję krótkiego porównania analizy Kotarbińskiego z analogicznym rozwiązaniem autorstwa Donalda Davidsona, znanym jako analiza parataktyczna, które było rezultatem innych założeń filozoficznych, w szczególności zaś odmiennej od Kotarbińskiego wersji monizmu oraz innego podejścia do problemu prawdy. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose an analysis of Quine’s example ’Giorgione was so-called because of his size’, grounded on the idea of an obstinate demonstrative. In the first sections, I discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the demonstrative and logophoric treatments of ‘so called’, I highlight certain parallelisms with Davidson’s paratactic view of quotation, and I introduce independent considerations in favor of the idea of an obstinate demonstrative. In the second half of my essay, I apply this notion (...) to Quine’s example, and I discuss its consequences with respect to the principle of substitutivity of coreferential singular terms. (shrink)

I have proposed that the complementizerthat has a pragmatic property of demonstrativity, analogous to that ascribed by demonstrative analyses of the semantics of the complementizer but not impinging on the syntactic analysis of sentential embedding. My account explains a number of phenomena, including the illocutionary peculiarities of parentheticals, the pragmatics ofthat-omission, and consequently the distributional statistics ofthat-omission and related grammatical features of embeddings reported in the literature. By this means these phenomena are theoretically unified under a single hypothesis.Furthermore, this (...) demonstrativity is a matter of degree. There is a spectrum of distinct pragmatic manifestations of this demonstrativity, ranging from the purely paratactic-like interpretation that ascribes no illocutionary relation between the speaker and the complement, and is highly incompatible withthat-omission, to the purely parenthetical interpretation where illocutionary force attaches to the complement and is highly conducive tothat-omission.A more general moral appears when the minimally revisionist syntactic consequences of my proposal are compared to the radical syntactic consequences of Thompson and Mulac's. Even if we hold that the syntactic structure of a natural language cannot be grasped outside of its general communicative contexts, we need not connect syntax and pragmatics so immediately as Thompson and Mulac seem to think. By resisting the idea that the syntax of parentheticals isipso facto different from the syntax of compositional embeddings, we allow some “slack” between syntax and pragmatics, thereby enabling us to analyze such subtle syntax-pragmatics interactions as negative-raised parentheticals. The methodological moral is to avoid too facile a connection between syntactic and pragmatic analyses. (shrink)

Peut-on concevoir un récit généalogique ou une forme catalogique en dehors de tout contexte littéraire ? Le sanctuaire d’Olympie offre plusieurs pistes de réflexion à travers l’analyse de ses offrandes et de son décor figuré : généalogie sous-jacente liée à l’identité grecque, agencement parataxique du décor archaïque , catalogue des douze travaux d’Héraclès, ou catalogue abstrait suscité par un épisode épique. Les différentes stations de cette visite du sanctuaire ouvrent la voie à une réflexion sur la complémentarité – et non (...) l’interdépendance directe – du récit verbal et des représentations figurées. En tant que centre panhellénique le sanctuaire est un creuset dans lequel se met en place une koinè mythologique. Les images participent grandement à cette construction de l’identité culturelle hellénique, aussi bien comme déclencheur du récit, que comme medium à part entière.The Narrative Object, or Myth Materialised. Genealogies and Catalogues without Words in the Sanctuary of Olympia. Is it conceivable that genealogical accounts or forms of catalogues, divorced from any literary context, can exist? The sanctuary of Olympia, through an analysis of its votive offerings and figural decoration, yields several paths of reflection: the omnipresenceof genealogy, intimately connected with the Greek identity, paratactic arrangements of archaic decoration , the twelve labours of Herakles, or an abstract catalogue attached to an epic episode. The different stations in this sanctuary visit lead us to reflect on the complementarity – but not direct interdependence – of narrative and figural representation. As a Panhellenic sanctuary, Olympia is a veritable melting pot, in which a mytho­logical koine gradually evolves. Images play a large part in the construction of Hellenic cultural identity: as stimulators of narrative, certainly, but also as media in themselves. (shrink)

In this article I challenge the claim that nuclearity is a central principle in the organization of texts. I propose the Framework for the Relational Analysis of Texts which accounts for the paratactic and hypotactic realization of coherence relations. Within this framework, the taxis of coherence relations is co-textually dictated. I consider the writer choices in the distribution of discoursal salience and the intertextual and intercultural variation of these choices. It is suggested that divergence between approaches that perceive (...) text as exhibiting both hypotactic and paratactic organization and those that see nuclearity as a basic characteristic of text structure arises from differences in the linguistic corpora examined during the construction of respective theoretical frameworks. (shrink)

Davidson's paratactic account of indirect speech exploits the fact that ‘that’ can be either a demonstrative pronoun or a subordinating conjunction. Davidson thinks that the fact that it is plausible to think that it inherited the latter function from the former lends support to his account. However, in other languages the two functions are performed by unrelated words, which makes the account impossible to apply to them. I argue that this shows that, rather than revealing the underlying form of (...) indirect reports, the account reflects only a quirk of English. (shrink)

I offer an examination of a core element in the reflectiveness of Heraclitus’ thought, namely, his rebuke of polymathy . In doing so, I provide a response to a recent claim that Heraclitus should not be considered to be a philosopher, by attending to his paradigmatically philosophical traits. Regarding Heraclitus’ attitude to that naïve form of ‘wisdom’, i.e., polymathy, I argue that he does not advise avoiding experience of many things, rather, he advises rejecting experience of things as merely many (...) independent things in their manifoldness , and, instead, to understand their unity and thereby to unify our knowledge of them. (shrink)

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of homeopathy from the perspective of the demarcation problem in the philosophy of science. In this context, Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend’s solution to the problem will be given respectively and their criteria will be applied to homeopathy, aiming to shed some light on the controversy over its scientific status. It then examines homeopathy under the lens of demarcation criteria to conclude that homeopathy is regarded as science by Feyerabend and is considered as pseudoscience (...) by Popper and Kuhn. By offering adequate tools for the analysis of the foundations, structure and implications of homeopathy, demarcation issue can help to clarify this medical controversy. The main argument of this article is that a final decision on homeopathy, whose scientific status changes depending on the criteria of the philosophers mentioned, cannot be given. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity is a notoriously difficult concept to define, and even harder to achieve in practice. All too often social approaches reduce science to an object of study, or conversely physical science approaches are invoked as a source of 'higher' truth. Drawing upon our experiences as ESRC-NERC PhD students within geography, we outline a paratactical approach that links disciplines by adjacency rather than hierarchy. Toppling the disciplinary hierarchy creates the potential for non-reductionistic dialogue between science and social science, but it also (...) raises a series of practical difficulties. These are considered around the themes of polyvocality, breadth over depth and (im)permanence. We suggest that while this kind of approach is increasingly encouraged by research funding bodies, it is less easily sustained within the everyday mechanics of the academic world. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This article considers an interpretative model for the study of Heraclitus, which was first put forward by Alexander Mourelatos in 1973, and draws upon a related model put forward by Julius Moravcsik beginning in 1983. I further develop this combined model and provide a motivation for an interpretation of Heraclitus. This is also of interest for modern metaphysics due to the recurrence of structurally similar problems, including the ‘colour exclusion’ problem that was faced by Wittgenstein. Further, I employ the model (...) to shed new light on Heraclitus’ image of the river, while relating potential readings to various contemporary metaphysical views. (shrink)

It was proposed that the data from Monte Carlo statistical investigations be subjected to analysis of variance methods rather than the conventional techniques of tabling, graphing, and inspecting the data. Two examples in which analysis of variance methods were applied to published Monte Carlo studies were presented. It was suggested that balanced factorial designs should be used whenever possible in Monte Carlo studies so that analysis of variance methods would be directly applicable. Finally, three advantages of (...) class='Hi'>analysis of variance methods over conventional techniques were described and analysis of variance methods were contrasted with a possible alternative analytical method, multiple regression analysis. (shrink)

Epistemic Analysis, as I conceive of it, is concerned with the analysis of knowledge. The precincts of my concern have, however, been determined by the ...

The objective of this study is to conduct an analysis of the terminologies employed by Imam Ibn Rajab in his well-known work, "Fath al-Bari Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari," with the intention of enhancing our comprehension of his methodology in the field of Hadith studies. The study utilises a methodology that combines textual analysis and statistical techniques to examine the occurrence and usage of specific terms. The study also compares Ibn Rajab’s terminology with that of "Muqaddimah Ibn Salah" for a (...) thorough analysis. The study's main findings highlight the nuanced interpretations and variations in Ibn Rajab’s use of terminologies, specifically in synonymous terms like 'tafarrud' and 'garabah'. Furthermore, it emphasises his careful choice of the term "hasan" and the potential consequences it carries. The statistical analysis offers valuable insights into the frequency and patterns of these terminologies, which contributes to a quantitative understanding of their significance. After analysing the results, several suggestions are put forward. First, to gain a deeper understanding of Ibn Rajab's unique perspectives, it is recommended to thoroughly examine his methodologies throughout his entire body of work. Second, additional research is required to delve into the interpretations and implications of synonymous terms employed by Ibn Rajab. Third, conducting a thorough examination of his specific use of the term "hasan" would yield valuable insights into his criteria for evaluation. Fourth, it is important to conduct a thorough comparative analysis between the two texts, "Muqaddimah Ibn Salah" and the current text, to identify any similarities, differences, and potential influences. Fifth, it is recommended to broaden the statistical analysis to explore patterns, trends, and correlations within the dataset. Furthermore, gaining a broader understanding of Ibn Rajab’s contributions within the academic and scholarly landscape would greatly enhance comprehension. (shrink)

Sentiment analysis is one of the important tasks of online opinion analysis and an important means to guide the direction of online opinion and maintain social stability. Due to the multiple characteristics of linguistic expressions, ambiguity, multiple meanings of words, and the increasing speed of new words, it is a great challenge for the task of text sentiment analysis. Commonly used machine learning methods suffer from inadequate text feature extraction, and the emergence of deep learning has brought (...) a turnaround for this purpose. In this paper, we investigate the problem of text sentiment analysis using methods related to deep learning. In order to incorporate user and product information in a more diverse way in the model, this paper proposes a model based on a deep bidirectional long-and short-term memory network-self-attention mechanism-custom classifier. The model first identifies contextual associations and acquires deep text features through a deep bidirectional long- and short-term memory network and then captures important features in the text using a self-attentive mechanism. The model finally combines user information and product information to build a custom classifier module and uses context-aware attention mechanisms to assign specific parameters to user information and product information, which improves the performance of the model on public datasets compared with current common models. The results show that the accuracy of the algorithm in this paper is high, and it is about 5% lower than the traditional algorithm. The method can reduce the number of iterations and the running time of the algorithm. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that (...) Hegel’s conception of social ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

Code-based cryptography is currently the second most promising post-quantum mathematical tool for quantum-resistant algorithms. Since in 2022 the first post-quantum standard Key Encapsulation Mechanism, Kyber (a latticed-based algorithm), was selected to be established as standard, and after that the National Institute of Standards and Technology post-quantum standardization call focused in code-based cryptosystems. Three of the four candidates that remain in the fourth round are code-based algorithms. In fact, the only non-code-based algorithm (SIKE) is now considered vulnerable. Due to this landscape, (...) it is crucial to update previous results about these algorithms and their functioning. The Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation is a key part of the study of post-quantum algorithms and in this work we focus our analysis on Classic McEliece, BIKE and HQC proposals, and how they apply this transformation to obtain IND-CCA semantic security. Since after security the most important parameter in the evaluation of the algorithms is performance, we have compared the performance of the code-based algorithms of the NIST call considering the same architecture for all of them. (shrink)

Many philosophical naturalists eschew analysis in favor of discovering metaphysical truths from the a posteriori, contending that analysis does not lead to philosophical insight. A countercurrent to this approach seeks to reconcile a certain account of conceptual analysis with philosophical naturalism; prominent and influential proponents of this methodology include the late David Lewis, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, and David Armstrong. Naturalistic analysis is a tool for locating in the scientifically given world objects and properties (...) we quantify over in everyday discourse. This collection gathers work from a range of prominent philosophers who are working within this tradition, offering important new work as well as critical evaluations of the methodology. Its centerpiece is an important posthumous paper by David Lewis, "Ramseyan Humility," published here for the first time. The contributors first address issues of philosophy of mind, semantics, and the new methodology's a priori character, then turn to matters of metaphysics, and finally consider problems regarding normativity. Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism is one of the first efforts to apply this approach to such a wide range of philosophical issues. _Contributors: _David Braddon-Mitchell, Mark Colyvan, Frank Jackson, Justine Kingsbury, Fred Kroon, David Lewis, Dustin Locke, Kelby Mason, Jonathan McKeown-Green, Peter Menzies, Robert Nola, Daniel Nolan, Philip Pettit, Huw Price, Denis Robinson, Steve Stich, Daniel Stoljar The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

Is conceptual analysis required for reductive explanation? If there is no a priori entailment from microphysical truths to phenomenal truths, does reductive explanation of the phenomenal fail? We say yes . Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker say no.

How are non-declarative sentences understood? How do they differ semantically from their declarative counterparts? Answers to these questions once made direct appeal to the notion of illocutionary force. When they proved unsatisfactory, the fault was diagnosed as a failure to distinguish properly between mood and force. For some years now, efforts have been under way to develop a satisfactory account of the semantics of mood. In this paper, we consider the current achievements and future prospects of the mood-based semantic programme.

The experimental philosophy movement advocates the use of empirical methods in philosophy. The methods most often discussed and in fact employed in experimental philosophy are appropriated from the experimental paradigm in psychology. But there is a variety of other (at least partly) empirical methods from various disciplines that are and others that could be used in philosophy. The paper explores the application of corpus analysis to philosophical issues. Although the method is well established in linguistics, there are only a (...) few tentative attempts of philosophers to utilise it. Examples are introduced and the merit of corpus analysis is compared to that of using general internet search engines and questionnaires for similar purposes. (shrink)

This paper analyses the ethical cultures of the international accounting profession by using the concept of ‘mainstreaming’ to describe the commitment of an organisation to the ethical function in its operations. The objective of the research on which the paper is based was to rate the efforts of 62 respondent national associations of professional accountants worldwide to incorporate the ethics function into the core operations of their organisations. Sixteen environmental factors were used in the analysis. They were set up (...) as a group of criteria to assess the ethics procedures and systems of the accounting associations, and were divided into two categories. The first group was code based and contained items on code of ethics development and functions which would indicate whether ethically‐friendly management attitudes and systems were in place as a central focus of operations. Some of these elements were capable of fostering a ‘proprietary interest’ attitude on the part of members towards their codes of ethics, which in turn encourages code compliance. With the second group, other key operational aspects were examined to provide a balanced set of criteria. Interrelated elements among factors important to an ethical environment are included in the findings. The study concludes that on average the international accounting profession has attitudinal and systemic approaches that are ‘mainstream’. In general addressees were involved in code authorship and the public had adequate access to codes. However, increased use could be made of ethics professionals in the development of codes, of professional development courses to further the ethics skills of members, and of communication channels to foster a unifying approach to ethics. The study provides criteria for individual associations to assess their mainstreaming status against the international findings. (shrink)

An unabridged edition with updated footnotes and layout, to include: Recent Criticisms of "Consciousness" - Instinct and Habit - Desire and Feeling - Influence of Past History on Present Occurrences in Living Organisms - Psychological and Physical Causal Laws - Introspection - The Definition of Perception - Sensations and Images - Memory - Words and Meaning - General Ideas and Thought - Belief - Truth and Falsehood - Emotions and Will - Characteristics of Mental Phenomena.

The article considers regional issues of the Kazakh transtoposystem. There are a number of problematic issues related to cross-border Kazakh toponymy. The article analyzes only one aspect – the status of binary names in the cross-border toposystem. The goal is to study how obvious the binary opposition is there, considering the etymology of toponyms based on semantic opposition. The toposystem of the Northern and Western regions bordering Russia was used as the empirical material for the study. According to the border (...) administrative-regional division, a number of districts of such regions of the country as North Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, Kostanay, Western Kazakhstan, Aktobe, and Atyrau border with Russia. In the article, a series of binary names along the toponyms of this cross-border zone is formed. In particular, Úlken-Kіshі (Big-Small), Aq-Qara (Black-White), Qara-Sary (Black-Yellow), Jaqsy-Jaman (Good-Bad), Jyly-Sýyq (Warm-Cold), and Ashy-Tushy (Bitter-Fresh) are analyzed. The difference between toponymic binary names and lexical antonyms is considered. We discuss the fact that the contradiction in lexical antonyms is clearly expressed, but in binary opposition along toponyms, the contradiction may not be complete. It is reported that the contradiction of toponyms is recognized only in the toponymic context, and sometimes it is even possible to form a related pair, rather than a semantic contradiction. (shrink)

A large amount of data is maintained in every Social networking sites.The total data constantly gathered on these sites make it difficult for methods like use of field agents, clipping services and ad-hoc research to maintain social media data. This paper discusses the previous research on sentiment analysis.

The explanatory gap . Consciousness is a mystery. No one has ever given an account, even a highly speculative, hypothetical, and incomplete account of how a physical thing could have phenomenal states. Suppose that consciousness is identical to a property of the brain, say activity in the pyramidal cells of layer 5 of the cortex involving reverberatory circuits from cortical layer 6 to the thalamus and back to layers 4 and 6,as Crick and Koch have suggested for visual consciousness. .) (...) Still, that identity itself calls out for explanation! Proponents of an explanatory gap disagree about whether the gap is permanent. Some say that we are like the scientifically naive person who is told that matter = energy, but does not have the concepts required to make sense of the idea. If we can acquire these concepts, the gap is closable. Others say the gap is uncloseable because of our cognitive limitations. Still others say that the gap is a consequence of the fundamental nature of consciousness. (shrink)

The concept of scientific history / Isaiah Berlin -- The limits of scientific history / W.H. Walsh -- The objectivity of history / J.A. Passmore -- Explanation in science and in history / C.G. Hempel -- The Popper-Hempel theory reconsidered / Alan Donagan -- The autonomy of historical understanding / Louis O. Mink -- Historical continuity and causal analysis / Michael Oakeshott -- Causal judgment in history and in the law / H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honoré -- Causes, connections (...) and conditions in history / Michael Scriven -- The historical individual / A.C. Danto -- Methodological individualisms : definition and reduction / May Brodbeck -- Societal laws / Maurice Mandelbaum -- Determinism in history / Ernest Nagel. (shrink)

“Conceptual analysis” is a misnomer—it refers, but it does not refer to a method or practice that involves the analysis of concepts. Once this is recognized, many of the main arguments for skepticism about conceptual analysis can be answered, since many of these arguments falsely assume that conceptual analyses target concepts. The present paper defends conceptual analysis from skepticism about its viability and, positively, presents an argument for viewing conceptual analyses as targeting philosophical phenomena, not our (...) concepts of these phenomena. (shrink)

Analysis has always been at the heart of philosophical method, but it has been understood and practised in many different ways. Perhaps, in its broadest sense, it might be defined as a process of isolating or working back to what is more fundamental by means of which something, initially taken as given, can be explained or reconstructed. The explanation or reconstruction is often then exhibited in a corresponding process of synthesis. This allows great variation in specific method, however. The (...) aim may be to get back to basics, but there may be all sorts of ways of doing this, each of which might be called ‘analysis’. The dominance of ‘analytic’ philosophy in the Englishspeaking world, and increasingly now in the rest of the world, might suggest that a consensus has formed concerning the role and importance of analysis. This assumes, though, that there is agreement on what ‘analysis’ means, and this is far from clear. On the other hand, Wittgenstein's later critique of analysis in the early (logical atomist) period of analytic philosophy, and Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, for example, have led some to claim that we are now in a ‘post-analytic’ age. Such criticisms, however, are only directed at particular conceptions of analysis. If we look at the history of philosophy, and even if we just look at the history of analytic philosophy, we find a rich and extensive repertoire of conceptions of analysis which philosophers have continually drawn upon and reconfigured in different ways. Analytic philosophy is alive and well precisely because of the range of conceptions of analysis that it involves. It may have fragmented into various interlocking subtraditions, but those subtraditions are held together by both their shared history and their methodological interconnections. It is the aim of this article to indicate something of.. (shrink)

Originally applied on domestic and lab animals, assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) have also found application in conservation breeding programs, where they can make the genetic management of populations more efficient, and increase the number of individuals per generation. However, their application in wildlife conservation opens up new ethical scenarios that have not yet been fully explored. This study presents a frame for the ethical analysis of the application of ART procedures in conservation based on the Ethical Matrix (EM), and (...) discusses a specific case study—ovum pick-up (OPU) procedures performed in the current conservation efforts for the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni)—providing a template for the assessment of ART procedures in projects involving other endangered species. (shrink)

When scientists seek further confirmation of their results, they often attempt to duplicate the results using diverse means. To the extent that they are successful in doing so, their results are said to be robust. This paper investigates the logic of such "robustness analysis" [RA]. The most important and challenging question an account of RA can answer is what sense of evidential diversity is involved in RAs. I argue that prevailing formal explications of such diversity are unsatisfactory. I propose (...) a unified, explanatory account of diversity in RAs. The resulting account is, I argue, truer to actual cases of RA in science; moreover, this account affords us a helpful, new foothold on the logic undergirding RAs. (shrink)

We motivate and introduce a new method of abduction, Matrix Abduction, and apply it to modelling the use of non-deductive inferences in the Talmud such as Analogy and the rule of Argumentum A Fortiori. Given a matrix $${\mathbb {A}}$$ with entries in {0, 1}, we allow for one or more blank squares in the matrix, say a i,j =?. The method allows us to decide whether to declare a i,j = 0 or a i,j = 1 or a i,j =? (...) undecided. This algorithmic method is then applied to modelling several legal and practical reasoning situations including the Talmudic rule of Kal-Vachomer. We add an Appendix showing that this new rule of Matrix Abduction, arising from the Talmud, can also be applied to the analysis of paradoxes in voting and judgement aggregation. In fact we have here a general method for executing non-deductive inferences. (shrink)

This paper considers the use of textual analysis of oral histories as a method for historians of nursing. Fifty‐three oral histories of retired nurses in midwestern USA were analyzed for the purpose of historical reconstruction of past education experiences in nursing. Textual analysis was used to determine how nurses made sense of their educational experiences, and it involved gathering data, analyzing the information, and using a different method of interpreting the data. Although the participants responded to specific questions, (...) the oral histories in this study are more than mere answers to the researchers’ queries. The participants’ memories are narratives that are the joint product of both the historian and the participant. As such, the oral history becomes a text to be stored along with other primary sources for future historians’ use. The research also suggests decentering oral histories from an exclusively academic agenda and focusing more on what the participants choose to remember and why they make those choices. (shrink)