Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) did groundbreaking work that transformed logic and other important aspects of our understanding of mathematics, especially his proof of the incompleteness of formalized arithmetic. This book on different aspects of his work and on subjects in which his ideas have contemporary resonance includes papers from a May 2006 symposium celebrating Gödel's centennial as well as papers from a 2004 symposium. Proof theory, set theory, philosophy of mathematics, and the editing of Gödel's writings are among the topics (...) covered. Several chapters discuss his intellectual development and his relation to predecessors and contemporaries such as Hilbert, Carnap, and Herbrand. Others consider his views on justification in set theory in light of more recent work and contemporary echoes of his incompleteness theorems and the concept of constructible set"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

In the rapidly expanding field of bioethics, philosophers and critics have taken on the task of attempting to understand the ethical implications related to the development of enhancement technologies. A term which itself is still hotly contested in the field, “enhancement technologies” refer generally to the application of biotechnological devices aimed at augmenting human physical and mental traits. According to the President’s Council on Bioethics, which was commissioned in 2001 to “advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge as (...) a consequence of advances in biomedical science and technology,” enhancement technologies are broadly defined as “those well-meaning and strictly voluntary uses of .. (shrink)

Mind perception entails ascribing mental capacities to other entities, whereas moral judgment entails labeling entities as good or bad or actions as right or wrong. We suggest that mind perception is the essence of moral judgment. In particular, we suggest that moral judgment is rooted in a cognitive template of two perceived minds—a moral dyad of an intentional agent and a suffering moral patient. Diverse lines of research support dyadic morality. First, perceptions of mind are linked to moral judgments: dimensions (...) of mind perception (agency and experience) map onto moral types (agents and patients), and deficits of mind perception correspond to difficulties with moral judgment. Second, not only are moral judgments sensitive to perceived agency and experience, but all moral transgressions are fundamentally understood as agency plus experienced suffering—that is, interpersonal harm—even ostensibly harmless acts such as purity violations. Third, dyadic morality uniquely accounts for the phenomena of dyadic completion (seeing agents in response to patients, and vice versa), and moral typecasting (characterizing others as either moral agents or moral patients). Discussion also explores how mind perception can unify morality across explanatory levels, how a dyadic template of morality may be developmentally acquired, and future directions. (shrink)

I give a semantics for a logic with two pairs of doxastic modals and an indicative conditional connective that all nest without restriction. Sentences are evaluated as accepted, rejected, or neither. Certainty is the necessity-like modality of acceptance. Inferences may proceed from premises that are certain, or merely accepted, or a mix of both. This semantic setup yields some striking results. Notably, the existence of inferences that preserve certainty but not acceptance very directly implies both failure of modus ponens for (...) the indicative conditional in the logic of acceptance and failure of the deduction theorem for the material conditional in the logic of certainty. The latter failure dissolves, in the logic of certainty, the much - discussed tension between modus ponens and the law of import-export. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of reasons in the metaphysics of epistemic normativity and defends a middle ground between two popular extremes in the literature. Against members of the ‘reasons first’ movement, we argue that reasons are not the sole fundamental constituents of epistemic normativity. We suggest instead that the virtue-theoretic property of competence is the key building block. To support this approach, we note that reasons must be possessed to play a role in the analysis of central epistemically normative (...) properties, and argue that the relation of possession must be analyzed in terms of competence. But while we diverge with reasons-firsters on this score, we also distance ourselves from those who deny reasons any important role in epistemology. For we maintain that possessed reasons do help to ground deontic facts in the epistemic domain (e.g., facts about what one epistemically ought to believe, may believe, or is justified in believing). Indeed, we present an argument that the possession of sufficient epistemic reasons is necessary and sufficient for propositional justification, and that proper basing on such reasons yields doxastic justification. But since possession and proper basing are themselves grounded in competence, reasons are not the end of the explanatory road: competence enables them to do their work, putting them—and us—in the middle. (shrink)

It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)

It is often claimed that humans are rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral creatures. What these characterizations may all have in common is the more fundamental claim that humans are normative animals, in the sense that they are creatures whose lives are structured at a fundamental level by their relationships to norms. The various capacities singled out by discussion of rational, linguistic, cultural, or moral animals might then all essentially involve an orientation to obligations, permissions and prohibitions. And, if this is (...) so, then perhaps it is a basic susceptibility, or proclivity to normative or deontic regulation of thought and behavior that enables humans to develop the various specific features of their life form. This volume of new essays investigates the claim that humans are essentially normative animals in this sense. The contributors do so by looking at the nature and relations of three types of norms, or putative norms-social, moral, and linguistic-and asking whether they might all be different expressions of one basic structure unique to humankind. These questions are posed by philosophers, primatologists, behavioral biologists, psychologists, linguists, and cultural anthropologists, who have collaborated on this topic for many years. The contributors are committed to the idea that understanding normativity is a two-way process, involving a close interaction between conceptual clarification and empirical research. (shrink)

Despite decades of research, we still lack a clear explanation for the emergence and persistence of inequality. Here we propose and evaluate a marginal utility of inequality hypothesis that nominates circumscription and environmental heterogeneity as independent, necessary conditions for the emergence of intragroup material inequality. After coupling the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample with newly generated data from remote sensing, we test predictions derived from this hypothesis using a multivariate generalized additive model that accounts for spatial and historical dependence as well as (...) subsistence mode. Our analyses show that the probability a society will be stratified increases significantly as a function of proxies of environmental heterogeneity and environmental circumscription. This supports the hypothesis that increasing environmental heterogeneity and circumscription drives the emergence and persistence of inequality among documented societies across the globe. We demonstrate how environmental heterogeneity and circumscription produce situations that limit individuals’ options so that some may find it in their best interest to give up some autonomy for material gain, while others may find it in their best interest to give up some material resources for another individual’s time or deference. These results support the marginal utility of inequality framework and enable future explorations of the ecological conditions that facilitate the emergence of intragroup inequality through time and across the globe. (shrink)

It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Two distinct attitudes have been adopted by investigators in the field of the sociology of knowledge. One of them may be called speculative; the other, empirical. The central interest of an investigator having the speculative attitude lies in developing a theory of the sociology of knowledge. The central interest of investigators having the empirical attitude lies in finding out or explaining concrete phenomena; the theory is employed, implicitly or explicity, for this purpose. The existence of the two attitudes may be (...) in part explained, as far as the German sociology of knowledge is concerned, by reference to the history of this school, which has grown out of and has been determined by a Marxist and materialistic philosophy, and especially by the use of this philosophy as a political instrument in the struggle of the emerging proletariat against the bourgeoisie. This statement, however, must be supplemented by a short location of the four most important contributors to the theory of the German sociology of knowledge. Max Scheler approaches the problem phenomenologically; he was the first and only one to ask the fundamental question, “What is knowledge?” Karl Mannheim, though markedly influenced by the Marxist viewpoint, particularly by Lukács, seems to me more adequately characterized by stressing his development from a more exclusively speculative to a more decidedly empirical attitude, which latter is especially evident in his most recent book, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. Alexander von Schelting's main contribution is his thorough logical analysis of Mannheim's theory in the light of Max Weber's methodology. Ernst Grünwald has given the most complete survey of the forerunners, the history, and the various contributions of the sociology of knowledge. These four thinkers are indirectly dependent on the historically determined emphasis of the movement on ideology in that they remain on the level of a theoretical discussion without arriving at factual research. (shrink)

Evidence of the intimate linkage of the shaman's song and divinatory procedures may be viewed in the ancient epics. These narrative poems contain structural and thematic elements recognizable from the shaman's song—in particular his or her voyage to the Otherworld and the guidance of oracular powers. In this paper, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Euripedes' Ion, and The Ozidi Saga (a living epic from West Africa) are examined as recuperations of the orally composed and transmitted song of the shaman. I argue (...) that the epics—the origins of which predate their composition in literary form—bear witness to these most ancient and mysterious forms of linguistic expression. As depictions of Otherwordly journeys, they can be viewed through a metaphysic outside of time, rendering divination not only possible but inevitable, and necessitating a language of abstraction, allusion, and ambiguity. Today's experimental poetries may not all partake of a conscious recuperation of shamanic themes and forms, but they share an imaginary (yet not imagined) repositioning of reality, an open questioning of consensus forms of awareness, and an aesthetic shaping of what Jean Gebser calls “Integral Consciousness” (15), the simultaneous integration-disintegration of archaic, mythic, magic, and mental paradigms in an intensification of awareness which sees time as diaphanous, and Mind as a doorway between possibilities. (shrink)

The global array may be a useful concept in studying behavior in a complex environment, especially in the context of dynamical systems theory. However, Stoffregen & Bardy's arguments are weakened by the conflation of sensation and perception, and by the lack of evidence for synergy between stimulus energy arrays; strong evidence places the convergence of sensory stimuli inside the head.

In recent years, an approach within feminist philosophy of reason has emerged, for convenience called "gendered reason", that states that due to differences of sex and gender, women and men perceive, think, know, understand, judge, reason about, interact with others and (possibly) constitute the world in fundamentally distinct ways. On the basis of three distinct but interrelating arguments it is tried to show that there is a basic difficulty in maintaining at least some versions of this view; indeed that it (...) may be fundamentally incoherent. (shrink)

Although the Internet is often used to talk with those with whom one agrees, this paper presents an "agonistic" strategy designed to help students find discussion partners with whom they disagree. This "agonistic" strategy has a number of advantages, specifically helping students' skills in writing, reading, logic, and rhetoric, as well as helping them recognizes the values of these skills and the importance of being well-informed when one enters a debate. As a further benefit, this approach has improved classroom discussion (...) and improved the substance and form of those discussions. In contrast with those who fear that the Internet hasushered in an age where citizens may choose only to look at that information confirming views they already hold, this exercise helps show that the distance among intellectual sparring partners is more of a gap than a chasm, and that our debates are not fruitless, but in fact are essential to democracy and a conception of our lives as active, engaged citizens. (shrink)

Building upon a recent call to renew actor-network theory (ANT) for educational research, this article reconsiders relations between technology and educational theory. Taking cues from actor-network theorists, this discussion considers the technologically-mediated networks in which learning actors are situated, acted upon, and acting, and traces the novel positions of creative capacity and participation that emerging media may enable. Whereas traditional theories of educational technology tend to focus on the harmonization of new technologies with extant curricular goals and educational practices, an (...) educational theory of technology looks to novel forms of technologically-mediated learning experience—from production pedagogies to role play in the virtual—to make visible the surprising relations, techniques, and opportunities that emerging media, and their attendant social contexts, may offer educational research. (shrink)

In recent years, an approach within feminist philosophy of reason has emerged, for convenience called "gendered reason", that states that due to differences of sex and gender, women and men perceive, think, know, understand, judge, reason about, interact with others and (possibly) constitute the world in fundamentally distinct ways. On the basis of three distinct but interrelating arguments it is tried to show that there is a basic difficulty in maintaining at least some versions of this view; indeed that it (...) may be fundamentally incoherent. (shrink)

In its first part, this paper seeks to make plausible (a) that molecular genetic diagnostics differs in ethically relevant ways from traditional types of medical diagnostics and (b) that the consequences of introducing this technology in broad screening-programs to detect widespread genetic diseases in a population which is not at high risk may change our understanding of health and disease in a problematic way. In its second part, the paper discusses some aspects of public control of scientific and technological innovations (...) in the field of molecular genetic diagnostics. (shrink)

Through an extended discussion of the German higher education system in comparison with other European countries and the US, this paper suggests that academic freedom is not simply a consequence of institutional arrangements. It is a consequence of looking at what one is doing, at one's own professional responsibility. Academic freedom must be sustained and protected not only by the state or institutional arrangements of universities, but must also be protected by every academician. If professors do not resist intrusion on (...) their freedom in either collective or individual ways, academic freedom is in danger. If, for example, a faculty of medicine were to allow conflicts of interest to develop between the freedom of research and the commercial interest of cooperating enterprises, if it does not collectively sense that there may be an intrusion on academic freedom resulting from the influence on their research from pharmaceutical corporations, for example, academic freedom will be in endangered from within the university. In a society where professors act this way, simply granting academic freedom may be a fine thing, but it does not really fulfill freedom's promise. (shrink)

Summary For Imre Lakatos hismethodology of scientific research programmes was not only a philosophical theory of science and scientific change but also the conceptual foundation of empirical and historical studies of science. At least terminologically this view is today widely accepted: The concept of aresearch programme is used in all sorts of literature on science. In the present paper I argue that this concept can lead to serious distortions of empirical and historical studies of science if it is not detached (...) from the Lakatosian philosophical framework. Themethodology of scientific research programmes has three main pitfalls, which may lead to disorientations of empirical and historical studies of science: (1) Contrary to what the term research programme may suggest, it offers no perspective on scientific research as an object of analysissui generis; (2) its concept of science is too narrow and covers only minor parts of what counts as science in the real world; (3) it reduces history of science to a mere sequence of research programmes and thereby eliminates the fact that there is an evolution of the structure of research programmes, too. (shrink)

In Group Agency, List and Pettit defend ‘non-redundant realism’ about group agency, a view on which facts about group agents are not ‘readily reducible’ to facts about individuals, and the dependence of group agents on individuals is so holistic that one cannot predict facts about group agents on the basis of facts about their members. This paper undermines L&P's case in three stages. §1 shows that L&P's core argument is invalid. L&P infer and from two facts: that group agents must (...) often believe what few members personally believe, and that a group agent's beliefs in certain propositions must often ‘depend on’ member attitudes to distinct propositions. I note that is ambiguous, and that the only true reading of it is irrelevant to the status of. I argue further that cannot support, since a group agent's belief in P may neatly constitutively depend on member attitudes to P that are weaker than personal belief. §2 makes this idea concrete with a plausible toy theory of group belief that implies it. While this kind of theory is popular in the literature on joint belief, L&P never discuss it – a striking fact, since it explains why is true. Having made these points, I turn to argue in §3 that is either false or uncontroversial.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.HOW TO BE A REDUNDANT REALISTVolume 9, Issue 3Kurt L. SylvanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.16Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. HOW TO BE A REDUNDANT REALISTVolume 9, Issue 3Kurt L. SylvanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.16Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. HOW TO BE A REDUNDANT REALISTVolume 9, Issue 3Kurt L. SylvanDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2012.16Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

We derive an expression for the relation between two scattering transition amplitudes which, reflect the same dynamics, but which differ in the description of their initial and final state vectors. In one version, the incident and scattered states are elements of a perturbative Fock space, and solve the eigenvalue problem for the “free” pari of the Hamiltonian—the part that remains after the interactions between particle excitations have been “switched off”. Alternatively, the incident and scattered states may be coherent state that (...) are transforms of these Fock states. In earlier work, we reported on the scattering amplitudes for QED, in which a unitary transformation relates perturbative and nonperturbative sets of incident and scattered states. In this work, we generalize this earlier result to the case of transformations that are not necessarily unitary and that may not have unique inverses. We discuss the implication of this relationship for Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories in which the “transformed”, nonperturbative states implement constraints, such as Gauss’s law. (shrink)

Terrorism researchers have long discussed the role of psychology in the radicalization process. This work has included research on the respective roles of individual psychological traits and responses to terrorist propaganda. Unfortunately, much of this work has looked at psychological traits and responses to propaganda individually and has not considered how these factors may interact. This study redresses this gap in the literature. In this experiment (N = 268), participants were measured in terms of their narcissism, Machiavellianism, subclinical psychopathy, and (...) everyday sadism—collectively called the Dark Tetrad. Participants were then exposed to a vivid or nonvivid terrorist narrative (or a control message). Results indicate that Machiavellianism interacts with both narrative exposure and narrative vividness to amplify the persuasive effect of terrorist narratives. Neither narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, nor everyday sadism had such an effect. These results highlight the importance of considering the psychological traits of audiences when evaluating proclivity for radicalizationviapersuasion by terrorist narratives. (shrink)

Many epistemologists treat rationality and justification as the same thing. Those who don’t lack detailed accounts of the difference, leading their opponents to suspect that the distinction is an ad hoc attempt to safeguard their theories of justification. In this paper, I offer a new and detailed account of the distinction. The account is inspired by no particular views in epistemology, but rather by insights from the literature on reasons and rationality outside of epistemology. Specifically, it turns on a version (...) of the familiar distinction in meta-ethics between possessing apparent normative reasons (which may be merely apparent) and possessing objective normative reasons. The paper proceeds as follows. In §1, I discuss the history of indifference to the distinction between rationality and justification in epistemology and the striking contrast with meta-ethics. I introduced the distinction between apparent reasons and possessed objective reasons in §2 and provide a deeper basis for it in §3. I explain how the ideas extend to epistemology in §4 and explore the upshots for some central issues in §5. (shrink)

1. It seems that the description and explanation of what is going on in inanimate nature differ in important respects from the description and explanation of what is going on when that involves human beings or certain animals. The difference is sometimes expressed by saying that whereas in the former case what we describe and explain is always events, in the latter it is sometimes events and sometimes actions. Material objects, one might say, do not do anything, do not perform (...) actions, are not agents. The question arises whether the differences between material objects and agents, and consequently between events and actions, are such as to render inapplicable to actions the categories of explanation employed in the natural sciences. This question is sometimes answered in the affirmative. In particular, it is argued that actions do not admit of causal explanations, or of explanations in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or in terms which imply that the occurrence of an action is wholly determined. Or it is argued more cautiously, that, even if some kinds of action are so explicable, the most important kinds, those which are voluntary, intentional, deliberate, cannot be. In this essay, I argue for a third theory. It shares with the first two the view that in the narration and description of events and actions we do not employ exactly the same categories and that, therefore, in the explanation of one, reference may have to be made to types of fact not mentioned in the explanation of the other. Thus, in the explanation of why I raised my arm, I may have to refer to my purpose, intention or aim, whereas in the explanation of my arm’s going up, this may be irrelevant. Nevertheless, the theory here defended maintains that all kinds of action, including intentional ones, admit of causal or deterministic explanations. (shrink)

A school that adopts a curriculum, that aims for a holistic understanding of technology, does so because it produces a better educated person than a curriculum which does not. How do we know when we are teaching technology holistically and why must we do so? Increasingly, more is asked of technology educators to be holistic in the understanding conveyed to learners of technology itself in order to make better informed technical and design decisions in a wider range of applied settings. (...) The ability of the learner to naturally consider social and environmental factors, for example, when seeking solutions is seen by some State education systems in Australia as fundamental to a genuine education in technology (New South Wales Board of Studies, 2000 & 2002). In philosophy, the holist position asserts that to understand the particular one must understand its relation to the whole and that only through reflection of one's sensation based applications can genuine knowledge be critically affirmed (Matthews, 1980, p.87 & p.93). The combined apparently independent paths of the State and the Holist positions set a compelling scene not only for the socio-economic necessity for holistic technology education in the curriculum but also for Technology's status as a key curriculum agent in the knowledge formation process of educated individuals. -/- This paper asserts that the general elements of Applied Setting (including Time), Human (as Agent), Tool and Environment are well placed to be the necessary basics to any holistic human technological activity. How and why these elements work together, their schema, will be referred to in this paper as the 'Basic Principles'. The paper presents the thesis that Technology cannot be reduced to less than these general elements and as such, Technology is their product. We therefore may need to understand and teach these elements and their relations to each other explicitly, in ways that reveal the utility of such understanding when making technical choices and design decisions for all the genres of technology and at all their scales of application and discovery. The case is made for technology to not merely be a 'know how' learning experience, but necessarily also a holistic 'know why' learning experience essential for developing and transferring technological knowledge. (shrink)

[ES] El logicismo de Frege o, en términos más generales, su esfuerzo por construir un fundamento de razonamiento deductivo para las matemáticas fue motivado por el deseo de combatir el empirismo radical que empezaba a dominar la discusión científica en las tierras de habla alemana después de la muerte de Hegel. El objetivo similar de Russell unas décadas después, en cambio, se debe en su origen preponderantemente al deseo de superar el neohegelianismo de Bradley. El joven Wittgenstein formuló a partir (...) de lo que aprendió de ambos el sistema del Tractatus, rechazando algunos aspectos claves de uno y otro. Hay, por consiguiente, incompatibilidades importantes entre las tres propuestas de solución para los problemas relacionados con el concepto de la verdad y de la relación que debemos suponer que existe entre mundo, lenguaje y pensamiento. Si sus reflexiones se comparan con el manejo de preguntas aproximadamente equivalentes hoy en día, en particular a raíz del concepto semántico de la verdad que debemos a Tarski, nos podemos dar cuenta que hemos logrado una enorme flexibilidad en el manejo de los lenguajes simbólicos; a este dominio técnico de las herramientas que nos dio la formalización de la lógica simbólica debemos, entre otros avances, el Internet y los teléfonos inteligentes. En cambio, se perdió de vista la profundidad filosófica que estuvo en su origen, y, se podría decir, algo de lo filosófico de la filosofía. El brillo intenso de las tecnologías nuevas junto con la sensación de que tenemos a nuestra disposición una jerarquía infinita de lenguajes o metalenguajes, que nos permiten manejar cualquier problema heredado del nivel anterior, hacen que nos parezca superflua la ocupación con cuestiones más propiamente filosóficas como las entendían los primeros proponentes de la filosofía analítica. Es en parte a esta pérdida de sentido filosófico del quehacer del filósofo que se deben otros fenómenos que hablan de la trivialización de la filosofía: someter esta actividad en el marco académico a una medición cuantitativa que produce un diluvio de trabajos perfectamente inútiles, o la confusión de la filosofía con la elaboración de reglas operativas para hospitales. [EN] Frege’s logicism or, more generally, his efforts to construct a foundation for mathematics based on deductive reasoning was motivated by his wish to fight the radical empiricism that began to dominate scientific argument in German speaking countries after Hegel’s death. Russell’s similar purpose a few decades later, on the other hand, was originally due mainly to their wish to overcome Bradley’s neo-Hegelianism. Young Wittgenstein forged the system of the Tractatus drawing from his knowledge of both, refuting some key aspects of one or other. There are therefore important incompatibilities between the three proposed solutions for the problems related to the concept of truth and to the relation we must suppose exists between world, language and thought. When we compare their thoughts to today’s ways of handling questions which are approximately equivalent, particularly in the wake of the semantic concept of truth we owe to Tarksi, we may become aware that we have certainly gained enormous flexibility in the handling of symbolic languages; the Internet and intelligent telephones, among other signs of progress would have been impossible without this technical mastery of tools we obtained thanks to the formalization of symbolic logic. But, on the other hand, we also lost view of the philosophical depth that stood at its cradle and, it might be said, a bit of what makes philosophy philosophical. The intense sparkle of the new technologies together with the impression that we have an infinite hierarchy of languages or metalanguages at our disposal which allow us to handle any problem inherited from the previous level, may give us the impression that questions related to more deeply philosophical problems, such as the first proponents of analytical philosophy tried to deal with, are idle. Other phenomena which bear witness to the trivialization of philosophy are in part due to this loss of philosophical meaning of the business of philosophy: subduing this activity within the academic framework to methods of quantification which result in a deluge of perfectly useless publications, or the confusion of philosophy with the elaboration of operating rules for hospitals. (shrink)

Excerpt from Wissen und Glauben bei Pascal Als die Wissenschaft schlechthin gilt ihm die Mathematik. Alle Welt kennt seine hervorragenden Leistungen hierin. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such (...) as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Research Programme and Development of Science. For Imre Lakatos his methodology of scientific research programmes was not only a philosophical theory of science and scientific change but also the conceptual foundation of empirical and historical studies of science. At least terminologically this view is today widely accepted: The concept of a research programme is used in all sorts of literature on science. In the present paper I argue that this concept can lead to serious distortions of empirical and historical studies (...) of science if it is not detached from the Lakatosian philosophical framework. The methodology of scientific research programmes has three main pitfalls, which may lead to disorientations of empirical and historical studies of science: (1) Contrary to what the term "research programme" may suggest, it offers no perspective on scientific research as an object of analysis sui generis; (2) its concept of science is too narrow and covers only minor parts of what counts as science in the real world; (3) it reduces history of science to a mere sequence of research programmes and thereby eliminates the fact that there is an evolution of the structure of research programmes, too. (shrink)

This paper is based on the hypothesis that the effort to establish new criteria for diagnosing human death, which has been taking place over the past twenty years or more, can be viewed as a paradigm case for the impact of scientific and technological progress on morality. This impact takes the form of three tendencies within the change in morality, which may be characterized as ‘denaturalization’, ‘functionalization’ and ‘homogenization’. The paper concludes with the view that these tendencies do not indicate (...) a decline of morality, as feared by some authors, but rather a structural change. Keywords: bioethics (Institutionalization and Professionalization of), brain death, brain life, moral reflexivity, organ transplantation CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article was prepared for the International Demographic History Congress on ‘Malthus Yesterday and Today’ which took place in Paris, 27–29 May 1980.

My topic is Gert’s rich, probing, and brilliantly illuminating treatment of an “evergreen” in moral theory, the question, “Why be moral?” He offers three different reasons which, he claims, together constitute an “adequate” and “satisfactory” as well as “the best possible” answer. Here, it suffices to examine its gist: Acting morally is never irrational, hence always rational, hence never rationally forbidden, sometimes rationally required, and always rationally allowed. As he acknowledges, his claim “that it is only rationally allowed to act (...) morally may not be strong enough for some philosophers, but that…is the most that can be shown”. He concedes “that in the important decisions about whether or not to act morally, rationality does not provide a guide.… Disappointing as this conclusion seems at first, any other conclusion would be worse. Were rationality ever to prohibit acting morally, one would be forced, in the case of conflict, to advocate either irrational or immoral behavior. If rationality were always to require acting morally, one would be forced to regard all immoral actions as irrational, including that which was clearly in the self-interest of the agent. Contrasted with either of these alternatives, the conclusion seems far less disappointing than before”. (shrink)

This article attempts a new explanation of the word γονίας which makes its only appearance in the concluding lines of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers. Though evidently qualifying the vengeance taken by Orestes, its meaning is obscure. The gist of the present argument is that the sense of the term is more clearly defined by the context than is hitherto recognised, and that it may be interpreted as a metaphorical application of a medical concept.

Research over the past three decades on the gender gap in STEM has consistently found an underrepresentation of females pursuing STEM degrees and careers. This is, at its foundation, an educational ethics issue. Schools at all levels, ranging all the way from middle school to graduate school, have a responsibility to prepare more females for careers in STEM. Experts have proposed a variety of fixes to encourage female students to study STEM, including increased funding, some of which have helped, and (...) yet the gap remains. This paper examines one such effort to address this education and ethics issue - voluntary programs outside of normal school hours that provide young female students’ opportunities for active participation and engagement in STEM. Are these enrichment programs actually increasing subsequent female participation rates? The authors use a correlational study in an attempt to determine whether there is a positive correlation between participation in a voluntary before school STEM program, and their subsequent enrollment in STEM courses in high school, and/or in college and career. The authors surveyed intermediate school students, and the results showed that although voluntary before-school programs may not increase female interest in STEM, they do help to maintain long-term interest by those who have already demonstrated an inclination toward STEM. This is a pilot study with a limited number of subjects from one geographical area. Future research should be conducted that focuses on a larger nationwide sample to determine if school enrichment programs indeed act as career influencers for female students. (shrink)

When someone steps on your toe on purpose, it seems to hurt more than when the person does the same thing unintentionally. The physical parameters of the harm may not differ—your toe is flattened in both cases—but the psychological experience of pain is changed nonetheless. Intentional harms are premeditated by another person and have the specific purpose of causing pain. In a sense, intended harms are events initiated by one mind to communicate meaning (malice) to another, and this could shape (...) the recipient’s experience. This study examined whether self-reported pain is indeed higher when the events producing the pain are understood as intentionally (as opposed to unintentionally) caused by another person. Although pain was traditionally conceived to be solely physical in nature (Aydede, 2005), its experience varies substantially with psychological context. The placebo analgesia effect, for example, is the reduction of pain without a change in physical stimulation when context, expectations, or sugar pills challenge the interpretation of a sensation as painful (e.g., Fields, 2008). The nocebo effect, in turn, is the experience of pain without any physical stimulation—as when participants report headaches when told that a (nonexistent) electric current is passing through their heads (Schweiger & Parducci, 1981). These variations in pain experience seem to depend on the meaning of the stimulus: A sugar pill is meant to decrease pain, whereas electric current is meant to increase pain. In an interpersonal context, the meaning of an action is derived from the would complete. perceiver’s perceptions of the actor’s intention (Clark, 1996). (shrink)

This paper, originating from a Wittgenstein conference in Delphi, Greece in June 2001, questions Brandom’s reading of Wittgenstein on “Following a Rule”. For the purpose of our current investigative dispute, it is a very good starting point to draw our attention to some of the vital differences between Wittgenstein’s and Brandom’s approach to the relation between practice and rules that may not be quite as clear at first sight from Brandom’s own writings. This writing maintains that Brandom misconstrues Wittgenstein’s remarks (...) about signposts and Philosophical Investigations §201 with the consequence that his own explications about tacit rules involved in practice seem more Wittgensteinian than they really are. For one, Brandom duplicates Wittgenstein’s requirement of correctness in rule following: “...correctness that consists in following a rule [does not presuppose] correctness that does not.” On the other hand Brandom’s reading makes Wittgenstein’s quietism look like ”a pretext for not doing constructive work”, while Wittgenstein’s point is that there is nothing left to enquire. (shrink)

It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)

Excerpt from Norm und Verfall des Staates Wohl wußte Nietzsche, daß die physiologischen Grund kenntnisse, denen er doch so großen Wert beimaß, ihm fehlten. Schwankte er doch, ob er die südliche Einsamkeitmit der Luft deutscher Universitäten vertauschen sollte; aber damals würde er diese Grundlagen vergeblich in der Wissenschaft gesucht haben. Heute würde er eher finden, was er brauchte. Die Vor stellung, daß anerz'ogene Eigenschaften sich vererben, ist fast überwunden. Züchtung und Erziehung sind scharfe Gegensätze geworden, die der Bildner des Volkes (...) streng auseinanderhalten muß. Weniger durchdacht sind aber bisher die Folgerungen, daß der Kampf gegen die phy sisehe E nt a r t u n g des einzelnen und der Rasse ganz verschieden ist von dem Kampf gegen den V e r f all des Geistes und des Staates. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Excerpt from Beitrge zur Interpretation der Kritischen Ethik Von jeher wurden Angriffe auf die Kantische Ethik gerichtet, durch welche die Angreifer ihre Methode und ihr Prinzip zu treffen glaubten, whrend sie in Wahrheit nur gewisse Mngel und In konsequenzen trafen, die in der Durchfhrung der kritischen Ethik innerhalb der ethischen Schriften Kants zweifellos vorliegen. Nun sagt man aber Kant solche Inkonsequenzen nicht gern nach, aus Furcht, es mchte durch derartige Konzessionen die kritische Ethik selbst blogestellt werden. Demgegenber stellt sich die (...) vor liegende Untersuchung auf den Standpunkt, da gerade im Gegen teil die kritische Ethik nur dadurch vor irrtumlichen Angriffen gesichert werden kann, da man die Inkonsequenzen Kants ganz offen darle> denn nur so bleibt zu der Hoffnung Raum, da die Verwirrung, die auf der Interpretation der kritischen Ethik nicht minder als auf der der kritischen Philosophie berhaupt wie ein Fluch lastet, einmal beseitigt wird, und da nicht immer wieder Angriffe geschehen, die zwar vielfach gegeniiber gewissen Kantischen Ausfhrungen nicht unberechtigt sind, das Herz seiner Ethik aber in keiner Weise treffen. So war es vor der speziellen Behandlung der Kantischen Schriften ntig, zunchst den eigentlichen Charakter der kritischen Ethik, ihr Problem und ihre Methode, gesondert darzustellen; und dies war wiederum nur dadurch mglich, da ich das Problem und die Methode der kritischen Ethik andersgeriehteten Problemstellungen und abweichenden methodischen Versuchen gegen berstellte. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Although torture can establish guilt through confession, how are judgments of guilt made when tortured suspects do not confess? We suggest that perceived guilt is based inappropriately upon how much pain suspects appear to suffer during torture. Two psychological theories provide competing predictions about the link between pain and perceived blame: cognitive dissonance, which links pain to blame, and moral typecasting, which links pain to innocence. We hypothesized that dissonance might characterize the relationship between torture and blame for those close (...) to the torture, while moral typecasting might characterize this relationship for those more distant from it. Accordingly, this experiment placed participants into one of two different roles in which people may be exposed to torture. Participants in the proximal role of prison staffer saw suffering torture victims as relatively more guilty, while participants in the relatively distant role of a radio listener saw suffering victims as more innocent. (shrink)

The complex regulatory framework governing the U.S. health care system can be an obstacle to programming that address health-related social needs. In particular, health care fraud and abuse law is a pernicious barrier as health care organizations may minimize or forego programming altogether out of real and perceived concern for compliance. And because health care organizations have varying resources to navigate and resolve compliance concerns, as well as different levels of risk tolerance, fears related to the legal landscape may further (...) entrench inequities in access to meaningful programs that improve health outcomes. This article uses food and nutrition programming as a case study to explore the complexities presented by this area of law and to highlight pathways forward. (shrink)

Horror movies have discovered an easy recipe for making people creepy: alter their eyes. Instead of normal eyes, zombies’ eyes are vacantly white, vampires’ eyes glow with the color of blood, and those possessed by demons are cavernously black. In the Academy Award winning Pan’s Labyrinth, director Guillermo del Toro created the creepiest of all creatures by entirely removing its eyes from its face, placing them instead in the palms of its hands. The unease induced by altering eyes may help (...) to explain the uncanny valley, which is the eeriness of robots that are almost—but not quite—human. Much research has explored the uncanny valley, including the research reported by MacDorman & Entezari, which focuses on individual differences that might predict the eeriness of humanlike robots. In their paper, they suggest that a full understanding of this phenomenon needs to synthesize individual differences with features of the robot. One theory that links these two concepts is mind perception, which past research highlights as essential to the uncanny valley. Mind perception is linked to both individual differences—autism—and to features of the robot—the eyes—and can provide a deeper understanding of this arresting phenomenon. In this paper, we present original data that links uncanniness to the eyes through aberrant perceptions of mind. (shrink)

Horror movies have discovered an easy recipe for making people creepy: alter their eyes. Instead of normal eyes, zombies’ eyes are vacantly white, vampires’ eyes glow with the color of blood, and those possessed by demons are cavernously black. In the Academy Award winning Pan’s Labyrinth, director Guillermo del Toro created the creepiest of all creatures by entirely removing its eyes from its face, placing them instead in the palms of its hands. The unease induced by altering eyes may help (...) to explain the uncanny valley, which is the eeriness of robots that are almost—but not quite—human. Much research has explored the uncanny valley, including the research reported by MacDorman & Entezari, which focuses on individual differences that might predict the eeriness of humanlike robots. In their paper, they suggest that a full understanding of this phenomenon needs to synthesize individual differences with features of the robot. One theory that links these two concepts is mind perception, which past research highlights as essential to the uncanny valley. Mind perception is linked to both individual differences—autism—and to features of the robot—the eyes—and can provide a deeper understanding of this arresting phenomenon. In this paper, we present original data that links uncanniness to the eyes through aberrant perceptions of mind. (shrink)

Horror movies have discovered an easy recipe for making people creepy: alter their eyes. Instead of normal eyes, zombies’ eyes are vacantly white, vampires’ eyes glow with the color of blood, and those possessed by demons are cavernously black. In the Academy Award winning Pan’s Labyrinth, director Guillermo del Toro created the creepiest of all creatures by entirely removing its eyes from its face, placing them instead in the palms of its hands. The unease induced by altering eyes may help (...) to explain the uncanny valley, which is the eeriness of robots that are almost—but not quite—human. Much research has explored the uncanny valley, including the research reported by MacDorman & Entezari, which focuses on individual differences that might predict the eeriness of humanlike robots. In their paper, they suggest that a full understanding of this phenomenon needs to synthesize individual differences with features of the robot. One theory that links these two concepts is mind perception, which past research highlights as essential to the uncanny valley. Mind perception is linked to both individual differences—autism—and to features of the robot—the eyes—and can provide a deeper understanding of this arresting phenomenon. In this paper, we present original data that links uncanniness to the eyes through aberrant perceptions of mind. (shrink)

Turing was a philosopher of logic and mathematics, as well as a mathematician. His work throughout his life owed much to the Cambridge milieu in which he was educated and to which he returned throughout his life. A rich and distinctive tradition discussing how the notion of “common sense” relates to the foundations of logic was being developed during Turing’s undergraduate days, most intensively by Wittgenstein, whose exchanges with Russell, Ramsey, Sraffa, Hardy, Littlewood and others formed part of the backdrop (...) which shaped Turing’s work. Beginning with a Moral Sciences Club talk in 1933, Turing developed an “anthropological” approach to the foundations of logic, influenced by Wittgenstein, in which “common sense” plays a foundational role. This may be seen not only in “On Computable Numbers” and Turing’s dissertation ), but in his exchanges with Wittgenstein in 1939 and in two later papers, “The Reform of Mathematical Phraseology and Notation” and “Solvable and Unsolvable Problems”. (shrink)

Excerpt from Nietzsche als Richter Unsrer Zeit Gegen die nihilistischen Padagogen, die an Stelle der Er ziehung das individuelle Laufenlassen, an Stelle der Zucht die emanzipierte Freiheit, an Stelle der Bildung die Fach dressur setzen schon verkunden Magnifizenzen dreist, da unsere Universitaten keine Bildungsanstalten, sondernein Konglomerat von Fachschulen seien! Kurz gegen die Verderber unserer Jugend stehe seine Begeisterung fur die vollste musisch-gymnastische Einung von Hellas und freilich auch sein unerbittlicher Blick in den geistigen Niedergang der Deutschen. About the Publisher Forgotten (...) Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

My topic is Gert’s rich, probing, and brilliantly illuminating treatment of an “evergreen” in moral theory, the question, “Why be moral?” He offers three different reasons which, he claims, together constitute an “adequate” and “satisfactory” as well as “the best possible” answer. Here, it suffices to examine its gist: Acting morally is never irrational, hence always rational, hence never rationally forbidden, sometimes rationally required, and always rationally allowed. As he acknowledges, his claim “that it is only rationally allowed to act (...) morally may not be strong enough for some philosophers, but that…is the most that can be shown”. He concedes “that in the important decisions about whether or not to act morally, rationality does not provide a guide.… Disappointing as this conclusion seems at first, any other conclusion would be worse. Were rationality ever to prohibit acting morally, one would be forced, in the case of conflict, to advocate either irrational or immoral behavior. If rationality were always to require acting morally, one would be forced to regard all immoral actions as irrational, including that which was clearly in the self-interest of the agent. Contrasted with either of these alternatives, the conclusion seems far less disappointing than before”. (shrink)

This book explores the importance of Schleiermacher and his place in the history of the church, religion and Christianity. Was he a reformer of Christianity or merely a catalyst who stimulated a change in how the Church appeared and was perceived? Schleiermacher's importance for philosophy is also discussed. Were his views on preserving religion and the practice of faith in the Christian Church merely apologetic in nature, or did they have a reasonable in other words scientific, philosophical basis? These were (...) central questions at a symposium which was organized by the Schleiermacher Research Center of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in May 2009. The papers collected in this volume deal with these questions from the perspective of various disciplines. ". (shrink)