In this paper, the authors show that there is a reading of St. Anselm's ontological argument in Proslogium II that is logically valid (the premises entail the conclusion). This reading takes Anselm's use of the definite description "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" seriously. Consider a first-order language and logic in which definite descriptions are genuine terms, and in which the quantified sentence "there is an x such that..." does not imply "x exists". Then, using an ordinary logic (...) of descriptions and a connected greater-than relation, God's existence logically follows from the claims: (a) there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater is conceivable, and (b) if <em>x</em> doesn't exist, something greater than x can be conceived. To deny the conclusion, one must deny one of the premises. However, the argument involves no modal inferences and, interestingly, Descartes' ontological argument can be derived from it. (shrink)

The authors evaluate the soundness of the ontological argument they developed in their 1991 paper. They focus on Anselm’s first premise, which asserts that there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. After casting doubt on the argument Anselm uses in support of this premise, the authors show that there is a formal reading on which it is true. Such a reading can be used in a sound reconstruction of the argument. After this reconstruction is developed (...) in precise detail, the authors show that the conclusion, a reading of the claim “God exists”, does not quite achieve the end Anselm desired. (shrink)

The authors investigated the ontological argument computationally. The premises and conclusion of the argument are represented in the syntax understood by the automated reasoning engine PROVER9. Using the logic of definite descriptions, the authors developed a valid representation of the argument that required three non-logical premises. PROVER9, however, discovered a simpler valid argument for God's existence from a single non-logical premise. Reducing the argument to one non-logical premise brings the investigation of the soundness of the argument into better focus. Also, (...) the simpler representation of the argument brings out clearly how the ontological argument constitutes an early example of a ‘diagonal argument’ and, moreover, one used to establish a positive conclusion rather than a paradox. (shrink)

Formulations of Anselm’s ontological argument have been the subject of a number of recent studies. We examine these studies in light of Anselm’s text and (a) respond to criticisms that have surfaced in reaction to our earlier representations of the argument, (b) identify and defend a more refined representation of Anselm’s argument on the basis of new research, and (c) compare our representation of the argument, which analyzes that than which none greater can be conceived as a definite description, to (...) a representation that analyzes it as an arbitrary name. (shrink)

The authors evaluate the soundness of the ontological argument they developed in their 1991 paper. They focus on Anselm’s first premise, which asserts that there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. After casting doubt on the argument Anselm uses in support of this premise, the authors show that there is a formal reading on which it is true. Such a reading can be used in a sound reconstruction of the argument. After this reconstruction is developed (...) in precise detail, the authors show that the conclusion, a reading of the claim “God exists”, does not quite achieve the end Anselm desired. (shrink)

1. The problem. The concept of confirmation of an hypothesis by empirical evidence is of fundamental importance in the methodology of empirical science. For, first of all, a sentence cannot even be considered as expressing an empirical hypothesis at all unless it is theoretically capable of confirmation or disconfirmation, i.e. unless the kind of evidence can be characterized whose occurrence would confirm, or disconfirm, the sentence in question. And secondly, the acceptance or rejection of a sentence which does represent an (...) empirical hypothesis is determined, in scientific procedure, by the degree to which it is confirmed by relevant evidence. (shrink)

Like a number of other authors, Miller uses the term “emergent” interchangeably with “unpredictable” and employs it as a property term, i.e., in contexts of the form “Event E is emergent.” As we showed in our article, however, predictability and unpredictability as well as emergence are relations; they can be predicated of an event only relatively to some body of information. Thus, a lunar eclipse is predictable by means of information including data on the locations and speeds, at some particular (...) time, of the celestial bodies involved, and the laws of celestial mechanics plus certain principles of optics; it is unpredictable on the basis of, say, alone. Consequently, the phrase “Event E is unpredictable” is incomplete, and hence meaningless, in much the same sense as the expression “Straight line l is parallel.” Similar observations apply to the term “emergent,” which is frequently used to characterize events which, in a sense examined in detail in our article, are not explainable by a micro-structure theory. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

The authors investigated the ontological argument computationally. The premises and conclusion of the argument are represented in the syntax understood by the automated reasoning engine PROVER9. Using the logic of definite descriptions, the authors developed a valid representation of the argument that required three non-logical premises. PROVER9, however, discovered a simpler valid argument for God's existence from a single non-logical premise. Reducing the argument to one non-logical premise brings the investigation of the soundness of the argument into better focus. Also, (...) the simpler representation of the argument brings out clearly how the ontological argument constitutes an early example of a ?diagonal argument? and, moreover, one used to establish a positive conclusion rather than a paradox. (shrink)

Though Frege was interested primarily in reducing mathematics to logic, he succeeded in reducing an important part of logic to mathematics by defining relations in terms of functions. By contrast, Whitehead & Russell reduced an important part of mathematics to logic by defining functions in terms of relations (using the definite description operator). We argue that there is a reason to prefer Whitehead & Russell's reduction of functions to relations over Frege's reduction of relations to functions. There is an interesting (...) system having a logic that can be properly characterized in relational but not in functional type theory. This shows that relational type theory is more general than functional type theory. The simplification offered by Church in his functional type theory is an over-simplification: one can't assimilate predication to functional application.<br>. (shrink)

To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question “why?” rather than only the question “what?”, is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially, scientific research in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. While there is rather general agreement about this chief objective of science, there exists considerable difference of opinion as to the function (...) and the essential characteristics of scientific explanation. In the present essay, an attempt will be made to shed some light on these issues by means of an elementary survey of the basic pattern of scientific explanation and a subsequent more rigorous analysis of the concept of law and of the logical structure of explanatory arguments. (shrink)

Most commentators supported the thesis of the target article, though there were also those who were less fully persuaded. I will begin with a response to the most critical commentaries. First, I will justify an evolutionary perspective that includes group organization and nongenetic inheritance. Next, I will discuss the concept of emergence. Following that, I will transition to an exploration of ideas and concerns brought up by some of the more supportive commentators. This will include a discussion of different types (...) of groups; the psychology of group-level traits; the uses and limitations of an institutional perspective; the link between transmission, adaptation, and selection; current and future methodologies; and the variety of fields that may benefit from a group-level traits perspective. (shrink)

Our computational metaphysics group describes its use of automated reasoning tools to study Leibniz’s theory of concepts. We start with a reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory within the theory of abstract objects (henceforth ‘object theory’). Leibniz’s theory of concepts, under this reconstruction, has a non-modal algebra of concepts, a concept-containment theory of truth, and a modal metaphysics of complete individual concepts. We show how the object-theoretic reconstruction of these components of Leibniz’s theory can be represented for investigation by means of automated (...) theorem provers and finite model builders. The fundamental theorem of Leibniz’s theory is derived using these tools. (shrink)

We wish to give a precise formulation of the intuitive concept: The degree to which the known facts support a given hypothesis.

Paul E. Griffiths argues that most research on the emotions has been as misguided as Aristotelian efforts to study "superlunary objects" - objects...

The writings of al-Ghazālī give the distinct impression that he was highly concerned with the threat the Ismailis and their doctrines posed. By his own admission, he wrote six separate treatises to refute and condemn them, most importantly his Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya, which he composed in the year 488h in the months prior to his renunciation of government service and departure from Baghdad. His attack focused on the doctrine known as taʿlīm, with its insistence on the unrivaled absolute authority of a (...) single infallible Imam. He had in mind the Alamut teaching by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ of a doctrine then widely advocated in the Abbasid–Seljuk East. Significantly, there is no sign of this term used in this manner in the western Fatimid domains either earlier or later. However, our knowledge of events in the career of Ḥasan and of his teachings come from much later sources and are in part legendary at best. Although the doctrine of taʿlīm was certainly implicit in Ismaili works long before, in this particular work al-Ghazālī directed his attentions squarely against a new teaching he encountered personally in his own time and place. But we know it otherwise primarily from accounts recorded much later, in particular al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa-l-niḥal. (shrink)

In behavioral ecology some authors regard the innateness concept as irretrievably confused whilst others take it to refer to adaptations. In cognitive psychology, however, whether traits are 'innate' is regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Several philosophers have tried to define innateness with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. In contrast, I argue that the concept is irretrievably confused. The vernacular innateness concept represents a key aspect of 'folkbiology', (...) namely, the explanatory strategy that psychologists and cognitive anthropologists have labeled 'folk essentialism'. Folk essentialism is inimical to Darwinism, and both Darwin and the founders of the modern synthesis struggled to overcome this way of thinking about living systems. Because the vernacular concept of innateness is part of folkbiology, attempts to define it more adequately are unlikely to succeed, making it preferable to introduce new, neutral terms for the various, related notions that are needed to understand cognitive development. (shrink)

"A wild and exuberant romp through the terrain of the monstrous . . . Oppenheimer's lucid explanations are the perfect antidotes to the sordid scenes he recreates." -American Book Review "A masterly and original study of one of the most frightening topics with which human beings have to struggle." -Literary Review "What is compelling, different and page-turning about this impressive book is that the author analyses evil through the medium of films and literature . . . Cinema buffs will find (...) it a fascinating read." -Evening Standard The notion of evil- does it exist? what forms does it take? -has always fascinated humankind. The evil underlying such atrocities as the Holocaust, Communist China's Tibetan abattoir, and the murderous ethnic cleansing undertaken by the Serbs and Croats seems beyond explanations or analysis. In this powerfully original work, Oppenheimer analyzes the phenomenon of evil in a mental behavior that emerges in particular conditions. Oppenheimer argues that evil contains specific, predictable ingredients. By understanding its nature, we can diagnose its specific manifestations in mass murder, genocide, and serial killings. Utilizing a variety of cinematic and literary genres in developing its evidence, the book considers such familiar films as The Silence of the Lambs and Brazil , and draws upon such literary works as Richard III, Oedipus the King and the Picture of Dorian Gray. Evil and the Demonic takes a bold first step, providing a framework in which to place the horrors of human existence. (shrink)

It is unreasonable to assume that our pre-scientific emotion vocabulary embodies all and only those distinctions required for a scientific psychology of emotion. The psychoevolutionary approach to emotion yields an alternative classification of certain emotion phenomena. The new categories are based on a set of evolved adaptive responses, or affect-programs, which are found in all cultures. The triggering of these responses involves a modular system of stimulus appraisal, whose evoluations may conflict with those of higher-level cognitive processes. Whilst the structure (...) of the adaptive responses is innate, the contents of the system which triggers them are largely learnt. The circuits subserving the adaptive responses are probably located in the limbic system. This theory of emotion is directly applicable only to a small sub-domain of the traditional realm of emotion. It can be used, however, to explain the grouping of various other phenomena under the heading of emotion, and to explain various characteristic failings of the pre-scientific conception of emotion. (shrink)

La théorie traditionnelle des concepts étant classificatoire, ne comprend qu’une partie des formes de notre pensée. Comme complément nécessaire, l’auteur met en relief l’importance d’une catégorie de concepts qu’il propose de dénommer « concepts ordinateurs », parce qu’ils déterminent un certain ordre des objets de leur domaine d’application. Leur structure logique est élucidée par la théorie logistique des relations. L’auteur compare les avantages et les désavantages des deux formes de pensée et explique les raisons pour lesquelles une tendance à favoriser (...) les concepts ordinateurs correspond au progrès de notre connaissance. (shrink)

The Ikhwan al-Safa (Brethren of Purity), the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad, hold an eminent position in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia, the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). This compendium contains fifty-two epistles offering synoptic accounts of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age; divided into four classificatory parts, it treats themes in mathematics, logic, (...) natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, and theology, in addition to didactic fables. Epistles 32 to 36 comprise the first five treatises in the third division of the Rasa'il, on the sciences of the soul and intellect. Combining Islamic revelation with Hellenistic philosophy, the Ikhwan delineate herein their metaphysical system. Epistles 32 and 33 present adaptations of the Pythagorean doctrines, and of Neo-Platonist leitmotifs, whereby a numerical analogy is applied to the unique and transcendent God, or the One, from whom all existence emanates. Epistle 34 takes up the pervasive theme of the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, situating the human being as the central link between the celestial and terrestrial realms. In Epistle 35, we find an explanation of the intellectual faculties of the individual human soul, whose ultimate aim is ascension to the timeless reality of pure intellect. Finally, Epistle 36 presents itself as the astrological epistle par excellence of the Rasa'il; from the coming-to-be of worms, to the emergence of religions and empires, nothing in the sub-lunar sphere escapes the determining influence of the celestial cycles. (shrink)

This collection of original essays on political and legal theory concentrates on themes dealt with in the work of Felix Oppenheim, including fundamental political and legal concepts and their implications for the scope of morality in politics and international relations. Among the issues addressed are the relationship between empirical and normative definitions of "freedom", "power", and "interests", whether governments are free to act against the national interest, and whether they can ever be morally obliged to do so.

Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in experimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a prior probability approaching 1/2 of finding a significant difference in the theoretically predicted direction. Hence the corroboration yielded by "success" is very weak, and becomes weaker with increased precision. "Statistical significance" plays a logical role in psychology precisely the reverse of its role in physics. This problem is (...) worsened by certain unhealthy tendencies prevalent among psychologists, such as a premium placed on experimental "cuteness" and a free reliance upon ad hoc explanations to avoid refutation. (shrink)

The current state of knowledge in psychology, cognitive neuroscience and behavioral ecology allows a fairly robust characterization of at least some, so-called ?basic emotions? - short-lived emotional responses with homologues in other vertebrates. Philosophers, however are understandably more focused on the complex emotion episodes that figure in folk-psychological narratives about mental life, episodes such as the evolving jealousy and anger of a person in an unraveling sexual relationship. One of the most pressing issues for the philosophy of emotion is the (...) relationship between basic emotions and these complex emotion episodes. In this paper, I add to the list of existing, not necessarily incompatible, proposals concerning the relationship between basic emotions and complex emotions. I analyze the writings of ?transactional? psychologists of emotion, particularly those who see their work as a contribution to behavioral ecology, and offer a view of the basic emotion that focuses as much on their interpersonal functions as on their intrapersonal functions. Locating basic emotions and their evolutionary development in a context of processes of social interaction, I suggest, provides a way to integrate our knowledge of basic emotions into an understanding of the larger emotional episodes that have more obvious implications for philosophical disciplines such as moral psychology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The target article uses the metaphysics of properties to make its meta-ethical claims. This comment discusses two general points in the metaphysics of properties. The first point has to do with the conditions for property identity. Philosophers who accept the existence of properties have proposed a variety of criteria for their identity. The standard Broome applies is medium coarse. Other standards for property identity could be evaluated for their appropriateness for addressing questions in the metaphysics of ethics. Use of (...) a formalized theory of properties might help in such an evaluation. The second point has to do with Broome’s suggestion of a distinction between a property and a reified property. A suggestion will be offered for a range of ways such a distinction could be filled out using the resources of a formalized theory of properties and objects. Objects will be proposed that could serve as Broome’s reified properties. (shrink)