We elaborate on semantically labelled syntax trees that provide a method of proving the non-existence of modal formulae satisfying certain syntactic properties and defining a given class of frames and use them to show that there are classes of Kripke frames that are definable by both non-Sahlqvist and Sahlqvist formulae, but the latter requires more propositional variables.

Fitch showed that not every true proposition can be known in due time; in other words, that not every proposition is knowable. Moore showed that certain propositions cannot be consistently believed. A more recent dynamic phrasing of Moore-sentences is that not all propositions are known after their announcement, i.e., not every proposition is successful. Fitch's and Moore's results are related, as they equally apply to standard notions of knowledge and belief (S 5 and KD45, respectively). If we interpret ‘successful’ as (...) ‘known after its announcement’ and ‘knowable’ as ‘known after some announcement’, successful implies knowable. Knowable does not imply successful: there is a proposition ϕ that is not known after its announcement but there is another announcement after which ϕ is known. We show that all propositions are knowable in the more general sense that for each proposition, it can become known or its negation can become known. We can get to know whether it is true: ◊(Kϕ ∨ K¬ϕ). This result comes at a price. We cannot get to know whether the proposition was true. This restricts the philosophical relevance of interpreting ‘knowable’ as ‘known after an announcement’. (shrink)

We introduce frame-equivalence games tailored for reasoning about the size, modal depth, number of occurrences of symbols and number of different propositional variables of modal formulae defining a given frame property. Using these games, we prove lower bounds on the above measures for a number of well-known modal axioms; what is more, for some of the axioms, we show that they are optimal among the formulae defining the respective class of frames.

Tim French, Wiebe van der Hoek, Petar Iliev and Barteld Kooi. Succinctness of Epistemic Languages. In: T. Walsh (editor). Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-11), pp. 881-886, AAAI Press, Menlo Park.

This work analyzes the problem of the development of John Locke’s ideas on toleration, in particular the grounds of separation of church and state. The first part examines Locke’s arguments regarding the prerogatives of the magistrate towards ‘indifferent things’ and the religious sphere. I distinguish between three stages in the development of Locke’s view on toleration: a suspicion toward the plea for it (the Two Tracts); an implicit non-verbalized distinction between church and state, and support for toleration (An Essay on (...) Toleration); and toleration as a political right (A Letter Concerning Toleration, the Two Treatises and the later letters). The second part focuses on the definition of ‘commonwealth’ in A Letter Concerning Toleration. I outline two fundamental sets of interdependent arguments that Locke uses for the separation of church and state. The third part is dedicated to the sphere of the church and the dimensions of the duty of toleration. The relation between Locke’s views on toleration and political practice explains the shift between the three stages, and is explored throughout the paper. (shrink)

Over the past 10 years, Cognitive Linguistics has taken a quantitative turn. Yet, concerns have been raised that this preoccupation with quantification and modelling may not bring us any closer to understanding how language works. We show that this objection is unfounded, especially if we rely on modelling techniques based on biologically and psychologically plausible learning algorithms. These make it possible to take a quantitative approach, while generating and testing specific hypotheses that will advance our understanding of how knowledge of (...) language emerges from exposure to usage. (shrink)

This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia. The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, ‘As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch’, gathers wider philosophical (...) considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, ‘Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?’, looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, ‘If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you’, focuses to Greta Thunberg’s messages and their responses. The last section, ‘Towards a new normal’, explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles’ parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic education. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 4 Seiten: 507-526.

This special issue of Cognitive Linguistics reexamines the notions of uniformity and variability within morphological systems from a cognitive linguistic standpoint. It challenges traditional perspectives that regard morphological variability as mere deviations from the norm, suggesting instead that such variability is systematic and shaped by external influences including language acquisition and processing constraints. The contributions in this issue promote a shift from isolated analysis to a holistic view of paradigms, classes, and systems, advocating for a framework where morphological structures are (...) seen as integral to communicative and functional aspects of language. By accounting for the broad adaptive dynamics of language systems, the complex interplay between uniformity and variability is revealed as an inherent aspect of language usage. (shrink)

My intention in this text is to present the most significant contribution of some French philosophers and anthropologists to the notion of reconstruction and advancement of institutions. The paradox of change, reform or transformation of the institution – is an entirely new institution possible? How do institutions die? – lies in the difficulty or even impossibility to change something that manifests what we are as a group. If institutions really present or represent the relations among all of us, how can (...) they be changed in the first place? Whence the capacity for change? What allows for the idea of the “new”? (shrink)

A set of propositional connectives is said to be functionally complete if all propositional formulae can be expressed using only connectives from that set. In this paper we give sufficient and necessary conditions for a one-element set of propositional connectives to be functionally complete. These conditions provide a simple and elegant characterization of functionally complete one-element sets of propositional connectives.

This book proposes a new approach to the question of the juridical domain of natural law with reference to the classical tools of Thomistic formulation. This book adds something new to the intersection between the normative status of natural law and the essence of the juridical domain.

We discuss a number of fundamental aspects of modern cosmological concepts, from the phenomenological, observational, theoretical and epistemic points of view. We argue that the modern cosmology, despite a great advent, in particular in the observational sector, is yet to solve important problems, posed already by the classical times. In particular the stress is put on discerning the scientific features of modern cosmological paradigms from the more speculative ones, with the latter immersed in some aspects deeply into mythological world picture. (...) We finally discuss the principal paradigms, which are present in the modern cosmological studies and evaluate their epistemic merits. (shrink)

With articles by Katharina Boele-Woelki and Ronald H. van Ooik, Marc Fallon and Johan Meeusen and Maarit Jänterä-Jareborg, national reports from Canada, Russia, Belgium and China, reports on court decisions and news from The Hague, Rome and Washington as well as texts, materials and recent developments.

With articles by Eric Clive, Manuel Rui Moura Ramos, William Duncan, national reports from Australia, the United States, Italy, Macao and Brazil and news from The Hague as well as texts, materials and recent developments.

With articles by Harry Duintjer Tebbens, David Goddard, Christoph Bernasconi, Bertrand Ancel and Frank Gerhard, Private International Law Issues in World War II Era Litigation, national reports from Germany and news from The Hague as well as texts, materials and recent developments.

With articles by Symeon Symeonides, Ronald A. Brand, Andrea Bonomi, national reports from Korea, Bulgaria and Slovenia and news from The Hague and Brussels as well as texts, materials and recent developments.

One of the main goals of sport psychology is to identify those psychological factors that are relevant for sport performance as well as possibilities of their development. The aim of the study was to determine whether the set of specific psychological characteristics [generalized self-efficacy, time perspective, emotional intelligence, general achievement motivation, and personality dimensions] makes the distinction between athletes based on their -participation in the senior national team, that is, their belonging to the subsample of elite or non-elite athletes depending (...) on this criterion. According to the group centroids it can be said that elite athletes are characterized by a positive high score in self-efficacy, emotionality, present fatalistic time perspective, past positive time perspective, and openness to experience. They are also characterized by low past negative time perspective, emotional competence, and future time perspective. Non-elite athletes have the opposite traits. The results have been discussed in the context of their application in the process of talent selection and development in sport as well as the development of life skills in athletes. (shrink)

World War I was an epochal event that permanently redefined international politics. Yet, there is no consensus about what kind of international system it erected. This article argues that since 191...

The theoretical notion of ‘construal’ captures the idea that the way in which we describe a scene reflects our conceptualization of it. Relying on the concept of ception – which conjoins conception and perception – we operationalized construal and employed a Visual World Paradigm to establish which aspects of linguistic scene description modulate visual scene perception, thereby affecting event conception. By analysing viewing behaviour after alternating ways of describing location (prepositions), agentivity (active/passive voice) and transfer (NP/pp datives), we found that (...) the linguistic construal of a scene affects its spontaneous visual perception in two ways: either by determining the order in which the components of a scene are accessed or by modulating the distribution of attention over the components, making them more or less salient than they naturally are. We also found evidence for the existence of a cline in the construal effect with stronger expressive differences, such as the prepositional manipulation, inducing more prominent changes in visual perception than the dative manipulation. We discuss the claims language can lay to affecting visual information uptake and hence conceptualization of a static scene in the light of these results. (shrink)

Recent work on the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals has paid much attention to the role of causal independencies. One influential idea from the theory of Causal Bayesian Networks is that counterfactual assumptions are made by intervention on variables, leaving all of their causal non-descendants unaffected. But intervention is not applicable across the board. For instance, backtracking counterfactuals, which involve reasoning from effects to causes, cannot proceed by intervention in the strict sense, for otherwise they would be equivalent to their consequents. (...) We discuss these and similar cases, focusing on two factors which play a role in determining whether and which causal parents of the manipulated variable are affected: Speakers' need for an explanation of the hypothesized state of affairs, and differences in the ‘resilience’ of beliefs that are independent of degrees of certainty. We describe the relevant theoretical notions in some detail and provide experimental evidence that these factors do indeed affect speakers' interpretation of counterfactuals. (shrink)