In his article “Explanation Sketches” [3], Fred Newman argues that Scriven is mistaken in his interpretation of Hempel's notion of explanation sketch. According to Scriven, to complete an explanation is to fill in further initial conditions so that the explanandum of the sketch would be entailed by the new enlarged set of initial conditions. The point may be alternatively put by saying that according to Scriven to have a complete explanation is to have a covering-law which connects initial conditions with (...) the explanandum of the original sketch. Now Scriven's point against the deductive theory as applied to History is just that very often when we try to complete a given explanation sketch, we only succeed in unearthing a law which is either false or else trivial. Newman, however, contends that this is an excusable but, nevertheless, unsympathetic way of interpreting Hempel. He suggests an alternative account to the effect that to complete an explanation we need not necessarily produce a covering-law connecting initial conditions with the explanandum; all we need to do is to mention other initial conditions and certain laws which need not necessarily contain mention of the explanandum of the sketch. As he himself puts the point: “However, generously interpreted, when Hempel speaks of a sketch vaguely indicating laws we may take him as merely suggesting that some laws are vaguely indicated which would make up the explanans of an explanation of the event in question—not necessarily in the terms which describe the event in the sketch's explanandum.”. (shrink)

This paper is about the problem of explanation in anthropology. There are, broadly speaking, three theories of explanation, namely, the scientific theory, the historical theory, and finally what I have decided to call the phenomenological theory, after M. Natanson. The author argues that none of the three theories is adequate by itself to encompass the complex nature of anthropological science. The three theories correspond roughly to at least three different types of questions raised by anthropologists, and this being the case (...) the principle of methodological tolerance seems a natural and sensible principle to adopt. The paper also deals with the problem of reduction, i.e. the problem whether the three theories are different from and logically independent of one another. (shrink)

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, “. . .Your words ... are too big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!”Chuang Tzu said, “Maybe you’ve never seen a wildcat or a weasel. It crouches down and hides, watching for something to come along. It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high or low—until it falls into the trap and dies in the net. Then again there’s the yak, big as a cloud covering the sky. It (...) certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn’t know how to catch rats.” 1 One could perhaps understand, if not empathize with, Hui Tzu’s impatience in the dialogue above. Hui Tzu, after all, is not alone in finding Chuang Tzu’s philosophy, which would be the thinking of the Way .. (shrink)

Does the relation of (actual) causation admit of degrees? Is it sensible to say, for example, that ‘as compared to his consuming the light beer, Clement’s consuming the moonshine was more a cause of his becoming drunk’? Suppose the answer is ‘yes’. Suppose also that country A unjustifiably ignites a lethal war with country B, and you intuit that, while most combatants of A are liable to lethal counterattack, most non-combatants of A aren’t similarly liable. Then, you might support your (...) intuition by reasoning as follows. ‘Perhaps most non-combatants of A causally contribute to A’s unjust, lethal war effort. However, unlike most combatants of A, their causal contributions are not of such a degree that makes them liable to lethal counterattack’. Such reasoning is rejected by Carolina Sartorio. This is due to the recent revealing of a certain puzzle, one which suggests to Sartorio that causation doesn’t come in degrees. Now, one motivation for Sartorio’s reaction to the aforementioned puzzle is her thought that we can, for the most part, ‘explain away’ the ‘illusion’ that causation comes in degrees. I’ll argue that Sartorio insufficiently supports her foregoing thought. Using Sartorio’s resources, we cannot (largely) ‘explain away’ the widespread appearance that causation comes in degrees. (shrink)

Halin in 1965 proved that if a graph has [Formula: see text] many pairwise disjoint rays for each [Formula: see text] then it has infinitely many pairwise disjoint rays. We analyze the complexity of this and other similar results in terms of computable and proof theoretic complexity. The statement of Halin’s theorem and the construction proving it seem very much like standard versions of compactness arguments such as König’s Lemma. Those results, while not computable, are relatively simple. They only use (...) arithmetic procedures or, equivalently, finitely many iterations of the Turing jump. We show that several Halin-type theorems are much more complicated. They are among the theorems of hyperarithmetic analysis. Such theorems imply the ability to iterate the Turing jump along any computable well ordering. Several important logical principles in this class have been extensively studied beginning with work of Kreisel, H. Friedman, Steel and others in the 1960s and 1970s. Until now, only one purely mathematical example was known. Our work provides many more and so answers Question 30 of Montalbán’s Open Questions in Reverse Mathematics in 2011. Some of these theorems including ones in Halin in 1965 are also shown to have unusual proof theoretic strength as well. (shrink)

This research examines the extent to which similarities and differences exist in the codes of professional conduct of certified (chartered) accountants across the following countries: the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Ontario (Canada), Australia, India, and Hong Kong. These eight countries exemplify some of the diversity in economic, political, legal, and cultural environments in which public accountants practice. The professional codes of ethics establish the ethical boundary parameters within which professional accountants must operate and they are a function of (...) these environments.The results of the study reveal that commonalities exist on some ethical rules indicating that some rules are indeed "culture free". Cross-country variations, however, exist as to the specificity and elaborateness of the rules. Such variations can be attributed to cultural and legal differences, as well as the length of time each professional organization has been in existence. An understanding of the similarities and differences in the codes is important to individuals who may work in these countries. Professional accountants involved in international business must understand the implications of the decisions they make in light of the ethical codes and moral values of their counterparts in foreign countries. After a discussion of the similarities and differences in the codes, the implications of these comparisons for accounting practice are discussed. (shrink)

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is a sensitive, specific and rapid form of testing for the presence of HIV antibodies. Post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV infection can reduce seroconversion rates by up to 80%. Needlestick injuries are the second commonest cause of occupational injury in the NHS and 20% of these occur during operations. In the NHS, in order to protect staff and patients from the risk of bloodborne viruses such as HIV, it is mandatory to report such injuries; however, numerous studies have (...) shown that many groups, particularly doctors, are reluctant to do so. This article outlines the arguments for and against the introduction of preoperatively seeking consent from patients to have their blood tested for HIV via POCT in order to improve the reporting rates of needlestick injuries incurred during surgery and to protect staff from infection. (shrink)

What kind of properties are moral qualities, such as rightness, badness, etc? Some ethicists doubt that there are any such properties; they maintain that thinking that something is morally wrong (for example) is comparable to thinking that something is a unicorn or a ghost. These "moral error theorists" argue that the world simply does not contain the kind of properties or objects necessary to render our moral judgments true. This radical form of moral skepticism was championed by the philosopher John (...) Mackie (1917-1981). This anthology is a collection of philosophical essays critically examining Mackie’s view. (shrink)

Many personal identity theorists claim that persons are distinct from the animals that constitute them, but when combined with the plausible assumption that animals share the thoughts of the persons they constitute, this denial results in an excess of thinkers and a host of related problems. I consider a number of non-animalist solutions to these problems and argue that they fail. I argue further that satisfactory non-animalist solutions are not forthcoming and that in order to avoid these problems we ought (...) to affirm our identity with animals. I then discuss arguments to the effect that i) animalism faces its own problems of too many thinkers, arising from the non- identity of animals with thinking bodies and thinking body parts, and ii) that in order to avoid these problems we must deny not just that there are persons distinct from animals, but that there are bodies and body parts distinct from animals Once the second of these claims is granted, there is a short further step to the conclusion that there are no such things as body parts, and from there there is a direct route to eliminative animalism. Eliminative animalism denies not only that there are persons distinct from animals, but that there are any composite objects distinct from animals. This position has been gaining popularity recently, but I argue that we need not, and indeed should not, accept it. Although the problems of the thinking animal do commit us to animalism, the problems of thinking bodies and thinking body parts do not commit us to eliminate animalism. (shrink)

Contents: Wisdoms of East and West; Method of Analysis; Table of Symbolic Numbers; The Three Columns; Application of Principles to History; Astrology; Twelve ...

Due to advancements in technology such as data science and artificial intelligence, healthcare research has gained momentum and is generating new findings and predictions on abnormalities leading to the diagnosis of diseases or disorders in human beings. On one hand, the extensive application of data science to healthcare research is progressing faster, while on the other hand, the ethical concerns and adjoining risks and legal hurdles those data scientists may face in the future slow down the progression of healthcare research. (...) Simply put, the application of data science to ethically guided healthcare research appears to be a dream come true. Hence, in this paper, we discuss the current practices, challenges, and limitations of the data collection process during medical image analysis (MIA) conducted as part of healthcare research and propose an ethical data collection framework to guide data scientists to address the possible ethical concerns before commencing data analytics over a medical dataset. (shrink)

Zeno's famous paradox of the flying arrow, and the statements made in efforts to solve it by Hegel and Engels to the effect that a moving body is, at a given instant, both in and not in a given place, reveal, on the one hand, the objective contradictoriness of motion and, on the other, the difficulty of explaining it within the framework and method of formal logic. The elevation of the laws of formal logic to an absolute, and the exaggeration (...) of its role have led certain writers to deny the truth of Hegel's and Engels' statement. It was shown that no body can simultaneously be and not be in a given place, and that, in describing motion, one should, instead of employing this mode of expression, merely say that the body is shifting, and successively passes one point after another. This passage is motion as an objectively non-contradictory process. (shrink)